Sharon Criticized for Arafat Siege
In a report released Monday by Amnesty International, the London-based human rights said both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have allowed children to be killed with impunity during the two-year conflict.

In its report, Amnesty International said both Israel and the Palestinian Authority were at fault for the large numbers of minors killed in the past two years.

According to an Associated Press count, 236 Palestinians and 61 Israelis under the age of 17 have been killed since September 2000. Many of the Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers firing at stone-throwers. Many of the Israeli minors were killed in suicide bombings or shooting attacks by Palestinians.

Amnesty said that Israel has not investigated wrongdoing by its soldiers, while the Palestinian Authority has failed to prevent attacks and bring those responsible to justice. Israeli and Palestinian government officials had no immediate comment.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian security apparatus has been systematically destroyed by Israel and could not be expected to move against the militants.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html

Rich Nations Are Criticized for Enforcing Trade Barriers
For all the polite nods toward the protesters outside, those in charge of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund offered few apologies this weekend for the many failed attempts to increase prosperity in the world's poorest countries.

Reflecting the views of their biggest shareholders — governments of the world's richest countries, led by the United States — both institutions continued to push poor countries to take steps to stimulate business: privatize industry, improve financial management, embrace free trade.

But as the two institutions wrapped up their annual meetings here today, people inside and outside the elite gathering attacked what some described as a major hypocrisy of the rich countries: their own continued barriers to imports, particularly of agricultural products and textiles.

James D. Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, accused wealthy countries of "squandering" $1 billion a day on farm subsidies that often have devastating effects on farmers in Latin America and Africa.

Stanley Fischer, who was the fund's deputy managing director in the 1990's, said protectionist policies by the United States, Europe and Japan were "scandalous."

Oxfam International, a nonprofit group focused on world poverty problems, issued a scathing report in which it charged that subsidies to big American cotton farming operations were wiping out African rivals.

The criticisms are not new. But they are more intense this year, and they carried a special sting for the United States. Earlier this year, Congress passed and President Bush signed a bill that authorizes more than $100 billion in farm subsidies over the next eight years.

"It is hypocrisy to encourage poor countries to open their markets while imposing protectionist measures that cater to powerful special interests," said Nicholas Stern, chief economist of the World Bank.

Mr. Stern estimated that the average cow in Europe received about $2.50 a day in subsidies, and that the average cow in Japan received nearly $7 a day. By contrast, he said, 75 percent of the people in sub-Saharan Africa live on less than $2 a day.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/30/international/30TRAD.html

Israeli Pullback Ends 10-Day Siege of Arafat's Base
Flashing a V-for-victory sign and blowing kisses to a crowd of chanting supporters gathered amid the rubble, Mr. Arafat emerged from his sandbagged office building this afternoon to celebrate what his aides called a triumph over Mr. Sharon.

"The most important thing is that the Israelis failed to dictate to us," said Mr. Arafat's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh. "They wanted to finish President Arafat and to prove that he is irrelevant, and what happened was that he became stronger."

In a statement released shortly after the Israelis pulled back, Mr. Arafat called on Palestinians to observe a truce with Israel.

"We call on everyone to respect a complete cease-fire, as we have done in the past, and urge the Israeli government to do the same," the statement said.

There was no immediate response from the Israelis, who sent their forces into the compound on Sept. 19 and destroyed most of its buildings after back-to-back suicide bombings in Israel that killed seven people in addition to the bombers. Although the troops left Mr. Arafat's headquarters today, they kept their hold on the city of Ramallah, reimposing a curfew after nightfall.

President Bush expressed satisfaction after the pullout.

"The president welcomes this development," said a White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe. "All parties need to live up to their responsibilities to promote peace, stability and reform in the Palestinian Authority."

Mr. Bush had criticized the siege of Mr. Arafat as "not helpful" to efforts to carry out the reforms. Israeli news media reported that Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, demanded an end to the siege in a meeting in Washington on Friday with Dov Weisglass, an aide to Mr. Sharon, asserting that it was hurting efforts to enlist backing for a campaign against Iraq. Mr. Bush reportedly sent a similar message directly to Mr. Sharon.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres criticized the siege at the cabinet meeting, asserting that it had hindered Palestinian reform, obstructed the American campaign against Iraq and unnecessarily humiliated the Palestinians, his aides said.

Several politicians from both the left and the right said that the siege was ill-conceived and had backfired, strengthening Mr. Arafat at a time when he was coming under internal pressure to relinquish power.

Israel had demanded that Mr. Arafat hand over 19 people in the compound whom it accused of involvement in terrorism, a number that officials later increased to 41. The officials that said Israeli troops were maintaining a presence in Ramallah to prevent the escape of the fugitives, but dozens of armed men left the compound after the Israeli pullback.

Speaking to reporters after the Israelis had withdrawn, Mr. Arafat rejected the idea of handing over anyone, and he called the pullback "an attempt to mislead public opinion," because troops remained in Ramallah. He said the Israelis had failed to comply with the United Nations resolution passed last week that demanded a speedy withdrawal from Palestinian cities along with an end to the siege.

"This is not withdrawal," he said. "This is only moving a few meters away. They are trying to deceive the world."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/30/international/middleeast/30MIDE.html

Palestinians Rally in Gaza at 2-Year Anniversary of Conflict
Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, addressed a rally of thousands of people in Gaza City, speaking by telephone from his office in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where a renewed Israeli siege stretched into a 10th day. Dismissing the siege, Mr. Arafat said that Palestinians should remain steadfast in demanding territory.

"This revolution is remaining, and winning, with God's will," he said.

Mr. Arafat declared that "noble Jerusalem will be the capital of Palestine whether anybody wants it or not." The rally, and Mr. Arafat's message, were broadcast live on Palestinian television.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/29/international/middleeast/29MIDE.html

Israel Withdraws From Arafat Compound
Responding to U.S. pressure, Israel withdrew forces from Yasser Arafat's headquarters compound on Sunday, but said the hunt for men inside whom they accuse of terrorism would continue.

Arafat himself accused Israel of violating a U.N. Security Council resolution which demanded an end to the siege that began Sept. 19.

"They are trying to deceive the Security Council," Arafat told reporters in his office minutes after Israeli troops rolled out of the compound, leaving behind shattered buildings around Arafat's office. He called the pull back a "cosmetic movement."

After the decision was announced, the Israeli flag was pulled down from one of the few buildings left standing in the devastated compound. Troops began removing tanks, bulldozers, coils of unused barbed wire and lighting equipment.

As the Israelis left, some of Arafat's guards emerged through the rubble, smiling and embracing.

"It's not a complete withdrawal," said Mohammed Abu Sarifa, 24, one of the guards, who had a black beard from days without shaving because of a lack of water. "They are still around the compound, but we will stay here to protect the president, whether it is for a day or two days or for a year."

Israeli officials said they would try to capture suspected terrorists they said were with Arafat. Israel Radio reported that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told his Cabinet that 41 people inside were wanted by Israel. Earlier, officials had given numbers ranging from 19 to 50, but offered few names.…

Arafat, however, said no one would be turned over.

"It must be known to everybody that we have not and will not turn any of our people in to the Israelis," Arafat said.

U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen entered the building immediately after Israeli troops left. "This is not the end of the crisis but a springboard to put us back on to political process" toward a peace agreement, said Mark Dennis, Larsen's spokesman.

Israeli politicians from the left and the right called the decision a surrender. Many politicians have said the siege only strengthened Arafat at a time when he was under growing pressure to reform his government and cede some power.

Some Palestinian political leaders said the withdrawal was a victory.

"The decision by President Arafat and his aides to remain steadfast was the reason for this decision," said Palestinian Cabinet Secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman. "It's possible to change positions and facts on the ground through this steadfastness."

Israel has accused Arafat of doing nothing to end terror attacks against Israeli civilians, even providing tacit encouragement. The Palestinians have argued that Israel's travel restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza and its military strikes have rendered their security services powerless.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/29/international/middleeast/29WIRES-ISRA.html

In Trenches of a War on Unyielding Poverty
But now the number of Americans in poverty has risen again, for the first time in eight years, according to census figures reported last week. The gap between rich and poor is growing. The Census Bureau's report showed that the weakening economy had begun to affect large segments of the population, whatever their race, region or class.

For the largely black population of Pembroke, the report was a reflection of the problems here. Yet it was also a collection of dry numbers that do not fully convey how entrenched poverty can be in places where the escape routes to a better life are blocked — by the lack of transportation, jobs and child care, by geographic isolation, by hopelessness.

Such is life in Pembroke, a hamlet an hour's drive south of Chicago where some still live in crumbling shacks with caked-dirt floors and no running water.

There are half a dozen liquor stores and scores of churches. But there is no bank. No supermarket. No police force. No barbershop. No gas station. No pharmacy.

For decades, people have searched for a prescription for poverty in Pembroke. For most people here, there is only the hope for healing.

In Pembroke, healing poverty is both a natural and spiritual undertaking for Dr. Rodney Alford and the Rev. Jon Dyson. They are poverty doctors. One is in the business of healing bodies; the other, souls — though the preacher often must also help mend houses and fill stomachs before tending to matters of the spirit.

On the front line in Pembroke, the war on poverty is less about government intervention than it is a call for commitment, community and compassion.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/29/national/29POVE.html?pagewanted=all&position=top

With Court Nod, Parents Debate School Drug Tests
They have debated whether a first offense should bring counseling or punishment and whether they can best deter drug use through education or testing. They have studied the merits of urine, hair and saliva tests. But week after weary week, they have adjourned without agreement.

"It cuts deep down to how one sees the world, and people have different views," said Michael Lindley, the superintendent. "Some say it's invasive and you're assuming my child is guilty until proved otherwise. Others say if kids have nothing to hide, it's not invasive. We don't have a huge drug problem here but we don't want to have our heads in the sand."

Until last spring, when the United States Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, that schools could conduct drug tests on students involved in extracurricular activities, the school board here had given the matter little thought. But now, here and in small towns across the nation, drug testing has become a hot issue. Rather than resolving the question, it seems, the court's decision has touched off a new round of passionate debate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/29/national/29DRUG.html?pagewanted=all&position=top

As Security Cameras Sprout, Someone's Always Watching
With the recent arrest of a woman in Indiana whom a security camera videotaped beating her daughter in a parking lot, the presence of electronic eyes across America has drawn new attention.

But what security and privacy specialists have long known might surprise people in towns like this: the surveillance equipment is everywhere, not just in big cities and at obvious places like Times Square or outside the White House, but also in Porterville and Mishawaka, Ind., and hundreds of other places.

More often than not, private rather than public hands are controlling the lenses, as was the case in Indiana.

"There is the very deep notion of private property in our culture, that if you own it, you can do what you want with it," said William G. Staples, a University of Kansas sociology professor who has written two books about surveillance. "That has contributed to the proliferation of surveillance cameras on the private side. It is only since Sept. 11 that the public side has been catching up with what the private sector has been doing for a long time."

There has been much discussion since Sept. 11 of the growing role of government as Big Brother, with law enforcement agencies turning to tools like face-recognition technology at airports and closed-circuit television systems in public buildings. But Professor Staples and other surveillance experts suggest the general debate should include "Tiny Brothers," a term he and others use to describe the many private security cameras that most people quietly tolerate or do not think about.

Tiny Brothers might be less known, but they disturb people who worry about civil liberties.

"I don't know if we want to uncover everything that goes on," Professor Staples said. "The cameras function as a net-widening effect, catching all kinds of activities they may not have been intended to catch. Those cameras in the parking lot could zoom over someone in a romantic tryst in a car. Do we really want to know all of this?"

The Security Industry Association estimates that at least two million closed-circuit television systems are in the United States. A survey of Manhattan in 1998 by the American Civil Liberties Union found 2,397 cameras fixed on places where people pass or gather, like stores and sidewalks. All but 270 were operated by private entities, the organization reported. CCS International, a company that provides security and monitoring services, calculated last year that the average person was recorded 73 to 75 times a day in New York City.

"We went out and counted every camera we could find," said Arielle Jamil, a company spokeswoman. "Some have dummy cameras, but the real one is looking at you from a different direction."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/29/technology/29TAPE.html

OJR article: When Bloggers Commit Journalism
When do webloggers commit journalism? What do informed amateurs and niche experts bring to the media ecosystem? Should journalists blog? And should they rely on weblogs as news sources? Should bloggers and those in traditional media engage in a dance of fear and loathing, or do both sides stand to gain from the other? Should blogging be taught in journalism classes?

Those were some of the questions tackled last week at the University of California Graduate School of Journalism. Three journalists -- Dan Gillmor, business columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, Scott Rosenberg, managing editor of Salon, and myself -- as well as veteran bloggers Rebecca Blood (author of The Weblog Handbook) and Meg Hourihan (co-author of We Blog) exchanged views before 75 journalism students and members of the public.
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/lasica/1032910520.php

The Jack Welch War Plan
What Mr. Daschle and the rest of his incoherent party have failed to articulate (along with so much else) is that this presidency is all of one consistent piece, whether it is managing our money or managing a war. Now, as pre-9/11, it reflects the C.E.O. ethos of the 1990's bubble at least as abundantly as the previous administration did the promiscuous 1960's. Two weeks before his inauguration, Mr. Bush invited Jack Welch, Ken Lay and a bevy of C.E.O.'s down to Texas, and he has always run the White House by the cardinal rules in their playbook. A chief executive can do no wrong. The directors (for which read Republicans in Congress) and outside directors (that would be the Democrats) are expected to give him a blank check and question nothing, including the accounting, while the grateful shareholders (the benighted voters) watch their portfolios bulge.

Now that we know that this model was a sham, with even Mr. Welch's General Electric under scrutiny for fiscal sleight of hand, you would think the Bush administration might revisit it. But instead it is following a discredited modus operandi more slavishly than ever, even as it prepares to fight a new war. "There is a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence," said Mr. Welch in "Jack: Straight From the Gut," his Bushian-titled memoir. "Arrogance is a killer." Mr. Bush and the C.E.O.'s around him seem as oblivious to this maxim as the C.E.O. who coined it.

The "fuzzy math" of this White House's tax cut and budget projections, chronicled by my colleague Paul Krugman from the start, is compounded daily rather than corrected. When we poor shareholders worry too loudly about our growing economic pain, the administration's antidote to our woes is not more honesty in bookkeeping but Ken Lay-style cheerleading. This month Mr. Bush's S.E.C. chief, Harvey Pitt, went so far as to tell Americans it is "more than safe" to get back in the market — as the Dow plummeted for its sixth consecutive month. It's the same pitch Mr. Lay offered his employees in an e-mail — "I want to assure you that I have never felt better about the prospects for the company" — on the day Jeffrey Skilling resigned as chief executive in anticipation of Enron's collapse.

But this administration no longer cooks the books merely on fiscal matters. Disinformation has become ubiquitous, even in the government's allegedly empirical scientific data on public health. The annual federal report on air pollution trends published this month simply eliminated its usual (and no doubt troubling) section on global warming, much as accountants at Andersen might have cleaned up a balance sheet by hiding an unprofitable division. At the Department of Health and Human Services, The Washington Post reported last week, expert committees are being "retired" before they can present data that might contradict the president's views on medical matters — much as naysaying Wall Street analysts were sidelined in favor of boosters who could be counted on to flog dogs like WorldCom or Pets.com right until they imploded.

It's when such dishonesty extends to the war on terrorism, though, that you appreciate just how much a killer arrogance can be. Even with little White House cooperation in its inquiry, this month's Congressional intelligence hearings presented a chilling portrait of the administration's efforts to cover up its pre-9/11 lassitude about terrorist threats. Exhibit A was Condoleezza Rice's pronouncement from last May: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center . . . that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." In fact, the committee reported, U.S. intelligence had picked up a dozen plots of a similar sort, over a period from 1994 to pre-9/11 2001, with some of them specifically mentioning the World Trade Center and the White House as potential targets. In the weeks before the attack the C.I.A. learned that in Afghanistan "everyone is talking about an impending attack."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/28/opinion/28RICH.html

Israel Says Target in Gaza Raid Was Wounded, but Escaped
Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, remained under Israeli siege in Ramallah today. The two sides did not negotiate, but there were hints that the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was seeking a way out of the stalemate.

The United Nations Security Council has demanded that Israel release its grip on Mr. Arafat, and President Bush has said the Israeli action is hindering democratic change for the Palestinians.

The Israeli government has demanded the handing over of 19 men it says are confined with Mr. Arafat. But Israeli news reports indicated today that the government might be satisfied with the transfer of the men to a Palestinian prison, an alternative Israeli officials had previously rejected.

Palestinian officials say they will agree to nothing less than an Israeli withdrawal. But Mr. Sharon, who has described the wanted men in the compound as "the biggest terrorists that exist," might find it politically difficult to back down. Israel has not supplied a list of the wanted men.

"It's a complete standoff," said a Western diplomat here. "Arafat refuses to speak to the Israelis. It's now pretty apparent that both sides want to get out, but Arafat has the upper hand. Arafat may be under military siege, but Israel is under political siege."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/28/international/middleeast/28MIDE.html

A Holiday in Hebron, Just for Jews, but Death Attends
It has been a particularly strange week in this particularly strange place: a week of dances and curfews, of celebratory palm fronds and blasting rifles, of rage and death on both sides of this torn city's stark Israeli-Palestinian divide.

As they have for almost 3,000 years, Jews around the world this week celebrated the annual holiday of Sukkot, marking the autumn harvest and recalling the fragility and transience of life in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt.

Here, where a hard-nosed band of a few hundred Jewish settlers has rooted itself in a city of 150,000 Palestinians, the holiday has become a time to celebrate, and perhaps multiply, homes they consider permanent.

From Israel and overseas, thousands of Jews made the pilgrimage this week to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, revered by Jews and Muslims as the burial place of Abraham. This year, the Israeli government threw in an added attraction: it permitted tourists to stroll past the armored vehicles, sandbags and barbed wire that guard the settlers and into Hebron's casbah, in the company of watchful paratroopers and the seeming tranquillity afforded by a total curfew on the Palestinians.

…Corky Spicka, 65, a light fixture salesman from Loveland, Colo. His wife, Sharon, 56, said she first visited Hebron two years ago. "It totally changed my life," said Mrs. Spicka, a Christian. She called the settlers "the heroes of the land."

"It's a fulfillment of biblical prophecy," she said. "God has called us to join in and help." The Jewish presence here, other members of the group explained, would speed the return of the Messiah.

The price of this faith has, as usual, been high. At dusk on Monday, bullets rained down from the heights above the celebrators. Shlomo Shapira, 48, a visitor from Jerusalem, was killed, and his three sons were wounded, one of them, a 9-year-old named Shuki, seriously.

This morning, while the curfew was lifted, Israeli soldiers fired two tear-gas grenades to disperse what the army described as a stone-throwing mob. Alia Uridat, 44, was carrying her 14-month-old granddaughter, Gharam Manna, through the market as she escorted a friend to a doctor's appointment. She felt something hit her head, she said, and then she saw the smoke.

Strangers helped her into a taxi, then into an ambulance, and then into the hospital. She could still feel the baby moving as they reached the hospital, she said, but Gharam died there. The army said that it wanted to investigate the death, but Palestinian officials refused to cooperate.

To some Israelis, the week's tourism into Hebron's casbah was a cruel, needless provocation. "There is no need that they would celebrate there," said Yossi Sarid, the opposition leader in Parliament. "It's a shame that for a few thousand Jewish people to celebrate in Hebron, they impose a siege over 150,000 Palestinians, and then they arrange tours for Jewish people as if it's a zoo. It's not a zoo. Monkeys are not living there. People are living there."

The Israeli Army this week also enabled busloads of Jewish worshipers to visit Joseph's tomb in Nablus, which is under curfew as part of the present Israeli military operation in the West Bank.

From his shuttered window here, Akhram Qafiesheh, 29, has watched the celebrators on the street below. "You are jailed in here, watching them," he said.

"It is a very difficult life," he said, unknowingly echoing Mr. Gol. "They want to force us to move from here." He said one of his neighbors recently evacuated his apartment; Israeli children were playing on that apartment's balcony today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/28/international/middleeast/28HEBR.html

Public Agenda Special Edition: Terrorism
For the past month, the debate over whether the U.S. should act against Iraq has dominated the news. Political and media leaders on both sides have pointed to surveys to support their position. But while there is support for military action, polls show the public's level of support rises and falls depending on circumstances: are our allies and the U.N. with us or not? How heavy will the casualties be? Does Iraq in fact have weapons of mass destruction?

The latest surveys show substantial majorities of the American public agree that Iraq poses a threat and initially support military action. Support for an attack falls when questions are raised about casualties and the reluctance of U.S. allies to join in — but support rises if the U.N., Congress and other countries are on board. The same principle seems to hold on the question of whether it's right for the U.S. to strike first.
http://www.publicagenda.org/specials/terrorism/terror_pubopinion6.htm

WorkZ.com - Act Now to Win International Clients
The majority of businesses coming online in the next few years will be international. Because of the difficulties these businesses face in their home countries, many will have to look elsewhere for services and tools required for e-commerce.

If you are a U.S. dot-com operator, your business is located in the country that invented e-commerce and has an e-commerce enabling infrastructure second to none. You are an online entrepreneur who has to balance business sense with risk-taking. And you know that sooner or later you'll have to consider conducting business beyond U.S. borders.

Your advantage is you know how to do e-business the American way.
http://www.workz.com/cgi-bin/gt/tpl_page.html,template=1&content=1574&nav1=1&user=4c492ace5014

WorkZ.com - Run the Numbers and Win
For realistic delivery forecasts, you need to understand how each step in the fulfillment process affects the delivery timeline. Only then can you accurately predict the transit time, the time between when an order arrives at your site and when it arrives at your customer's door.
http://www.workz.com/cgi-bin/gt/tpl_page.html,template=1&content=1434&nav1=1&user=4c492ace5014

Israeli-Arab Hero Is Praised, but Not Embraced
Something about the tall thin man waiting at the bus stop struck Rami Mahamid as suspicious. There was all that dust on his shoes and then there was that big black duffle bag in his hand.

He was a fellow Arab. But Rami, who is 17 and Israeli, thought the stranger was Palestinian, and feared he was a suicide bomber.

What happened next illuminates the problems faced by Israel's Arab minority, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the population of 6.6 million. It may also, perhaps, supply proof that Jews and Arabs can live together here, along with evidence of the suspicions that drive them apart.

Rami saved an untold number of Israelis by alerting the police. But he was wounded after he stepped in, and he later found himself bound in a hospital, suspected by the Israeli police and the internal intelligence service of being the bomber's accomplice. They kept him shackled for two days after he was lucid enough to explain what happened, he said. Other Israeli Arabs, after all, had helped Palestinian terrorists.

But Rami foiled one. There were just the two of them last Wednesday at the bus stop by an Israeli Arab town, Umm el-Fahm, so Rami politely asked to borrow the man's cellular telephone. He walked a few feet away and dialed 1-0-0 — the Israeli police. Speaking softly, he shared his suspicions.

Then Rami walked back, returned the telephone, and sat down beside the stranger, giving nothing away.

"I felt I did what I was supposed to do," Rami said today, seemingly puzzled by the suggestion that he might have simply walked away, or run, from the whole matter.

A policeman, Moshe Hizkiya, arrived with his partner in time to prevent the next bus from stopping for the waiting men, the police said. When the policemen demanded to examine the man's bag, it exploded, killing Mr. Hizkiya and the bomber. Rami had edged away, but not far enough.

He was conscious of a horrible blast, of body parts around him, of searing pain. Then he awoke to find himself in Ha Emek Hospital here, badly wounded and under guard, shackled to his bed.

"They didn't believe me," he said as he lay in the same bed today. "I felt harmed, and very angry."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/26/international/middleeast/26ISRA.html

Israelis Maintain Week-Old Grip on Arafat Headquarters
Israeli forces maintained their siege of Yasir Arafat's ruined compound for a seventh day today despite a United Nations resolution demanding their withdrawal, and officials here struggled to parry the resulting foreign criticism.

At a meeting with diplomats in Jerusalem, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was peppered with questions about the purpose of the siege, including pointed queries from the American ambassador, Daniel C. Kurtzer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/26/international/middleeast/26MIDE.html

Daschle Defends Democrats' Stand on Security
Pent-up partisan rancor over domestic security legislation and Iraq policy erupted today when Senator Tom Daschle, the majority leader, demanded an apology from President Bush for saying the Senate was "not interested in the security of the American people."

In an emotional speech on the Senate floor, Mr. Daschle seized on Mr. Bush's statement on Monday that the Senate, where Democrats favor protecting workers' rights in the proposed Homeland Security Department, "is more interested in special interests in Washington."

Mr. Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota, took offense, saying: "That is wrong. We ought not politicize this war. We ought not politicize the rhetoric about war and life and death."

He added, his voice growing raspy: "You tell those who fought in Vietnam and World War II they are not interested in the security of the American people," because they are Democrats. "That is outrageous."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/26/politics/26CONG.html

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Number of People Living in Poverty Increases in U.S.
The proportion of Americans living in poverty rose significantly last year, increasing for the first time in eight years, the Census Bureau reported today. At the same time, the bureau said that the income of middle-class households fell for the first time since the last recession ended, in 1991.

The Census Bureau's annual report on income and poverty provided stark evidence that the weakening economy had begun to affect large segments of the population, regardless of race, region or class. Daniel H. Weinberg, chief of income and poverty statistics at the Census Bureau, said the recession that began in March 2001 had reduced the earnings of millions of Americans.

The report also suggested that the gap between rich and poor continued to grow.

All regions except the Northeast experienced a decline in household income, the bureau reported. For blacks, it was the first significant decline in two decades; non-Hispanic whites saw a slight decline. Even the incomes of Asians and Pacific Islanders, a group that achieved high levels of prosperity in the 1990's, went down significantly last year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/25/national/25POVE.html

Welcome to ExtremeTech/Syscheck
One-stop shopping for all the utilities and sites that can help you make your system or network as tight and secure as possible.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,651,00.asp

ZDNet: Tech Update
Hackers. Thieves. Cyberterrorists. Angry ex-employees. They're out there--ready to corrupt, disrupt, steal, or sabotage. Who can protect your data, your systems, your business from them? Only you can--as a computer user, an IT manager, or a company executive. But are you ready? How prepared are you to prevent, not just react. Find out. Take the test.
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/filters/specialreport/0,14622,6023353,00.html

developerWorks: IBM developer solutions : Style sheets can write style sheets too
Style sheets can write style sheets too
Making XSLT style sheets from XSLT components
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/i-styles/?dwzone=xml

developerWorks : XML : Articles, columns & tips - Topic
XML : Articles, columns & tips
http://www-105.ibm.com/developerworks/papers.nsf/dw/xml-papers-bytopic?OpenDocument&Count=500

XML.com: XHTML 2.0: The Latest Trick [Aug. 07, 2002]
XHTML 2.0: The Latest Trick
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/08/07/deviant.html

developerWorks: Web architecture | XML zone : The Web's future: XHTML 2.0
The Web's future: XHTML 2.0
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/wa-xhtml/

developerWorks: XML zone : Get ready for XForms Next generation of Web forms will help you build online forms that are extensible and suitable for any platform
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-xforms/

Remember?
We were going to bring Osama to Justice,
or bring Justice to Osama

We don't know whether bin Ladin is dead or alive.
We don't even seem to know how to find out.

Alligator mouthed politicians,
whose paper rumps
never ever
go near a hot lz,
are willing and more than willing
to fight.

To the last drop
of other Americans blood
or anybody else's,
except their own.

As in Viet Nam
Cheney
still has other priorities,
as he slouches off
to an undisclosed
location,
to be lorn.

In Nablus, Back-Room Schools Spring Up to Spite Curfew
Tracing the letter A in the air, Jamila Mabruk introduced a group of Palestinian second-graders to the English alphabet this week in a cramped classroom set up in a shoemaking workshop.

The class was part of what people here call a "popular school," informal lessons organized by Nablus residents in response to an Israeli Army curfew that has kept local schools shut since the second day of classes.

"We're fighting them with the A B C's," Ms. Mabruk, a 20-year-old college student, said of the Israeli soldiers who occasionally appear on the streets in tanks and armored personnel carriers. "They want us to be ignorant and backward. We say no. We want to learn."

Ms. Mabruk's class was one of dozens that have sprung up across this city of 150,000, whose residents have been confined to their homes since June 21, with occasional breaks to stock up on supplies.

The army says that the curfews here and in five other West Bank cities are necessary to stop militants planning attacks on Israelis, and that Nablus in particular has been a main source of suicide attacks in Israel. Visiting the Nablus area this week, the army's chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, said that the stiff curfew there was necessary to break up militant networks still active in the city.

Palestinians call the curfews collective punishment, and argue that schools, at the very least, should be exempt.

The severity of the disruption to the school year, which began on Aug. 31, has varied city by city. In Ramallah, where the curfew has occasionally been lifted during the day, six school days have been lost. In Nablus, where the curfew has been almost constant, schools closed after only a day.

To make up for the lost lessons, people here have organized classes in private apartments, unfinished buildings and other spaces donated by residents. Math, science, Arabic and English are taught by volunteers — teachers, college students, and professionals who normally work at other jobs. Students have to make their way to classes in their neighborhoods when soldiers are not around.

"We're doing what we can not to to lose this generation," said Ibrahim Hamouz, an engineer who was teaching fractions to a group of sixth graders in his sister's unfinished apartment. Boys sat on the floor, notebooks in their laps, as Mr. Hamouz wrote figures on a marker board propped on a chair. Girls, some in school uniforms, sat in the back.

Other grades met in adjacent rooms, some using homemade worksheets and photocopies from textbooks collected by the volunteers.

"We in Palestine don't have oil and gold, just human beings," Mr. Hamouz said, "and we must educate these human beings, starting from the kids."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/24/international/middleeast/24NABL.html

U.N. Security Council Approves Mideast Measure The United States decided not to veto a Security Council resolution calling for Israel to withdraw from Palestinian cities, clearing the way for its passage early Tuesday and handing a diplomatic victory to the Palestinians.

The resolution, which passed 14-0 with America abstaining, was negotiated by the European Union and cobbled together with language from competing U.S. and Arab proposals.

``The resolution that we've adopted this evening was flawed in our view in that it failed to explicitly condemn the terrorist groups and those who provide them with political cover, support and safe haven in perpetuating conflict in the Middle East,'' Deputy U.S. ambassador James Cunningham said.

But the vote was a victory for the Palestinians and their Syrian backers on the 15-member Security Council.

Arafat spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeineh called the vote ``a step in the right direction.''

``I believe this abstention from the United States is a clear criticism of Israel and its actions on the ground and reveals their dissatisfaction with Israel and its measures.''

The Palestinians have failed several times to secure a resolution since violence broke out in the Middle East in September 2000. The United States, one of five permanent council members with veto power, blocked a similar Palestinian resolution in December.

The United States had threatened to do so again but ultimately abstained on Tuesday when some of the language it had sought -- condemning terrorist attacks and bringing the perpetrators to justice -- was inserted into the final text.

The approved resolution ``demands that Israel immediately cease measures in and around Ramallah, including the destruction of Palestinian civilian and security infrastructure.''

It further demands ``the withdrawal of the Israeli occupying forces from Palestinian cities toward the return to positions held prior to September 2000.''

The resolution also ``calls on the Palestinian Authority to meet its expressed commitment to ensure that those responsible for terrorist acts are brought to justice,'' and it reiterates a demand for the cessation of all acts of violence.

When it became clear late Monday that the Palestinians were going to push for a vote on their text, the United States submitted its own proposal to condemn the suicide bombings, name Islamic Jihad and Hamas as the responsible parties and call for the two militant groups to be treated as terrorist organizations under the provisions of an anti-terrorism resolution passed after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Using unusually harsh language to criticize Israel, the U.S. draft also expressed grave concern for Israel's actions at Arafat's compound which ``aggravate the situation and ... do not contribute to progress on comprehensive Palestinian civil and security reforms.''
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Mideast.html

If Smallpox Breaks Out: Questions and Answers on the U.S. Vaccination Plan If Smallpox Breaks Out: Questions and Answers on the U.S. Vaccination Plan
If http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/24/science/20020924_SMALLPOX.html

ZDNet: Tech Update The deluge of junk e-mail is relentless, threatening to drown your servers in a flood of bandwidth-choking spam. Enterprises are paying for it in lost productivity, and are finding little relief from half-hearted legislative efforts to shackle the spammers. Brightmail, which detected under 700,000 unique spam attacks in March 2001, counted over 5 million in August 2002. Here's how you can fight fire with fire, take a page out of the spammers' playbook, and put more of that spam in the trash.
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/filters/specialreport/0,14622,6023486,00.html

Israeli and Palestinian Officials Meet
Palestinian officials said the meeting, between Israeli military officials and a leading Palestinian official, Saeb Erekat, took place at the Beit El military base north of Ramallah, the West Bank site of Mr. Arafat's battered headquarters.

Mr. Erekat, who later briefed Mr. Arafat at his compound, told Reuters in a telephone call that Mr. Arafat had rejected Israeli demands to present a list naming all the people holed up with him in his West Bank headquarters.

The United Nations Security Council was to meet today to discuss the siege in the face of widespread opposition voiced by European and Arab countries and criticism by the United States.

The demonstrations started Saturday night and continued into the early of Sunday morning in support of Mr. Arafat, defying Israel's efforts to leave him powerless. The four Palestinians were killed by troops trying to enforce curfews ignored by protesters.

On Sunday evening, the Israeli Army said it was ceasing demolition work around Mr. Arafat's headquarters. Most of the buildings that were not destroyed in earlier raids have been razed in the last four days.

But the building in which Mr. Arafat and about 200 other Palestinians were cooped up remained under a tight military siege, ringed with barbed wire and Israeli troops. From within Mr. Arafat's headquarters, his aide, Nabil Aburdeineh, said on Sunday that the Israelis had ceased demolition only because they had finished destroying the rest of the compound.

Mr. Aburdeineh said the Israeli Army put constant psychological pressure on the men inside. Water pipes to the building were severed, he said. The Israelis allowed Palestinians to repair them, only to sever them again. The Israelis also promised to allow a food delivery, but it never arrived, Mr. Aburdeineh said. The army also removed all the building's air conditioners.

On Saturday evening, the Israelis informed the trapped Palestinians that they intended to blow up an adjacent building, warned that the explosion could collapse Mr. Arafat's building and told the besieged men to leave. They refused, and the army apparently abandoned its plan.

An army spokesman, however, said that demolition work was halted only "for the moment," and that the siege remained in force.

In the middle of the night on Saturday, heeding calls from Fatah, Mr. Arafat's movement, and from mullahs in the mosques, more than a thousand Palestinian men, women and children marched onto Ramallah's central Manara Square. They defied Israeli demands to disperse and chanted, "We will give our soul and blood for Arafat!"

Similar protests were reported in Gaza City and in the West Bank in Qalqilya, Tulkarm, Hebron, Tubas, Salfit, Bethlehem and Jericho. It was the first mass wave of support for Mr. Arafat in months. Two protesters were shot dead in Ramallah, one in Tulkarm and one in Nablus.

The protests confirmed the warnings of some Israeli politicians and columnists that the assault on Mr. Arafat would revive his standing among Palestinians after a period in which, led by legislators, they had begun to challenge his power and to demand that he hand executive powers over to a prime minister.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/23/international/middleeast/23CND-MIDE.html

4 Killed as Palestinians Demonstrate to Back Arafat
The army said its goal was to arrest first 17, then 20, then 50 men inside with Mr. Arafat. But military and political leaders made it clear that their real intention was to make Mr. Arafat's conditions so stifling that he would finally ask to leave.

In an earlier siege, from March through May, Mr. Arafat seemed only to gather personal and political strength from the danger. This time, again, he has shown no sign of succumbing, or surrendering the men.

Akiva Eldar, a reporter for the newspaper Haaretz, wrote today that the operation prevented efforts by the central committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization to hold a special session to persuade Mr. Arafat to appoint Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, as prime minister. Mr. Abbas, a long-term leader of the P.L.O. and a moderate, has emerged as the Palestinians' consensus candidate.

Mr. Eldar wrote that the P.L.O. had also planned to discuss political reforms and ways to block Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the militant wing of Fatah, from staging any more attacks. The article said Israeli leaders were aware of the plan, because they had been asked to allow P.L.O. leaders to convene in Ramallah.

The dominant group within the P.L.O., of which Mr. Arafat is chairman, is his Fatah movement. Fatah led the rebellion against him in the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Haim Ramon, a member of the Labor Party, assailed the operation. "I would be prepared to support what's happening if I knew what was the goal of the government," he said. "If the goal is to get rid of Arafat, let it get rid of him. But if the goal is for the government to release its anger in view of its failure to fight terror despite what is happening, the strike should be at those responsible for the recent terror attacks."

Palestinian reformers expressed dismay. "This operation kills the first historical step" by the council, said Abdul Jawad Saleh, a member. He was referring to its meeting Sept. 9 to 11, in which the members assailed Mr. Arafat's leadership and compelled him to fire his cabinet.

"Arafat was to name a new government, but this operation has prevented him from doing it," Mr. Saleh said. "It is part of a systematic destruction of the Palestinian entity, the Palestinian infrastructure, the Palestinian political system, the Palestinian economy, the destruction of everything Palestinian."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/23/international/middleeast/23MIDE.html

Donated Kidney Bridges Mideast Divide
The kidney of a Jewish teenager killed in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv last week has been transplanted into a Palestinian girl who suffered from a disease that eventually leads to kidney failure.

Yasmin Abu Ramila, 7, received the kidney of Jonathan Jesner, 19, a student from Glasgow, Scotland, who was on a Tel Aviv bus on Thursday when a Palestinian militant detonated his explosives.

Mr. Jesner's family had volunteered to donate Jonathan's organs and placed no restrictions on the recipients. "We believed it was what he would have wanted us to do," said his stepmother, who did not give her name.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/23/international/middleeast/23KIDN.html

ZDNet: Story: How Uncle Sam wimped out on cybersecurity
A YEAR AGO, post 9/11, cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke was running around telling the truth and challenging American business to do a better job protecting itself. A year later, the only teeth in the plan are those Clarke showed when he smilingly introduced it last week. (Click here to watch Clarke's interview with CNET Radio's Brian Cooley.)

What the Bush administration presented was a strategy only in the sense that the government encouraging people to brush after every meal and "Just Say No" can be considered strategies. Good ideas, certainly, but not something you want to depend on when lives are at stake.

Instead, the administration's approach to this important issue seems to be to count on business to do the right thing. I will pause now for the laughter from my fellow California residents as we remember the way our utility industry has #$^$%-ed us the past couple years. The rest of America can think of