I nr-: ur i ikuni .> r H'a> a FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3,2000 No Israelis are injured in Palestinian suicide attack by Nomi Morris Knight-Ridder Tribune October 27, 2000 JERUSALEM -- A Palestinian suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up Thursday, but did not seriously injure any Israelis in the army post in the Gaza Strip that he was attacking. Israeli authorities said they expect more such attacks and accused the Pal estinian Authority of cooperating with radical Islamic groups. “We stress to the leaders of the crimi nal enemy that this suicide attack was not the first and will not be the last,” said a statement issued in Beirut by Is lamic Jihad, a Palestinian guerrilla group dedicated to armed struggle against Israel. An Israeli soldier was slightly injured by shrapnel in the attack. Israeli authori ties believe Islamic Jihad used it to mark the fifth anniversary of the death of its leader, Fathi Shikaki, in a mysterious drive-by shooting in Malta. Palestinians blame Israeli intelligence agents for the murder. Maiyland ponders killing swans, which damage bay by Anita Huslin The Washington Post October 26, 2000 They were the perfect guests when they took up residence on an Eastern Shore estate, imported from England to add an air of courtly beauty to the reflecting pond. In the nearly 40 years since the first mute swans arrived in Mary land, however, the graceful birds with the snowy plumage also have become known for their decidely in elegant behavior. Since the first five swans were lib erated by a storm and then multi plied exponentially, the largest wa terfowl species on the Chesapeake Bay has become notorious for men acing people and other birds, tram pling on nests and driving off na tive species. Now their penchant for devour ing acres of underwater grasses a day have placed the birds in the cross hairs of environmentalists. A groundswell of voices from community and environmental groups are urging state officials to act - killing, if necessary - to stop mute swans from stripping the bay of fragile underwater grasses that serve as habitat and food for a wide range of creatures. Nowhere is the threat more urgent than in Maryland, the only state in the Atlantic flyway whose anti-hunt ing laws do not differentiate be tween mute and native swans. As a Crew seeks to by John Daniszewski Los Angeles Times October 30, 2000 BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan - The first crew of what has been called the most ambitious international science project ever attempted, the $6O billion Inter national Space Station, was set to blast off on its four-month mission Tuesday from this frigid Russian base in the wastes of Kazakhstan. From the same pad used by the first Sputnik in 1957 and Russian cosmo naut Yuri A. Gagarin, who opened the era of manned space flight in 1961, a slender Soyuz TM-31 launch vehicle was to start an American and two Rus sians on a voyage that could represent the beginning of humanity's permanent habitation of space. Agreed upon by the U.S. and Rus sian governments in 1993 and under construction since 1998, the project has become the primary focus of both countries' space programs. Expedition I is commanded by Navy Capt. William Shepherd, 51, who has flown three prior U.S. space shuttle missions. His crew consists of Russian air force Lt. Col. Yuri Gidzenko, 38, The bicycle bomber was identified as Nabil Faraj al-Arair, 24, a student at the Islamic University in Gaza. The Is raeli army said he was carrying a school satchel and wearing 13 pounds of ex plosives, which he detonated near the entrance of the Jewish settlement of Kisufim. Concrete blocks protected the Israeli troops. Meanwhile, violence broke out in other parts of the Gaza Strip, as well as the West Bank towns of Tulkarm, Jenin, Ramallah and Hebron. Palestinians and Israeli troops exchanged gunfire, but there were no reports of deaths. The toll stands at 130, all but eight of them were Palestinians. The suicide attack was the first of its kind since the latest w ave of unrest be gan Sept. 28 when Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited a Muslim holy shrine in Jerusalem. Last weekend Israeli troops shot a Palestinian trying to infiltrate from Lebanon and said he was equipped with materials to carry out a terror attack. In recent days, Israeli officials have warned repeatedly that the conflict result, the mute swan population has ballooned in the state, increasing from 5 percent of mute swans in the region in 1986 to 31 percent - num bering 4,000 - in 1999. At the same time, the swans are settling near grass beds that have only recently begun to recover from the effects of pollution, sediment and other threats that have devastated 90 percent of the bay's 600,000 historic acres since the 19305. “Mute swans have completely de stroyed a number of (underwater grass) planting projects,” Theresa A mute swan takes flight on the Severn River near Annapolis, Md. A groundswell of voices from community and environmental groups are urging state officials to act - killing, if necessary - to stop mute swans from stripping the Chesapeake Bay of fragile underwater grasses that serve as habitat and food for a wide range of creatures. who was to pilot the Soyuz launch vehicle into orbit and dock it 48 hours later with the space station 221 miles above the earth; and Russian flight engineer Sergei Krikalev, 42, a veteran of four Russian and U.S. space mis sions. Krikalev is one of the world's most experienced space travelers, hav ing logged 484 days in orbit. The astronaut and two cosmonauts have been training in each other's lan guages since 1996. They plan to speak a polyglot they call “Runglish” and eat both Russian and American foods dur ing their mission. As the first crew, their job will be to turn on computer and navigation systems, assist in ex pansion of the space station and es tablish everyday procedures - in short, to bring it to life. “It's definitely the beginning of a new era in human space flight,” said NASA official Mike Baker. “ From now on, all human endeavors in space will be joint.” Although it is already 140 feet long and weighs 80 tons, the space station remains very much a work in progress. Dozens more construction missions are anticipated in the next five years. The space station will gradually ex- WORLD & NATION could turn even bloodier, accusing Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority of cooperating with Islamic Jihad and Hamas, both of which have vowed to intensify their attacks against Israel. Arafat had curtailed the activities of “Israel will consider pursuing the path of peace, but not at any cost. We will not negotiate under fire or under pressure." these groups while he was engaged in peace negotiations with Israel. But two weeks ago the Palestinian Authority released 80 to 100 suspected terrorists it had jailed. It re-arrested only 15 to 20 of them before the opening of the Sharm el Sheik peace conference on Oct. 16. “They understand that they have the permission to carry out attacks,” said Piemo, Maryland executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the region's largest environmental group, said in a letter to the Mary land secretary of natural resources. For years, the group has promoted shaking mute swan eggs or coating them with vegetable oil to prevent their hatching, but staff biologists and naturalists say the time for further steps is nearing. “Lethal methods spe cific to mute swans should be con sidered,” Piemo wrote. Mute swans do not migrate, but fly from freshwater sources inland, make a pand until it weighs about 1 million pounds and be both longer and wider than a football field. Huge solar pan els will generate more than 60 times the power for experiments than on the existing Russian orbiter Mir. In the future, the station will be home to as many as seven astronauts at a time. The station is designed to remain op erational for at least 15 years and per haps as long as 25 years. Its laborato ries are expected to contribute vital knowledge about the effects of microgravity and long-term living in space, lessons that could lay the foun dation for new drug discoveries or a possible future manned voyage to Mars. Under the original timetable, the sta tion should have received its first crew 2 1/2 years ago. But the project fell behind because of Russia's financial collapse, which slowed delivery of the station's first living module, and by problems with its Proton rocket. Asked at a pre-launch news confer ence how he felt to be finally embark ing on a mission for which he began preparing years ago, Shepherd an swered crisply: “I'm anxious to get started.” Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, chief of the Is raeli army's operations branch. “We are under a very serious and immediate threat.” In the past week, several Palestinian leaders have confirmed that both Hamas -Gilad Sher, one of Israeli Prime Minister Barak's lead negotiators. and Islamic Jihad are participating in nightly planning sessions by a coordi nating committee run by the PLO. “There is complete agreement. This is the full national unity of the Intifada (uprising). Everyone is with this Intifada now," said Ismail Abu Shanab, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza. Now all options are open to civilians and all military wings are active.” where they spend the spring and summer, to saltwater in the fall. And they feed on underwater grasses year-round, depleting the food source for migratory birds like the tundra swan and black duck which overwinter in the bay. Mute swans also consume young plants and seeds before they have a chance to propagate, reducing the acreage from year to year. John Page Williams, a Chesa peake Bay Foundation natural ist, holds grass that a mute swan dislodged. space station a home Speaking to reporters Monday, Krikalev said that in its present state, life aboard the shuttle would be tough - with a heavy workload, quarters more cramped than the nearly 15-year-old Mir, and a U.S.-designed toilet that does not work as well as one of Rus- sian design. With so much to be done, Shepherd said his biggest challenge might be to restrain the Russians from working too aggressively at first. “ My job is to make sure that the crew stays on an even keel and gets its work done (but) without really tiring ourselves out,” he said. For the United States, which is lead ing the 16-nation space station project with contributions from Brazil, Japan, Canada and 11 nations of the European Space Agency, the advantage of the new station is that it now has an ongo ing venue in which to conduct experi ments in space. For Russia, the space station pro vides a chance to continue and expand the research begun on Mir, now va cant and likely - unless new govern ment or private funds miraculously appear - to be brought down into the Pacific Ocean in February. Marwan Barghouti, who has been leading the street riots in the West Bank on behalf of Yasser Arafat's Fatah move ment, said the PLO leadership is not promoting terror attacks inside Israel proper, but considers military targets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip legiti mate. “ We do not support any kind of ac tion inside the Green Line." Barghouti said, referring to Israel's borders prior to the 1967 Middle East war. "But we support resistance actions inside the Palestinian territories because they are occupied areas." Barghouti's popular success in lead ing confrontations against Israeli troops in the West Bank is an example of how Arafat has successfully harnessed an ger in the streets against Israel and the peace process, to prevent Hamas and other radical Islamic groups from gain ing the upper hand. “Barghouti is a rising star, the grassroots extension of Arafat. He is fierce competition for Hamas. He is trumping them," said Ghassan Khatib, director of the Jerusalem Media and BMG drops suit, forges partnership with Napster by Matthew McGuire TMS Campus October 31. 2000 In a move that could temporarily save the Internet file sharing web site Napster. Bertelsmann said it will team up with Napster to form a membership-based site that will dole out royalties to music rights hold- Once the new site is up and run ning, Bertelsmann's music subsid iary BMG will in turn drop its law suit against Napster and make its music catalog available through the Internet site. This recent development will be the largest step the music industry has taken to embrace the new file sharing software that has spread like wild fire throughout the Internet. However, Napster is no longer the main music swapping Internet site. Other sites - such as Gnuetella, Hotline, Jungle Monkey and Free Net - have increased in popularity and use technology that allows users to files wit! central network With centralizei network the re- cording National Aeronautics and Space Ad- permanent human habitation off the ministration flight director John Curry surface of Earth. told reporters last week in Houston “I'd say there's a decent chance that that Tuesday's launch might someday Oct. 30 may, in fact, be the last day we be remembered as the beginning of don't have humans in space," he said. WASHINGTON POST GRAPHIC BY CRISTINA RIVERO AND LOUIS SPIRITO; RESEARCH BY SETH HAMBLIN A Russian Soyuz rocket is to launch the first crew - two Russians and one American - to live aboard the new International Space Sta tion Tuesday. Graphic details the four-month mission. Communications Center. Barghouti is filling the gap. They had to speak the language of Hamas, or loSe ground to them. Now Fatah is in the lead. If they didn't speak this way, Hamas would have gained." The threats of renewed terror come just as Israeli and Palestinian security officials appeared to be making progress in meetings for the first time in nearly a month. Israel Radio also reported that Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin met with Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat on Tuesday in a secret effort to get the sides back on speaking terms. Neither Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak nor Palestinian leader Yassei Arafat has accepted President Clinton's invitation to come to Washington for separate meetings. The visits are un likely to-happen unless there is a calm ing of violence on the ground. “Israel will consider pursuing the path of peace, but not at any cost. We will not negotiate under fire or under pressure." said Gilad Sher. one of Barak's lead negotiators. industry may find it hard, if not im possible, to shut down the music swapping technology. Bertelsmann and Napster an nounced the deal Tuesday, Oct. 31, and also included plans to seek sup port and membership from other four major recording companies, Sony, Universal, Warner and EMI. The other record companies have made no announcements. Under the deal, Bertelsmann will loan Napster the money to develop the new' service and retain rights to purchase a portion of Napster's eq uity. Napster's legal woes aren't com pletely over, however. The company is still caught up in court over the Recording Industry of America's December 1999 lawsuit, which al leges copyright infringement. In July, a federal judge ordered the company to remove all copyrighted material from its network until the outcome of the pending trial. And less than a day later, a U.S. District Court Of Appeals ed a tempo- stay of an notion that ' uld have ut Napster
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