THE WEEK IN REVIEW
July 8-15
BOTTOM LINE President Bush, addressing the wave of corporate wrongdoing that has gripped the nation for months, called for more aggressive policing of big business and longer prison sentences for wrongdoers in a speech on Wall Street. But his proposals did little to restore confidence among investors, who sent stock prices down further. And it was followed by bipartisan votes in the Senate for measures that would go well beyond anything the president is seeking.
Mr. Bush continued to be dogged by questions about his own business history, including loans he got from Harken Energy in the 1980's to help him buy stock. �
Richard W. Stevenson
YUCCA VOTE Over the opposition of Nevada's senators, the Senate gave final Congressional approval to a national waste repository deep inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain, ending a chapter in the two-decade-long search for a home for the nation's nuclear waste. The desert site is envisioned to open in 2010 and to receive up to 77,000 tons of radioactive material. Nevada and environmental groups vowed to continue to fight.
�Alison Mitchell
PRONOUNCED EX- AND EX- At the start of her day in divorce court, Donna Hanover, sat, wan and wistful, while her husband, the former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, looked anywhere but at her. After a few hours of closed-door talks, Ms. Hanover, 52, was looking cheerier. Mr. Giuliani, 58, had agreed to a settlement giving her $6.8 million. Her lawyer said Mr. Giuliani had "admitted cruel and inhuman treatment based on his open relationship with Judith Nathan," his companion, an allegation his team denied.
Joyce Wadler
AIDS WARNINGS The danger of ignorance was a main topic of the 14th International AIDS Conference, in Barcelona. Up to a half million Americans are either unaware that they are infected with the AIDS virus, not receiving treatment for it, or both. The figures pale compared to the 90 percent of the 40 million infected people elsewhere, mostly in Africa, who do not know and have little chance of receiving the powerful anti-viral drugs available in developed countries. One result: the number of children orphaned by AIDS in Africa will double by 2010 to about 20 million, or nearly 6 percent of all those under age 15. One small ray of hope: studies of T-20, a member of a new class of drugs known as fusion inhibitors, showed the experimental drug held promise for those in whom the AIDS virus has developed resistance to standard drugs.
Lawrence K. Altman
AFRICAN UNION More than 30 African leaders buried the Organization of African Unity, which was created 39 years ago to fight colonialism and apartheid. It was dismantled to make way for a new organization, the African Union, which will require its 53 member states to commit to democratic principles and to respect human rights. Unlike the O.A.U. the new group will have the power to intervene in member states in cases of genocide, war crimes and gross violations of human rights.
�Rachel L. Swarns
PLANE CRASH Mistaken instructions from a Swiss air traffic controller probably caused the July 1 midair collision of a Russian passenger plane and a DHL cargo plane, which killed 52 children and 19 adults. Flight recorders showed that both planes' collision-avoidance systems engaged, telling the DHL plane to descend and the Russian plane to climb about 44 seconds before impact. But the Russian pilot followed a Swiss controller's urgent order to descend.
MIDEAST Amnesty International condemned Palestinian suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli civilians, calling them "crimes against humanity" that were unjustified by Palestinian political grievances.
Israel's seizure of most West Bank towns, begun on June 20, has halted further suicide bombings. But hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain under strict curfew, and 36 of them — almost half unarmed civilians — have been killed in those few weeks.
Israeli police raided and shut the Jerusalem office of Sari Nusseibeh, the leading voice of moderation among Palestinians, because he was an appointee of the Palestinian Authority.
ARMS AND THE PILOT The House voted to deputize airline pilots as federal flight deck officers and let them carry guns, as a last line of defense against hijackers. The administration has already rejected the idea, and it has some powerful opponents in the Senate, but a vote there is likely soon, especially because of the size of the House vote, 310 to 113. The House bill left details of where the guns would be stored between flights and the exact guidelines of their use to the new Transportation Security Administration.
Matthew L. Wald
SHAPING SECURITY AGENCY There was bipartisan support for a new Department of Homeland Security when President Bush proposed it, but now there is bipartisan support for drastically changing his plan. House committees refused the administration's pleas to include the Coast Guard, the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the department, and also voted to split up the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The committee recommendations are likely to be changed when the issue reaches the House and Senate floors, but Mr. Bush's plan is unlikely to emerge intact. �
�David Firestone
JORDAN PLANS U.S. military planners are weighing whether to use bases in Jordan to stage air and special forces operations against Iraq in the event President Bush orders such an invasion — something that, judging by political, military and diplomatic factors, could happen around the end of the year. Jordan has not yet been consulted about using its bases for this purpose, and Jordanian officials have publicly ruled out such an arrangement. The United States now uses at least one base in Jordan for training exercises.
Eric Schmitt
VIRUS RE-CREATED Raising new fears about bioterrorism, scientists at the State University of New York at Stony Brook have synthesized live polio virus using publicly available genetic information and mail-order DNA. It is the first time a virus has been made from scratch. One implication: bioterrorists might be able to make pathogens when they can't obtain a natural one. Another: polio vaccinations might have to continue even after the disease is eradicated, which is expected in the next few years.
Andrew Pollack
THE AGE OF MAN The known history of human origins took a vaulting leap back in time: French scientists announced that a seven-million-year-old skull found in the central African country of Chad is the oldest member of the human family yet discovered, by as much as a million years.
Paleontologists think this is the most important fossil find in decades. The skull comes from a region beyond the usual track of fossil hunters and affords a glimpse into the little-known period when human precursors and chimpanzees diverged from a common ancestor. One surprise is the skull's mosaic of apelike and advanced characteristics, suggesting a pattern of evolution more tangled than the usual linear family trees.
John Noble Wilford
KNEE SURGERY USELESS A popular and expensive knee operation for arthritis pain is no better than a fake operation, a study found. Patients whose arthritic joints were arthroscopically scraped and/or washed did no better than those whose surgeons simply pretended to operate; most of the 180 patients in the study reported that their knee pain had improved. At least 225,000 patients have such operations each year, at a cost of more than $1 billion to private insurers, Medicare and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The study was a rare examination of the placebo effect of surgery. In the false operations, patients were given a drug to put them to sleep, but not general anesthesia.
Gina Kolata
HORMONE STUDY HALTED In a stunning decision, federal scientists announced they were halting a large study of combination hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women because the harm associated with estrogen and progestin exceeded the benefit. The risks — of breast cancer, blood clots, heart attack and stroke — were tiny. But so were the benefits: slightly fewer hip fractures and colorectal cancers. The study, involving 16,000 healthy women, was asking if the combination of estrogen and progestin could prevent disease. Another part of the study, involving women who have had hysterectomies and who are taking estrogen alone, is continuing: data have not yet shown evidence of net benefit or net harm.
�Gina Kolata
COMING UP
A Senate bill on accounting and corporate oversight is expected to come to a vote early this week. A federal judge in Virginia holds a hearing in the John Walker Lindh case. The Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, testifies on monetary policy before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday and before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday. President and Mrs. Bush give a state dinner for the Polish president on Wednesday.
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We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.
Edward R. Murrow
NEURONAUTIC INSTITUTE on-line: http://home.earthlink.net/~thew
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