Monday, May 26, 2003
RELIEVED HK SHED MASKS
By KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG, May 24 — The World Health Organization's advisory against travel here, reviled as a curse on the region's economy, has now been lifted, but economic growth may not fully rebound quickly.
Removal of the advisory brought jubilation here on Friday night. Happy crowds thronged bars and restaurants. Most of the people out celebrating had shed the masks that had become a symbol of Hong Kong over the past two months because of the outbreak of SARS.
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Luk Pon-cheung, a 58-year-old tailor who works a foot-cranked sewing machine in a tiny stall next to a steep alley here, said this morning that he was overjoyed by the prospect of an end to the outbreak, which has hurt his business and so many others.
"My heart felt very happy," he said. "I was so excited."
There was more good news this afternoon, when Hong Kong health officials announced that no new SARS infections had been detected in the preceding 24 hours. It was the first time that had happened since the government began releasing daily figures in mid-March.
Yet government officials, business executives and economists here caution that the lifting of the advisory by itself would not restore this city's former vibrancy.
The first problem is that Hong Kong remains on the World Health Organization's list of areas that have had new infections of SARS within the last 20 days.
The health agency removed the travel advisory for Hong Kong after officials here provided evidence that practically all recent cases occurred among people who were known to have been exposed to the disease and had been quarantined in their homes before they started feeling sick and before they could infect others.
But up to four new cases a day have been reported for the last week among such people, mostly family members of previous SARS patients.
The Hong Kong government has set aside $128 million for a global marketing campaign to resuscitate Hong Kong's paralyzed tourist industry. But the government here does not plan to start a big appeal to foreign tourists until Hong Kong is off the list of infected areas, a government spokesman said today. This may mean waiting until July or August, he added.
Business travel, in many ways more important to the Hong Kong economy, has already started to revive. Big banks like HSBC and other multinationals with large operations here have already started lifting their restrictions on traveling to Hong Kong.
On Friday, the health agency also lifted its advisory against travel to neighboring Guangdong Province in southern China, where the outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, is believed to have started in November. Business executives all over the world have been waiting to visit their factories and suppliers in Guangdong.
Many such travelers are accustomed to staying in Hong Kong and have met with bankers, shipping companies, warehouse operators and other trade-related businesses based here, between short trips to factories in Guangdong Province.
Guangdong is China's most prosperous region and has the country's biggest concentration of factories, with exports now exceeding South Korea's, although the region around Shanghai is starting to catch up.
Guangdong has become the world's biggest center of shoe production and one of the biggest apparel-producing regions, and had drawn a constant stream of visitors from New York's garment industry until the outbreak.
With the lifting of the advisory, "we have had some inquiries already," said Nigel Roberts, the general manager of the Great Eagle Hotel in Kowloon, which caters to the garment industry. "We're going to go from a base of practically nothing," he added, "so we have to rebuild our business again."
The biggest question here is whether SARS has been completely contained. The W.H.O. lifted its travel advisory for Toronto on April 29 and removed the city from its list of infected areas last week, but Canadian health officials said on Friday that they had identified more than 20 possible new cases.
Hong Kong shares with mainland China one of the world's busiest land borders, and SARS has not yet been controlled in northern China, where the Chinese government reported 34 new cases today. Further, many travelers passing through Hong Kong to Guangdong Province are from Taiwan, which reported 10 more cases today.
Dr. Margaret Chan, Hong Kong's health director, warned that the struggle here was not over. "We must stay vigilant and take measures to avoid contracting the disease and prevent its spread," she said.
To make matters worse, Hong Kong's two main rivals as bases for international companies, Singapore and Shanghai, have each had far fewer cases of SARS this spring. That was apparently partly luck, but possibly also because Singapore was much more aggressive in quarantining people who might be infected.
Repeated warnings in the past week by American officials that SARS, like many respiratory diseases, might fade away in late spring but then return in autumn were perhaps the most worrying news.
"If this thing is going to come back in the fall, as some people are suggesting, there's going to be some permanent damage" to the Hong Kong economy, said William Belchere, an Asia economist with J. P. Morgan Chase.
Guangdong would be less affected than Hong Kong by a return of SARS because it relies mostly on manufacturing, which has not been disrupted so much by the presence of the disease, Mr. Belchere said. Hong Kong depends more on businesses that provide services, and such businesses depend on public confidence, which SARS can undermine.
But such worries seemed far from most people's minds on the hot and muggy but sunlit streets of Hong Kong today. At a small orchid shop on a crowded downtown street, where brilliant red and purple blossoms waited for buyers, customers bustled in and out, few in masks.
Wong Chung-man, the 64-year-old manager, said the number of shoppers in the store had plunged from 120 a day in the winter to fewer than 10 at the height of the SARS outbreak, but had almost fully recovered in the last few days.
With the lifting of the travel advisory, he said optimistically, "everyone will not be afraid — everything will be good."
By KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG, May 24 — The World Health Organization's advisory against travel here, reviled as a curse on the region's economy, has now been lifted, but economic growth may not fully rebound quickly.
Removal of the advisory brought jubilation here on Friday night. Happy crowds thronged bars and restaurants. Most of the people out celebrating had shed the masks that had become a symbol of Hong Kong over the past two months because of the outbreak of SARS.
Advertisement
Luk Pon-cheung, a 58-year-old tailor who works a foot-cranked sewing machine in a tiny stall next to a steep alley here, said this morning that he was overjoyed by the prospect of an end to the outbreak, which has hurt his business and so many others.
"My heart felt very happy," he said. "I was so excited."
There was more good news this afternoon, when Hong Kong health officials announced that no new SARS infections had been detected in the preceding 24 hours. It was the first time that had happened since the government began releasing daily figures in mid-March.
Yet government officials, business executives and economists here caution that the lifting of the advisory by itself would not restore this city's former vibrancy.
The first problem is that Hong Kong remains on the World Health Organization's list of areas that have had new infections of SARS within the last 20 days.
The health agency removed the travel advisory for Hong Kong after officials here provided evidence that practically all recent cases occurred among people who were known to have been exposed to the disease and had been quarantined in their homes before they started feeling sick and before they could infect others.
But up to four new cases a day have been reported for the last week among such people, mostly family members of previous SARS patients.
The Hong Kong government has set aside $128 million for a global marketing campaign to resuscitate Hong Kong's paralyzed tourist industry. But the government here does not plan to start a big appeal to foreign tourists until Hong Kong is off the list of infected areas, a government spokesman said today. This may mean waiting until July or August, he added.
Business travel, in many ways more important to the Hong Kong economy, has already started to revive. Big banks like HSBC and other multinationals with large operations here have already started lifting their restrictions on traveling to Hong Kong.
On Friday, the health agency also lifted its advisory against travel to neighboring Guangdong Province in southern China, where the outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, is believed to have started in November. Business executives all over the world have been waiting to visit their factories and suppliers in Guangdong.
Many such travelers are accustomed to staying in Hong Kong and have met with bankers, shipping companies, warehouse operators and other trade-related businesses based here, between short trips to factories in Guangdong Province.
Guangdong is China's most prosperous region and has the country's biggest concentration of factories, with exports now exceeding South Korea's, although the region around Shanghai is starting to catch up.
Guangdong has become the world's biggest center of shoe production and one of the biggest apparel-producing regions, and had drawn a constant stream of visitors from New York's garment industry until the outbreak.
With the lifting of the advisory, "we have had some inquiries already," said Nigel Roberts, the general manager of the Great Eagle Hotel in Kowloon, which caters to the garment industry. "We're going to go from a base of practically nothing," he added, "so we have to rebuild our business again."
The biggest question here is whether SARS has been completely contained. The W.H.O. lifted its travel advisory for Toronto on April 29 and removed the city from its list of infected areas last week, but Canadian health officials said on Friday that they had identified more than 20 possible new cases.
Hong Kong shares with mainland China one of the world's busiest land borders, and SARS has not yet been controlled in northern China, where the Chinese government reported 34 new cases today. Further, many travelers passing through Hong Kong to Guangdong Province are from Taiwan, which reported 10 more cases today.
Dr. Margaret Chan, Hong Kong's health director, warned that the struggle here was not over. "We must stay vigilant and take measures to avoid contracting the disease and prevent its spread," she said.
To make matters worse, Hong Kong's two main rivals as bases for international companies, Singapore and Shanghai, have each had far fewer cases of SARS this spring. That was apparently partly luck, but possibly also because Singapore was much more aggressive in quarantining people who might be infected.
Repeated warnings in the past week by American officials that SARS, like many respiratory diseases, might fade away in late spring but then return in autumn were perhaps the most worrying news.
"If this thing is going to come back in the fall, as some people are suggesting, there's going to be some permanent damage" to the Hong Kong economy, said William Belchere, an Asia economist with J. P. Morgan Chase.
Guangdong would be less affected than Hong Kong by a return of SARS because it relies mostly on manufacturing, which has not been disrupted so much by the presence of the disease, Mr. Belchere said. Hong Kong depends more on businesses that provide services, and such businesses depend on public confidence, which SARS can undermine.
But such worries seemed far from most people's minds on the hot and muggy but sunlit streets of Hong Kong today. At a small orchid shop on a crowded downtown street, where brilliant red and purple blossoms waited for buyers, customers bustled in and out, few in masks.
Wong Chung-man, the 64-year-old manager, said the number of shoppers in the store had plunged from 120 a day in the winter to fewer than 10 at the height of the SARS outbreak, but had almost fully recovered in the last few days.
With the lifting of the travel advisory, he said optimistically, "everyone will not be afraid — everything will be good."
Saturday, May 24, 2003
KILLER EXOTIC DISH INGREDIENT
A Hong Kong virologist, Professor Malik Peiris, who heads the team which first identified the Sars coronavirus, said yesterday that as long as the food was properly cooked, the virus should be killed.
However, he said, it was obviously being shed from the wild animal, and someone could come into contact with it while the live animal was being handled.
One of China's first confirmed Sars patients, Huang Xingchu, 34, worked as a cook in a Shenzhen restaurant.
Prof Yuen said strict controls should be put in place to ensure civets and other game animals were raised and sold on without putting people at risk of infection.
"If you cannot control further jumping of such viruses from animals to humans, the same epidemic can occur again - so it is very important that we have ways of controlling the rearing, the slaughtering and the selling of these wild game animals."
"This is a good step forward," said John Oxford, an expert in virology at Queen Mary School of Medicine in London. "Now we can start putting barriers between the people and the cats to stop it, and further viruses, coming across."
Earlier this week, Chandra Wickramasinghe, of Cardiff's Centre for Astrobiology, suggested the Sars virus may even have fallen to Earth from space, but this is not a view widely shared by scientists.
Prof Yuen and his team believe the virus jumped straight from civets to humans, but say other animals may also have been involved in transmission.
"It may not be the end of the story," said Professor Oxford. "It might well have jumped from another animal into the civets, and it will take a lot of work to sort that out."
The Sars epidemic is believed to be coming under control in Hong Kong, and yesterday the World Health Organisation withdrew its warning against travel to Hong Kong and Guangdong.
Taiwan is now reporting the highest number of new infections, bringing the total for the region to 483. Worldwide, 4,212 people remain infected with the disease.
A Hong Kong virologist, Professor Malik Peiris, who heads the team which first identified the Sars coronavirus, said yesterday that as long as the food was properly cooked, the virus should be killed.
However, he said, it was obviously being shed from the wild animal, and someone could come into contact with it while the live animal was being handled.
One of China's first confirmed Sars patients, Huang Xingchu, 34, worked as a cook in a Shenzhen restaurant.
Prof Yuen said strict controls should be put in place to ensure civets and other game animals were raised and sold on without putting people at risk of infection.
"If you cannot control further jumping of such viruses from animals to humans, the same epidemic can occur again - so it is very important that we have ways of controlling the rearing, the slaughtering and the selling of these wild game animals."
"This is a good step forward," said John Oxford, an expert in virology at Queen Mary School of Medicine in London. "Now we can start putting barriers between the people and the cats to stop it, and further viruses, coming across."
Earlier this week, Chandra Wickramasinghe, of Cardiff's Centre for Astrobiology, suggested the Sars virus may even have fallen to Earth from space, but this is not a view widely shared by scientists.
Prof Yuen and his team believe the virus jumped straight from civets to humans, but say other animals may also have been involved in transmission.
"It may not be the end of the story," said Professor Oxford. "It might well have jumped from another animal into the civets, and it will take a lot of work to sort that out."
The Sars epidemic is believed to be coming under control in Hong Kong, and yesterday the World Health Organisation withdrew its warning against travel to Hong Kong and Guangdong.
Taiwan is now reporting the highest number of new infections, bringing the total for the region to 483. Worldwide, 4,212 people remain infected with the disease.
SERENA IN DISGUISE
She started to giggle again. "Not far though. We left and moved down the street. Literally ten minutes away." They have never been rebellious girls by nature. They still strongly adhere to their Jehovah's Witness faith among other philosophies held dear by the family. "Really, this whole world: being a tennis player, being famous, it's crazy. It really is. I think I would have lost my mind without it. Really. Now I realise what's most important. If not, I think I'd be off my rocker like lots of other people."
Like Michael Jackson, I said. Which was the wrong thing to say because the Williams sisters are friends with Michael Jackson. Serena went and had dinner with him after winning the Nasdaq 100 Open in Miami in March. "I like Mike," said Venus, three times.
She has tennis in clear perspective. It may be the sport at which she excels and from which she has earned well over $10 million in prize money alone, but it is not her whole life. "It's not the whole world and if people are talking against you, this is not very important.
I realise what's most important is my religion, my health, my family and having some fun." She achieved the fun bit at Wimbledon last year by going out in London in heavy disguise. Green coat, black scarf, black boots. "I was standing in line at Madame Tussauds eating candy. I had a great time," she said with a little shriek of delight. No one recognised her at all.
And yet, here she is, part of a revolutionary duo, globally famous and statuesque. How could you miss her? There is definitely a self-effacing part to her soul. I asked her about wanting to be a Hollywood film star. "Oh that wasn't me," she recoiled in horror. "That was Serena. I'd rather be behind the scenes. One time I did a personality test and it told me that I was introverted, intuitive, a whole bunch of stuff, but especially that I did so much organising in my head that sometimes I didn't bother to see things through. I know that's a weakness that runs in Dad's side of the family and I'm really working hard on it."
Is there any clue in here about her relationship to tennis? There are times, take the Wimbledon final last year, when she just seems to lose interest. When the groundstrokes no longer pound but perfidiously bound beyond the court in all directions. Her control goes.
Her will goes. But it is not out of spite or bitterness. The abiding picture of last year's French Open was Venus, grinning with delight, taking family snaps of Serena with the trophy. Perhaps in her head she has already won the Grand Slams and so finds the required effort difficult to dredge in reality. Perhaps the protective streak in her towards her little sister has deflated her desire.
Certainly, the trauma of her parents splitting up three years ago has not left any particular scars. All the sisters agree on that. "I wasn't really upset. I was 20 at the time. For whatever reason, it wasn't a big deal."
"By that time, we had all moved out anyway," Isha said. "So it was kind of like, OK. You know, we still talk to both of them. As we were all adults, we understood that's the way things happen sometimes."
So Venus is head of her two-woman household in Florida, and a responsible one. "I'm usually running the house. I pay the bills, I get things pressure cleaned, I get the locks changed, whatever." I look astounded. Don't multi-millionairesses have butlers to do these things?
"She's the organiser," said Isha, impatiently. "Don't you listen to what we've been telling you?" Everybody laughed. A small dog - and I mean small enough to sit in a teacup - bounds out from under a chair. Venus scoops him up in one hand to kiss him. This is "Little Man", a much loved, very fortunate, well-travelled companion.
The Williams sisters have been accused of arrogance but it is not apparent now. This is, admittedly, on a practice court under a Mediterranean sky but when Serena just brushed by it was not to regale the world with her brilliance but to lament the fact that the curtsey has gone out of Wimbledon. She is really annoyed. "It took me years to learn how to do it," she said, performing an elegant bob as illustration.
They are black pioneers but don't make an issue of the fact. If you ask them whether they have transformed their sport like black sprinters have risen to the unassailable domination of athletics, Venus will only say: "I don't know if black players are better suited to tennis. I only know that I am better suited to tennis. It's a tough sport. Not only is it about mental toughness, you have to be one hundred percent confident and extremely technical. If your technique's off, goodbye to the trophy."
Is it goodbye or hello French Open? "Last year I don't feel I played well. I think I'm playing better this year, even coming back from my stomach muscle pull." And who will be the danger, apart from Serena, of course? "What did Martin Luther King say? 'I don't fear anybody."
Isha corrected her. "I don't fear any man. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."
"Well, I haven't seen the glory," said Venus, to be strictly accurate. "But there's no need to be afraid." Only plenty of reason for players to be afraid of her. "If they like," she said, mildly.
She started to giggle again. "Not far though. We left and moved down the street. Literally ten minutes away." They have never been rebellious girls by nature. They still strongly adhere to their Jehovah's Witness faith among other philosophies held dear by the family. "Really, this whole world: being a tennis player, being famous, it's crazy. It really is. I think I would have lost my mind without it. Really. Now I realise what's most important. If not, I think I'd be off my rocker like lots of other people."
Like Michael Jackson, I said. Which was the wrong thing to say because the Williams sisters are friends with Michael Jackson. Serena went and had dinner with him after winning the Nasdaq 100 Open in Miami in March. "I like Mike," said Venus, three times.
She has tennis in clear perspective. It may be the sport at which she excels and from which she has earned well over $10 million in prize money alone, but it is not her whole life. "It's not the whole world and if people are talking against you, this is not very important.
I realise what's most important is my religion, my health, my family and having some fun." She achieved the fun bit at Wimbledon last year by going out in London in heavy disguise. Green coat, black scarf, black boots. "I was standing in line at Madame Tussauds eating candy. I had a great time," she said with a little shriek of delight. No one recognised her at all.
And yet, here she is, part of a revolutionary duo, globally famous and statuesque. How could you miss her? There is definitely a self-effacing part to her soul. I asked her about wanting to be a Hollywood film star. "Oh that wasn't me," she recoiled in horror. "That was Serena. I'd rather be behind the scenes. One time I did a personality test and it told me that I was introverted, intuitive, a whole bunch of stuff, but especially that I did so much organising in my head that sometimes I didn't bother to see things through. I know that's a weakness that runs in Dad's side of the family and I'm really working hard on it."
Is there any clue in here about her relationship to tennis? There are times, take the Wimbledon final last year, when she just seems to lose interest. When the groundstrokes no longer pound but perfidiously bound beyond the court in all directions. Her control goes.
Her will goes. But it is not out of spite or bitterness. The abiding picture of last year's French Open was Venus, grinning with delight, taking family snaps of Serena with the trophy. Perhaps in her head she has already won the Grand Slams and so finds the required effort difficult to dredge in reality. Perhaps the protective streak in her towards her little sister has deflated her desire.
Certainly, the trauma of her parents splitting up three years ago has not left any particular scars. All the sisters agree on that. "I wasn't really upset. I was 20 at the time. For whatever reason, it wasn't a big deal."
"By that time, we had all moved out anyway," Isha said. "So it was kind of like, OK. You know, we still talk to both of them. As we were all adults, we understood that's the way things happen sometimes."
So Venus is head of her two-woman household in Florida, and a responsible one. "I'm usually running the house. I pay the bills, I get things pressure cleaned, I get the locks changed, whatever." I look astounded. Don't multi-millionairesses have butlers to do these things?
"She's the organiser," said Isha, impatiently. "Don't you listen to what we've been telling you?" Everybody laughed. A small dog - and I mean small enough to sit in a teacup - bounds out from under a chair. Venus scoops him up in one hand to kiss him. This is "Little Man", a much loved, very fortunate, well-travelled companion.
The Williams sisters have been accused of arrogance but it is not apparent now. This is, admittedly, on a practice court under a Mediterranean sky but when Serena just brushed by it was not to regale the world with her brilliance but to lament the fact that the curtsey has gone out of Wimbledon. She is really annoyed. "It took me years to learn how to do it," she said, performing an elegant bob as illustration.
They are black pioneers but don't make an issue of the fact. If you ask them whether they have transformed their sport like black sprinters have risen to the unassailable domination of athletics, Venus will only say: "I don't know if black players are better suited to tennis. I only know that I am better suited to tennis. It's a tough sport. Not only is it about mental toughness, you have to be one hundred percent confident and extremely technical. If your technique's off, goodbye to the trophy."
Is it goodbye or hello French Open? "Last year I don't feel I played well. I think I'm playing better this year, even coming back from my stomach muscle pull." And who will be the danger, apart from Serena, of course? "What did Martin Luther King say? 'I don't fear anybody."
Isha corrected her. "I don't fear any man. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."
"Well, I haven't seen the glory," said Venus, to be strictly accurate. "But there's no need to be afraid." Only plenty of reason for players to be afraid of her. "If they like," she said, mildly.
PARALYSED BY PARANOIA
By Kathy Marks in Singapore
The first sneeze sent a ripple of consternation through the sparsely populated aircraft bound for Singapore. By the fourth, my fellow passengers were recoiling in horror. After boarding the plane without a hint of a sniffle, I was erupting like Mount Vesuvius half-way through the flight.
I felt light-headed; was it tiredness or the prospect of visiting one of the global hotspots for severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars)? At the airport, passengers filed past a thermal scanner that detects high temperatures. Thankfully, no alarm sounded. "How are you feeling today?" inquired a notice. "Any fever, cough, chest pain, shortness of breath?" Masked immigration officers stamped our passports.
The epidemic may be peaking in Singapore but the city-state is still gripped by paranoia. Residents take their temperatures obsessively and avoid, where possible, contact with other people. Shopping centres are eerily quiet, as are swimming pools and restaurants. Face masks are de rigueur.
In Othman bin Ghani's taxi, a sticker is affixed to the dashboard like a badge of honour. It carries today's date and proclaims him fighting fit. Like all of the city's taxi drivers, he goes to a clinic twice a day to have his temperature taken. On a shelf by the passenger seat is a can of anti-bacterial spray with which he disinfects his cab morning and night.
Despite these measures, business has halved. Tourists are shunning Singapore, and locals are wary about taking cabs. Mr Bin Ghani worries about his children. "It can kill you just like that, it's worse than HIV," he says. "We wash our hands all the time, drink lots of water, try to keep healthy."
Singapore has recorded 206 cases of Sars, the world's fourth highest total after China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The death toll rose to 29 after a woman succumbed on Wednesday.
The epidemic is the worst crisis in the history of the tightly regimented city state, and Singapore's response has been robust. A six-month jail sentence awaits citizens who flout stern home quarantine rules. Children must pack a thermometer in their school satchel with paper and pens. Singapore's already squeaky clean public toilets are being upgraded to Elysian standards of hygiene.
At the Traders Hotel, near Orchard Road, guests must fill in a health declaration when checking in. The hotel - which is four-fifths empty and has slashed its rates - is the proud recipient of "the Cool Singapore Hotel Gold Standard Award for Best Practice in Sars prevention". Staff receive twice daily temperature checks and rooms are disinfected every day.
The hospitality industry is not the only sector suffering. The sprawling Pasir Panjang fruit and vegetable market was forced to close for two weeks last month, with 2,400 traders and family contacts confined at home after a dozen cases of Sars were traced to it. The complex has reopened, but it now resembles a fortress, with a metal fence and heavy security.
At the entrance, I filled in yet another form declaring myself free of Sars symptoms. A masked security guard stuck a thermometer in my ear and gave me a blue sticker to wear. Inside, there was little of the usual hustle and bustle of an Asian market. Traders stood in huddles, smoking morosely, surveying their sacks of fresh ginger and cabbages.
"Business is very bad," said Guan Peck, at Man Muat Lee Trading, writing up his accounts with a furrowed brow. "People are not coming to the market. It's too much trouble." Next door, at the Friendly Vegetarian Food Supplier, Serene Lee said: "Even the delivery people are afraid to come inside. But it's actually the safest place in Singapore because everything has been checked." The usually secretive government is making a great show of being open about the impact of Sars, and has set up a website containing all the latest informationabout the epidemic. This week a television station dedicated to the subject of Sars was launched. It is not compelling viewing.
By Kathy Marks in Singapore
The first sneeze sent a ripple of consternation through the sparsely populated aircraft bound for Singapore. By the fourth, my fellow passengers were recoiling in horror. After boarding the plane without a hint of a sniffle, I was erupting like Mount Vesuvius half-way through the flight.
I felt light-headed; was it tiredness or the prospect of visiting one of the global hotspots for severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars)? At the airport, passengers filed past a thermal scanner that detects high temperatures. Thankfully, no alarm sounded. "How are you feeling today?" inquired a notice. "Any fever, cough, chest pain, shortness of breath?" Masked immigration officers stamped our passports.
The epidemic may be peaking in Singapore but the city-state is still gripped by paranoia. Residents take their temperatures obsessively and avoid, where possible, contact with other people. Shopping centres are eerily quiet, as are swimming pools and restaurants. Face masks are de rigueur.
In Othman bin Ghani's taxi, a sticker is affixed to the dashboard like a badge of honour. It carries today's date and proclaims him fighting fit. Like all of the city's taxi drivers, he goes to a clinic twice a day to have his temperature taken. On a shelf by the passenger seat is a can of anti-bacterial spray with which he disinfects his cab morning and night.
Despite these measures, business has halved. Tourists are shunning Singapore, and locals are wary about taking cabs. Mr Bin Ghani worries about his children. "It can kill you just like that, it's worse than HIV," he says. "We wash our hands all the time, drink lots of water, try to keep healthy."
Singapore has recorded 206 cases of Sars, the world's fourth highest total after China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The death toll rose to 29 after a woman succumbed on Wednesday.
The epidemic is the worst crisis in the history of the tightly regimented city state, and Singapore's response has been robust. A six-month jail sentence awaits citizens who flout stern home quarantine rules. Children must pack a thermometer in their school satchel with paper and pens. Singapore's already squeaky clean public toilets are being upgraded to Elysian standards of hygiene.
At the Traders Hotel, near Orchard Road, guests must fill in a health declaration when checking in. The hotel - which is four-fifths empty and has slashed its rates - is the proud recipient of "the Cool Singapore Hotel Gold Standard Award for Best Practice in Sars prevention". Staff receive twice daily temperature checks and rooms are disinfected every day.
The hospitality industry is not the only sector suffering. The sprawling Pasir Panjang fruit and vegetable market was forced to close for two weeks last month, with 2,400 traders and family contacts confined at home after a dozen cases of Sars were traced to it. The complex has reopened, but it now resembles a fortress, with a metal fence and heavy security.
At the entrance, I filled in yet another form declaring myself free of Sars symptoms. A masked security guard stuck a thermometer in my ear and gave me a blue sticker to wear. Inside, there was little of the usual hustle and bustle of an Asian market. Traders stood in huddles, smoking morosely, surveying their sacks of fresh ginger and cabbages.
"Business is very bad," said Guan Peck, at Man Muat Lee Trading, writing up his accounts with a furrowed brow. "People are not coming to the market. It's too much trouble." Next door, at the Friendly Vegetarian Food Supplier, Serene Lee said: "Even the delivery people are afraid to come inside. But it's actually the safest place in Singapore because everything has been checked." The usually secretive government is making a great show of being open about the impact of Sars, and has set up a website containing all the latest informationabout the epidemic. This week a television station dedicated to the subject of Sars was launched. It is not compelling viewing.
CIVET CONNECTION
Scientists investigating the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) virus believe they have solved the mystery of its origin after tracing it to the civet cat, a wild animal that is regarded as a delicacy in southern China.
Investigations into a range of farm and domestic animals in the region over the past month had failed to disclose the virus until it turned up in several animals belonging to a sub- species of the cat.
The finding, if confirmed, will help prevent further outbreaks of the disease if the Chinese authorities use the discovery to impose tougher controls on the farming, sale and slaughter of the animals.
The virus has also been found in the faeces of one raccoon dog, a member of the dog family native to eastern Asia. Antibodies against the virus were also found in the dog and in a badger that was examined.
The sale and consumption of endangered species in China is illegal, but the law is widely flouted. As well as being eaten, the pungent smelling civet is valued for its glandular extracts, which are used in the perfume industry, and for its fur.
Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, the head of the department of microbiology at the University of Hong Kong, who announced the discovery yesterday, said: "From genetic information, it is highly likely that the virus jumped from civet cats to humans."
Professor Yuen said civet cats carried huge amounts of the virus in their stools and respiratory secretions but remained unaffected themselves. This is an important sign that they are the reservoir of the virus and have not merely been infected by another animal.
He called for stringent monitoring of the civet cat trade to prevent more outbreaks. "During the process of rearing, slaughtering or even during the process of cooking the animals, there may be cross-contamination of a lot of items and a lot of surfaces," he said.
Professor Yuen said scientists had isolated four virus samples from the faeces and respiratory secretions of the cats and they were "very similar" to the coronavirus found in Sars patients.
The civet cat belongs to a large group of mostly nocturnal mammals that also includes the mongoose. They are not true cats, but are related to the cat family.
The announcement of the discovery came as the World Health Organisation lifted its travel ban on Hong Kong and China's Guangdong province. The news was greeted with relief in Hong Kong, where the economy has been severely hit by the ban imposed on 2 April. The rate of daily new infections in the territory has remained in single figures for the past 20 days.
Sars has infected more than 8,000 people and caused almost 700 deaths worldwide since it was first recognised in February. The cause of the highly infectious disease, which has spread to 28 countries, was identified two months ago as a member of the coronavirus family - a cause of the common cold - that had never been seen before in humans.
Scientists said then that the virus had probably jumped the species barrier from animals to humans before mutating to become transmissible from human to human. Suspicion initially fell on animals in close contact with human populations in Guangdong, where Sars is thought to have originated in November, including chickens, ducks, pigs and cows.
Professor Ian Jones of the School of Animal and Microbial Science at the University of Reading welcomed yesterday's announcement that the animal source had been found. "It looks very encouraging," he said. "It is the first claim and it will need to be followed by confirmation through sequencing of the virus from that animal."
Scientists investigating the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) virus believe they have solved the mystery of its origin after tracing it to the civet cat, a wild animal that is regarded as a delicacy in southern China.
Investigations into a range of farm and domestic animals in the region over the past month had failed to disclose the virus until it turned up in several animals belonging to a sub- species of the cat.
The finding, if confirmed, will help prevent further outbreaks of the disease if the Chinese authorities use the discovery to impose tougher controls on the farming, sale and slaughter of the animals.
The virus has also been found in the faeces of one raccoon dog, a member of the dog family native to eastern Asia. Antibodies against the virus were also found in the dog and in a badger that was examined.
The sale and consumption of endangered species in China is illegal, but the law is widely flouted. As well as being eaten, the pungent smelling civet is valued for its glandular extracts, which are used in the perfume industry, and for its fur.
Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, the head of the department of microbiology at the University of Hong Kong, who announced the discovery yesterday, said: "From genetic information, it is highly likely that the virus jumped from civet cats to humans."
Professor Yuen said civet cats carried huge amounts of the virus in their stools and respiratory secretions but remained unaffected themselves. This is an important sign that they are the reservoir of the virus and have not merely been infected by another animal.
He called for stringent monitoring of the civet cat trade to prevent more outbreaks. "During the process of rearing, slaughtering or even during the process of cooking the animals, there may be cross-contamination of a lot of items and a lot of surfaces," he said.
Professor Yuen said scientists had isolated four virus samples from the faeces and respiratory secretions of the cats and they were "very similar" to the coronavirus found in Sars patients.
The civet cat belongs to a large group of mostly nocturnal mammals that also includes the mongoose. They are not true cats, but are related to the cat family.
The announcement of the discovery came as the World Health Organisation lifted its travel ban on Hong Kong and China's Guangdong province. The news was greeted with relief in Hong Kong, where the economy has been severely hit by the ban imposed on 2 April. The rate of daily new infections in the territory has remained in single figures for the past 20 days.
Sars has infected more than 8,000 people and caused almost 700 deaths worldwide since it was first recognised in February. The cause of the highly infectious disease, which has spread to 28 countries, was identified two months ago as a member of the coronavirus family - a cause of the common cold - that had never been seen before in humans.
Scientists said then that the virus had probably jumped the species barrier from animals to humans before mutating to become transmissible from human to human. Suspicion initially fell on animals in close contact with human populations in Guangdong, where Sars is thought to have originated in November, including chickens, ducks, pigs and cows.
Professor Ian Jones of the School of Animal and Microbial Science at the University of Reading welcomed yesterday's announcement that the animal source had been found. "It looks very encouraging," he said. "It is the first claim and it will need to be followed by confirmation through sequencing of the virus from that animal."
Friday, May 23, 2003
1,000 DIE IN ALGIERS TREMOR
BOUMERDES, Algeria (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Algerians spent a second night sleeping in the open as rescue workers tore frantically at rubble for survivors from an earthquake that killed more than 1,000 people and injured 7,000.
Stunned and weeping families were given hope Thursday about 17 hours after the quake hit the capital Algiers and other parts of northern Algeria. A man was pulled alive from beneath a flattened four-story apartment block in the city of Boumerdes.
Rescuers, many working with bare hands while others used bulldozers and cranes, said hundreds could still be under debris from the quake that struck the capital and towns to the east along a populous Mediterranean coastal strip Wednesday night.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who toured quake-hit areas and canceled trips to France and Nigeria later this month, declared three days of national mourning from Friday.
The quake, 6.7 on the Richter scale, sent many terrified people running into the streets. Others were killed when their homes collapsed in the quake, Algeria's worst in more than 20 years and felt as far away as Spain.
Some Algerians angrily accused builders of erecting unsafe structures in a known quake-prone region.
The worst devastation was in the city of Reghaia, just east of Algiers, where a 10-storey block of 78 apartments collapsed. About 250 bodies had been pulled out so far, rescuers said.
Television footage from a helicopter flying over quake-hit areas showed some buildings standing fully or largely intact amid others completely flattened.
While rescue efforts went on round the clock, food and water were running low for the homeless and those staying in the open for fear of more tremors.
Some had blankets and tents provided by the authorities, but others had nothing. Electricity, gas and water supplies and phone lines had been severed in some of the worst-hit areas.
Some people were getting increasingly worried about lack of water, food and shelter.
"We're still waiting for authorities to provide us with milk for babies. People are also receiving too few tents," said Djamel, 45.
Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said: "I can assure you that all the persons who have been made homeless will get decent new housing very soon."
Rescue services urged people not to go back to their homes unless they were safe and said they should keep radios turned on for further announcements.
Officials said security forces were on alert to stop looting in a country riven by a decade of violence by Islamist rebels. The strife has cost more than 100,000 lives and burdened an economy potentially wealthy from natural gas and oil exports.
Hospitals in many towns found it almost impossible to cope. In some areas, the injured had to be treated in the open air. State television showed dozens of bodies in lines under sheets and blankets.
Nearly 24 hours after the quake struck, Algerian state radio quoted Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni as saying the death toll stood at 1,092 and 6,782 people had been injured. Zerhouni said it was still a preliminary figure.
Former colonial ruler France, Germany, Spain, Britain and neighboring Morocco were among countries to dispatch search and medical teams as Algeria appealed to its citizens for blood donors and stepped up efforts to help the homeless.
In Algiers, some 60 buildings were destroyed. Most of Algeria's 32 million people live in the north, away from the Sahara desert. Algiers is home to at least 2.6 million.
In Rouiba, a relatively prosperous city some 30 km (20 miles) from the eastern edge of Algiers, one building after another was reduced to rubble.
Bulouenes Sidiali, a resident of one block that collapsed to its foundations, said the building was only six months old.
"My friend went crazy this morning when he found his wife dead," Sidiali said. "The government must bring the owners of this firm to justice. They are criminals."
In Boumerdes, media reports said some people had jumped from windows when the quake struck.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake's epicenter had been 70 km (45 miles) east of Algiers. It said the quake was the biggest to hit Algeria since 1980, when one measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale demolished more than 70 percent of the city of El Asnam, west of Algiers. It was subsequently rebuilt as Chlef.
BOUMERDES, Algeria (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Algerians spent a second night sleeping in the open as rescue workers tore frantically at rubble for survivors from an earthquake that killed more than 1,000 people and injured 7,000.
Stunned and weeping families were given hope Thursday about 17 hours after the quake hit the capital Algiers and other parts of northern Algeria. A man was pulled alive from beneath a flattened four-story apartment block in the city of Boumerdes.
Rescuers, many working with bare hands while others used bulldozers and cranes, said hundreds could still be under debris from the quake that struck the capital and towns to the east along a populous Mediterranean coastal strip Wednesday night.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who toured quake-hit areas and canceled trips to France and Nigeria later this month, declared three days of national mourning from Friday.
The quake, 6.7 on the Richter scale, sent many terrified people running into the streets. Others were killed when their homes collapsed in the quake, Algeria's worst in more than 20 years and felt as far away as Spain.
Some Algerians angrily accused builders of erecting unsafe structures in a known quake-prone region.
The worst devastation was in the city of Reghaia, just east of Algiers, where a 10-storey block of 78 apartments collapsed. About 250 bodies had been pulled out so far, rescuers said.
Television footage from a helicopter flying over quake-hit areas showed some buildings standing fully or largely intact amid others completely flattened.
While rescue efforts went on round the clock, food and water were running low for the homeless and those staying in the open for fear of more tremors.
Some had blankets and tents provided by the authorities, but others had nothing. Electricity, gas and water supplies and phone lines had been severed in some of the worst-hit areas.
Some people were getting increasingly worried about lack of water, food and shelter.
"We're still waiting for authorities to provide us with milk for babies. People are also receiving too few tents," said Djamel, 45.
Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said: "I can assure you that all the persons who have been made homeless will get decent new housing very soon."
Rescue services urged people not to go back to their homes unless they were safe and said they should keep radios turned on for further announcements.
Officials said security forces were on alert to stop looting in a country riven by a decade of violence by Islamist rebels. The strife has cost more than 100,000 lives and burdened an economy potentially wealthy from natural gas and oil exports.
Hospitals in many towns found it almost impossible to cope. In some areas, the injured had to be treated in the open air. State television showed dozens of bodies in lines under sheets and blankets.
Nearly 24 hours after the quake struck, Algerian state radio quoted Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni as saying the death toll stood at 1,092 and 6,782 people had been injured. Zerhouni said it was still a preliminary figure.
Former colonial ruler France, Germany, Spain, Britain and neighboring Morocco were among countries to dispatch search and medical teams as Algeria appealed to its citizens for blood donors and stepped up efforts to help the homeless.
In Algiers, some 60 buildings were destroyed. Most of Algeria's 32 million people live in the north, away from the Sahara desert. Algiers is home to at least 2.6 million.
In Rouiba, a relatively prosperous city some 30 km (20 miles) from the eastern edge of Algiers, one building after another was reduced to rubble.
Bulouenes Sidiali, a resident of one block that collapsed to its foundations, said the building was only six months old.
"My friend went crazy this morning when he found his wife dead," Sidiali said. "The government must bring the owners of this firm to justice. They are criminals."
In Boumerdes, media reports said some people had jumped from windows when the quake struck.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake's epicenter had been 70 km (45 miles) east of Algiers. It said the quake was the biggest to hit Algeria since 1980, when one measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale demolished more than 70 percent of the city of El Asnam, west of Algiers. It was subsequently rebuilt as Chlef.
IRAQ WINS 14-0
(SPOILS SHARED :)
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council voted 14-0 on Thursday to end 13-year-old crippling sanctions on Iraq and gave the United States and Britain extraordinary powers to run the country and its lucrative oil industry.
Despite misgivings by many council members, the vote was a victory for the Bush administration, which is struggling to bring order to Iraq and improve its devastated economy after invading in March to oust President Saddam Hussein.
Washington made last-minute concessions opening the door to an independent, albeit limited, U.N. role and the possibility of U.N. weapons inspectors returning to post-war Iraq.
Syria, Iraq's neighbor and the sole Arab member of the Security Council, did not cast a vote and left its seat empty, but announced seven hours later it would have voted "Yes." Its U.N. ambassador, Mikhail Wehbe, told Reuters in Damascus he had not been given enough time to consider the resolution.
Its belated backing for the resolution "can in no manner be interpreted as a change of Syria's position of rejecting the war on Iraq as an illegitimate war," Syrian envoy Fayssal Mekdad said in New York.
"The lifting of sanctions marks a momentous event for the people of Iraq," U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte told the council after the vote. "It is time for the Iraqi people to benefit from their natural resources."
The sanctions were imposed shortly after Saddam Hussein's troops invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Critics said they had little effect on the lifestyle of Iraq's leaders while impoverishing average Iraqis.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he would name a special representative for Iraq shortly. Diplomats said Sergio Vieira de Mello, currently the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.S. favorite for the job, could be offered the new post as early as Friday.
HELP THE IRAQI PEOPLE
France, Germany, China and Russia, who had opposed the U.S.-led war, voted for the resolution but had reservations.
"The war that we did not want, and the majority of the council did not want, has taken place," Germany's U.N. ambassador, Gunter Pleuger, told reporters. "We cannot undo history. We are now in a situation where we have to take action for the sake of the Iraqi people."
The resolution transfers legal control over Iraq's oil immediately from the United Nations to the United States and Britain. Oil revenues will go into a new Iraqi Development Fund for rebuilding the country, controlled by the two countries and overseen by an international board.
The resolution exempts Iraq's oil revenues from claims by foreign creditors until an internationally recognized Iraqi government is established.
In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said he would fight to retain oil contracts and other contracts signed by the old Iraqi government. One of his deputies, Yuri Fedotov, will travel to New York next week to discuss the contracts, diplomats said.
Without U.N. action to lift the sanctions, the United States would have been in a legal no man's land, with many firms unwilling to engage in trade with Iraq, which has the world's second largest oil reserves. Some 8.3 million barrels of Iraqi oil stored at the Turkish port of Ceyhan can now be exported.
After weeks of wrangling, the final compromise in the resolution was an agreement by Washington for a Security Council review within 12 months on the implementation of the resolution.
WEAPONS INSPECTORS
The United States resisted demands by many countries, including Britain, for the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq to ascertain whether it had weapons of mass destruction, as charged by the United States.
Washington has signaled willingness to have inspectors from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, responsible for nuclear materials, return to Iraq but just to check a known nuclear site after reports of looting.
Britain's U.N. ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, however, told reporters he saw a "strong potential" for the use of U.N. inspectors to confirm "Iraq has reached its full state of disarmament and perhaps in the future, in the long-term, monitoring and verification."
President Bush cited what he called evidence of Saddam's biological, nuclear and chemical weapons programs as one reason for the invasion. U.S. teams searching for the dangerous weapons have not yet found any.
In Paris for a meeting of ministers from the Group of Eight industrial nations, Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "This is a wonderful day for the people of Iraq."
Also in Paris, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: "We disagreed about whether military action was appropriate. It took place, Saddam has gone." (Irwin Arieff and Bill Rigby contributed to this report)
(SPOILS SHARED :)
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council voted 14-0 on Thursday to end 13-year-old crippling sanctions on Iraq and gave the United States and Britain extraordinary powers to run the country and its lucrative oil industry.
Despite misgivings by many council members, the vote was a victory for the Bush administration, which is struggling to bring order to Iraq and improve its devastated economy after invading in March to oust President Saddam Hussein.
Washington made last-minute concessions opening the door to an independent, albeit limited, U.N. role and the possibility of U.N. weapons inspectors returning to post-war Iraq.
Syria, Iraq's neighbor and the sole Arab member of the Security Council, did not cast a vote and left its seat empty, but announced seven hours later it would have voted "Yes." Its U.N. ambassador, Mikhail Wehbe, told Reuters in Damascus he had not been given enough time to consider the resolution.
Its belated backing for the resolution "can in no manner be interpreted as a change of Syria's position of rejecting the war on Iraq as an illegitimate war," Syrian envoy Fayssal Mekdad said in New York.
"The lifting of sanctions marks a momentous event for the people of Iraq," U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte told the council after the vote. "It is time for the Iraqi people to benefit from their natural resources."
The sanctions were imposed shortly after Saddam Hussein's troops invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Critics said they had little effect on the lifestyle of Iraq's leaders while impoverishing average Iraqis.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he would name a special representative for Iraq shortly. Diplomats said Sergio Vieira de Mello, currently the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.S. favorite for the job, could be offered the new post as early as Friday.
HELP THE IRAQI PEOPLE
France, Germany, China and Russia, who had opposed the U.S.-led war, voted for the resolution but had reservations.
"The war that we did not want, and the majority of the council did not want, has taken place," Germany's U.N. ambassador, Gunter Pleuger, told reporters. "We cannot undo history. We are now in a situation where we have to take action for the sake of the Iraqi people."
The resolution transfers legal control over Iraq's oil immediately from the United Nations to the United States and Britain. Oil revenues will go into a new Iraqi Development Fund for rebuilding the country, controlled by the two countries and overseen by an international board.
The resolution exempts Iraq's oil revenues from claims by foreign creditors until an internationally recognized Iraqi government is established.
In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said he would fight to retain oil contracts and other contracts signed by the old Iraqi government. One of his deputies, Yuri Fedotov, will travel to New York next week to discuss the contracts, diplomats said.
Without U.N. action to lift the sanctions, the United States would have been in a legal no man's land, with many firms unwilling to engage in trade with Iraq, which has the world's second largest oil reserves. Some 8.3 million barrels of Iraqi oil stored at the Turkish port of Ceyhan can now be exported.
After weeks of wrangling, the final compromise in the resolution was an agreement by Washington for a Security Council review within 12 months on the implementation of the resolution.
WEAPONS INSPECTORS
The United States resisted demands by many countries, including Britain, for the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq to ascertain whether it had weapons of mass destruction, as charged by the United States.
Washington has signaled willingness to have inspectors from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, responsible for nuclear materials, return to Iraq but just to check a known nuclear site after reports of looting.
Britain's U.N. ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, however, told reporters he saw a "strong potential" for the use of U.N. inspectors to confirm "Iraq has reached its full state of disarmament and perhaps in the future, in the long-term, monitoring and verification."
President Bush cited what he called evidence of Saddam's biological, nuclear and chemical weapons programs as one reason for the invasion. U.S. teams searching for the dangerous weapons have not yet found any.
In Paris for a meeting of ministers from the Group of Eight industrial nations, Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "This is a wonderful day for the people of Iraq."
Also in Paris, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: "We disagreed about whether military action was appropriate. It took place, Saddam has gone." (Irwin Arieff and Bill Rigby contributed to this report)
Thursday, May 22, 2003
BRITISH HAWKS In ACEH CONTROVERSY
Indonesia's military chief warned Britain yesterday not to try to dictate how he should use his country's British-made Hawk fighter jets in its operations against separatists in Aceh.
General Endriartono Sutarto told the Guardian during a visit to Aceh that he was not concerned about promises made before the purchase.
"In order to cover the whole region and complete the job, I am going to use what I have," he said. "After all, I have paid already."
He confirmed that the Hawks had been used offensively, but he said the fighters had not yet been used in air-to-ground attacks.
He gave no promises about their future use. "If we don't use them [for air-to-ground operations], we don't use them," he said. "But who knows?"
Britain's ambassador to Indonesia, Richard Gozney, said yesterday that Indonesia's defence minister, Matori Abdul Djalil, had reassured him on Tuesday about how the Hawks would be used.
"The defence minister confirmed that the Hawks would not be used in a ground-attack role," he said - but he made no mention of their use in other offensive roles.
Britain sold the fighters to Jakarta on the understanding that they would not be used in offensive operations in Indonesia.
In the first three days of renewed hostilities in Aceh, the Indonesian military repeatedly used four of the aircraft against the Free Aceh Movement.
Indonesia's military chief warned Britain yesterday not to try to dictate how he should use his country's British-made Hawk fighter jets in its operations against separatists in Aceh.
General Endriartono Sutarto told the Guardian during a visit to Aceh that he was not concerned about promises made before the purchase.
"In order to cover the whole region and complete the job, I am going to use what I have," he said. "After all, I have paid already."
He confirmed that the Hawks had been used offensively, but he said the fighters had not yet been used in air-to-ground attacks.
He gave no promises about their future use. "If we don't use them [for air-to-ground operations], we don't use them," he said. "But who knows?"
Britain's ambassador to Indonesia, Richard Gozney, said yesterday that Indonesia's defence minister, Matori Abdul Djalil, had reassured him on Tuesday about how the Hawks would be used.
"The defence minister confirmed that the Hawks would not be used in a ground-attack role," he said - but he made no mention of their use in other offensive roles.
Britain sold the fighters to Jakarta on the understanding that they would not be used in offensive operations in Indonesia.
In the first three days of renewed hostilities in Aceh, the Indonesian military repeatedly used four of the aircraft against the Free Aceh Movement.
ACEH MASSACRE
Villagers say children shot in raid on rebels
John Aglionby in Cot Raboe
The Guardian
Indonesian forces were yesterday accused of massacring civilians during a raid against separatist guerillas in Aceh province on Monday.
The 18 killings, which included the reported shooting at point-blank range of two 12-year-old boys, happened during dawn raids in four villages in Bireuen district, villagers alleged.
Residents of Cot Raboe, a village six miles from the town of Bireuen, set in a copse of tropical trees and surrounded by rice paddies and shrimp ponds, said they were woken at 5.30am by the sound of gunfire outside their homes.
Musafari, a community leader, said: "There were well over 100 soldiers charging through the village, and a helicopter hovering overhead.
"We were all too afraid to come out of our houses to see what was really going on."
Another villager, Sayful, said the soldiers barged into his house. "They told me to get up and then they just pulled me out of the house and started hitting me with a piece of wood," he said.
"They kept asking where the rebels were. I said there weren't any, but they didn't listen."
The shooting lasted for more than 30 minutes. The villagers said that when they emerged from their homes they found that one young man had been killed in the village and three teenagers and two 12-year-olds lay dead in the rice paddies and fish ponds.
"My son, Annas Nazir Abdurrahman, had been shot four times, in the head, chest, thigh and calf," said Mohammed Nazir of one of the youngest victims.
Mr Nazir found his son's body in an unplanted, water-filled paddy field, about 10 metres from the bamboo and thatch hut from where he and his four friends had been guarding the fields and ponds.
Two others were found in the same paddy fields.
Sarjani bin Amaruddin, another villager, said: "I was chased into one of the shrimp ponds, with bullets pinging all around me. But then instead of killing me they pulled me out and started beating me with their rifles."
He had an inverted V-shape of bruises and cuts the length of his torso.
Similar scenes were reported at about the same time in the neighbouring villages of Cot Bate, where eight people were killed, and Pata Mamplam and Pulo Naleng, where two people were killed in each village. Residents said they believed the helicopter was coordinating the operation.
Witnesses in Cot Bate said many of the victims, who were buried within hours of their deaths in accordance with Islamic tradition, were shot at close range.
"We have counted that at least 30 people were beaten or tortured," Musafari said. "The ambulance crews told us the soldiers blocked them from entering to look after the wounded."
Indonesia's military commander in Aceh, Major General Endang Suwarya, said there were no civilian casualties in the province yesterday but that nine separatists had been killed in military operations in Bireuen district.
Indonesia launched its military campaign against the Free Aceh Movement (Gam) on Monday after last-minute talks to save a ceasefire signed five months ago collapsed. Military commanders have stressed that civilians would not be targeted but that Gam members would be "crushed" if they did not surrender.
People in the raided villages denied that any of the victims were Gam members.
Mahmood Malik, whom Gam considers its prime minister, urged the UN to intervene immediately. He called for an international fact-finding mission to be sent to the province to investigate the "crimes against humanity that have been committed".
Lieutenant Colonel Yani Basuki, a military spokesman, refused to comment on the incident. "We are still checking the reports," he said. "We will have more details tomorrow."
But Mr Nazir said none of his son's killers would ever face justice. "There's no way we are going to complain," he said. "We are far too afraid of the Indonesian military. There's nothing we can do."
Gen Endang also said that he was imposing restrictions on the media, reversing earlier promises of free access. He said journalists who quoted Gam spokesmen would be banned from the province.
Villagers say children shot in raid on rebels
John Aglionby in Cot Raboe
The Guardian
Indonesian forces were yesterday accused of massacring civilians during a raid against separatist guerillas in Aceh province on Monday.
The 18 killings, which included the reported shooting at point-blank range of two 12-year-old boys, happened during dawn raids in four villages in Bireuen district, villagers alleged.
Residents of Cot Raboe, a village six miles from the town of Bireuen, set in a copse of tropical trees and surrounded by rice paddies and shrimp ponds, said they were woken at 5.30am by the sound of gunfire outside their homes.
Musafari, a community leader, said: "There were well over 100 soldiers charging through the village, and a helicopter hovering overhead.
"We were all too afraid to come out of our houses to see what was really going on."
Another villager, Sayful, said the soldiers barged into his house. "They told me to get up and then they just pulled me out of the house and started hitting me with a piece of wood," he said.
"They kept asking where the rebels were. I said there weren't any, but they didn't listen."
The shooting lasted for more than 30 minutes. The villagers said that when they emerged from their homes they found that one young man had been killed in the village and three teenagers and two 12-year-olds lay dead in the rice paddies and fish ponds.
"My son, Annas Nazir Abdurrahman, had been shot four times, in the head, chest, thigh and calf," said Mohammed Nazir of one of the youngest victims.
Mr Nazir found his son's body in an unplanted, water-filled paddy field, about 10 metres from the bamboo and thatch hut from where he and his four friends had been guarding the fields and ponds.
Two others were found in the same paddy fields.
Sarjani bin Amaruddin, another villager, said: "I was chased into one of the shrimp ponds, with bullets pinging all around me. But then instead of killing me they pulled me out and started beating me with their rifles."
He had an inverted V-shape of bruises and cuts the length of his torso.
Similar scenes were reported at about the same time in the neighbouring villages of Cot Bate, where eight people were killed, and Pata Mamplam and Pulo Naleng, where two people were killed in each village. Residents said they believed the helicopter was coordinating the operation.
Witnesses in Cot Bate said many of the victims, who were buried within hours of their deaths in accordance with Islamic tradition, were shot at close range.
"We have counted that at least 30 people were beaten or tortured," Musafari said. "The ambulance crews told us the soldiers blocked them from entering to look after the wounded."
Indonesia's military commander in Aceh, Major General Endang Suwarya, said there were no civilian casualties in the province yesterday but that nine separatists had been killed in military operations in Bireuen district.
Indonesia launched its military campaign against the Free Aceh Movement (Gam) on Monday after last-minute talks to save a ceasefire signed five months ago collapsed. Military commanders have stressed that civilians would not be targeted but that Gam members would be "crushed" if they did not surrender.
People in the raided villages denied that any of the victims were Gam members.
Mahmood Malik, whom Gam considers its prime minister, urged the UN to intervene immediately. He called for an international fact-finding mission to be sent to the province to investigate the "crimes against humanity that have been committed".
Lieutenant Colonel Yani Basuki, a military spokesman, refused to comment on the incident. "We are still checking the reports," he said. "We will have more details tomorrow."
But Mr Nazir said none of his son's killers would ever face justice. "There's no way we are going to complain," he said. "We are far too afraid of the Indonesian military. There's nothing we can do."
Gen Endang also said that he was imposing restrictions on the media, reversing earlier promises of free access. He said journalists who quoted Gam spokesmen would be banned from the province.
JET ATTACK FOILED
Three men were arrested in Saudi Arabia as they were about to hijack an airliner and crash it into a Saudi skyscraper, security sources said yesterday.
The plot was revealed as a taped message claiming to be from al-Qa'eda's second-in-command called for fresh attacks against the West, including Britain.
The men, believed to be Moroccans, were held in Jeddah as they queued to board a flight to Sudan. They were apparently behaving suspiciously at passport clearance. When asked if they were travelling together, one said no and one said yes.
Under interrogation, one of them said they had planned to crash the airliner into the National Commercial Bank, the only skyscraper in Jeddah, Saudi's commercial capital.
Hundreds of Saudi special forces were seen in the north of Jeddah yesterday.
Three men were arrested in Saudi Arabia as they were about to hijack an airliner and crash it into a Saudi skyscraper, security sources said yesterday.
The plot was revealed as a taped message claiming to be from al-Qa'eda's second-in-command called for fresh attacks against the West, including Britain.
The men, believed to be Moroccans, were held in Jeddah as they queued to board a flight to Sudan. They were apparently behaving suspiciously at passport clearance. When asked if they were travelling together, one said no and one said yes.
Under interrogation, one of them said they had planned to crash the airliner into the National Commercial Bank, the only skyscraper in Jeddah, Saudi's commercial capital.
Hundreds of Saudi special forces were seen in the north of Jeddah yesterday.
TREMOR ROCKS ALGIERS
ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) -- A powerful earthquake shook the Algerian capital region Wednesday night, killing more than 250 people and injuring 1,672, state-run radio said.
The quake was deadliest in towns east of the capital of Algiers, particularly in Rouiba, where more than 100 people died, the report said. About 15 people were killed in Algiers.
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The Interior Ministry had reported earlier that at least 95 died. The ministry did not immediately confirm the radio report.
The quake hit about 7:45 p.m., cutting electricity in some neighborhoods of Algiers and causing panic throughout the city. It was followed by at least three aftershocks.
Algerian officials gave the magnitude at 5.4, but the U.S. Geological Survey in Washington put it at 6.7. The cause of the discrepancy wasn't immediately clear.
State radio said that most of the deaths occurred near the epicenter, located near Phenia, about 40 miles east of Algiers. It said 1,672 people were injured.
The radio report said 104 people were killed in the town of Rouiba, 20 miles east of Algiers. In addition, 50 died in Boumerdes, about six miles from the epicenter; 42 were killed in the town of Ain Taya, about 20 miles from the capital.
Two more deaths were counted in the Berber capital of Tizi Ouzou, and one more in Bouira, both further east. The radio said several others were killed, but did not give a location for those deaths.
``I saw the earth tremble. I saw people jump from the window of the hotel,'' Icham Mouiss of Boumerdes told French television station LCI.
Interior Minister Nouredine Yazid Zerhouni traveled to Phenia and Boumerdes. A call for blood donors was issued and medical personnel were asked to pitch in and help.
A hospital in the town of Baghlia was seriously damaged by the quake and numerous roofs in towns around the epicenter caved in, the Interior Ministry said.
In Algiers, cracks appeared in a number of buildings. LCI air footage of a stairwell in one building that had crumbled to the ground. People thronged the streets, afraid to enter their buildings.
Butch Kinerney, spokesman for the U.S. Geological Survey, called it a shallow earthquake that was capable of causing ``significant damage and injuries.''
He said that in 1980, hundreds of people were killed in a magnitude 7.7 quake in the same region. ``This is the largest since then,'' Kinerney said.
ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) -- A powerful earthquake shook the Algerian capital region Wednesday night, killing more than 250 people and injuring 1,672, state-run radio said.
The quake was deadliest in towns east of the capital of Algiers, particularly in Rouiba, where more than 100 people died, the report said. About 15 people were killed in Algiers.
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The Interior Ministry had reported earlier that at least 95 died. The ministry did not immediately confirm the radio report.
The quake hit about 7:45 p.m., cutting electricity in some neighborhoods of Algiers and causing panic throughout the city. It was followed by at least three aftershocks.
Algerian officials gave the magnitude at 5.4, but the U.S. Geological Survey in Washington put it at 6.7. The cause of the discrepancy wasn't immediately clear.
State radio said that most of the deaths occurred near the epicenter, located near Phenia, about 40 miles east of Algiers. It said 1,672 people were injured.
The radio report said 104 people were killed in the town of Rouiba, 20 miles east of Algiers. In addition, 50 died in Boumerdes, about six miles from the epicenter; 42 were killed in the town of Ain Taya, about 20 miles from the capital.
Two more deaths were counted in the Berber capital of Tizi Ouzou, and one more in Bouira, both further east. The radio said several others were killed, but did not give a location for those deaths.
``I saw the earth tremble. I saw people jump from the window of the hotel,'' Icham Mouiss of Boumerdes told French television station LCI.
Interior Minister Nouredine Yazid Zerhouni traveled to Phenia and Boumerdes. A call for blood donors was issued and medical personnel were asked to pitch in and help.
A hospital in the town of Baghlia was seriously damaged by the quake and numerous roofs in towns around the epicenter caved in, the Interior Ministry said.
In Algiers, cracks appeared in a number of buildings. LCI air footage of a stairwell in one building that had crumbled to the ground. People thronged the streets, afraid to enter their buildings.
Butch Kinerney, spokesman for the U.S. Geological Survey, called it a shallow earthquake that was capable of causing ``significant damage and injuries.''
He said that in 1980, hundreds of people were killed in a magnitude 7.7 quake in the same region. ``This is the largest since then,'' Kinerney said.
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
GOVERNMENT OR CRIME SYNDICATE?
He alleged Kim Jong-Il's regime, desperate for hard currency, produced large quantities of heroin and methamphetamines.
Opium was sent to a pharmaceutical plant in Chungjin city, and "processed and refined into heroin under the supervision of seven to eight drug experts from Thailand", he said.
"This is all done under the direct control and supervision of the central government."
Senator Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois, who called the hearing, charged that North Korea was "essentially a crime syndicate with nuclear bombs".
"The role of a government is to protect its citizens from criminals. But, in the case of North Korea, it appears the government is the criminal."
Academic experts at the hearing showed data suggesting a huge shortfall between Pyongyang's expenditure, especially on its military, and its trade balance, suggesting Kim Jong-Il was using ill-gotten gains to prop up his regime.
"Like the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Kim Jong-Il regime resembles a cult-based, family-run criminal enterprise rather than a government," Larry Wortzel, a policy specialist at the conservative Heritage Foundation told the hearing.
He alleged Kim Jong-Il's regime, desperate for hard currency, produced large quantities of heroin and methamphetamines.
Opium was sent to a pharmaceutical plant in Chungjin city, and "processed and refined into heroin under the supervision of seven to eight drug experts from Thailand", he said.
"This is all done under the direct control and supervision of the central government."
Senator Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois, who called the hearing, charged that North Korea was "essentially a crime syndicate with nuclear bombs".
"The role of a government is to protect its citizens from criminals. But, in the case of North Korea, it appears the government is the criminal."
Academic experts at the hearing showed data suggesting a huge shortfall between Pyongyang's expenditure, especially on its military, and its trade balance, suggesting Kim Jong-Il was using ill-gotten gains to prop up his regime.
"Like the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Kim Jong-Il regime resembles a cult-based, family-run criminal enterprise rather than a government," Larry Wortzel, a policy specialist at the conservative Heritage Foundation told the hearing.
Monday, May 19, 2003
PRIVATE LYNCHING
By John Kampfner
Private Jessica Lynch became an icon of the war, and the story of her capture by the Iraqis and her rescue by US special forces became one of the great patriotic moments of the conflict.
But her story is one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived.
There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound
Dr Harith a-Houssona
Private Lynch, a 19-year-old army clerk from Palestine, West Virginia, was captured when her company took a wrong turning just outside Nasiriya and was ambushed.
Nine of her comrades were killed and Private Lynch was taken to the local hospital, which at the time was swarming with Fedayeen. Eight days later US special forces stormed the hospital, capturing the "dramatic" events on a night vision camera.
They were said to have come under fire from inside and outside the building, but they made it to Lynch and whisked her away by helicopter.
Dr Harith a-Houssona
Dr a-Houssona found no bullet wounds
Reports claimed that she had stab and bullet wounds and that she had been slapped about on her hospital bed and interrogated.
But Iraqi doctors in Nasiriya say they provided the best treatment they could for the soldier in the midst of war. She was assigned the only specialist bed in the hospital and one of only two nurses on the floor.
"I examined her, I saw she had a broken arm, a broken thigh and a dislocated ankle," said Dr Harith a-Houssona, who looked after her.
Jessica amnesia
"There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound - only road traffic accident. They want to distort the picture. I don't know why they think there is some benefit in saying she has a bullet injury."
Witnesses told us that the special forces knew that the Iraqi military had fled a day before they swooped on the hospital.
Dr Anmar Uday
Dr Uday was surprised by the manner of the rescue
"We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital," said Dr Anmar Uday, who worked at the hospital.
"It was like a Hollywood film. They cried 'go, go, go', with guns and blanks without bullets, blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show for the American attack on the hospital - action movies like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan."
There was one more twist. Two days before the snatch squad arrived, Harith had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance.
But as the ambulance, with Private Lynch inside, approached a checkpoint American troops opened fire, forcing it to flee back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch.
Some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen
General Vincent Brooks
When footage of the rescue was released, General Vincent Brooks, US spokesman in Doha, said: "Some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen, loyal to a creed that they know that they'll never leave a fallen comrade."
The American strategy was to ensure the right television footage by using embedded reporters and images from their own cameras, editing the film themselves.
The Pentagon had been influenced by Hollywood producers of reality TV and action movies, notably the man behind Black Hawk Down, Jerry Bruckheimer.
Bruckheimer advised the Pentagon on the primetime television series "Profiles from the Front Line", that followed US forces in Afghanistan in 2001. That approached was taken on and developed on the field of battle in Iraq.
As for Private Lynch, her status as cult hero is stronger than ever. Internet auction sites list Jessica Lynch items, from an oil painting with an opening bid of $200 to a $5 "America Loves Jessica Lynch" fridge magnet.
But doctors now say she has no recollection of the whole episode and probably never will.
By John Kampfner
Private Jessica Lynch became an icon of the war, and the story of her capture by the Iraqis and her rescue by US special forces became one of the great patriotic moments of the conflict.
But her story is one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived.
There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound
Dr Harith a-Houssona
Private Lynch, a 19-year-old army clerk from Palestine, West Virginia, was captured when her company took a wrong turning just outside Nasiriya and was ambushed.
Nine of her comrades were killed and Private Lynch was taken to the local hospital, which at the time was swarming with Fedayeen. Eight days later US special forces stormed the hospital, capturing the "dramatic" events on a night vision camera.
They were said to have come under fire from inside and outside the building, but they made it to Lynch and whisked her away by helicopter.
Dr Harith a-Houssona
Dr a-Houssona found no bullet wounds
Reports claimed that she had stab and bullet wounds and that she had been slapped about on her hospital bed and interrogated.
But Iraqi doctors in Nasiriya say they provided the best treatment they could for the soldier in the midst of war. She was assigned the only specialist bed in the hospital and one of only two nurses on the floor.
"I examined her, I saw she had a broken arm, a broken thigh and a dislocated ankle," said Dr Harith a-Houssona, who looked after her.
Jessica amnesia
"There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound - only road traffic accident. They want to distort the picture. I don't know why they think there is some benefit in saying she has a bullet injury."
Witnesses told us that the special forces knew that the Iraqi military had fled a day before they swooped on the hospital.
Dr Anmar Uday
Dr Uday was surprised by the manner of the rescue
"We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital," said Dr Anmar Uday, who worked at the hospital.
"It was like a Hollywood film. They cried 'go, go, go', with guns and blanks without bullets, blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show for the American attack on the hospital - action movies like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan."
There was one more twist. Two days before the snatch squad arrived, Harith had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance.
But as the ambulance, with Private Lynch inside, approached a checkpoint American troops opened fire, forcing it to flee back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch.
Some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen
General Vincent Brooks
When footage of the rescue was released, General Vincent Brooks, US spokesman in Doha, said: "Some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen, loyal to a creed that they know that they'll never leave a fallen comrade."
The American strategy was to ensure the right television footage by using embedded reporters and images from their own cameras, editing the film themselves.
The Pentagon had been influenced by Hollywood producers of reality TV and action movies, notably the man behind Black Hawk Down, Jerry Bruckheimer.
Bruckheimer advised the Pentagon on the primetime television series "Profiles from the Front Line", that followed US forces in Afghanistan in 2001. That approached was taken on and developed on the field of battle in Iraq.
As for Private Lynch, her status as cult hero is stronger than ever. Internet auction sites list Jessica Lynch items, from an oil painting with an opening bid of $200 to a $5 "America Loves Jessica Lynch" fridge magnet.
But doctors now say she has no recollection of the whole episode and probably never will.
BIKE SALES BOOM
Business in the venerable Qianmen Bicycle Store in downtown Beijing was rarely as good as during the first days after leaders admitted the city was menaced by the SARS epidemic. Lin Xiaotong, who has worked in the store for 22 years, said, "We sold more bikes during those few days than I can remember."
In ordinary times the store sold 30 or so bicycles a day, he said, but in the first week after the government made its admission, the store sold as many as 119 in a day.
With the disease around, a lot of people who normally catch buses and the subway decided to ride bikes, he said. "Now we're back to selling about 30 a day, but I guess that's still doing a lot better than other shops around here," Mr. Lin added, gesturing to the long row of mostly closed storefronts along Qianmen Street.
The Qianmen neighborhood lies on the southern side of Tiananmen Square. In ordinary times it is one of Beijing's busiest shopping streets, bustling with crowds of bargain-hunting Chinese tourists. But now, with the square and Qianmen largely deserted, nearly all the retailers are losing money. Mr. Lin, 40, said that not even the political upheavals of 1989 froze the city like this epidemic.
He lives in an apartment with his wife, daughter and retired parents. His wife, Song Xiujie, mostly stays at home, because business at her building-supplies company has dried up. Mr. Lin said he worried most about his daughter, Linlin, 14, whose classes stopped because of the epidemic. Now she studies at home, listening to lessons broadcast on the radio, but she is not allowed out to play or visit friends.
"Kids are getting a bit fed up at being locked inside," Mr. Line said. "Mine always wants to go out. But we explain to her that these are special times."
Mr. Lin does not wear a mask at work and said he had never felt panicked. "You've got to keep a level head," he said, "When I go home I wash my hands but I don't change clothes. But I just go between home and work — no friends, no visitors, no restaurants."
The bicycle business is not the only one that has benefited from SARS. Many of the residents avoiding public transportation are buying cars for the first time. China Automotive News reported that since late April car sales in Beijing had reached 800 a day, double the usual number.
But Mr. Lin said he did not believe the SARS epidemic would encourage more people to continue riding bicycles after it passed. After SARS goes away, he said, it will be the same as before. "Riding a bike is too sweaty in summer," he said, laughing ruefully. "People will go back to their buses and taxis."
Business in the venerable Qianmen Bicycle Store in downtown Beijing was rarely as good as during the first days after leaders admitted the city was menaced by the SARS epidemic. Lin Xiaotong, who has worked in the store for 22 years, said, "We sold more bikes during those few days than I can remember."
In ordinary times the store sold 30 or so bicycles a day, he said, but in the first week after the government made its admission, the store sold as many as 119 in a day.
With the disease around, a lot of people who normally catch buses and the subway decided to ride bikes, he said. "Now we're back to selling about 30 a day, but I guess that's still doing a lot better than other shops around here," Mr. Lin added, gesturing to the long row of mostly closed storefronts along Qianmen Street.
The Qianmen neighborhood lies on the southern side of Tiananmen Square. In ordinary times it is one of Beijing's busiest shopping streets, bustling with crowds of bargain-hunting Chinese tourists. But now, with the square and Qianmen largely deserted, nearly all the retailers are losing money. Mr. Lin, 40, said that not even the political upheavals of 1989 froze the city like this epidemic.
He lives in an apartment with his wife, daughter and retired parents. His wife, Song Xiujie, mostly stays at home, because business at her building-supplies company has dried up. Mr. Lin said he worried most about his daughter, Linlin, 14, whose classes stopped because of the epidemic. Now she studies at home, listening to lessons broadcast on the radio, but she is not allowed out to play or visit friends.
"Kids are getting a bit fed up at being locked inside," Mr. Line said. "Mine always wants to go out. But we explain to her that these are special times."
Mr. Lin does not wear a mask at work and said he had never felt panicked. "You've got to keep a level head," he said, "When I go home I wash my hands but I don't change clothes. But I just go between home and work — no friends, no visitors, no restaurants."
The bicycle business is not the only one that has benefited from SARS. Many of the residents avoiding public transportation are buying cars for the first time. China Automotive News reported that since late April car sales in Beijing had reached 800 a day, double the usual number.
But Mr. Lin said he did not believe the SARS epidemic would encourage more people to continue riding bicycles after it passed. After SARS goes away, he said, it will be the same as before. "Riding a bike is too sweaty in summer," he said, laughing ruefully. "People will go back to their buses and taxis."
GERM-FREE TAXIS
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
For the moment, Chen Hsin-juin is spending his days as a taxicab sanitizer.
The prospects are not long term, but that is all right with him. He is normally a dispatcher, but he is helping out the Taipei Taxicab Association, of which his father, Chen Den, is president.
Taipei's 30,000 taxi drivers are upset, the younger Mr. Chen said. Because of the epidemic, business is off by 50 percent, and it is not just the missing tourists.
"Local people are also afraid to take taxis or buses, because of fear of catching SARS," he said. "So they take their own vehicles — mostly motor scooters."
To calm people, the association offers a free "sanitizing service."
Hundreds of taxis lined up on one recent day, the drivers waiting their turn at a sanitizing station under the Ming Chuan Bridge.
As they pulled up parallel to the association's table, decked with its red-and-yellow flags, they were each handed a fresh surgical mask and a sticker reading "This Cab Has Been Sanitized."
Then the drivers were asked to roll down the windows and step out.
Mr. Chen, his big pump-action can and wand of the type usually used to spray pesticide hanging from his shoulder, leaned in the taxi and gave it a blast.
"We do the seats, the handles, anything the rider touches," he said. Actually, he pretty much sprayed the whole inside, from meter to rear window, and then gave the trunk a quick shot too.
Even after the drivers patted them dry, each cab retained the smell of a swimming pool — the spray is a 1 percent chlorine bleach solution the association found on the Taiwan Center for Disease Control Web site.
It all takes barely two minutes. "The drivers like it," Mr. Chen said. "Some say passengers prefer to hail cabs with the sticker."
And the passengers? "No complaints," he said. "Sometimes they say, `Good — my clothes are sanitized too."'
The service is costing the association about $700 a day.
Asked how long it would go on, Mr. Chen's father said: "We'll play it by ear — as long as it's popular. We've done 1,000 cabs already today."
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
For the moment, Chen Hsin-juin is spending his days as a taxicab sanitizer.
The prospects are not long term, but that is all right with him. He is normally a dispatcher, but he is helping out the Taipei Taxicab Association, of which his father, Chen Den, is president.
Taipei's 30,000 taxi drivers are upset, the younger Mr. Chen said. Because of the epidemic, business is off by 50 percent, and it is not just the missing tourists.
"Local people are also afraid to take taxis or buses, because of fear of catching SARS," he said. "So they take their own vehicles — mostly motor scooters."
To calm people, the association offers a free "sanitizing service."
Hundreds of taxis lined up on one recent day, the drivers waiting their turn at a sanitizing station under the Ming Chuan Bridge.
As they pulled up parallel to the association's table, decked with its red-and-yellow flags, they were each handed a fresh surgical mask and a sticker reading "This Cab Has Been Sanitized."
Then the drivers were asked to roll down the windows and step out.
Mr. Chen, his big pump-action can and wand of the type usually used to spray pesticide hanging from his shoulder, leaned in the taxi and gave it a blast.
"We do the seats, the handles, anything the rider touches," he said. Actually, he pretty much sprayed the whole inside, from meter to rear window, and then gave the trunk a quick shot too.
Even after the drivers patted them dry, each cab retained the smell of a swimming pool — the spray is a 1 percent chlorine bleach solution the association found on the Taiwan Center for Disease Control Web site.
It all takes barely two minutes. "The drivers like it," Mr. Chen said. "Some say passengers prefer to hail cabs with the sticker."
And the passengers? "No complaints," he said. "Sometimes they say, `Good — my clothes are sanitized too."'
The service is costing the association about $700 a day.
Asked how long it would go on, Mr. Chen's father said: "We'll play it by ear — as long as it's popular. We've done 1,000 cabs already today."
CABBIE BLUES
Driven to Credit Card to Pay the Essentials
By COLIN CAMPBELL
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."
Driven to Credit Card to Pay the Essentials
By COLIN CAMPBELL
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."
Saturday, May 17, 2003
TERROR CELLS AWAKEN
By DAVID JOHNSTON with DON VAN NATTA Jr.
WASHINGTON, May 16 — Leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda have reorganized bases of operations in at least a half-dozen locations, including Kenya, Sudan, Pakistan and Chechnya, senior counterterrorism officials said this week.
The leaders have begun to recruit new members, train the new followers and plan new attacks on Western targets in earnest, according to senior counterterrorism officials in Washington, Europe and the Middle East.
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As evidence of this, senior government officials pointed to the secret arrests in the United States in the last two months of two Arab men suspected of having been sent by senior leaders of Al Qaeda to scout targets for new terror attacks.
The two recently apprehended men, whom the officials would not identify, were said to be conducting "presurveillance" activities. They were part of a larger group of about six Qaeda followers arrested in recent months whose presence in the United States has led the authorities to conclude that the terrorist group remains determined to carry out attacks on American soil, officials said.
The previously undisclosed arrests, along with the deadly bombings in Morocco today and Saudi Arabia this week that bear the earmarks of Al Qaeda, provided what officials in the United States and overseas said were strong indications that Osama bin Laden's network remained a potent threat, despite setbacks like the capture in March of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the network's senior operational commander. "Definitely, their capability has been eroded," said one senior government official, discussing Al Qaeda's ability to carry out attacks. "But they are still a threat, they are still sophisticated, they are still fighting and they are still trying to strike in the United States."
Although Al Qaeda's role in the Riyadh bombings on Monday night has not yet been confirmed, senior counterterrorism officials interviewed this week in the United States and Europe said they suspected the Saudi attacks marked a resurgence from a period of dormancy that began with the American-led invasion of Iraq two months ago.
The officials cited troubling signs that Al Qaeda had opened new training outposts in East Africa and had energized its recruitment efforts.
They also said there was new intelligence indicating that Al Qaeda was in the final planning stages of new attacks, possibly involving aircraft. Britain and the United States issued stark warnings this week about possible terrorist strikes in Saudi Arabia and East Africa.
One government official said such evidence of renewed activity indicated a furious attempt to "re-establish themselves and send loud messages" to the West. The official said he believed that the bombings in Riyadh were an important first step toward accomplishing that goal.
A senior counterterrorism official estimated that Al Qaeda had 3,000 members, far fewer than in the late 1990's, when as many as 20,000 people trained at Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Other officials said numbers were necessarily imprecise because Al Qaeda had no clear membership standards. In the United States, scores of people have come to the attention of law enforcement officials who suspect them of terrorist connections, to Al Qaeda and other groups, officials said.
Some of the half-dozen or so recently arrested in the United States were said to have been studying possible locations for attacks on gasoline tanker trucks or suspension bridges. Others were in the United States awaiting future orders as "possible sleepers" or had transferred funds to other suspects. Officials said some of the men had been operating under the direction of Mr. Mohammed — who, after his arrest in Pakistan, is said to have confirmed their presence in the United States inspecting possible sites for terrorist attacks.
In the past, Mr. Mohammed was known to have sent other Qaeda operatives to the United States to undertake terrorist operations. Officials suspect that one of them was José Padilla, who in May 2002 was arrested in Chicago as he arrived from Zurich. He was accused of involvement in a plot to build a "dirty" bomb using conventional explosives and radiological materials.
By DAVID JOHNSTON with DON VAN NATTA Jr.
WASHINGTON, May 16 — Leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda have reorganized bases of operations in at least a half-dozen locations, including Kenya, Sudan, Pakistan and Chechnya, senior counterterrorism officials said this week.
The leaders have begun to recruit new members, train the new followers and plan new attacks on Western targets in earnest, according to senior counterterrorism officials in Washington, Europe and the Middle East.
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As evidence of this, senior government officials pointed to the secret arrests in the United States in the last two months of two Arab men suspected of having been sent by senior leaders of Al Qaeda to scout targets for new terror attacks.
The two recently apprehended men, whom the officials would not identify, were said to be conducting "presurveillance" activities. They were part of a larger group of about six Qaeda followers arrested in recent months whose presence in the United States has led the authorities to conclude that the terrorist group remains determined to carry out attacks on American soil, officials said.
The previously undisclosed arrests, along with the deadly bombings in Morocco today and Saudi Arabia this week that bear the earmarks of Al Qaeda, provided what officials in the United States and overseas said were strong indications that Osama bin Laden's network remained a potent threat, despite setbacks like the capture in March of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the network's senior operational commander. "Definitely, their capability has been eroded," said one senior government official, discussing Al Qaeda's ability to carry out attacks. "But they are still a threat, they are still sophisticated, they are still fighting and they are still trying to strike in the United States."
Although Al Qaeda's role in the Riyadh bombings on Monday night has not yet been confirmed, senior counterterrorism officials interviewed this week in the United States and Europe said they suspected the Saudi attacks marked a resurgence from a period of dormancy that began with the American-led invasion of Iraq two months ago.
The officials cited troubling signs that Al Qaeda had opened new training outposts in East Africa and had energized its recruitment efforts.
They also said there was new intelligence indicating that Al Qaeda was in the final planning stages of new attacks, possibly involving aircraft. Britain and the United States issued stark warnings this week about possible terrorist strikes in Saudi Arabia and East Africa.
One government official said such evidence of renewed activity indicated a furious attempt to "re-establish themselves and send loud messages" to the West. The official said he believed that the bombings in Riyadh were an important first step toward accomplishing that goal.
A senior counterterrorism official estimated that Al Qaeda had 3,000 members, far fewer than in the late 1990's, when as many as 20,000 people trained at Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Other officials said numbers were necessarily imprecise because Al Qaeda had no clear membership standards. In the United States, scores of people have come to the attention of law enforcement officials who suspect them of terrorist connections, to Al Qaeda and other groups, officials said.
Some of the half-dozen or so recently arrested in the United States were said to have been studying possible locations for attacks on gasoline tanker trucks or suspension bridges. Others were in the United States awaiting future orders as "possible sleepers" or had transferred funds to other suspects. Officials said some of the men had been operating under the direction of Mr. Mohammed — who, after his arrest in Pakistan, is said to have confirmed their presence in the United States inspecting possible sites for terrorist attacks.
In the past, Mr. Mohammed was known to have sent other Qaeda operatives to the United States to undertake terrorist operations. Officials suspect that one of them was José Padilla, who in May 2002 was arrested in Chicago as he arrived from Zurich. He was accused of involvement in a plot to build a "dirty" bomb using conventional explosives and radiological materials.
MOROCCAN MAYHEM
RABAT (Reuters) - Bombers killed more than 20 people in Morocco in the second major terror attack in a week, hours after President Bush warned of "killers on the loose."
The overnight blasts in Casablanca followed Monday's Saudi suicide bombings that killed 34 people in expatriate compounds and warnings that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda may strike again.
Britain, which earlier banned airliner flights to and from Kenya, warned its citizens of a "clear terrorist threat" in six other East African countries.
Friday night's blasts in Morocco's commercial capital, some of them car bombs, hit Jewish and Spanish targets and damaged the Belgian consulate, Morocco's official MAP news agency said.
"There are body parts all over the place," a Moroccan journalist told the BBC of the Spanish cultural center scene.
Moroccan Interior Minister Al Mustapha Sahel said 24 people -- mostly Moroccans -- were killed and 60 wounded in five blasts.
Earlier, Bush said the attacks in Saudi Arabia, which killed eight Americans, should make the world sit up and take notice.
"There are killers on the loose," he told reporters as terror alerts spread across the world.
"It is certainly a wake-up call to many that the war on terror continues, that we've still got a big task to protect the American people and others who love freedom from the designs and the will of these purveyors of hate," he said.
"CHATTER" AMONG SUSPECTS
A U.S. intelligence official said "chatter" among terror suspects picked up by U.S. eavesdropping appeared to be "more consistent, more repetitive" about another attack than it was before the Saudi bombings, which hit three housing compounds.
The Bush administration, which rejects suggestions that its invasion of Iraq was a distraction from the war on terror, says it has inflicted serious setbacks on al Qaeda, the group blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
"No one has pretended that al Qaeda is dead, but I think there's no question that over the last several months it has suffered some very serious blows and we have arrested some very important, key al Qaeda figures," U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said in Bosnia:
The latest terror alerts included warnings about dangers in Africa and Southeast Asia.
Kenya and other countries fearing for their tourist revenue accused Britain of over-reacting. Malaysia's outspoken prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, accused the United States of being "afraid of its own shadow."
But Britain extended its alert on Friday, warning of a "clear terrorist threat" in six of Kenya's neighbors -- Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda.
The United States also warned its citizens of a "credible threat" in the region. Kenya has been the target of two major terror attacks -- a 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing that killed 214 people and an attack last November on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa.
AL QAEDA SUSPECT
This week, Kenya reported sightings in the region of al Qaeda suspect Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, accused of masterminding the embassy and hotel bombings and a related attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner with a surface-to-air missile.
Security at Nairobi airport was increased on Friday. British Airways stopped its flights but other airlines still operated.
The bombings in Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter and a strategic U.S. ally, were perhaps the most clearly targeted at U.S. interests since September 11.
Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of bin Laden and most of the September 11 attackers. Bin Laden is hostile to the Saudi royal family's close ties to the United States.
Washington said on Thursday it had intelligence of a possible attack on foreign residential compounds in Jeddah, close to the U.S. consulate and King Fahd's summer palace.
In other developments, Pakistan was hit by multiple but minor bombings at Western-branded petrol stations on Thursday.
"We suspect there could be a connection between the Karachi attacks and the terrorist strikes in Saudi Arabia," said Aftab Sheikh, head of Karachi's provincial interior ministry.
Lebanon said on Thursday it had smashed a plot to attack the U.S. embassy in Beirut.
The head of Sierra Leone's U.N.-backed war crimes court said there was evidence al Qaeda was operating in West Africa.
Australia and New Zealand warned nationals to be on guard in Southeast Asia, a region haunted by last year's Bali bombings which killed more than 200 people.
Australia urged extreme caution in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, East Timor and Brunei.
