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Wai ©amecock Freeh, Reno defend government’s case against Wen Ho Lee by Michael J. Sniffen Associated PreIss WASHINGTON - FBI Director Louis Freeh and Attorney General Janet Reno defended the government’s case against nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee Tuesday, saying the prosecution would likely have succeeded if they had gone to trial. “The Department of Justice and the FBI stand by each and every one of the 59 counts in the indictment of Dr. Lee,” Freeh told the Senate Select In telligence and Judiciary committees. “Each of those counts could be proven in December 1999 and each of them could be proven today.” Freeh said a trial would have exposed some of the nation’s nuclear secrets and might not have revealed what the scien tist did with the information he down loaded on computer tapes. “The Department of Justice and the FBI concluded that this guilty plea, coupled with Lee’s agreement to submit to questioning under oath and to a polygraph, was our best opportunity to protect the national security by-finding out what happened to the seven miss ing tapes, as well as to the additional copies of the tapes that he now admitted to have made,” Freeh said. Reno and Freeh also denied accusa tions that Lee was ever taigeted because he is Asian-American. “There was no ef fort on anyone’s part to target Dr. Lee because of his race,” Reno said. Freeh and Reno are among a number of top federal officials to be questioned by senators who want know what led the government to hold Lee in solitary confinement for nine months on 59 charges, including downloading nuclear secrets onto computer tapes, while he was employed at the national weapons laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M. “I believe the FBI’s counterintelli gence investigation was a gravely flawed exercise characterized by inadequate re sources, lack of management attention and missed opportunities,” said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. “This is a textbook example of how not to conduct an investigation,” said Sea Richard Bryan, D-Nev. Prosecutors ultimately dropped all but one charge in a plea bargain, and Lee was released. Prosecutors have said they couldn’t let Lee tell someone else what he had done with the weapons secrets before he told the government. They point out that he spent six hours a day, four days a week in the courthouse with his lawyers prepar ing his defense. Lee walked free Sept. 13, sentenced to the time he had served awaiting trial, after he agreed to tell the government what he did with the tapes. His debrief ing had been scheduled for Tuesday but was postponed. The plea bargain caused the presid ing judge to apologize to Lee for his pre trial imprisonment and lambast the gov ernment for embarrassing “our entire nation.” President Clinton said he found it dif ficult to reconcile how the government could “keep someone in jail without bail, argue right up to the 11th hour that they’re a terrible risk, and then turn around and make that sort of plea agreement.” Lee, a U.S. citizen bom in Taiwan and educated in the United States, ini tially was an espionage suspect, the tar get of a federal probe into how China may have obtained secret nuclear war head blueprints. His supporters contend Lee was tar geted because he is Asian-American. Some are demanding a presidential pardon and an apology. Reno has refused to apologize to Lee but ordered an internal review of Justice Department actions after meeting with the president. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., is expect ed to continue the questioning Wednes day in his Judiciary subcommittee. Gene appears to increase risk of developing diabetes by Malcolm Ritter Associated Press NEW YORK - A previously unknown gene appears to influence the risk of developing diabetes, particularly in Mex ican-Americans, researchers say. Some scientists called the work a landmark in the effort to find genes in volved in common illnesses such as heart disease and schizophrenia. For diabetes, the work might lead to better prevention and treatment. The rate of diabetes among Hispan ic adults in the United States is nearly double that of white adults. Mexicans ac count for about 'wo-thirds of all Hispanics in the United States. The study focused on type 2 diabetes, the most common kind, which general ly shows up in adults and affects about 15 million Americans. If untreated, the disease can lead to blindness, kidney fail ure, heart attacks, stroke and amputa tions. Other genes have been implicated before in type 2 diabetes. But the new found gene is from a class that had not been linked to diabetes before, so it re veals a biological pathway to the disease that scientists didn’t know about. Further studies may provide insights that could lead to better treatments, said Graeme Bell of the University of Chica go and the Howard Hughes Medical In stitute. Bell presented the study with co authors in the October issue of the journal Nature Genetics. If confirmed, the finding might also help doctors identify susceptible people who might be able to delay or avoid the 1 disease through exercise, weight control and perhaps other measures. The gene tells the body how to make a protein called calpain-10. Such proteins ' cut other proteins, which either activates 1 or inactivates them. Like other genes, the calpain-10 gene 1 comes in subtly different forms. The 1 research indicates a heightened risk of * diabetes in people who inherit one par- 1 ticular form from one parent and anoth er particular form from the other parent. . The researchers calculated that this combination could roughly triple the risk of diabetes. They estimated that it played a role in 14 percent of cases in a sample of Mexican-Americans from Texas, but only 4 percent of cases in a European sample from Finland and Germany. The combination was less common in this European sample. Experts called the study important, but some said the statistical evidence does not prove the gene really affects the risk of diabetes. “It’s not an open-and-shut case,” said geneticist Leonid Kruglyak of the Fred Hutchison Cancer Center in Seattle. Dr. Steve Elbein, who studies dia betes genetics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, called the statistical results “real ly quite convincing. These investiga tors have done nearly everything that one can do to prove this gene alters diabetes risk.” The study conclusion is puzzling from a biological point of view for a variety of reasons, Elbein said, and “I have a hard time judging the biological importance of these data.” Kruglyak called the work ground breaking in terms of the more general challenge of finding susceptibility genes for common disorders like diabetes, heart disease or schizophrenia. These genes are hard to find because their effect is so subtle; rather than caus ing disease outright, they merely tip the scale of susceptibility. And different peo ale can be affected by different suscep .ibility genes. Bell and colleagues used a technique tailed “positional cloning.” It relies on statistical analysis and landmarks along thromosontes to zero in on target genes, vithout any prior knowledge about what he genes normally do. Up until now, this technique hasidt dentified any genes that make people ' nore susceptible to common forms of videspread, genetically complex disor lers, Kruglyak said. The researchers in he latest study have at least come clos r than other scientists to identifying a :ene with this technique, he said. Chavez works to remodel OPEC by Fabiola Sanchez Associated Press CARACAS, Venezuela - On the brink of collapse when oil prices plunged two years ago, a newly energized Or ganization of Petroleum Exporting Coun . tries has regained an assertive role on the global economic stage - thanks in no small part to Venezuela and its ebullient president, Hugo Chavez. Chavez, who defied world opinion in August by becoming the first head of state to visit Iraq’s Saddam Hussein since the 1991 Gulf War, has worked tirelessly to remodel the cartel into a consumer-friendly advocacy group as OPEC holds its second summit in its 40 year history Tuesday in Caracas. “This reunion isn’t only about oil,” Chavez declared in a national TV broadcast late Monday. While leaders of the OPEC were determined to achieve a fair price and market equilibrium for their product, they also were focusing on global poverty, foreign debts and un fair terms of trade for developing coun tries in their search “for a more just world,” he said. No production increases were ex pected at the summit, and most oil ex perts believe prices will remain high in the near future because of low invento ries and the fact that OPEC is produc ing at near capacity. Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, Ali Naimi, said the cartel may act before a Nov. 12 meeting in Vi enna if necessary as it pursues a price range of $22 to $28 a barrel. The index of crude oil prices that OPEC watches was $29.09 a barrel on Tuesday, down from $29.76. Oil ministers gave conflicting sig nals Tuesday. Algeria’s Chakib Khelil said OPEC could cut production by the second quarter of next year because “stocks are building and maybe there will be a decline in demand.” OPEC President Ali Rodriguez of Venezuela said it was “premature to talk about out put cuts in the second quarter of 2001.” Iran’s oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, said before leaving Tehran for Caracas that there were no plans to dis cuss production and supplies in Caracas. Back in 1998, when oil prices sank to $10 a barrel, OPEC, which produces 40 percent of the world’s oil, was mired in bickering over quota busting. Indus trialized nations, their economies buoyed by cheap oil, hardly noticed. Now they are, demanding this week at an International Monetary Fund meet ing in Prague, Czech Republic, that OPEC act to stabilize a gyrating oil mar ket that has seen prices reach 10-year highs and prompted protests and long gasoline lines in Europe. OPEC Secretary General Rilwanu Lukman of Nigeria said cartel members were surprised by the industrialized na dons’ refusal in Prague to cut taxes on oil products. OPEC views such taxes as the reason for high prices. OPEC has raised production to about 30 million barrels per day this year. “We have done our part. We hope they cooperate by lowering taxes,” Luk man said. Since his first election in 1998, Chavez has seized the stage at summit after summit to cajole fellow leaders of developing nations to unite and confront the perils of globalization. When oil prices fell in 1998, Venezuela plunged into a devastating re cession it is still struggling to escape. Un employment is officially 15 percent, while some 80 percent of Venezuela’s 23 million people live in poverty. Chavez said Monday that his gov ernment was following the footsteps of the late Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo, a Venezuelan eneigy minister who was a founding father of OPEC in 1960 and helped break the stranglehold of foreign oil companies on oil-producing nations. “And now, OPEC has arisen again,” Chavez said. Vice Foreign Minister Jorge Valero said earlier Monday that Chavez wanted “to open a new dialogue between producers and consumers,” obtain a bal ance between “fair prices and stable prices,” and create a platform at the OPEC summit to initiate a dialogue with consumer nations. REVERSAL OF FORTUNES Change in Venezuela’s economy over the past two years 1999 4 7% 2000 |“|.5% Key to Chavez’s success is Ro driguez, his oil minister and OPEC’s cur rent president, a one-time leftist guer rilla and later lawyer who has lobbied heavily for disciplined production to raise oil prices. In 1999, Rodriguez cut a deal with Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest producer, and non-OPEC mem ber Mexico to reduce production by 2 million barrels a day and reverse the slide in prices. That move encouraged the rest of OPEC’s 11 member nations to follow suit. Venezuela’s oil exports surged last year by 33 percent to $ 16 billion, and it expects to earn $26 billion this year. Venezuela’s economy, which shrank 7 percent last year, has grown this year by 1.5 percent. Other members are prospering. Sau di Arabia’s trade surplus is expected to surpass $45 billion this year, while Iran, the second-largest OPEC producer, is equally gleeful about an additional $1 -1 Kaiser study causes some to re-evaluate sex education curriculums in schools by Anietta McQueen Associated Press ALEXANDRIA, Va. -A girl in Matthew Wentzel’s class of ninth graders at Minnie Howard School want ed to know who gets HTV/AIDS. “Gay people do,” said a 15-year-old class mate in the back. When Wentzel told them no, statistics show that the sexu ally transmitted disease is afflicting mainly female, minority adolescents, the class was silent. “That’s the basic introduction,” Wentzel told a reporter later. “The re alism of this epidemic hasn’t really sunk in.” Wentzel says he doesn’t sugarcoat the issue. “If you ask, I’m going to give you an honest answer,” he tells his hu man development class, which includes tills northern Virginia district’s course work on sex education. But nationally, sex education lessons might not be as informative, a new re port suggests. A survey of 1,501 students and their parents, plus 1,300 educators, found that students leam in school the “birds and bees” basics of how babies are con ceived. Most also leam how sex part ners can contract diseases. And - be cause of state policies - many teachers stress abstinence as a way to prevent HIV/AIDS, other STDs and unplanned pregnancy. What’s missing, say teach ers, students and their parents, are lessons that would help young people avoid such situations in the first place. “What’s important is that this class is being taught at the most difficult time for them,” Wentzel said. “If sex edu cation is to become part of the cur riculum, it has to evolve.” Others say sex education has gone too far, leaving parents out of the process. “Parental control or lack of it is the basic problem, rather than what just happens in schools,” said Liz Alston, the pro-abstinence-only chair of the Charleston County, S.C., school board that’s battled over teaching abstinence only or including lessons about birth control. Hie report, conducted by nonprofit health researchers at the Kaiser Fami ly Foundation and released Tuesday, found that parents want their chil dren to learn more about birth control and safe sex, more than their children reportedly learn. Now reluctant school officials should be more willing to expand their programs, said Ramon Cortines, a former superintendent who now di rects a school reform research pro ject at Stanford University. “We tend to be responsive to the politics of rhetoric,” he said. Wfe now have better information than who can yell the loudest.” For instance, 97 percent of parents want their children taught how to deal with sexual assault; just 59 percent of students said they covered that in their most recent class. Nine in 10 parents want their children to leant about birth control; eight in 10 students say they do. “Sex education is often debated at the political and advocacy kind of levels, but rarely does it get down to real world discussions,” said Tina Hoff, Kaiser’s chief public health researcher. She said the study is meant to further research on the issue, not invoke changes in any particular state or school board’s policies. The margin of error for family and teacher responses is plus or minus 3 percentage points. Federal and private research - distributed with the Kaiser study - show declining sexual activity and unplanned pregnancies among teens. However, figures that often raise concerns show that approximately 4 million teens will get an STD each year, and nearly half of teens didn’t use condoms in their most recent sexual encounter. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics show that disad vantaged women, especially black fe males, are being infected with HIV at younger ages and at higher rates than their male counterparts. Between 1990 and 1995, AIDS cases increased 103 percent for women and just 27 percent for men, according to the CDC. It al so reported a sharp increase since 1991 in women infected through hetero sexual sex. Another survey, released today by reproductive-rights advocates, said teachers in such classes are less likely to introduce information about ob taining birth control, as well as abor tion and sexual orientation. The Alan Guttmacher Institute said according to its survey - exclusively of teachers of these courses - that one in four in structors say they are being told not to teach contraception and focus instead on the abstinence message. ‘Teachers are covering far less... • than they believe is needed,” said in stitute president Sara Seims. “Absti nence messages are very important, but clearly the coverage of contraceptive topics is alsp crucial.” The Guttmacher Institute receives most of its funding front large foun dations, though a small amount comes from Planned Parenthood of America. Thirty states mandate that if sex education is taught in schools that they include lessons that encourage teach ing young people to remain abstinent until they are emotionally and physi cally ready for sex. Just 18 states and the District of Columbia mandate that schools offer sex education at all. Virginia doesn’t tell its districts to provide sex education courses, but re quires the ones that do offer such les son include abstinence and contracep tive use in those lessons. “It’s important to provide options,” said Cheryl Mercer, one of four human development teachers at Minnie Howard who cover the district’s sex education curriculum. “They’re all over the map and there’s so much infor mation they’re trying to filter.” Murderless until August, county now setting of two ‘bizarre’ homicides by Brian Melley Associated Press MERCED, Calif. - A pitchfork-wield ing intruder stabs and kills two children in a farmhouse. A teen-ager is accused of beheading his mother with a knife. In less than a month, Merced Coun ty - a hot, dry farming region in the cen ter of California - has been jolted by two grisly crimes. “It’s taken a toll on some of my de tectives,” said Assistant Sheriff Henry Strength. “The normal homicide is one thing, but these are all bizarre.” At a McDonald’s, old-timers digest the latest crime news with cups of cof fee. One man wonders how someone could kill his own mother. Others pon der a gruesome front-page story in the local paper about a farming accident in which a man was ground up in a com chopper. “I can’t believe what’s happening,” said Alex Flores, a retired construction worker. “This is supposed to happen someplace else.” Indeed, death has visited Merced County - derived from the Spanish phrase for Our Lady of Mercy - in a most merciless way. Until August, not a single homicide had been recorded this year in this 2,000 square-mile county - running from the Coast Ranges to the Sierra foothills - that is home to 209,000 people, thou sands of cows and chickens, almond trees and other crops. In a span of barely three weeks, however, authorities twice found them selves at horrific crime scenes, con fronting aggressive suspects. Jonathon David Bruce, 27, was shot dead when, according to deputies, he chaiged at them with the pitchfork af ter killing the children. David Lange, 18, naked and blood soaked when he was found near his mother’s beheaded body, chased fire fighters from his house with a knife when they responded to an emergency call, investigators said. He surrendered peacefully when confronted by armed officers. The killings have shaken evgn vet eran law enforcement officers. “It does exact something from you - we’re all human,” said Sgt. Rick Mar shall, head of the sheriff’s major crimes unit. “These are very, very heinous, bizarre tilings. Two of these come down, with the same people investigating, it’s not that easy.” The killings came at a pivotal time for the county. A new visitor’s center opened this summer to lure tourists heading to nearby Yosemite National Park. The University of California plans to build a campus here. “Merced is not a bad place to live,” Strength said. “We’ve had some bad luck.” The county has had brushes with notorious crimes before, including a 1972 kidnapping that remains in its con sciousness. A Merced boy named Steven Stayn er became a local hero and the subject of a book and movie when, after seven years, he escaped from the child mo lester who kidnapped him. Stayner res cued a 5-year-old boy who liad also been abducted. His tale took a tragic turn when he died in a motorcycle accident in 1989. That story gained a grim sequel when Stayner s brother was accused of being the killer who stalked Yosemite last year, slaying four women. Cary Stayner, a 39-year-old motel handyman raised in Merced County, is headed to federal prison for life for mur dering a naturalist in the park. He still faces a state trial and could get the death penalty if convicted of killing three Yosemite sightseers. Jerry O’Banion, chairman of the county supervisors, is perplexed by the violence. “It is truly a tragedy that so many of these crimes are happening,” O’Ban ion said. “We’ve had crime, but noth ing of this magnitude. I don't know what can be done.” ‘I don’t know what can be done.' Jeiry O’Banion chairman of county supervisors