The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, September 27, 2000, Page 6, Image 6
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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