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\ Investigators seek source of Chinese SARS case BY TED ANTHONY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BEIJING — Medical investiga tors scrutinized an apartment complex's sewage, water and garbage systems Sunday, trying to track down the source of China's first SARS case of the sea son, even as reports of another suspected victim emerged. Meanwhile, the province of Guangdong, where the confirmed and the suspected cases are all lo cated, turned its attention from the slaughter of civet cats - a wild animal that is eaten as a local del icacy but is thought to be a means of transmitting SARS - to eradi cating a more reviled form of ver min: rats. The new suspected case was a 35-year-old man in Guangdong, who has been isolated and hospi talized in stable condition, said Dr. Thomas Tsang, a consultant at tached to the Department of Health in Hong Kong. He said of ficials in neighboring Guangdong had informed Hong Kong of the possible case. The new suspected patient of se vere acute respiratory syndrome does not work in a job that in volves handling wild animals, which are thought to be a means of transmission for the virus, Tsangsaid. - • But China's Health Ministry in formed the World Health Organization on Sunday night that tests so far on the man are in conclusive, WHO said. "They have not classified him as a suspected SARS case," spokesman Bob Dietz said in Beijing. "Press reports keep bubbling up," Dietz said. "There's always been a problem with case defini tion with SARS - actually identi fying a case. So we want to under stand clearly the basics that Guangdong is using." While information about SARS cases has emerged from several different sources in recent days, the apparently contradictory in formation that emerged from Hong Kong and Beijing on Sunday suggested a communications gap between provincial and national health officials. Last week, the central govern ment announced the other sus pected case, a 20-year-old waitress, who worked in a restaurant where civet cat and other wild animals were served. She has been isolat ed for treatment and is said to be doing well. The only officially confirmed case of the season, a 32-year-old television producer named Luo, left the hospital last week and was pronounced recovered. He told au thorities he came into contact with no wild animals, and the source of his SARS remains a mystery. On Sunday, his apartment block in Guangzhou, Guangdong's provincial capital, was a flurry of WHO activity as its investigators swept through, interviewing man agers and looking for sources of infection in water systems, garbage facilities and living quar ters. They took swab samples from stairwells and terraces, among other sites. "Our environmental experts scoured the building," WHO spokesman Roy Wadia said in a telephone interview from Guangzhou, Guangdong's capital. "Based on the observations they made, the complex seemed to be managed pretty well." He said WHO was working with the Guangdong Center for Disease Control to examine all data col lected so far. At the same time, experts worked to process laboratory sam ples taken from the restaurant where the waitress worked. WHO called Friday for more informa tion on the waitress, saying it could help determine how she was pronounced a suspected case. Investigators said they found no immediate conclusions about whether her job was linked to her illness. The establishment didn't specialize in wild game but served some wildlife, including civet cats. Thousands of civets were slaughtered in Guangdong during the past week on suspicions they could have transmitted SARS to human beings. Although the virus has been found in the weasel-like mammals, there has been no definitive proof of their status as a human vector. "Basically, most of the civet cats in Guangdong have been slaugh tered," said an official at the Guangzhou Anti-SARS Office who gave only his surname, Liu. SARS is believed to have first appeared in Guangdong before killing 774 people worldwide and sickening more than 8,000. The Guangzhou-based newspa per Yangcheng Evening News said on its Web site Sunday that a three-day campaign on eliminat ing rats was drawing more than 10,000 people. It said more than 10 tons of poison-laced grain have been deployed in "millions of places" to kill rats. "Exercise caution in dealing with rat carcasses," it said, quot ing authorities. Separately, the South Korean Environmental Ministry said Sunday that it has banned the im port of civet cats, Chinese ferret badgers and raccoon dogs because of their possible link to SARS. Violators face up two years in jail or a $4,200 fine, ministry offi cials said. No cases of SARS have been found in South Korea. Iraqi impatience spawns melee, opposition to U.S. handover BY NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AMARAH, IflAQ — Impatience with Iraq’s occupying forces boiled over Sunday as unem ployed Iraqis pelted British troops with stones and a top Shiite Muslim cleric demanded the coun try’s next parliament be elected — not chosen by local caucuses, as foreseen by the Americans. Also Sunday, a U.S.-backed Iraqi politician said an ongoing purge of members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party had pushed 28,000 Iraqis from their jobs. In the southern city of Amarah, waves of protesters — some armed with sticks and shovels — rushed British troops guarding the city hall, a day after clashes here killed six protesters and wounded at least 11. The British drove the crowd back from the compound, which also houses the U.S.-led occupation force and the 1st Battalion of Britain’s Light Infantry. Booms and flashes of light from makeshift bombs exploded in the melee. “We are trying to permit a peaceful protest but prevent loss of life or damage to property,” said British Mhj. Johnny Bowron. Tensions in Amarah, 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, erupted Saturday after hundreds of Iraqis gathered to protest that authori ties had not kept a promise to give them jobs. On Sunday, demon strators said they were looking to avenge those killed Saturday. There were no reports of injuries on Sunday. Demonstrators sent a repre sentative to talk to British and Iraqi officials, who promised them 8,000 jobs, according to witnesses. But protesters said a similar promise made weeks before had not been fulfilled, and the clash en sued. Prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Saddam’s security forces were the biggest employer in this city of 400,000. The U. S. Department of Defense raised the American death toll since the start of the war to 495 on Sunday after the death of a 23 - year old soldier from a heart attack in Qatar. Sunday’s comments by Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, could complicate American plans to hand over sovereignty to the Iraqis by July 1. Al-Sistani, whose views are highly influential among Iraq’s Shiite majority, said the U.S. plan to have regional caucuses select members of a provisional national assembly would give birth to an il legitimate Iraqi government. “This will, in turn, give rise to new problems and the political and security situation will deteri orate,” al-Sistani said in a state ment released by his office in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, south of Baghdad. Al-Sistani demanded the as sembly be directly elected, saying credible elections could be held in Iraq within months. Al-Sistani also balked at U.S. plans to seek quick approval for the continued occupation of Iraq through its handpicked Governing Council. The ayatollah said only an elected government could sign off on the presence of U.S. troops beyond July 1. Al-Sistani’s opposition forced the Americans to change their transition plans once already. Participation by Shiites — who make up 60 percent of Iraq’s 25 million people — is essential to the success of the transition. But drafting a new plan to ac commodate his views would make Washington look like it is allow ing its Iraq policies to be held hostage to the wishes of one man. It also would further anger Iraq’s minority Sunnis who had domi nated politics in Iraq for decades and are bristling at the attention given now to the Shiites they have traditionally oppressed. Meanwhile, tens of thousands more former high-level Baathists are set to lose their jobs in ongo ing purges, said Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi, a favorite of the Pentagon who heads a committee aimed at rid ding Iraq of the influence of Saddam’s party. For Chalabi, the idea of recon ciliation with top Baathists is a nonstarter. “How can you reconcile those laying dead in mass graves with those who killed them? We can only talk about forgiveness,” Chalabi told reporters. U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer dissolved and banned the Baath party in May, a month after U.S. forces swept into Baghdad to remove Saddam from power and end 35 years of the party’s rule. In the northern city of Mosul on Sunday, U.S. soldiers arrested four men accused of working for the top fugitive in Iraq as rebel pay masters. The four were paying insur gents to attack U.S. troops on be half of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of Saddam’s former chief lieu tenants, said Maj. Trey Cate, spokesman for the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division. U.S. officials have issued a $10 million bounty on al-Douri, who has taken the spot as the most wanted man in Iraq since Saddam’s capture. Elsewhere, U.S. troops arrest ed a Saddam loyalist Sunday sus pected in last month’s shooting of an American soldier, who was saved by his flak jacket. The shot soldier, Sgt. Jeffrey Allen of Leitchfield, Ky., arrested the man in a raid on the Iraqi’s home in Tikrit, launched after a neighbor’s tip, said Lt. Col. Steve Russell of the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division. Also Sunday, authorities said the body of an Iraqi working with the U.S.-led coalition was found in the southern city of Basra, along with the corpse of another man not associated with the coalition. Insurgents opposed to the U.S.-led occupation have targeted soldiers as well as civilians and Iraqi po lice working with the occupiers. In Baghdad, two Estonian sol diers suffered minor injuries when a grenade was thrown at their patrol on Saturday, accord ing to Estonian army spokesman Peeter Tali. COMPETITION... 1 ^Tg^t COM***1 Jj www.udrtcom lk 796-86^ JP^gpp*^ Vjjnr5!&^ ■ I ^\v%S? si^ I f |V^ • Ty- 11 m Jr ** Pop Into Any of The Featured Communities For A Special Rate And Free Rent For January. ^ (Offer Expires 1/20/2004)