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Nigerian state continues boycott BY GLENN MCKENZIE THE ASSOCIATED-PRESS KADUNA, NIGERIA - A north ern Islamic state in Nigeria that is at the heart of a spreading Africa polio outbreak declared Sunday it would not relent on its boycott of a mass vaccination program which it called a U.S. plot to spread AIDS and infertility among Muslims. “Kano state will not participate in tomorrow’s polio campaign. Our team made the discovery of contaminants first, remember,” state government spokesman Sule Ya’u Sule told The Associated Press, referring to tests the state says its scientists conducted on the polio vaccine last year. Unless we are convinced oy our committee (of health experts) that the oral polio vaccines are safe, the exercise remains sus pended in Kano state,” Sule said. U.N. aid agencies insist the door-to-door drive to inoculate 63 million children in 10 west and central African countries, includ ing Nigeria, is critical to stemming a growing polio outbreak spread ing out from Nigeria’s predomi nantly Muslim north. Globally, the World Health Organization says the standoff en dangers a massive effort that had worked toward stamping out po lio entirely. The 16-year-old pub lic health project has reduced the number of cases worldwide from 350,000 in 1988 to fewer than 1,000 last year. There was no immediate word Sunday whether the other two northern states that had blocked the vaccine — Zamfara and Kaduna — would now allow the emergency immunization cam paign. Nigerian officials had hoped to resolve the controversy by dis patching a team of scientists, politicians and Islamic religious leaders to observe a battery of tests on the vaccines in South Africa and India earlier this month. Nigeria Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo would not divulge the outcome of the visit, which he said ended last week. He gave no explanation of why the results were not being revealed — saying only that Nigeria’s government would forge ahead with the cam paign regardless of opposition. “We are not going to be both ered” by the boycott, Lambo told The Associated Press, without elaborating. “The immunization is going ahead as planned. We have got our results and we are go ing ahead with the immuniza tion.” Kano had been expected to deny permission for the emergency campaign. in October, similar door-to-door drives were blocked entirely in Kano, Zamfara and Kaduna. Residents in other northern states frequently turned away vol unteers trying to administer the oral vaccine house-to-house to tod dlers and infants. Homeowners at times reportedly set dogs upon the volunteer health workers. The boycott by Kano, where 89 cases last year made it the epicen ter of the outbreak, “puts more children at risk from being crip pled by polio, not only in Nigeria but also the region,” said Gerrit Beger, spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund in Abuja. “We risk reversing our gains. We can’t eradicate polio globally if everyone does not take action,” Beger said. Last year, Nigeria accounted for close to half of the more than 700 polio cases documented world wide. Many of the rest were in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where officials say they are mak ing headway. PHOTO COURTESY KRT CAMPUS President George W. Bush speaks with NuAir Manufacturing. Bush appoints judge, infuriates Democrats BY JESSE J. HOLLAND THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - After three years of watching Senate Democrats block his judicial nom inees, President Bush trumped them for the second time this year by installing Alabama Attorney General William Pryor on the fed eral appeals court. The move infuriated Democrats, who now might be even less likely to cooperate with the White House on getting judi cial nominees through the closely divided Senate in an election year. “Regularly circumventing the advise and consent process is not the way to change the tone in Washington,” Sen. Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said. Bush gave Pryor an alihost two-year stint on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, calling.him a “leading American lawyer” and saying Democrats had used “unprece dented obstructionist tactics” last year to stop him and five other nominees. Pryor’s chances didn’t look any better this year, with Democrats already saying they plan to invoke a Senate tradition that only non-controversial nom inees are approved during an election year. “Their tactics are inconsistent with the Senate’s constitutional responsibility and are hurting our judicial system,” Bush said. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., one of the senior members of the Judiciary Committee, called Bush’s going around the Senate “a flagrant abuse of presidential pow er.” “This is an outrageous appoint ment, of a nominee who has ques tionable commitment to the au thority of the Supreme Court and the rule of law,” Kennedy said. Last month, Bush did the same thing with Mississippi federal Judge Charles Pickering, ap pointing him to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Bush picked Pryor last April for a seat on the 11th Circuit that cov ers Alabama, Georgia and Florida.