University of South Carolina Libraries
Iraq CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 the worst fighting since the war that toppled Saddam Hussein. In the Ramadi fighting, heavy casualties were inflicted on the in surgents as well, officials said. It was not immediately known who the attackers were, nor whether the attack was related to fighting under way in nearby Fallujah. On the Fallujah front, Marines drove into the center of the Sunni city in heavy fighting before pulling back before nightfall. The assault had been promised after the brutal killings and mutilations of four American civilians there last week. Hospital officials said eight Iraqis died Tuesday and 20 were wounded, including women and children. U.S. warplanes firing rockets destroyed four houses in Fallujah after nightfall Tuesday, witnesses said. A doctor said 26 Iraqis, in cluding women and children, were killed and 30 wounded in the strike. The deaths brought to 34 the number of Iraqis killed in Fallujah on Tuesday, including eight who died in street battles earlier in the day. The dusty, Euphrates River city 35 miles west of Baghdad is a stronghold of the anti-U.S. insur gency that sprang up shortly after Saddam’s ouster a year ago. With fighting intensifying ahead of the June 30 handover of power to an Iraqi government, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said American com manders in Iraq would get addi tional troops if needed. None has asked so far, he said. State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said al Sadr and his followers were not representative of a religious cause, but of “political gangsterism.” The 30-year-old al-Sadr, howev er, does not have a large following among majority Shiites — many see him as a renegade, too young and too headstrong to lead wisely. “They’re not acting in the name of religion, they’re acting in the name of arrogating for themselves political power and influence through violence, because they can’t get it through peaceful per suasion,” he said. In the latest U.S. deaths, five Marines were killed Monday — one in Fallujah and the others on the western outskirts of Baghdad. Four U.S. soldiers were killed in attacks in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Mosul on Monday and another was killed in Baghdad Tuesday. Eight Americans were killed in Sadr City on Sunday. Excluding the report out of Ramadi on Tuesday evening, at least 614 American troops have died in Iraq since the war began. Marines waged a fierce battle for hours Tuesday with gunmen holed up in a residential neigh borhood of Fallujah. The military used a deadly AC-130 gunship to lay down a barrage of fire against guerrillas, and commanders said Marines were holding an area sev eral blocks deep inside the city. At least two Marines were wounded. Doctor says fetuses feel pain during controversial abortions BY KEVIN O’HANLON THE ASSOCIATED I'll ESS LINCOLN, NEB. - A type of abortion banned under a new fed eral law would cause “severe and excruciating” pain to 20-week-old fetuses, a medical expert testified Tuesday in one of three trials across the country testing the law’s constitutionality. “I believe the fetus is con scious,” said Dr. Kanwaljeet “Sonny” Anand, a pediatrician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He took the stand as a witness for the government, which is defending the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Anand later acknowledged that he believes a less controver sial abortion procedure, known as “dilation and evacuation,” would cause the same amount of pain to a fetus. An estimated 140,000 D&Es, the most common method of second-trimester abor tion, take place in the United States annually. He also said there is no medi cal definition of “consciousness.” The law, signed by President Bush in November, has not been enforced because judges in Lincoln, Neb., New York and San Francisco agreed to hear evi dence in three simultaneous, non-jury trials on whether the ban violates the Constitution. Anand said Tuesday that fe tuses show increased heart rate, blood flow and hormone levels in response to pain. “The physiological responses have been very clearly studied," he said. -The fetus cannot talk... so this is the best evidence we can get.’' The Bush administration has argued that the procedure, re ferred to by opponents as “par tial-birth abortion,” is “inhu mane and gruesome” and causes - the fetus to suffer. During the procedure, which doctors call “intact dilation and extraction” or D&X, a fetus is partly removed from the womb and its skull is punctured. It is generally performed in the sec ond trimester. Abortion rights advocates ar gue that it is sometimes the safest procedure for women, and that the law will endanger almost all second-trimester abortions, or 10 percent of the nation’s 1.3 million annual abortions. French McD’s gulps profits m* BY MORT ROSENBLUM “THE ASSOCIATED I’ltESS MILLAU, FRANCE - Back in 1999, a sheep farmer in an Asterix mustache led a small band of Gauls on a Big Mac attack heard around the world. A proud, feisty France, he exulted, humbled Imperial McDonald’s. The symbols seemed perfect. Asterix, a French comic-book hero who drew super-strength from a magic potion, saved his comer of Gaul from Rome. But, this time, the Empire struck back. Today Jose Bove, the Farmers’ Confederation firebrand, risks slipping away into history. Meanwhile, “McDo,” cash regis ters at 1,030 “McDo” (as the French call McDonald’s) locations ring up a million sales a day to French customers. McDonald s trance reported 2003 revenue approaching $3 bil lion and is the most profitable sub . sidiary in Europe. It is opening 40 ;. more restaurants in 2004,10 per ■ cent of the chain’s new outlets ” worldwide. To a young generation, those -golden arches in 750 big cities and tiny towns say as much, in their way, as the stately Arc de Triomphe ' that Napoleon raised two centuries ago on the Champs-Elysees. Even during 2002, when the Chicago-based company seemed to have peaked worldwide and lost its way, the French faithful never slackened their pace. The issue goes far beyond ham burgers. In a society that asserts do minion over fine food—and places priority on protecting labor — the phenomenon of “McDo” exposes flaws in the French self-image. Workers protesting minimum wage pay closed one Paris McDonald’s for 363 days. Their slo gan, “We’re not ground beef,” came with a logo: a bun around the word “Beurk.” That means “Barf.” But a settlement in March bought the organizers’ silence. By late this month, the counter should be crowded again until late at night. Nationalists’ verbal abuse did not stem the growth. Even blood shed failed. Brittany separatists bombed a McDonald’s in 2000, killing a young French woman employee. In bitter backlash, fhou sands rallied outside the Breton regional parliament to protest the death. Across France, the chain’s ex ecutives say, people have voted with their stomachs. Good restaurants still do well, but the French also want reliable, cheap, hot food at all hours, not just at mealtimes. On any given lunch break, French people of all sorts and ages jam into four long lines to order, while cars by the dozen wait at the McDrive windows. Kids play on colorful towers in the yard outside. Renee Humiliere loaded two happy-looking grandchildren into her small sedan to head home af ter the family’s unbreakable Wednesday lunch date at McDo. “It’s a wonderful ambience, clean, bright, welcoming to ev eryone, and I always haye a good tune,” she said.