The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, April 07, 2004, Page 5, Image 5
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.