WEEKLY REVIEW

I continue my theft of Harper's genre because it's so
much damn fun! You should write your own Weekly Review
based on the news sources you read and the stories you
care about. It's fun and it teaches you to write tight
sentences, to suggest things by understatement and
juxtaposition, and to pay attention to details.

One thing I've learned already is that the very rigid
"inverted triange" format which journalists are forced
to use in order to report hard news is very unsuited 
to communicating detail and nuance, which they always
put in the middle, never at the top.

WEEKLY REVIEW
By Kendall Clark

President Bush raised nearly $4 million in one fund-raising appearance in
Alabama. In response to a speech by Bush about the economy and corporate
crime, Senate Majority Leader Daschle said, "I thought the President spoke
loudly but he offered a very, very small stick". John Walker Lindh pleaded
guilty to a charge of willfully supplying services to the Taliban, agreeing
to a plea bargain and 20 year prison term. Lindh said, "I provided my
services as a soldier to the Taliban last year...I carried a rifle and two
grenades. And I did so knowingly and willingly...". AG Ashcroft called
Lindh's plea "an important victory in America's war on terrorism". The Bush
administration said it would execute Zacarias Moussaoui, the only alleged
conspirator of the September 11 attacks to be indicted, if he is convicted
of conspiracy to commit terrorism. The White House OMB released new
projections which showed a $165 billion budget deficit this year. Bush
lectured Congress about "excessive spending" and pressured the Senate to
quickly pass a $40 billion increase in the Pentagon budget for 2003.
Congressional investigation revealed widespread abuse of military charge and
travel cards, including 200 Army personnel spending nearly $40,000 at
off-base strip clubs, fraudulent charges for computers, fine china, cigars,
wine, cruises, trips to Las Vegas, and pictures of Elvis Presley purchased
at Graceland.

Military investigators arrived in Bagram, Afghanistan, to probe the July 1
U.S. air strike which killed 48 civilians, including 25 at a wedding party,
and wounded 117 when an AC-130 gunship fired upon villages in the Uruzgan
province. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said that U.S. military
aims at "liberation, not occupation" and that the attacks on the villages
were justified because "bad guys" were hiding there. The U.S. demanded full
immunity, and threatened to veto ongoing U.N. peacekeeping missions, from
the International Criminal Court but settled for a one year exemption from
prosecution. Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel criticized the compromise
as a "blow to the credibility of international law". U.N. Ambassador
Negroponte said, "Should the ICC eventually seek to detain any American, the
U.S. would regard this as illegitimate -- and it would have serious
consequences. No nation should underestimate our commitment to protect our
citizens". President Bush intends to recruit one of every 24 Americans to
participate in a domestic informant program known as TIPS. The USPS
announced that letter carriers would not participate in the TIPS program.
The editor of an Arabic newspaper in London claimed that Osama bin Laden was
wounded in the U.S. carpet bombing of Tora Bora in December but is alive and
remains in good health. The head of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service
said he believes Osama bin Laden is alive and hiding in the border region
between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The FBI's counter-terrorism head, Dale
Watson, said that bin Laden is "probably dead". President Bush said he does
not know whether bin Laden is alive or dead.

Yasser Arafat rejected pressure from the U.S. that he leave office; "I have
been elected by the people. I am not a coward". Secretary of State Powell
said that he would consider a plan which allowed Yasser Arafat to stay on as
a "symbolic leader" of the Palestinians. President said that "Mr. Arafat
would like the whole issue to be about him - that's the way it's been in the
past. Except when you analyze his record, he has failed the Palestinian
people. He just has. That's reality". Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan began
pressuring the U.S. for the creation of a Palestinian state after elections
in January, followed by a two-year period of negotiations to set the final
borders of the new state; it would have a written constitution, an elected
Parliament, and a prime minister and could be recognized by early 2003.
Egypt offered to train Palestinian police if Israel withdraws its forces
from the West Bank, conditioned on a full Israeli withdrawal.

The Irish Republican Army issued a statement of apology for the deaths of
noncombatants, signaling its "acceptance of past mistakes and of the hurt
and pain we have caused to others". Israeli air force aircraft fired
missiles at buildings in the southern Gaza Strip, injuring 10 Palestinians.
A Palestinian teenager was killed in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza
Strip, by Israeli forces as he walked through a farm. Two Palestinian
children were killed and 11 others were wounded while playing with ordnance
left by Israeli forces at a Ramallah refugee camp. Near Emmanuel, an
ultra-Orthodox West Bank settlement, in the first attack on civilians since
June, gunmen wearing Israeli army uniforms exploded a bomb near an armored
bus and fired automatic weapons at civilians. Seven people were killed,
including a 2 year old and a pregnant woman, and more than 12 were wounded.
Two suicide bombers killed at least seven people and injured 30 in Tel Aviv.
Two other suicide bombers struck outside a convenience store in a
working-class immigrant neighborhood in Tel Aviv, resulting in the deaths of
three and injury to 40. In the past 21 months, 1,758 Palestinians 572
Israelis have been killed.

A.P.J Abdul Kalam, a missile scientist and advocate of nuclear deterrence,
was elected president of India. Islamic militants disguised as Hindu holy
men killed 24 civilians and wounded 20 in a slum in Jammu, Kashmir. A state
of emergency, and the suspension of the right to demonstrate, was declared
in Paraguay in order to control widespread, violent anti-capitalist
protests. Police have dispersed protests in Asuncion with rubber bullets,
tear gas, and water cannon. About 180 miles west of Kampala, Uganda, more
than 60 people, including 10 United Nations workers, were killed Thursday
when a fuel truck struck a passenger bus and exploded. World Bank president
James Wolfensohn proposed cancellation of more than 80 percent of Congo's
external debt, reducing it from $12 to $2 billion. In southeast Nigeria 500
unarmed women hold hostage 700 ChevronTexaco refinery workers, effectively
shutting down the terminal, and threatened to go naked in order to shame
those being held; they're demanding that profits from the region's oil
reserves be used to improve their impoverished villages. In an attempt to
smuggler her Kurdish lover into Italy, a Belgian woman packed him into her
suitcase; upon discovery, he was promptly deported to Greece. The UK foreign
secretary, Jack Straw, rejected the asylum applications of two young boys,
either Pakistani or Afghan, aged 13 and 11, who escaped from the Woomera
refugee camp in Australia after activists tore down parts of the camp's
wall. Immigrant rights advocates said that Straw's decision was a breach of
an international convention on the rights of children.

The former CFO of WorldCom, Scott Sullivan, has implicated Bernie Ebbers,
saying that he was "fully aware of the bookkeeping tricks that allowed
WorldCom to hide costs of nearly $4 billion". Rep. Billy Tauzin said that
WorldCom's illegal accounting practices date back to 2000. Harvey Pitt,
former private securities lawyer and current SEC chairman, refused calls to
resign and claimed that the SEC has been more aggressive against corporate
illegality than ever before: "I'm the right person for the job". Pitt also
vowed to "vigorously investigate" Halliburton, VP Cheney's former company.
But "guilt by occupation", Pitt added, "is really a needless diversion".
Current CEO of Halliburton David Lesar defended its bookkeeping practices
and added that VP Cheney was aware that it counted projected cost-overrun
payments as revenue. A division of Halliburton known as Kellogg Brown & Root
has profited from increased business from the federal governement since the
September 11 attacks. KBR is the exclusive logistics supplier for the Army
and Navy and provides cooking, construction, power generation, and fuel
transportation services. Congressional Republicans quiety made it known that
they want Army Secretary Thomas White to resign, despite the White House's
continued support of White, who left Enron after selling $12 million in
stock just before its collapse. In volutary testimony before Congress White
called the Enron collapse "an absolute terrible tragedy".

During a Bastille Day parade, an "emotionally disturbed neo-Nazi" shot at
French President Chirac with a rifle taken from a guitar case. A court in
Lahore, Pakistan, sentenced Anwar Kenneth, a man with a history of
psychiatric problems, and who claimed to be Jesus Christ, to death for
blasphemy. A House subcommittee found Rep. Jim Traficant guilty of ethics
violations as a result of his conviction for fraud, tax evasion, and
bribery. Traficant maintained that witnesses in his criminal trial perjured
themselves under threat of reprisal from the FBI and IRS. Five Republican
legislators sent a letter opposing the creation of an HIV-positive character
on PBS's Sesame Street children's program, calling it "unwelcome". The
legislators said, "we look forward to working with you to ensure that only
age and culturally appropriate programs air on PBS". The U.S. House passed,
385 to 3, a bill which provides for life prison sentences for severe
computer break-ins. The bill expands the right of police to conduct
surveillance without a court order; "a mouse can be just as dangerous as a
bullet or a bomb", Republican Lamar Smith said. WorldCom, Microsoft, and
other tech corps endorsed the bill.

Scientists learned that breast-feeding and the number of full-term
pregnancies are factors which reduce a woman's lifetime risk of developing
breast cancer. West Nile Virus was found in Louisiana, where three men were
hospitalized, and in Texas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. Scientists in London
discovered a gene, CEM15, which may be used to create therapies to fight off
HIV in infected cells. A government study said that three million U.S.
teenagers have seriously considered or attempted suicide, more than 13
percent of those between 14 and 17 years of age. Girls were twice as likely
as boys to report that they have thought about suicide. GHB, a drug used to
incapacitate women for rape and sexual assault, was approved by the FDA for
use in treating cataplexy, a muscle-weakness condition which plagues those
who suffer from the sleep disorder narcolepsy; it will be sold under very
severe restrictions. Two Inglewood police officers, Jeremy Morse and Bijan
Darvish, both white, were indicted on felony charges for beating a
handcuffed 16 year old African American boy. Morse was charged with assault
under the color of authority, and Darvish was charged with filing a false
police report. Al Unser Jr., arrested for hitting his girlfriend, will not
be prosecuted because the recorded 911 call, statements, and photographs
provided insufficient evidence to win a conviction. "There is not a jury in
the world", prosecutor Scott Newman said, "that would treat this as a
criminal case".

Famed international photographer Yousuf Karsh died at the age of 93.
Organizers of a judo tournament in Tokyo disqualified six high school
students for shaving their eyebrows thinly in order to intimidate their
opponents. A jury found that Katie Sierra could start an anarchist club,
which her high school had formerly disallowed in the wake of the September
11 attacks, subsequently suspending Sierra for wearing t-shirts with
political slogans. Editors of TV Guide named "The Jerry Spring Show" the
worst TV show of all time.



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Posted on Monkeyfist at http://monkeyfist.com/articles/821