Weekly Review

By Roger D. Hodge

The United States raised its terror alert level and said that Al Qaeda might be planning to attack financial institutions in New York, Washington, and Newark, New Jersey. Howard Dean pointed out that, once again, the timing of a new federal terror alert was suspiciously convenient; other Democrats, such as Joseph Lieberman, denounced Dean's suggestion as "outrageous."¹ It was reported that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a close associate of Osama bin Laden, retracted his claim that Iraq helped Al Qaeda with weapons of mass destruction, and² the 9/11 commission, which runs out of funds next month, was seeking private donations so that it can continue its work.³ President Bush asked Congress to create a national intelligence director.⁴ Kuwait banned Fahrenheit 9/11, and⁵ it was revealed that the Census Bureau has been giving population statistics on Arab-Americans, broken down by zip code, to the Department of Homeland Security.⁶ The White House predicted that this year's federal budget deficit will be $445 billion.⁷ Five Christian churches in Baghdad were targeted by suicide car bombers, and⁸ analysts at Deutsche Bank warned that oil prices could rise to $100 a barrel.⁹ President Bush crashed his mountain bike.¹⁰

The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution calling on Sudan to disarm its militias in Darfur but declined to use the word "sanctions" and made no mention of using force to stop the ongoing genocide; Sudan denounced the resolution as a declaration of war.¹¹ Millions of Bangladeshis were left without homes because of flooding; hundreds of people died.¹² There were explosions at the American and Israeli embassies in Uzbekistan, and¹³ a gas pipeline blew up in Belgium.¹⁴ A Jordanian company said that it would pull out of Iraq after a militant faction called the Group of Death kidnapped two of its employees.¹⁵ Iraqi gunmen executed a Turkish truck driver.¹⁶ Doctors Without Borders pulled out of Afghanistan, and¹⁷ ricin was found in baby food in Irvine, California.¹⁸ More than 300 people died in a supermarket fire in Paraguay.¹⁹ A government audit found that Halliburton lost about one third of the property it was given to manage in Iraq; 6,975 out of 20,531 items were missing. The lost government property was worth $18.6 million.²⁰ British troops allegedly forced Iraqi detainees to "dance like Michael Jackson."²¹ Israel's cabinet approved betting on horses, and²² Saddam Hussein was said to be enjoying his American-style cookies and muffins.²³

A team of scientists led by Stanley Prusiner, the neurologist who won a Nobel prize for his work on the prion hypothesis, succeeded in creating a synthetic prion that produced a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy in mice.²⁴ Francis Crick died.²⁵ The UN was urging that domestic Asian ducks be vaccinated for avian flu, which scientists say has become so common that quarantines and culls will no longer be sufficient.²⁶ The Bush Administration issued a new rule that will permit the EPA to approve pesticides without finding out from wildlife agencies whether the chemicals will harm plants and animals protected by the Endangered Species Act.²⁷ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that truancy because of fear of schoolyard violence was on the rise.²⁸ The Vatican criticized feminists for trying to ignore the differences between men and women and said that a woman "is not a copy of a man."²⁹ Italy was upset about a poster campaign in the London subway urging people not to eat smelly food; the posters show an overweight man sitting on a train surrounded by parma hams and salamis and strings of garlic.³⁰ The Bush Administration was making plans to harvest methane gas.³¹ Cemeteries in South Africa were recycling graves.³² Scientists discovered that fatigue is all in the mind.³³