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Taleban
May Give Up Kunduz and Kandahar, Talks Underway
Excerpts
from article describing the efforts to end Taleban control of
the northern city of Kunduz and the ongoing separate negotiations
to end Taleban control of the southern city of Kandahar:
Northern
Alliance soldiers watch
explosions after a U.S. plane drops
bombs on Taleban positions in
Kunduz province, 11/18/01
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Taleban
commanders have been negotiating to end the siege of the northern
Afghan town of Kunduz by the Northern Alliance, as US forces
stepped up their bombardment around the town.
The
commander of the Taleban's last stronghold in northern Afghanistan,
Mullah Dadullah, told the BBC his forces, which include foreign
fighters, were prepared to leave Kunduz but only if they were
guaranteed safe passage.
Wave
after wave of B-52 bombers and navy jets pounded positions around
the town on Sunday, sparking off huge explosions on hilltops
where the Taleban have dug in.
Ahead
of a Sunday deadline for Taleban forces to surrender, Northern
Alliance troops tightened the siege and blasted away with tanks
and artillery from positions overlooking the valley.
Taleban
fighters are still defending their southern stronghold of Kandahar,
where reports say tribal leaders have been trying to negotiate
a peaceful handover of the city.
...
Sunday's air raids on Kunduz were the biggest in more than a
week, correspondents in the area said.
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Source:
Stem
Cell Showstopper, Without Cloning They Aren't Likely to Work
Early
embryos, such as this one shown
on the tip of a needle, may become
a source of stem cells. But without
cloning, these cells could be useless.
Excerpts
from article briefly describing challenges which lay ahead in
the stem cell research arena based on current scientific restrictions
resulting from shortsighted political / religious obstacles
...
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New
pancreatic cells for people with diabetes. Regenerated hearts
for those who have suffered heart attacks. Repaired spinal cords
for paraplegics.
...
The National Academy Weighs In
The
specter of immune rejection is "a substantial obstacle"
to the use of stem cells for therapies, declared a panel of
experts convened by the National Academy of Sciences in a report
issued on September 11.
The
researchers and ethicists raised concerns about the potential
health risks of using stem cell lines because such cells could
contain mutations and have been grown in the presence of mouse
cells, which could harbor viruses.
Cloned
stem cells "should be actively pursued," the report
concluded. ...
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Source:
- Scientific
American [link inactive]
Vessels
of Death or Life
Angiogenesis--the
formation of new
blood vessels--might one day be
manipulated to treat disorders from
cancer to heart disease. First-generation
drugs are now in the final phase of
human testing .
Excerpts
from article detailing the way in which treatments are being
developed to enlarge or restrict the growth of blood vessels
in order to treat a wide range of human diseases, conditions,
and disorders ...
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They
snake through our bodies, literally conveying our life's blood,
their courses visible through our skin only as faint bluish
tracks or ropy cords.
We
hardly give them a thought until we cut ourselves or visit a
clinic to donate blood. But blood vessels play surprisingly
central roles in many serious chronic disorders.
New
growth of the body's smallest vessels, for instance, enables
cancers to enlarge and spread and contributes to the blindness
that can accompany diabetes.
Conversely,
lack of small vessel, or capillary, production can contribute
to other ills, such as tissue death in cardiac muscle after
a heart attack.
Accordingly,
we and other scientists are working to understand the mechanisms
that underlie abnormal vessel growth.
This
effort will help us develop and optimize drugs that block vessel
growth--or improve vessel function.
The Two Faces of Angiogenesis
The
study of small vessel growth--a phenomenon referred to generally
as angiogenesis--has such potential for providing new therapies
that it has been the subject of countless news stories and has
received enthusiastic interest from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology
industries.
Indeed,
dozens of companies are now pursuing angiogenesis-related therapies,
and approximately 20 compounds that either induce or block vessel
formation are being tested in humans.
Although
such drugs can potentially treat a broad range of disorders,
many of the compounds now under investigation inhibit angiogenesis
and target cancer. ...
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Source:
- Scientific
American [link inactive]
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Best
of CNN Videos (November 12 to November 18)
Pop-up
windows for some of the best of recent CNN web videos (Note
- CNN adds videos frequently - see their web
sites for links to all of their video selections):
Bomb-sniffing
dogs in demand
(1:55)
CNN's Anne McDermott reports that businesses, airports,
celebrities and others now want bomb-sniffing dogs (November
18)
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U.S.
steps up search for bin Laden
(1:58)
The Pentagon hopes to extract information on Osama bin
Laden's whereabouts from five captured senior Taliban
officials. CNN's Jamie Mcintyre reports (November 16)
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U.S.
ground troops in Afghanistan
(2:16)
CNN's Jamie McIntyre says the U.S. admits to having ground
troops joined with Northern Alliance forces engaging in
combat (November 16)
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Herat
celebrates liberation
(2:42)
CNN's Kasra Naji reports celebrations abound in the Afghan
city of Herat after being freed from years of rule by
the Taliban (November 16)
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Ominous
documents in Kabul
(3:33)
CNN's Christiane Amanpour reports on documents found in
Kabul that detail nuclear weapon assembly instructions
(November 16)
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Women
of Kabul slowly unveiling
(3:59)
CNN's Christiane Amanpour says the women of Kabul are
still cautious about enjoying their new freedoms in the
post-Taliban era (November 15)
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Voice
recorder points to turbulence
(2:54)
Investigators are looking into the possibility that turbulence
may have caused the crash that killed at least 262 people.
CNN's Kathleen Koch reports (November 14)
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Pentagon:
Airstrikes not over
(2:18)
U.S. officials say airstrikes will continue until their
mandate for expelling the Taliban has been met. CNN's
Bob Franken reports (November 14)
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Static-free
radio
(1:36)
Jennifer Bowker, from affiliate KCRA, has more on the
new technology of satellite radio (November 14)
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Bush
meets with Putin
(2:28)
President Bush announced the U.S. would cut two-thirds
of its nuclear missile arsenal. CNN's John King reports
(November 14)
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Alliance
take over Kabul
(3:04)
CNN's Matthew Chance traveled with Northern Alliance troops
as they took control of the Afghan capital of Kabul (November
13)
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Northern
Alliance pushing south
(2:10) With victories in the north and in the west,
fighters of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance are pushing
south. CNN's Matthew Chance reports (November 12)
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India,
Pakistan, and the Bomb
Excerpts
from article detailing the background leading up to the risk
of nuclear war between Pakistan and India:
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In New
Delhi, anti-Pakistan protesters,
wearing the mask of death and bearing the
Indian
flag, gather outside the Pakistani Embassy after Pakistan's
nuclear tests in 1998. Some are holding up baby bottles
to mock Pakistan as an infant nation.
It is not known whether the same
protesters had objected to India's own
nuclear tests several weeks earlier.
The
Indian subcontinent is the most likely place in the world for
a nuclear war.
As
the U.S. mobilized its armed forces in the aftermath of the
terrorist attacks of September 11, the world's attention focused
on Pakistan, so crucial to military operations in Afghanistan.
When Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf pledged total support
for a U.S.-led multinational force on September 14, many people's
first thought was:
What
about Pakistan's nuclear weapons? Could they fall into the hands
of extremists? In an address to his nation, Musharraf proclaimed
that the "safety of nuclear missiles" was one of his
priorities.
...
The renewed concern about nuclear weapons in South Asia comes
a little more than three years after the events of May 1998:
the five nuclear tests conducted by India at Pokharan in the
northwestern desert state of Rajasthan, followed three weeks
later by six nuclear explosions conducted by Pakistan in its
southwestern region of Chaghai.
These
tit-for-tat responses mirrored the nuclear buildup by the U.S.
and the former Soviet Union, with a crucial difference: the
two cold war superpowers were separated by an ocean and never
fought each other openly.
Neighboring
India and Pakistan have gone to war three times since British
India was partitioned in 1947 into Muslim-majority and Hindu-majority
states. Even now artillery guns regularly fire over the border
(officially, a cease-fire line) in the disputed region of Kashmir.
In
May 1999, just one year after the nuclear tests, bitter fighting
broke out over the occupation of a mountain ledge near the Kashmiri
town of Kargil. ... High-level officials in both countries issued
at least a dozen nuclear threats.
The
peace and stability that some historians and political scientists
have ascribed to nuclear weapons--because nuclear nations are
supposed to be afraid of mutually assured destruction--were
nowhere in sight. Wiser counsel eventually prevailed.
The
end of the Kargil clash, however, was not the end of the nuclear
confrontation in South Asia. The planned deployment of nuclear
weapons by the two countries heightens the risks. With political
instability a real possibility in Pakistan, particularly given
the conflict in Afghanistan, the dangers have never been so
near.
...
Domestic developments added to the pressure. India witnessed
the rise of Hindu nationalism. For decades, parties subscribing
to this ideology, such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),
had espoused the acquisition of greater military capability--and
nuclear weapons. It was therefore not surprising that the BJP
ordered nuclear tests immediately after coming to power in March
1998.
The
Indian tests, in turn, provided Pakistani nuclear advocates
with the perfect excuse to test. Here again, religious extremists
advocated the bomb. Qazi Hussain Ahmad of the Jamaat-e-Islami,
one of the largest Islamist groups in Pakistan, had declared
in 1993: "Let us wage jihad for Kashmir.
A
nuclear-armed Pakistan would deter India from a wider conflict."
Meanwhile the military sought nuclear weapons to counter India's
vastly larger armed forces.
...
Deployment increases the risk that nuclear weapons will be used
in a crisis through accident or miscalculation. With missile
flight times of three to five minutes between the two countries,
early-warning systems are useless. Leaders may not learn of
a launch until they look out their window and see a blinding
flash of light.
They
will therefore keep their fingers close to the button or authorize
others, geographically dispersed, to do so. ...
Even before September 11, South Asia had all the ingredients
for a nuclear war:
- possession
and continued development of bombs and missiles,
- imminent
deployment of nuclear weapons,
- inadequate
precautions to avoid unauthorized use of these weapons,
-
geographical proximity, ongoing conflict in Kashmir,
- militaristic
religious extremist movements,
- and
leaders who seem sanguine about the dangers of nuclear war.
..
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- - end excerpts - - -
Source:
- Scientific
American [link inactive]
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