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February 24, 2004
Forecast of Rising Oil Demand Challenges Tired Saudi Fields
By JEFF GERTH NY Times

hen visitors tour the headquarters of Saudi Arabia's oil empire — a sleek glass building rising from the desert in Dhahran near the Persian Gulf — they are reminded of its mission in a film projected on a giant screen. "We supply what the world demands every day," it declares.

For decades, that has largely been true. Ever since its rich reserves were discovered more than a half-century ago, Saudi Arabia has pumped the oil needed to keep pace with rising needs, becoming the mainstay of the global energy markets.

But the country's oil fields now are in decline, prompting industry and government officials to raise serious questions about whether the kingdom will be able to satisfy the world's thirst for oil in coming years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/business/24OIL.html?ei=5062&en=bc7d7425bb64c8cd&ex=1078203600&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=print&position=

Bird Flu in Texas Considered More Serious

By T.A. BADGER
Associated Press Writer (from Newsday)

February 23, 2004, 12:07 PM EST

SAN ANTONIO -- A strain of avian influenza found on a Texas chicken farm is highly contagious and far more dangerous to chickens than originally thought, and it has spread to live bird markets in Houston, federal officials said Monday.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-texas-bird-flu,0,7894760,print.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

Seals and dolphins wash up on Mexican beach

MEXICO CITY, Feb 23 (Reuters) - The corpses of 128 seals, nine dolphins and nine pelicans washed up on a beach in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico's government said on Monday.

The government environmental watchdog Profepa said the animals were found over the weekend in the San Jorge bay in the Sea of Cortez, about 60 miles (100 km) south of the U.S. border. It launched an investigation of the deaths.

"We are going to maintain a system of permanent vigilance where all of this happened to try to avoid more deaths," Profeca's head, Jose Luis Luege, said.

It was not clear why the animals died, although local press said environmental authorities were investigating a possible link to drug traffickers' use of a substance that creates a luminous effect when thrown in the ocean.

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004022323210002723466&dt=20040223232100&w=RTR&coview=
The substance is believed to be used to help locate drug shipments that are dumped at sea to be picked up later.

The area is home to some of the largest seal colonies in the Sea of Cortez, which separates the Baja California peninsula from the rest of Mexico.

Naperville bomb probe continues
By Garrett Ordower Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted February 23, 2004
The Naperville woman who owns the car in which "low-grade" explosives were found did not know they were there, Illinois State Police said Sunday.

But the man who placed an anonymous call to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did, and authorities want to question him.

"The person did state there was a pipe bomb in the trunk, and there was," Trooper Doug Whitmore said. "We'd like to interview that person."

The call, which came at 11 a.m. Saturday, led the state police and FBI joint terrorism task force to locate the vehicle about 2 p.m. in a parking lot between two buildings on the 1600 block of Country Lakes Drive, south of Diehl Road in Naperville.

Whitmore said the incident was "in no way linked to terrorism."

Twenty apartments in the two buildings, including the Autumn Run Apartments where the woman lives, were evacuated for about six hours, Whitmore said.

Underneath a spare tire in the trunk of the cream-colored Toyota Camry, police found a lead pipe with two threaded caps and a shoe box with a white powder, Whitmore said.

Though tests initially indicated they were not explosive, subsequent tests showed positive for "low-grade" explosives, Whitmore said. The device did not have a timer, he said.

The DuPage County Bomb Squad detonated the pipe bomb about 6 p.m. Saturday.

Investigators continued Sunday to run tests on the car and interview people, Whitmore said. The woman had been questioned but not taken into custody.

"Right now, we don't think she had knowledge," Whitmore said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, DuPage County sheriff's office and Naperville Police Department all referred calls to the state police.

http://www.dailyherald.com/dupage/main_story.asp?intID=3804011

Post-9/11 profiling under fire

By Imran Vittachi
Tribune staff reporter
Published February 23, 2004

For Sam Ozaki, the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, rekindled the pain and humiliation he endured after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942.

Sixty-two years ago, Ozaki was a high school student in Los Angeles. And though he was born in the United States and raised here, the presidential order sent Ozaki and thousands of other Japanese-Americans to internment camps.

"The first thing that came to mind was, `Here we go again'--that they would begin picking on and profiling Arab-Americans," said Ozaki, 79, a retired teacher and high school principal (((from Rogers Park.)))

Ozaki spoke Saturday at a rally against alleged governmental profiling and detentions of Pakistani-Americans, Arab-Americans and Muslims. The rally, which took place in the basement of a South Asian restaurant in the heart of Chicago's Pakistani and Indian district, followed a caravan protest through Rogers Park.

The rally drew a modest crowd of activists. Organizers said they expected a low turnout by neighborhood residents and Devon Avenue shopkeepers, likely scared off by fear of reprisals by police, the FBI and immigration authorities.

"I think this climate of fear has really affected people," said Jeff Lyons, an organizer from the Chicago chapter of Refuse & Resist, a grass-roots activist group. He was referring to reports since 9/11 of police and FBI agents questioning people of South Asian or Arabic origin living or doing business in Chicago.

"Sometimes you have to create a climate of solidarity so people feel able to speak out," Lyons said.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0402230089feb23,1,6971815.story?coll=chi-newslocal-hed