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ZAMBOANGA CITY - A three-engine speedboat that Abu Sayyaf spokesperson Abu Sabaya had used to seize American hostages in Palawan was the same boat that government forces used Friday to pursue and "kill" him off the coast of Sibuco, Zamboanga del Norte. The Philippine Navy recovered the speedboat last year in Cagayan de Tawi-Tawi, a transit point for the bandits who proceeded to Basilan from Puerto Princesa, Palawan, after seizing 20 hostages, including American couple Gracia and Martin Burnham. Maj. Gen. Ernesto Carolina, chief of the military's Southern Command, said he was sure that Sabaya was dead. "I don't...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sponsors of a new campaign finance law meant to take big money out of national politics say election officials who will enforce the new rules are instead creating significant loopholes.</p> <p>They say the law Congress passed this year -- scheduled to take effect after the fall election -- clearly bars national party committees and federal candidates and officeholders from raising "soft money," unlimited contributions from corporations, unions and others that opponents say has a corrupting influence on politics.</p>

Quoting a "recent study," Britain's The Independent published a story on June 13, which claims that "smoke stacks of America have brought the world's worst drought to Africa." After Hurricane Mitch dumped torrential rains on Central America in 1998 that destroyed thousands of homes when entire mountainsides slid into the valleys, Argentine delegate to the U.N. Climate Change meetings in Buenos Aires, Ms. Maria Julia Alsogaray, told the assembled thousands that the rains were caused by American pollution. Were these claims true, we could simply hire Pecos Pete to lasso Mitch and drag him off to Africa. Problem solved. The...

Hunting Terrorists And Leaks (AP) The joint congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks ended a third week of closed-door hearings with a request for the Justice Department to hunt down the sources of a leaked news story. At President Bush's direction, Vice President Dick Cheney called the chairmen of the panel to complain that news organizations were reporting the contents of two Sept. 10 messages intercepted by the National Security Agency. The messages, which warned of an impending major event the next day, weren't translated by the NSA until the day after the attacks. “We will cooperate with the...

Tom Sowell, an economist and columnist who happens to be black, has a knack for cutting through the baloney. "The most important thing to keep in mind about (black) reparations," he said, "is that it is never going to happen. No Congress is going to pass, and no president is going to sign, a bill that takes money from the great majority of American voters to pay a debt that they don't feel they owe." The moral and legal arguments for reparations simply aren't persuasive, except to those who have to something to gain or to liberals with an insatiable...

<p>"Media Mogul Mouths Off." That's a perfect tabloid headline for Ted Turner's recent remarks claiming that Israel has been "terrorizing" the Palestinians, for which display of dull-wittedness (only the latest of many) he's copped a fair old wallop in the press.</p>

Many things in China are not what they seem. That includes, it turns out, the policemen.Authorities in Beijing have exposed 10,000 phoney police officers over the past five years and uncovered some 320,000 fake police vehicles, uniforms, badges and weapons.The report comes only as a minor shock to Beijing residents who, like people all over China, have grown accustomed to a cornucopia of fakes - from software to state statistics and university degrees. The idea that thousands of civilians have dressed up as police officers, and swaggered around issuing fines and requisitioning vehicles, will not surprise the populace.The green-suited...

EDITOR'S NOTE: This appears in the July 1, 2002, issue, of National Review. Tilting the Playing Field: Schools, Sports, Sex, and Title IX, by Jessica Gavora (Encounter, 181 pp., $24.95) When Brandi Chastain stripped down to her sports bra after helping the U.S. team win the women's World Cup soccer championship, it was page-one news — one of the most memorable images of 1999. As the current legend has it, neither that win, nor Chastain's display, nor indeed any victory for women's sports would ever have been possible without a law known as "Title IX." Jessica Gavora knows the value...

Ashcroft's Credentials: Are They Suspect? By Dana Milbank Friday, June 21, 2002; Page A06 Is John D. Ashcroft becoming a liberal? Conservative organizations are furious that the attorney general allowed his deputy, Larry Thompson, to address a gathering of gay Justice Department employees Wednesday night. Two, the Concerned Women for America and the Culture and Family Institute, fired off a statement yesterday saying Ashcroft, until now a darling of the religious right, has betrayed them. "After all the work we did to stand up to the liberal mudslinging during Ashcroft's confirmation fight, this is what we get?" asked Robert Knight...

Addressing A Scandal . . .Bishops’ Actions Expose More Corruption By MICHAEL S. ROSE and Paul Likoudis   DALLAS — The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ summer meeting in Dallas closed with the bishops approving a "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People," a shovelful of ground meat thrown to a media pack and victims of clerical sexual abuse demanding some sort of response to decades of clerical misconduct and episcopal cover-up.   The bishops placated almost no one. Critics assailed them from both the left and right and in the long run, the only likely lasting results from the meeting...

IN ITS MOST RECENT IMPOTENT attempt to put an end to the suicidal butchery arriving from the Palestinian territories, the Israeli government has proposed a fence that would run from the Salem checkpoint in the north to Kafr Qasem in the south, while another stretch of fence would run through the Jerusalem area. The planned length of the entire fence is around 115 kilometers, and it will cost around $1 million per kilometer. There has already been impassioned disagreement over how advantageous such a fence would be, considering it seemingly abandons Jews on the wrong side of the green line,...

LAS VEGAS - The FBI ( news - web sites) said it is investigating a Nevada man's claim that he picked up a conversation in Arabic on his cell phone during which someone said there would be a "hit" on the "day of freedom." "We've initiated a full-scale investigation to determine if this constitutes a threat, and if so, what kind of threat," said FBI Special Agent Daron Borst in Las Vegas on Thursday. Borst said agents have interviewed the man who reported the conversation, Michael Hamdan, and planned to question him again Friday. Hamdan, 54, said he's a naturalized...

June 20, 2002 Resource confusion a logistics problem Supply dispersal a complicated issue By Jeremy Meyer and John Diedrich The Gazette One of the state's largest wildland firefighting departments is stationed just miles from the nation's largest wildfire, but the U.S. Forest Service has yet to ask for its help. Fort Carson's civilian fire department has 68 firefighters, including Hotshot members and a fleet of trucks and other equipment. The firefighters have battled other federally coordinated fires in the region, including April's Snaking fire and the Cedar Mountain Road fire. They even have helped on the Hayman fire - but...

<p>NEWARK, N.J. (AP) --  For years, foreigners arrested in the United States for overstaying their visas have often been let go with a promise that they leave the country. Not surprisingly, many never did leave.</p> <p>For the past six months, however, the government has been quietly re-arresting many of these "absconders" on a U.S. Justice Department list about 1,000 names long.</p>

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 20 (UPI) -- At his swearing in Afghanistan's transitional president Hamid Karzai said his task was to "win peace and stability" but his multi-ethnic cabinet includes some powerful figures noted for waging war and creating unrest. Hours before his inauguration Karzai nominated three of Afghanistan's most potent warlords as deputy presidents. They are Mohammed Fahim, who is also the new defense minister, Haji Qadir, the governor of Nangahar province who has been described in various regional media as a drug baron, and Karim Khalili, a Hazara warlord. Below that are the members of Karzai's cabinet, combining...

FBI Warns of Fuel Tank Attacks WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI is advising law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for terrorists who possibly are plotting to use fuel tankers in attacks against Jewish neighborhoods and synagogues, a federal law enforcement official said. This official, who asked not to be identified, said the warning was sent out to local police agencies Friday. Another official, also speaking on grounds of anonymity, said the warning was not based on a specific threat, but on interviews with captured al-Qaida and Taliban fighters who indicated such a plot had been discussed. The interviews...

In the middle of a white-hot news story, rumors breed like potato blight. This is especially so when hundreds of journalists congregate in one spot to follow some big event. Waves of alleged breaks in the story crash through the pressroom, creating overwhelming pressure to get the scoop. Last weekend’s meeting of the U.S. bishops in Dallas provides a classic case in point. On Saturday, the second day of deliberations, I filed a story for NCR’s web coverage, citing Vatican sources to the effect that there are serious doubts in Rome about the wisdom of the “zero tolerance” approach. The...

NYC Waitresses Tackles Gunman NEW YORK –– Annie Hubbard was three sips into a glass of wine when her night out turned into a nightmare. Gunshots rang out at the door of the fashionable Manhattan wine bar where the waitress and aspiring actress was drinking with friends. Seconds later, a ranting man armed with three guns, a samurai sword and a spray bottle of kerosene herded patrons to the back of the East Village establishment. As the black gunman vowed revenge on white people for thousands of years of suffering and threatened to send his kerosene-soaked hostages out in body...

The real history of the world is full of the queerest cases of notions that have turned clean head-over-heels and completely contradicted themselves. The last example is an extraordinary notion that what is called Birth Control is a social reform that goes along with other social reforms favoured by progressive people. It is rather like saying that cutting off King Charles' head was one of the most elegant of the Cavalier fashions in hair-dressing. It is like saying that decapitation is an advance on dentistry. It may or may not be right to cut off the King's head; it...

Fr. Thomas Doyle, who worked for the pope’s representative in the United States in the early 1980s, was one of three drafters of a report given to the United States bishops in June 1985. That report was largely ignored (NCR, May 17). Since then, Doyle has been an outspoken critic of the bishops in their handling of the sex abuse crisis. He currently is an Air Force chaplain stationed in Germany. Jan. 6, the day The Boston Globe published its first major story about the sex abuse cover-up, was the day the hurricane hit land, but it was not the...