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U.N.-backed study estimates 639 million small arms in world GENEVA — An estimated 639 million small arms are held by individuals, police, military and guerrillas around the world, a U.N.-supported study said Monday. The revised estimate in the second annual Small Arms Survey exceeded the 550 million estimated in the first edition published last year. Peter Batchelor, one of the authors of the 329-page survey, said the revision didn't necessarily mean the number of arms had grown but was "based on better data and we think improved estimation techniques and particularly some much better data we received from Asia last...

BEIRUT, LEBANON - Pressured by Israel and a suspicious United States, Syria is taking steps to build a loose-knit regional alliance by turning its immediate neighbors from potential enemies into useful allies. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is reversing decades of hostility and mistrust with Turkey, Iraq, and Jordan. With military and economic delegations dispatched to Ankara and Baghdad in the past week, Syria and its neighbors are also preparing for the potential ramifications of a Washington-led drive to unseat Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, analysts say. Damascus last week inked two landmark military cooperation agreements with Turkey, Syria's northern neighbor. The...

Except for the first four years, I've lived my entire life in a war state with a huge standing army, centralized power, a vast security apparatus and a growing contempt for the Constitution and the American tradition. You ought to ask yourself why the United States has a standing army exceeded in size only by China's. You ought to ask yourself why American armed forces are stationed in more than 100 countries, even though we are not at war, nor are there any countries conceivably inclined to declare war on us. You ought to ask yourself why, after communism collapsed,...

GAZA CITY - With Israel occupying West Bank cities and President Bush calling for Yasser Arafat's ouster in new elections, the Palestinian leader is in a battle for survival among the toughest of his tumultuous career. But the leaders of Hamas are in high spirits. The Islamic fundamentalist movement, which calls for Israel's destruction, is convinced it is making big gains among the public with its suicide attacks and rejection of Mr. Arafat's lingering calls to negotiate. Analysts say Hamas would get about 20 percent of the votes if national elections were held today, making it the leading opposition force...

JERUSALEM - For the most part, the Israelis are delighted, the Arabs are aghast, and the Palestinians are trying to look on the bright side. In a speech on Monday that reaffirmed US support for the policies and practices of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, President Bush also outlined his vision for a peaceful Middle East. Once the Palestinians institute a full-fledged democracy and elect "new leaders ... not compromised by terror," Mr. Bush promised, the US would help create a provisional Palestinian state. In short, the president's message seemed to be: Goodbye Yasser Arafat, hello Palestine – in that...

U.S. President George W. Bush ran into ambivalence and signs of European concern over his call for the ouster of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, almost as soon as he arrived for a summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations, a conference widely expected to be dominated by the controversial American peace initiative for the Middle East. Guarded by soldiers, tanks, and laser-guided anti-aircraft missiles, the world's most powerful leaders gathered Tuesday at the western Canadian Rocky Mountain resort of Kananaskis, under the shadow of snow-covered peaks and away from diverse protest groups who say rich country policies hurt...

Entertainment: Rosie O'Donell feels backlash in Florida adoption fightMIAMI (June 25, 2002 11:52 a.m. EDT) - Rosie O'Donnell said she's begun to feel the sting of leading the fight to allow gays and lesbians to adopt children in Florida. She said a medical association recently rescinded an invitation to speak at their convention. "They said they were afraid of protesters," O'Donnell told 200 women Sunday at the two-day Wise Women Weekend retreat in Miami Beach. "I'm not used to being considered controversial." O'Donnell also responded to her opponents' criticism that her crusade is a gay issue. "I have no homosexual...

Business: Adelphia files for bankruptcyPHILADELPHIA (June 25, 2002 11:58 p.m. EDT) - Adelphia Communications filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday in the midst of financial troubles that have grown ever deeper and more tangled since the company revealed billions of dollars in off-the-books borrowing by the family of founder John J. Rigas. The nation's sixth largest cable television company had been scrambling to sell assets or lure investors to ease a cash crunch as the Securities and Exchange Commission and two federal grand juries investigated debts amassed by the Rigas family. At the same time, the company announced that...

President Bush's strong response to the Sept. 11 attacks has formed a Texas-size advertisement for his re-election. Less noticeable has been Bush's betrayal of the conservative ideals that were supposed to animate his domestic policy with meaning. Let us begin with education reform. Originally, Bush endorsed vouchers as a means of stimulating competition amongst public schools, thus providing the necessary incentive to set higher standards and redress the performance gap between inner-city and suburban schools. When Bush first announced his education proposal, I praised it as something no less pervasive than the beginning of a new civil rights movement. Unfortunately,...

Health & Science: Ebola outbreak spreads to GabonGENEVA (June 26, 2002 12:47 a.m. EDT) - Experts investigating a possible outbreak of the deadly ebola virus in Republic of Congo have found four suspected cases in neighboring Gabon, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. Two people died and two were sick with ebola-like symptoms in the village of Ekata in the remote north of the central African nation, in the Ogooue-Ivindo province, said spokeswoman Fadela Chaib. Six similar cases, including five deaths, already have been reported in northern Republic of Congo. Chaib said experts from WHO and the two governments involved...

Whether the Palestinians know it or not, President Bush has paid them a high compliment. He has judged them, in his Monday Rose Garden remarks, capable of moving beyond Yasser Arafat, onto the higher slopes of participatory democracy and free elections. It is more than a compliment really. It is a road map. Here is how to succeed in the modern world, the president might equally well have said. If the Palestinians want peace, what they first must have, Bush said, is "new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors." If -- preferring death and degeneracy --...

In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PRO-ISRAEL LOBBY BUYS ALABAMA HOUSE SEAT SAY MUSLIMS (WASHINGTON, D.C., 6/26/02) A prominent national Islamic advocacy group is calling Rep. Earl Hilliard's (D-AL) loss Tuesday in a runoff primary in Alabama's 7th Congressional District a "defeat for democracy," an insult to African-Americans and a victory for pro-Israel extremists. (In the heavily Democratic district, the winner of the primary will almost certainly be elected to the House.) Hilliard's opponent, Artur Davis, had been heavily backed by out-of-state supporters of Israel who opposed the five-term incumbent's criticism of American policies...

President Bush's plan for a provisional Palestinian state will not bring peace to the Middle East. Peace will come only when Palestinians love their children more than they hate Jews. The formulation isn't mine. My son Rudy overheard it last week while part of the Volunteers for Israel program, which sends American Jews and Christians to volunteer on Israeli army bases. There is a certain wisdom in the words. According to a recent survey conducted by a Palestinian polling firm, a majority of Palestinians say their goal is to eliminate Israel, while only 43 percent support a Palestinian state on...

Isn't it time for those who actually believed that the president's "new tone" in Washington would reduce partisanship to admit they were wrong? President Bush came to Washington promising a new tone of collegiality between the parties, and he did his part. Frankly, I've never bought into the "new tone" idea. Sure, people (including politicians) should treat one another with respect and courtesy because it's the right thing to do. But we shouldn't expect cordiality to lead to less partisanship, much less to better governance. And it hasn't led to either. You would be hard-pressed to deny that Bush did...

Why does the left support the Palestinians against Israel? The question is rarely asked. It is simply taken for granted that the left -- Europe, the Western news media, the universities, the liberal churches, the arts world -- supports the Palestinians and the larger Arab/Muslim worlds in their war against Israel. But the question does need to be asked. For it is completely inconsistent with the left's professed values to side with Israel's enemies. Just about every value the left claims to uphold Israel upholds and its enemies do not. The left speaks about its passion for democracy ("power to...

Some more murderers may escape the death penalty as a result of the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, declaring it unconstitutional to execute those who are "mentally retarded." The larger question, however, is whether a death sentence is being pronounced on the Constitution of the United States. Are the justices killing it by inches with their ever more clever twisting of its words and evasions of its substance? The Constitution's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment" is the ostensible basis for the 6-to-3 majority's overturning a death sentence on Daryl Atkins for his participation in a brutal robbery-murder...

In Atkins vs. Virginia, handed down last week, the Unites States Supreme Court substituted the judgment of six justices for that of 20 state legislatures. The majority decided that the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment precludes the execution of murderers who are mentally retarded. Of the 38 states with capital punishment, 20 allowed execution of the retarded. Leave aside the fact that this manifestly is not what was meant by "cruel and unusual punishment" in 1781. (The drafters were thinking of drawing and quartering and the rack, not executing the congenitally backward.) In his majority opinion, Justice...

Profits are misunderstood, seen as unearned and sometimes condemned as evil. Maybe that's why people often reverently pronounce, with an air of moral superiority, "We're a nonprofit organization." Before people mount their moral high horse, they should remember that nonprofit organizations have caused some of the world's greatest evil, heartache and dissatisfaction. After all, among nonprofit organizations are: oppressive governments, postal services and public education. Profits are not a large item in national income accounts. In 1999, after-tax profits accounted for about 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) compared to wages, which accounted for over 60 percent. Profits --...

Health & Science: NASA grounds shuttle fleetWASHINGTON (June 26, 2002 12:52 a.m. EDT) - Choosing safety over schedule, NASA has grounded the space shuttle fleet while engineers try to determine why tiny cracks are developing in the fuel line feeding the main rocket engines. The announcement put a crimp in NASA's efforts to satisfy a tight schedule for building and supplying the international space station. Solving the problem could take weeks or more, and people who have criticized the space agency in the past praised what they saw as a new emphasis on success and safety over speed. "These days,...

In our tradition, it is not the birthday of the dead that is commemorated but the anniversary of their death. The journey is complete then. On that day of the year, the Yahrzeit, you light a candle and say the kaddish, a prayer for the dead that for odd historical reasons does not mention death. Or you visit the grave. And leave a small stone behind, again for no clear reason but the most compelling: tradition. We're a people that's been around so long that we no longer remember the reason for many things we're supposed to do, only that...