W O R L D

Wolfowitz confirmed as Word Bank chief
The World Bank’s board of executive directors on Thursday unanimously confirmed Paul Wolfowitz as the next President of the bank. US President George W. Bush startled the international community last month by nominating the hardline architect of the Iraq war to succeed James Wolfensohn.

The current World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn (right) greets World Bank President-designate Paul Wolfowitz prior to a meeting at the World Bank in Washington on Thursday. — AP/PTI photo

Cardinals run the Vatican
Vatican City April 1
With Pope John Paul seriously ill, four Roman Catholic cardinals and a trusted archbishop are effectively running the day-to-day business of the Vatican, the headquarters of the world’s largest church. The four cardinals are all considered possible future popes. John Paul must approve all major decisions — even if only by nodding his head or scribbling his name on a document.

Wolfowitz confirmed as Word Bank chief
Ashish Kumar Sen writes from Washington

The World Bank’s board of executive directors on Thursday unanimously confirmed Paul Wolfowitz as the next President of the bank.

US President George W. Bush startled the international community last month by nominating the hardline architect of the Iraq war to succeed James Wolfensohn. The USA traditionally gets to choose the bank’s president while Europe picks the head of the International Monetary Fund.

Currently, Deputy Secretary of Defence with a reputation of being a neo-Conservative hawk, Mr Wolfowitz will take the helm of the bank for a five-year term on June 1.

He has spent the past few weeks trying to allay fears among bank members that battling poverty will not be his priority.

Last month, German Aid and Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, commenting on Mr Wolfowitz’s nomination, said: “The enthusiasm in old Europe is not exactly overwhelming.”

The Britain-based World Development Movement described the nomination as a “truly terrifying appointment.”

Soon after the board of executive directors’ vote, Mr Wolfowitz set out to reassure his critics that he would continue the World Bank’s mission of fighting poverty.

Noting in a statement that he had exchanged views with dozens of ministers, ambassadors, presidents and prime ministers from every continent, Mr Wolfowitz said: “As I have said frequently, that mission - helping the poorest of the world to lift themselves out of poverty - is a noble mission or, as former Secretary of State George Shultz said, ‘a beautiful mission."

Cardinals run the Vatican

Vatican City April 1
With Pope John Paul seriously ill, four Roman Catholic cardinals and a trusted archbishop are effectively running the day-to-day business of the Vatican, the headquarters of the world’s largest church. The four cardinals are all considered possible future popes. John Paul must approve all major decisions — even if only by nodding his head or scribbling his name on a document.

The five aides are:

Cardinal Angelo Sodano (Italian, 77): Secretary of State (prime minister) and second to the Pope in the hierarchy. A former Church diplomat, he caused a stir in February by publicly mentioning that a Pontiff could resign.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (German, 77): the Vatican’s top doctrinal watchdog as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Conservatives have cheered and liberals fumed at his strict orthodoxy and iron hand against dissent.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re (Italian, 71): as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, he draws up the lists of new bishops for the Pope to approve. The ultimate insider, he ranks as an ace administrator but has little pastoral experience.

Cardinal Camillo Ruini (Italian, 74): the Pope’s vicar as Bishop of Rome and head of the Italian Bishops’ Conference. His two posts make him the most powerful cardinal in Italy and a key figure exerting Church influence in Italian politics.

Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz (Polish, 65): as the Pope’s private secretary, he controls all access to the Pontiff and has grown in influence as John Paul’s condition has deteriorated. Loyal and discreet, he is not considered a possible successor. — Reuters

Will Schiavo's post-mortem reveal anything ?
Jamie Talan

Pinellas Park, April 1
Autopsies are performed to tell stories, and there are two chapters of Terri Schiavo’s life that doctors, lawyers, family members and now a public debating end-of-life care would like to hear.

The first is why a 25-year-old woman suffered a heart attack that left her in an unresponsive state since 1990. The second is whether her brain shows characteristic signs of a persistent vegetative state.

An autopsy may not shed much light on the first question, experts say. Though it can reveal whether there are signs of physical trauma, ‘‘the autopsy will not tell you what caused the cardiac arrest in 1990,’’ said Dr Cyril H. Hecht, a forensic pathologist and coroner of Allegany County in Pennsylvania.

To support the case that Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state, the autopsy would be expected to find ‘‘little islands of lost tissue’’ in the cortex, the thinking centre of the brain, said Dr Fred Plum, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan who, in 1972 with Dr. Bryan Jennett of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, coined the term ‘‘persistent vegetative state.’’

Such patients show a pattern of sleep and wakefulness -- their eyes open and close -- but Plum and Jennett demonstrated that they are neither awake nor conscious.

A finding that supports the presence of a persistent vegetative state would lend weight to the argument Schiavo didn't have the brain capacity to experience pain and suffering. The absence of such evidence would lend credence to the argument that she suffered as her body was denied nutrients.

Dr Nicholas Schiff, an assistant professor of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Cornell, said that Jennett’s group has studied tissue from the brains of 50 people who had been in a persistent vegetative state. He said the examiners at Schiavo’s autopsy will examine her brain tissue ‘‘and compare it to what we know about these brains.’’

Though all 50 people in the study were in a persistent vegetative state, brain damage was distinctive based on whether they had experienced blunt brain trauma or a heart attack. People with the former had damage to the brain’s white matter, the complex wiring system that was no longer able to communicate normally. In the heart attack cases, tissue was destroyed in the cortex and the thalamus, a region that sorts and sends messages.

— By arrangement with the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post

Schiavo's death ‘violation of sacred life’

Vatican City , April 1
The Vatican said the death of the brain-damaged Terri Schiavo in Florida yesterday had been a ''violation of the sacred nature of life'', and hoped it would lead to legal changes.

''The circumstances of the death of Ms Terri Schiavo have rightly shocked consciences. A life has been interrupted,'' chief spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in the Vatican's first official comment on the Schiavo's death. — Reuters

Mite that makes bees scarce threatens
$15 bn US fruit crop
Rupert Cornwell in Washington

It is a sound you take for granted, the gentle buzz of bees out and about on their daily business, pollinating flowers and trees. But in the US it is a sound that is becoming steadily rarer- and that rarity threatens fruit crops worth $15billion from Florida to California.

In the last year, around half the bees in the country may have died. The culprit is the varroa mite, first identified here in 1986. The eight-legged parasite is no larger than a grain of salt, but to bees it is lethal.

The scourge is by no means confined to the US, but nowhere has it been as devastating. For a while after its arrival in the US—probably from Africa or Asia — the problem was manageable. However, the bug has now grown resistant to almost every chemical used against it.

Unless a new treatment is found, or a new mite-resistant breed of bee is developed, fruit crops including strawberries, cherries, apples, squash, avocados melons and cranberries, which to varying degrees depend on bee pollination, could be affected. Honey production has also fallen steeply.

Nowhere is the threat greater than in California where annual production of almond which is £ one billion , or 80 per cent of the total world output. Almond orchards are particularly dependent on bee pollination, and first reports are that this year's flowering was particularly poor, although this may be partly due to the cold, exceptionally wet, winter, as well as to the varroa mite.

Between 30 and 50 per cent of California's bees have died in the past year, according to growers, as the mite defies every effort to eradicate it. For the moment the shortage is being covered by emergency shipments of hives, from as far away as Australia. But that may be only a stopgap, as varroa-affected states such as Florida discover they need every one of their own bees.

Despite every effort of researchers at the US Department of Agriculture and elsewhere, the problem is growing worse. We've never seen a crisis of this magnitude of loss of bees, David Ellingson, president of the American Beekeeping Federation said. "It's scary."

The best hope now lies in developing strains of bees naturally tolerant of the mites, such as Siberian honey bees from Russia.

—By arrangement with The Independent

US Congress nod to F-16s for Pak to take two months
Anwar Iqbal
By Arrangement with The Dawn

Washington, April 1
It will take almost two months to get Congressional approval for selling US-made F-16 aircraft to Pakistan, the State Department told Dawn.

On March 25, the Bush Administration announced its plan to sell an unspecified number of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.

Diplomatic sources in Washington said that Pakistan had asked for 26 aircraft but senior US officials, while announcing the offer, said there was no limit on how many planes Pakistan can buy. Since then some Pakistani officials have indicated that they may ask for 70 F-16 aircraft.

On Wednesday, US Ambassador to Islamabad Ryan C. Crocker told reporters that a technical team would visit Pakistan next month to discuss specifics relating to the sale of the aircraft. But before the sale is finalised, the Bush Administration needs formal approval from both Houses of the US Congress.

Hours after announcing the offer, the Administration conveyed its intention of selling F-16s to Pakistan to Congress as part of the Javits report. Named after former Senator Jacob Javits of New York, the report is an annual requirement.

Every February, the US President must submit this report to Congress, which includes an arms sales proposal listing all probable foreign military sales or direct commercial sales exports for the current calendar year that exceed $ 7 million for major weapons or weapons-related defence equipment or $ 25 million for other weapons or weapons-related defence equipment.

Though not classified, the Javits report has never been released to the public. Explaining the legal procedure for seeking Congressional approval, State Department officials told Dawn the Administration had already started the pre-consultation process.

During this process, Administration officials discuss with the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Relations Committee various aspects of a proposed sale. ‘‘We answer their questions, telling them what we want to do. If they have any major objections they will let us know,’’ said a State Department official.