Examiner International News

Passive smoke hides lethal cocktail of chemicals

by Jim Morahan
PASSIVE smoking is a far greater health risk than people realise.
That message was driven home yesterday by a German scientist.
The wispy smoke contains a lethal cocktail of cancer-causing chemicals.
According to Dr Ed Nelson, University of Essen, the concentrations of these chemicals are massively higher in passive smoke than that inhaled by the active smoker. Concentrations of a chemical which causes bladder cancer were 143 times greater in passive smoke, he told a seminar at University College Dublin yesterday.
The heat at the lighted tip of a cigarette was 900 degrees compared with 600 degrees as the smoker pulled it through the tobacco. Studies indicated a connection between the higher temperature and the levels and variety of toxicity.
A fervent anti-smoker, Dr Nelson said cigarette smoking remains the primary cause of preventable death and morbidity in our society.
"Rats are very clever," he said, describing how the experimental animals put their paws to their faces to help ward off unwelcome sidestream smoke in their cages.
Speakers at the seminar, on the theme Urban living: Is your health at risk? suggested there was a big gulf between what ordinary people perceive to be risk factors and the experts' perception.
Dr Iona Pratt, Health and Safety Authority, said it was difficult trying to get people to accept new hazards and potential risks. This was compounded by an increasing mistrust of science and the opinion of scientists.

Shelling kills homeward-bound refugee children, says report

FOUR members of an ethnic Albanian refugee family including three children were killed by Yugoslav army shelling as they attempted to return to their home, according to an unconfirmed report yesterday.
Two other members of the family were wounded in the incident which happened near Djakovica after the family had crossed over the border from Albania, the Kosovo Information Centre said.
The incident came as Western officials pressed both Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and the ethnic Albanians to do more to achieve a lasting peace in the embattled province. But the Milosevic government in Belgrade repeated claims that it has already met a key condition of the October 12 agreement to defuse the crisis.
The pro-government Yugoslav daily Vecernje Novosti quoted unnamed police sources as saying all troops sent to the Serbian province during the crackdown had been withdrawn and that only those who had been there before remained.
NATO and Western governments have challenged such claims.
France's foreign minister warned yesterday that Milosevic must still pull out more troops. And United States envoy Christopher Hill and European ambassadors pressed their political initiative in new talks with ethnic Albanian political leader Ibrahim Rugova.
Concerned by continuing sporadic violence, a European envoy said attacks by the Albanians' Kosovo Liberation Army could put efforts to reach a peaceful political solution in "serious jeopardy."
"We ask Kosovo people and especially the armed forces, Kosovo forces, to stop any provocations," said Wolfgang Petrisch, the Austrian ambassador to Yugoslavia and European Union envoy in Kosovo, after meeting with Rugova.
Ten days after the breakthrough agreement on Kosovo brokered by American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, there are still reports of shelling and shooting incidents at night in the separatist province. Still threatening airstrikes, NATO has given Milosevic until Tuesday to withdraw more military and special police forces from Kosovo and return others to garrison in the province where he launched an offensive against ethnic Albanian guerrillas eight months ago.
"The withdrawal of forces is very advanced, but that is not enough," French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said on France's RTL radio yesterday, warning the conflict could explode again. NATO must "not let go" now, he said.
Milosevic also must cooperate with war crimes investigations and efforts to aid and return the 300,000 people displaced from their homes, and agree on a specific timetable for talks giving Kosovo Albanians self-government and their own local police, he added.
But the ethnic Albanians must consent to such political negotiations, and many remain reluctant to give up their goal of outright independence, which the West opposes for fear of triggering similar demands elsewhere in the Balkans.
While the KLA has been fighting for inde pendence, the West considers the moderate Rugova and his negotiating team the legitimate representatives of Kosovo Albanians, who account for about 90% of the province's 2 million people.
Rugova said his team was working out what he called an "interim solution" with Hill.
He also made clear he does not support the recent attacks by the KLA, over which he has no control.

Clinton urges sides 'seize the opportunity'

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON was last night holding three-way talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat after intense all-night negotiating sessions saved the peace talks.
The President returned to the troubled talks yesterday to press Israeli and Palestinian leaders to finalise a US plan for a land-for-peace accord.
"The hardest decisions now at last are on the table," he said before leaving the White House to rejoin the talks at Wye Plantation, Maryland.
"I hope the parties seize this opportunity and not retreat from the clear moment to capture the momentum of peace and keep it moving forward."
Earlier, it looked as though a week of hard bargaining would end with a middle of the night walk-out by the Israelis after they demanded more Palestinian concessions on security and other issues regarding control of the West Bank.
Netanyahu, who had packed his bags and ordered his plane on stand-by, agreed to stay after advancing security guarantees in talks with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and CIA Director George Tenet, Israeli and US officials said.
"There was progress on security," Netanyahu spokesman Aviv Bushinsky confirmed, adding the plan wasn't yet final despite Palestinian claims that "the security file was closed."
Bushinsky noted many issues remain on the table for discussion, including revision of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's covenant to remove anti-Israel provisions and a third Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.
Ahmed Tibi, a close Arafat adviser, agreed the Palestinian charter and a third-phase withdrawal were the toughest issues left to resolve. But he noted that during security talks the Israelis had dropped their insistence on bringing alleged Palestinian terrorists to Israel for trial.
"There's nothing in the Palestinian dictionary called extradition," Tibi said. "We'll not extradite any Palestinians to Israel."
Jordan's ailing King Hussein was due to return to the talks last night, diplomatic sources said. They said the king's help was being sought by all parties on two remaining issues: further Israeli redeployment and the revision of the Palestinian charter.
Clinton was accompanied to the conference site by Sandy Berger, his national security adviser; Erskine Bowles, his outgoing chief of staff; and John Podesta, the incoming staff chief.
State Department spokesman James P. Rubin had said on Wednesday the president would become an active participant again only if there was enough progress among Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in agreeing to a US text of a land-for-peace deal that Albright was presenting for the first time.
Rubin called it "a rolling document" of less than 20 pages that was undergoing minor revisions and wouldn't necessarily deal with every issue of contention between the two sides, leaving room for compromise.
At the same, Rubin expressed caution about the outcome, given difficulties the Clinton administration has experienced in the past two years and at current eight-day-old talks in overcoming deep Israeli-Palestinian distrust.
Last night, negotiators were focusing on drafting agreement on so-called interim issues of the 1993 Oslo peace accords, including Israeli troop withdrawals from the West Bank, opening an airport and seaport in Gaza and providing safe passage to other Palestinians areas.
Netanyahu has agreed to a withdrawal from another 13% of the West Bank, including a nature preserve that would remain undeveloped. The Palestinians now fully or partially control 27% of the land occupied by Israel since the 1967 war.

School suspends pupil for 'casting a spell'

A 15-YEAR-OLD pupil was suspended from school for ''casting a spell on a student''.
Jamie Schoonover admits she practices witchcraft, as does her mother. But she knows better than to cast a spell.
''Casting a spell isn't something that just any novice is going to know how to do,'' said Colleen Harper, a transsexual who was Jamie's biological father but who now calls herself the girl's mother.
''If she ever were to cast any spells, it would be along the lines of wishing prosperity on someone or healing someone,'' Ms Harper said.
But the official referral form is quite clear in its reason for her suspension: ''Casting a spell on a student.'' Miss Schoonover and Jennifer Rassen, who broke down in hysterics on Tuesday when she thought she had been ''hexed,'' met with principal of Southwestern High School in Baltimore, USA, to try to sort things out.
According to Miss Schoonover, she and some friends were sitting beneath a tree on school grounds when they noticed the names of other girls scrawled on a wall. One of the friends wanted to cross out the names, so Jamie lent her a correction fluid pen.
The friend crossed out the names, then wrote, ''Is life a virtue of death?''
When Miss Rassen saw her name crossed out and the question, she ran to Principal Earl L. Lee saying the girl had cast a spell on her.
''She was hysterical,'' said a schools spokeswoman.

Women in fear following HIV manhunt

An HIV-positive man being intensively hunted by police for allegedly having unprotected sex with scores of women is an Iranian using the identity of a dead American, police in Sweden said yesterday.
The manhunt, now extended to neighbouring Denmark, has been given extensive coverage in Swedish newspapers, TV and radio, prompting a flood of phone calls to police from women.
About 80 women have reported having sex with the man and now fear they might have contracted HIV.
Police initially identified the man as James Patric Kimball of the United States, but Interpol informed them that the man actually was Mehdi Tayeb, 45, an Iranian citizen using Kimball's identity.
''It seems that the man has used a false identity since 1985. This does not surprise me completely, but it does not make our investigation easier,'' police inspector Christer Sjoeblom told the national news agency TT.
Kimball apparently died 13 years ago. The newspaper Expressen reported that Kimball's father Ervin, in Gorham, Maine, said James suffered a fatal heart attack in March 1985. The paper published a photo of the father kneeling beside his son's gravestone.
The passport Tayeb used was issued in Miami.
The man has been charged in Sweden with rape and grave assault. The latter charge has been used by Swedish authorities to prosecute people who engage in unprotected sex while knowingly being infected with HIV, the condition which can lead to Aids.

Rock star threatened to chop off air stewardess's hand

ROCK star Ian Brown threatened an air stewardess and hammered on the cockpit door of a plane as it began its descent to land, a court heard yesterday.
The former Stone Roses singer told flight attendant Christine Cooper he would ''chop her f**king hands off'' and told Captain Martin Drake to ''piss off'' when he was confronted on board the night flight from Paris, Manchester magistrates heard.
Brown, 35, who denies using threatening and abusive behaviour on the BA 1611 flight from Charles de Gaulle airport, was in the first class section when the alleged incident took place.
The stewardess told the court she informed the captain about the alleged incident and he later went to speak to the singer and his entourage, some of whom were kneeling in their seats or sitting on arm rests. The court was told that Brown had told bearded Captain Drake to ''p--- off and have a shave'' when he asked him if he had a problem.
The captain returned to the flight deck to begin his descent and illuminated the seat belt sign for passengers.
But as he began his descent he heard loud knocking on the door in several bursts and became concerned that someone was ''potentially attempting to break into the flight deck''.
He radioed for police assistance and Brown was arrested when the Boeing 747 touched down.
Pc Dave Cleave said the singer had been very aggressive and was arrested for a public order offence.
The trial was adjourned until today.

Star of soap sacked over timekeeping

A STAR of the TV soap Hollyoaks has been sacked by her production company because of ''persistent bad timekeeping.''
Davinia Murphy, who once dated Manchester United footballer Ryan Giggs, was due to leave the Channel 4 series later this year.
But Liverpool-based Mersey Television said the actress had been fired because her tardiness held up filming.
Davinia plays Jude Cunningham in the teen soap, who hit the headlines after an alleged nightclub brawl with Giggs when she was reportedly punched in the face and stomach.
A spokeswoman for the actress declined to comment.