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Show DAILY HERALD Friday, September 24, 2004 AS FAST FACT Morning Briefing , Formerly the French Protectorate of Annam and Tonkin, Vietnam became independent in 1 945, split in two in T955, and was reunited on Jury 2, 1 976. Sara MocperJa Compiled from Daily Herald wire services The Nation of World Fads The WORLD Fill zfrir l " Press LEE All in a line South Korean kindergartners walk past Marine honor guard during thg 54th anniversary of military operations to recover the capital from communist forces during the 1950-5- 3 Korean War at the Kyungbok Palace in Seoul, South Korea, Thursdayt Woman gives birth after ovarian tissue transplant JOHN PAVONCEUOAssociated Press Revving up n Motorcycle enthusiasts get to test drive the newest bikes from the open plant tour and open house started Thursday and runs through the weekend Harley-Davidso- , Opposition percolates for House 911 bill even before introduction WASHINGTON House Republicans are clouding the attempt to adopt the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations into law by bundling them with additional, more controversial measures, Democrats complained Thursday. House and Senate Democrats are opposing the plan, even before it is introduced in the House, because it includes provisions on the treatment of terrorist suspects, illegal immigration and identity theft that go beyond what the Sept. 11 commissioners sought. "If we're going to maintain bipartisan spirit, provisions such as those could be extraor dinarily counterproductive, said Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota. House GOP leaders plan next week to start working on the legislation, which addresses the Sept. 11 commission's complaint that the nation's 15 intefli- gence agencies did not work together sufficiently before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York's World Trade Center , and the Pentagon. anti-terr- increased amid fears of attack ! Surveillance . ; WASHINGTON As the election draws nearer, U.S. officials are increasingly concerned terrorists will attempt to mount a devastating attack to disrupt the political process. In an unusual move, Attorney General John Ashcroft recently held a conference call with all 93 U.S. attorneys to spread the word that prosecutors and law enforcement officers should take every conceivable step to counter the threat, said two se-,- ', nior law enforcement officials briefed on thecal x Those steps include tenv pbrariry reassigning more FBI y agents to counterterrorism in- vestigations and having agents - make more frequent checks " yth informers and key v sources. i." Authorities also are increas- tiig what they call "overt" sur-'- ,' villance of terrorism suspects m- letting the suspects know and are being watched hey J l)ey may arrest some on relatively minor charges to get ' ' t6em off the street. ' ;The FBI also is checking new Information gained from arrests of operatives, especially those in Britain and Pakistan, to see if any potential terrorist activities or warning signs in the United States have been overlooked many states have weak mechanisms for disclosing potential conflicts, offering many opportunities for legislators to boost . their own fortunes or those of their employers. "You've just let the fox into the henhouse, potentially. I'm not saying it always happens that way," said Charles Lewis, center's the Washington-basedirector. "We have an entrenched class of legislators at the state level that is often forgotten. Occasionally checking the landscape is healthy to a democracy." Lawmakers and those who work with them say that the re-port is fundamentally flawed by assuming that legislators are in conflict whenever they vote on laws affecting their own professions, as opposed to issues that directly impact their individual business or practice. Critics say it makes sense with expertise in a given profession, such as medicine, to sit on committees and help make laws that have to do with that field. The report, titled "Our Private Legislatures," is scheduled for release today. Police searching for who called 911 PATERSON, N.J. "My mommy got hit," the tiny voice on the other end of the 911 call said. The girl said mommy was in the bathroom and wasn't breathing.. . A dispatcher kept the girl on the line as long as she could, but the child finally hung up after five minutes, saying she was tired. Authorities could not trace the call made from a cell phone and have run into in their a series of dead-end- s search for the girL "The worst-cas- e scenario is there's a girl home alone and her mother is injured," said Paterson police plant in York, Pa., on Thursday. The annual at both the plant and the York Fairgrounds. Capt. Danny Nichols. The department's entire detective squad was working on the case Thursday. Having exhausted numerous leads, including tips from callers from as far away as Pennsylvania and Florida, investigators were working with cell phone providers to try to determine the number of the phone, and the person to whom it was registered. "We've had 50 to 60 phone calls with all different types of information," said Detective Lt. Donald Giaquinto. "We've even had a psychic can." Detectives do not believe the call was" a prank because the girl's voice sounds exactly like that of a scared girL Authorities said the inability to trace the call was the result of two factors: Cell phones are usually more difficult to trace than regular phones, and the girl's call was fielded by a police line that does not have an enhanced 911 system. well-meani- . ' Fire kills five in home A preHOMESTEAD, Fla. dawn fire burned a home where windows were covered with plywood storm shutters, turning the house into a "con-- . vection oven" and killing four children and an adult Thursday, officials said. The fire did not reach the bedroom where the victims may have been sleeping, and they apparently died of smoke inhalation, Miami-Dad- e County Fire Rescue Lt. Eugene Germain said. Investigators were trying to determine what sparked the blaze, which began in the living room. The house became a "convection oven" when the boards and burglar bars trapped the fire's heat, gas and smoke, said Lt. Eric Baum, a spokesman. The house did not have fire-resc- smoke alarms, and the victims may not have known there was a fire, Germain said. Four of the victims died at the scene, and one died on the way to a hospital, he said. Their identities and relationships were not immediately known. A neighbor, Loretta Hanna, said the children were two girls and two boys, ranging in age from 11 to 16. The children's mother was not home because she had recently given birth and was staying with a relative, said Arthur Brown, the children's uncle. The newborn was still in the hospital officials said. Interpreter given bad-condu- ct discharge TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, A Muslim interpreter convicted of mishandling classified documents from the terroro ist detention center at Bay was given a discharge Thursday but won't have to spend more time behind bars. A military judge announced the sentence after a hearing in which Senior Airman Ahmad Al Halabi, 25, made an impassioned plea for leniency. He told the judge keeping the docu: ments was a mistake and said he would never do anything to hurt the Air Force or the United States. There was no immediate reaction from Al Halabi or military prosecutors to the decision by Air Force CoL Barbara Brand. The former supply clerk pleaded guilty Wednesday to wrongfully taking pictures, lying about it and mishandling classified information. In exchange for Al Halabi's plea, the military dropped an attempted espionage charge. It marked the third such case o against accused spies at Bay to fall apart this year. Calif. Guan-tanam- ct Guan-tanam- - V Turkey pledges to pass key EU reforms BRUSSELS, Belgium Turkey assured the European Union on Thursday it would pass critical penal code reforms this weekend, a move EU officials said would clear the way to opening membership taiks with Ankara. The EU has said the reforms which include laws against rape, pedophilia and torture and improvements in human are essenrights standards tial for Turkey to meet entry requirements. But the reform package was held up in parliament earlier this month by government attempts to introduce a provia sion outlawing adultery move supported by conservative Islamic groups in Turkey. The EU threatened that a ban on adultery could jeopardize Turkey 's entry into the union and warned the government it was unlikely to start membership talks without the reform package being approved. The Turkish government then withdrew the entire reform package to reconsider. But Thursday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met EU enlargement chief Guenter Verheugen and European Commission President Romano Prodi to assure them the Turkish parliament will hold an emergency session Sunday to pass the reform package. . Ossetia. The payments have been delayed because of confusion over the exact number of people held inside the school during the deadly Sept. 3 siege,! said Timur Butayev, a mem- ber of the school teachers' committee set up to aid hostage victims. Japan: N.Korea may be preparing missile launch TOKYO Japan said Thursday it had obtained intelligence indicating that North Korea be preparing to test fire a short-rang- e missile that could reach most of the main Japan-ese islands, in what would be the latest provocation from the communist country. Government off icials con ; vened an emergency task- force team in the prime minister's office after intelligence showed that North Korea appeared to be beefing up troops and equipment around missile launch bases, said Shigemi Terui, spokesman at the prime minister's office. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi downplayed the news upon his return from an overseas trip, however, say- - " ing he did not believe Pyongyang would conduct such. a test. "I think the chances are low that they will launch a mis- - . sile," Koizumi said. South Korea said missile-relate- d activities had been detected in the North by the American and South Korean ' militaries. Protester cartwheels into exhibit BERLIN A woman doing handsprings hurled herself into two art installations at the controversial exhibition of a collection belonging to the billionaire heir of a Nazi-er- a arms supplier, damaging both pieces, organizers said Thursday. The bizarre attack came late Wednesday on the top floor of the Hamburger Bahnhof museum, where Friedrich Christian Flick's collection was opened to the public earlier in the day. Yelling loudly, the woman attacked "Office Baroque," a cutout section of wall by American artist Gor- g a don series of flips before landing on the work in a handstand, punching both her arms through the drywalL said Klaus Dieter Lehmann, president of Berlin's Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundatioa She then ran across the large room, pushing , over a section of a spray-;- v painted truck called "Graffiti Truck," also by , MattaOark, bending back the metal roof. Police arrived on the scene about five minutes later and took the woman into custody. As she was apprehended, the woman : saxi, hick, l am satisfied, according to a museum security official . . ,. Matta-Clarkdoin- ls Charity aid still waiting to reach school victims MOSCOW Report Many legislators face conflict of interest More than a quarter of state lawmakers who disclosed their finances oversaw legislation that touched on their personal interests, and nearly one out of five had ties to organizations that lobbied state governments, according to a new nationwide study looking at conflicts of interest. The report by the Center for Public Integrity Concludes tha The first baby LONDON conceived after an ovarian tissue transplant was born Thursday in Belgium in a procedure that could one day allow women to delay motherhood beyond menopause. The birth, announced by The Lancet medical journal, which is to publish the results of the procedure Friday, marks the first time fertility has been restored to a woman after doctors cut out and froze some of her ovarian tissue and transplanted it back into her body years later. One pioneer in the field was cautious about the report, saying there is a small chance the baby came from the existing ovaries rather than the trans-- . planted tissue. However, he said the doctors from Catholic University in Louvain, Belgium, made a strong case that the birth resulted from the transplant. The technique has worked in monkeys, but until now has not resulted in a successful pregnancy in humans. The operation long hoped for by fertility specialists has been developed over the last few years to help women whose ovaries are damaged or destroyed by cancer treatment or other major surgery. Fatima Khabalova, spokes- woman for the North Ossetian parliament. Beslan is in North TOM WORN EnAssociated Press Puppy love Joste Morrison, 18 months, meets Peanut at the Kids Kaleidoscope Preschool Pet Fair at Pollard United Methodist Church in Tvler. Texas, - on Thursday. Kids Kaleidoscope . Preschool has held the " , ' pet fair for more than 10 years. Ongoing confusion over exactly how many people were taken hostage during a deadly siege at a southern Russia school is delaying the distribution of more than $20 million in charity aid, officials said Thursday. In the three weeks after the school in Beslan was seized by Chechen rebels, leading to the deaths of more than 330 people, nearly $20.4 million was collected from corporate and private donors in Russia and abroad, according to the Web site of the Regional Development Bank, which is handling the money. But none of that money has been given to survivors, said -- |