World
Monday • Decembers
Islam in Arab world awaits
results of changes in Iran
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — For near
ly 20 years, the glowering visage of
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and
his vow to export revolution cap
tured the essence of Iran’s message
to the Arab world. It inspired Islam
ic movements and frightened the
regimes they opposed.
But as delegates from across the
Muslim world meet this week in
Tehran, Iran is conveying an alto
gether different Islam to its neigh
bors, a new moderation best exem
plified by President Mohammad
Khatami, whose stunning election
in May electrified Iran.
Those changes are being anx
iously watched in the Arab world,
where the militant Islam once in
spired by revolutionary Iran re
mains formidable. And increas
ingly, some Islamic activists,
intellectuals and officials are
wondering whether the new
trends here could bring about a
new style of political Islam across
Iran’s borders.
Some speculate that the country
whose revolution in 1979 best
demonstrated the power of resur
gent Islam could usher in, a gener
ation later, a more tolerant style.
“There are new, evolving trends
out of Iran,” said Adel Hussein, a
leading Islamic activist in Egypt.
“And these positions will give a
‘There are new, evolving
trends out of Iran, and
these positions will give a
push to innovative Islam
throughout the region.”
ADEL HUSSEIN
EGYPTIAN ISLAMIC ACTIVIST
push to innovative Islam through
out the region.”
The Iranian revolution, which
brought the pro-Western regime of
the shah crashing down, infused
the Muslim world with a sense of
confidence and euphoria. Here, in
the heart of one of America’s closest
allies, revolutionaries loosely
grouped under the banner of Islam
won a rare victory in a region long
accustomed to defeat.
But that fervor, which inspired
young militants from Algeria to the
Gulf, has given way over the past
year to a budding moderation on is
sues from the role of women to tol
erance of political dissent.
The best example of that has
come through Khatami, an urbane
and engaging clergyman who has
called for an atmosphere in which
freedom can thrive and dissent is
tolerated. In an article in an Arabic
newspaper after his election, he in
sisted that the Muslim world must
understand the West in “an unprej
udiced way.”
And last month, in a striking
speech, Khatami declared that
women must enjoy the same op
portunities as men.
“Unfortunately, some unfair
practices against women are jus
tified through religion,” he said in
the address to a women’s confer
ence in Tehran. “We must look at
religion anew and purge practices
that are considered religious but
are not.”
U.N. expert says over 20 million
people in Africa now carry HIV
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) —
More than 20 million people in sub-
Saharan Africa carry the virus that
causes AIDS, and most of them
don’t even know it, an expert told an
international conference Sunday.
“The situation in this region is
unprecedented,” Dr. Peter Plot, ex
ecutive director of the U.N. Pro
gram on HIV/AIDS, said.
Piot was addressing the opening
session of the 10th International
Conference on AIDS and Sexually
Transmitted Diseases in Africa, a
five-day gathering bringing togeth
er hundreds of researchers who will
discuss methods for stemming the
disease’s spread on the continent.
French President Jacques Chirac
also was to address the gathering.
A UNAIDS report released two
weeks ago estimated 30.6 million live
with HIV or AIDS globally, two-thirds
of them in sub-Saharan Africa. One in
every 13 men and women between
ages 15 and 49 are carriers of HIV the
virus that causes AIDS, Piot said.
But he said that UNAIDS esti
mates that nine out of 10 people don’t
know they are infected and therefore
never seek medical assistance or
arrange care for themselves and their
children when they become ill.
The developing world’s lack of ac
cess to the latest, and most expen
sive, treatments plays a major role in
the spread of the disease in Africa, ac
cording to Piot. He noted that many
industrialized countries were seeing
a drop in AIDS deaths as a result of
new therapy whose price is far be
yond the reach of most Africans.
“Only a very small proportion of
people in the developing world have
access to these treatments,” Piot said.
The solution, Piot said, is an “un
precedented global effort” to make
drugs more accessible in developing
countries, and to improve health ser
vices so that more people can be test
ed and respond early to the disease.
Scientists warn world mu,
avoid another ozone scenai
Experts say action must bets
before problems become crii
KYOTO, Japan (AP) — The
American leading the internation
al scientific effort to track global
warming says he fears the world
may repeat the mistake it made on
ozone — wait for a near-catastro
phe before acting decisively.
“Suddenly, the Antarctic ozone
hole appeared, a huge geophysical
change,” climate scientist Robert
T. Watson recalled.
With global warming, he said, “I
don’t want to find a ‘smoking gun’
in quite that way.”
In an interview with The Associ
ated Press, Watson also warned the
global climate observation system is
deteriorating, just when it may be
needed most, because of budget cuts
by governments in many nations.
“It will degrade our ability to say
to what degree our climate is chang
ing,” said the former NASA scientist,
recently named chairman of the In
tergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, a U.N.-sponsored network
of more than 2,000 scientists moni
toring the global climate.
Watson is participating in the
week-old Kyoto climate change
conference, where delegates
worked behind closed doors Sun
day to reach agreement by
Wednesday on a complex plan to
rein in industrial nations’ emis
sions of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases.
The gases, mostly from com
bustion of fossil fuels, trap heat in
the atmosphere.
The IPCC, established in 1988
to coordinate research on global
warming, warned in a major 1995
report that emissions appeared al
ready to have boosted tempera
tures slightly — and would raise
them as much as 6 degrees more
by 2100 if not controlled.
That would shift climate
zones, make weather more tur
bulent and expand oceans, flood
ing islands and coasts.
The Kyoto talks are expected to
lead to only limited rollbacks in
emissions by 2010 or so.
But “it’s still a critical step,” Wat
son said. “It will start to send a
message to governments and in
dustries that they have to get their
energy policies right."
Watson, 49, has the rapid-fire de
livery and untamed beard of a sci
entist in a hurry. A veteran research
manager, he was a White House sci
ence aide in the first Clinton ad
ministration, and previously
worked for NASA for 13 years.
Beginning in 1980, the British-
born scientist was in charge of the
global effort to assess the “eating
away” by manmade chlorofluoro-
carbons (CFCs) of atmospheric
ozone, which helps protect life on
Earth from harmful ultraviolet rays
that can cause skin cancer and
Bus
Continued from Page 1
Trevor Hull, a bus trainer coordi
nator for PTTS, said that increased
student fees would not exceed the
benefits of the bus system.
“The increased service fee would
not cost that much more,” Hull said.
“But it would assure that the bus
fleet is up to date. If we have all the
buses up and running, then most
students living off-campus could
leave 10 to 15 minutes before class
to get to campus [on time]. The bus
system is definitely a convenient
way to get to campus.”
Of the 32,000 students that live
off campus, about one-third (10,000
students) use the bus system to get
to campus. Williams said a new bus
fleet could increase the number of
off-campus routes.
“If we were able to get proper
funds, we could serve every apart
ment in the area,” he said. “We actu
ally started serving the Oaks Apart
ments in Bryan with a van. We found
that students liked that service.”
Expansion of West Campus, in
cluding the opening of the George
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