news.ft.com By Jonathan Guthrie Published: January 25 2003 4:00 | Last Updated: January 25 2003 4:00

Tens of thousands of fifth-formers across the UK will come to terms this weekend with the miserable realisation that they cannot afford to take a gap year between school and university.

They had dreamt of seeing Uluru on a red, outback dawn. Or inculcating English into poncho-wearing Andean children. Some merely planned to work to finance their higher education.

But proposals to allow universities to charge tuition fees of up to £30,000 to students starting courses from autumn 2006 mean that taking a gap year could prove expensive.

The Department for Education said yesterday that it had no plans to exempt students deferring the start of university from 2005 to 2006 from higher fees.

About 80,000 undergrad-uates from a total of 330,000 accepted annually by British universities take a year out before beginning their studies. The number has grown sharply over the past 5-6 years with the advent of cheap long-haul airfares.

But a slump is expected in 2005-06 if the government does not relent on deferred entrants, as the National Union of Students is calling on it to do. "We are very concerned that numbers will drop, and recognise it is a big problem we will have to face," said Gap Activity Projects, an educational charity which places 2,000 young Britons a year with voluntary programmes in 34 countries.

Charles Clarke, the burly and bearded education minister, never had much chance of becoming a pin-up for teenagers. But he is now even more unpopular with a slew of 15- and 16-year-olds than annoying kid brothers and embarrassing dads.

"My parents have advised me not to take a gap year now," said Natasha McCarthy, sitting with fellow pupils in the wood-panelled entrance hall of King Edward VII High School For Girls in Edgbaston, Birmingham. She had planned to split her gap year between travelling and work experience with an accountancy firm.

Sara Sehdev, another pupil at the academically supercharged school, had received "an amazing offer" to work for a New Zealand TV company. "Now I won't be able to take that up," she said sadly.

But isn't a gap year just a chance to bum around the world with a backpack? Not according to Olivia Toye, another fifth-former: "We've been in an academic cocoon since we were tiny," she said. "This would have been a chance to experience real life before more education."

The group, which includes Natasha, Sara and Olivia, will "miss out on valuable personal development opportunities", said NUS president Mandy Telford, as well as having to find other ways to bolster their CVs.

Students abandoning plans for gap years will meanwhile put added pressure on places in the autumn of 2005. Experts think the number of deferrals will build up again, though to a lower level, in succeeding years.

The upside will be a temporary reduction in college bars, recounting tales of bandits in Brazil, amoebic dysentery in Azerbaijan and the time Ben fell in the sea near Brisbane.

www.canada.com Renata D'Aliesio The Edmonton Journal Saturday, January 25, 2003

EDMONTON - A dangerous radioactive cylinder smaller than a triple-A battery has gone missing, igniting a search stretching 600 kilometres from Alberta to Saskatchewan.

The silver metallic cylinder contains cesium 137, which emits gamma radiation and poses a serious health risk if it's near or held by someone for mere minutes. It was last seen Sunday at an oil-drilling site 35 kilometres southwest of the village of Pierceland in northwestern Saskatchewan.

Since then, the Tucker Wireline Services Canada truck carrying the cylinder has been to the company's branch in Leduc and to another oil-drilling site in Wandering River, about 50 kilometres north of Athabasca. It was in Wandering River on Tuesday that the cylinder was found to be missing.

The company has been looking for it ever since, but a search of Wandering River, Leduc, Pierceland and routes in between has turned up nothing, says Jeff Levack, sales manager at the company's Canadian head office in Calgary.

"It's a major concern," Levack said Friday. "The search is focusing along the highways, and in the bush where we were in Saskatchewan.

"Where we would really have a problem is if someone were to find the source, not know what it is, and pick it up and carry it around in their pocket."

The cylinder is used along with a five-metre-long tool to determine the density of rock within a hole drilled for oil. It should be kept in a secure case separate from the tool when it's not being used, said Carl Schumaker, a radiation safety expert at the University of Alberta.

"I think that the likelihood that somebody is going to receive a very high dose of radiation from the source is probably minimal simply because it's probably laying somewhere adrift," Schumaker said.

"The longer the time goes that it's not found, the more likely it is that somebody eventually is going to be exposed to it."

If someone were to pick up the cylinder, he or she wouldn't immediately know it was dangerous, Schumaker says. There are no warning marks, nor does the cylinder feel harmful when touched.

"Unlike a hot object, where you are going to feel the burn right away and you're going to drop it, a radiation burn would not happen immediately," Schumaker said. "It would take several hours, maybe several days or longer, before the skin would start to show the damage."

Aside from radiation burns, exposure to cesium 137 may also increase the risk of cancer. This can happen even without touching the cylinder, Schumaker said.

In terms of radiation measurement, the cylinder is rated at two Curies. By comparison, United States estimates of the radiation from the nuclear power-plant explosion at Chornobyl in 1986 have been in the range of three billion Curies.

Cesium 137 was found at Chornobyl after the accident.

Standing just a metre away from the cylinder for 10 minutes would expose a person to more radiation than is deemed safe for an entire year, Schumaker said.

This isn't the first time cylinders containing cesium 137 have gone astray in Canada. Since 1996, there have been three other incidents in which radioactive cylinders have been lost at oil sites, all in Alberta, said Michel Cleroux, spokesman for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. In those cases, the cylinders were located at the sites where they were used before anyone was exposed to dangerous levels of cesium 137.

Tucker Wireline has brought in an outside expert to help its workers with the search. Levack said the company has hired the same man who worked with Canadian military officials in New Brunswick to locate six radioactive gauges. The gauges, which were mistakenly thrown out in 1998, were eventually found in scrap yards in New Brunswick and Quebec.

There have been no serious medical or environmental disasters connected to cesium 137 in Canada. The cylinder is not considered a risk to the environment.

But it has been linked to a nuclear disaster in Goiania, Brazil, where scavengers in 1987 dismantled an abandoned metal canister containing 1,400 Curies of cesium 137. It was days before anyone realized the canister's danger. Four people died from radiation exposure, while scores of others fell sick.

Tucker Wireline is hopeful its cylinder will be found. Levack says workers are using gamma-radiation detectors mounted on trucks to search for it.

"It's like looking for your car keys. You have two or three very obvious places and when they don't show up there you have to really start thinking," he said. "It seems like a large area that we're looking over, but it's really a thin band because the source is either on the locations where we were working or on the road somewhere in between."

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has ordered the company to suspend work with radioactive materials.

Cleroux said anyone who finds the missing cylinder should call Tucker at 1-888-444-5647, or the RCMP.

There is a possibility the cylinder will never be found. If that's the case, it would pose a health risk for decades to come, Schumaker said. The half-life of cesium 137 is 30 years, which means it will take that long for it to lose half its strength.

Don McGladdery, a councillor with the county of Athabasca, said he doesn't believe residents should be greatly concerned about the missing cylinder.

"I'm sure they'll find it," the former engineer said. "These companies have the highest standards and it's unusual for them to lose something like this."

McGladdery said about 100 people live in the Wandering River area. The population of Pierceland is about 460.

rd'aliesio@thejournal.southam.ca

2003-01-25 The Oklahoman

An Israeli diplomat gave a chilling warning for Americans and other potential victims of terrorism during her visit Friday to Oklahoma City.

"We Israelis know that the terrorists consider Israel as the laboratory for terrorism," said Yael Ravia-Zadok, consul general of Israel to the southwest United States. "The methods they use against Israel today will be used against others in different regions of the world tomorrow."

Ravia-Zadok, stationed in Houston for the next three years, was named to her post in August. She oversees U.S.- Israel relations with Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Texas.

In an interview with The Oklahoman on her first visit to the state, she said the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks gave people a perspective of life in Israel.

"In Israel, you feel on one hand a wonderful, dynamic society that has wonderful cultural life with movies and theaters and opera and museums," she said. "On the other hand we have to deal with the daily threat of terror."

Before arriving in the United States, Ravia-Zadok spent six years in Israel with her husband and three children. Before that she served as Israel's consul to Brazil and as deputy director of the South American Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

She said something as simple as sending her children to school is a decision that must be considered on a daily basis.

"We Israelis took the spiritual decision of not surrendering to terror," she said. "We keep our routine, we keep our daily life. We keep sending our children to school and we keep going to sit in restaurants because we won't let the terror dictate our lives.

"The main message that we can deliver or we can share with our American friends is that we can't let the terror win. The world is different, the threats are different, we are dealing with mass- destructive weapons and capabilities that are in the hands of lunatics and tyrants."

"We share with the American nation common values of being in a democracy, believing in freedom, believing in peace," she said. "After Sept. 11, we share with the American nation the struggle against terror."

Ravia-Zadok said she hopes to further improve relations between the two countries during her tenure. Improvements in commerce and scientific exchange are areas she plans to emphasize, she said.

"If we will not stop the terror today, in Israel and that region, we will have to deal with it and we'll see it spreading all over. Those that deny or ignore the need to strangle terrorism today may be sorry tomorrow."

www.amin.org January 25, 2003 Press Release

On the evening of 22 January 2003, Mrs. 'Abla Sa'adat, along with 2 other Palestinian women, Iman Abu Farra and Fatmeh Zayed, held at Beit El military detention center, were issued 4 month administrative detention orders. Addameer's lawyer was able to visit Beit El on Thursday evening, when he was informed of the administrative detention orders for the three women. Mrs. Sa'adat also informed the lawyer that if they were not transferred to adequate detention facilities, they would begin an open-ended hunger strike. There is no information on their current situation as of the time of writing, as visits to detainees are not allowed during Fridays and Saturdays.

Mrs. Sa'adat was detained while traveling to the World Social Forum in Brazil as a delegate representing Addameer on 21 January 2003. She was transferred on the same day in an Israeli military jeep from the Karamah Border Crossing to Jordan at approximately 4 pm. She was held in the jeep until 10 pm, with the military authorities refusing to accept her at Beit El due to a lack of detention facilities for women at the holding center. Mrs. Sa'adat was placed in an isolation cell, with another female detainee, without being questioned or interrogated. Her personal belongings were taken from her, including her mobile phone, address book, airline ticket to Brazil, and her money.

Mrs. Sa'adat is being held in an isolation cell measuring 2m x 2.5 meters, with 1 and a half mattresses. The cell is extremely cold, and the female detainees share a toilet located outside of the cell with male detainees. She was first allowed to use the toilet and leave her cell when her lawyer visited her on Thursday, 2 days after her detention. Mrs. Sa'adat was suffering from diarrhea at the time, causing great discomfort, and also suffers from a slipped disc and low blood pressure.

Two other female administrative detainees, 24-year-old Iman Ibrahim Abdel Qader Abu Farra, from Sourif, Hebron, and 23 year old Fatmeh Ibrahim Mahmoud Zayed, from Yamoun, Jenin, are also being held in Beit El military detention center. They are both fourth year students at the Religious Studies College of Al Quds University, Abu Dis. The two roommates were arrested from their apartment in Im Al Sharayit, a suburb of Ramallah, on 20 January 2003.

Beit El military detention center has no facilities for female detainees, and the conditions of detention of the three women are inhumane. They are allowed to go to the toilet only 3 times a day, are not allowed to walk outside for fresh air, are not allowed a change of clothing and are being held in cold isolation cells. The only fluids allowed are tap water, breakfast and dinner consist of a piece of bread with a small tub of yogurt, and lunch consists of a small plate of rice with beans and a small piece of meat.

Addameer is concerned that the use of administrative detention against female Palestinians will become a new trend in Israel's systematic use of administrative detention as a form of collective punishment. There are currently over 1,200 Palestinians in administrative detention, living in inhumane conditions. Since the beginning of the current Intifada, only 2 other women were placed in administrative detention in 2002. Prior to this, the last female administrative detainee was Itaf Eliyan, who was given 3 months administrative detention in October 1997, and released in January 1998.

Addameer calls on the international community to voice its protest against Israel's use of administrative detention as a form of collective punishment, illegal under international law. Addameer also urges the international community to intervene on behalf of Mrs. 'Abla Sa'adat, calling for a halt to the detention and harassment of Palestinian human rights defenders.

www.hindustantimes.com Agence France-Presse London, January 24

Opposed to what they call the "tyrant" Saddam Hussein and an Anglo-American "dictatorship," a dedicated group of 60 volunteers say they are ready to put their lives on the line to save Iraqi civilians.

The group leaves London on Saturday, heading overland for Iraq's capital Baghdad where they intend to act as "human shields" against possible military strikes.

Steven Alan, 31, from Edinburgh, said he is going because he would rather die striving for a peaceful cause than "to have a long life without any purpose at all, centred around fear."

Two double-decker buses, a taxi-cab and another bus will leave London's City Hall mid-afternoon on Saturday, and are due to arrive in Baghdad on February 8, according to the HumanShield organization, which has been planning the operation for a month.

"I think most people are getting tired of British and American leaders whose agenda is all about imposing their superiority and their dictatorship," Alan, a computer programmer, told AFP.

Convinced that the risk is worth taking, he asks: "If not you, who? If not now, when?"

It's a point of view shared by Grace Trevett, 45, who lives with her 21-year-old daughter in Stroud, central England.

"I'm doing this to drive home the point that my life is equal to that of an Iraqi civilian," said Trevett.

"In order to make that point properly, I have to be prepared to die for my principles," she said.

Ube Evans, 50, employed by the Welshpool theatre in Wales, said that, like the others, he made his decision after listening to the man who launched the human shield operation, Ken O'Keefe, a former US Marine who fought in the 1991 Gulf War.

"I believe the proposed war is more to do with oil and America's need for oil," said Evans. Iraq has the world's second largest known oil reserves after Saudi Arabia.

O'Keefe, who has renounced his US citizenship in protest of US foreign policy, said: "The aim is to stop that war which is going to kill thousands of innocent people."

Sue Darling, a 60-year-old pensioner living in south London, served as a British diplomat in numerous countries from 1965 till 1988.

"I was appalled at the policy the British government is following which is for me illegal, immoral and irrational," she said. "A pre-emptive strike against someone you consider might be a threat is not acceptable."

All the potential human shields took pains to stress that they do not support president Saddam who, in Evans's words, is a "tyrant."

On January 8, Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz indicated that the door was opened for human shields -- a move immediately denounced by the Pentagon as deliberate recruitment.

A third of those wanting to be human shields are British, organiser Stefan Simanowitz told AFP. The others come from Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Spain, Belgium, even Brazil.

Organisers hope to recruit other volunteers on their route which takes them on Sunday to Paris and then Geneva, Zurich, Milan, Belgrade, Sofia, Istanbul, Ankara, Damascus, Amman before arriving in Baghdad.

The human shields would then be distributed to schools, hospitals and health centres in the Iraqi capital.

According to Simanowitz, the US is set on war, whether or not the UN agrees: "We anticipate a war and want to put pressure on the US administration before the war", he said.