Sat March 29, 2003 03:59 PM ET <a href=asia.reuters.com>By Greg Frost

BOSTON (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of Boston to protest the war in Iraq, the latest in a wave of peace demonstrations that circled the globe on Saturday.

In what officials and historians said was the biggest protest in Boston in at least 30 years, thousands chanted "This is what democracy looks like" as they paraded through the elegant streets of America's education capital.

The diverse crowd included not just students and faculty from New England college campuses but families and retired people -- many of whom said the U.S.-led war had triggered a political awakening in their souls.

"This war spoke to me as being wrong, unjust, immoral and certainly not what American values are all about," said Susan Hughes, a former member of President Bush's Republican Party who lives in Groton, Massachusetts.

"Bush started this war to depose a dictator, but now we have an administration that is acting like the dictatorship we are trying to take out," the 46-year-old said as she prepared to march through Boston.

In New York, a few hundred protesters, primarily pro-Palestinian and also opposed to the Iraq war, marched down Broadway from Times Square to Union Square in downtown Manhattan. Demonstrators waved large Palestinian flags and chanted for an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian areas and against the war.

Last week, an estimated 150,000 to 250,000 people protesting the war marched along same route.

Earlier, tens of thousands rallied in France, Italy, Germany, and in the cities of Moscow and Budapest, to call for an end to the U.S.-led invasion launched to rid Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Demonstrations in Europe followed similar anti-war protests in Asia and Africa, home to some of the world's biggest Muslim populations. Malaysian police used tear gas to break up an unauthorized protest, while authorities in Bangladesh rolled out barbed wire to keep marchers from the U.S. embassy.

More than 10,000 people marched on the U.S. consulate in Cape Town, South Africa.

In a rare move, Chinese police allowed 100 demonstrators to rally in a walled park in eastern Beijing on Sunday.

BRIDGES DRAPED IN BLACK

In Rome, small groups of protesters hung black sheets from the sides of 16 bridges spanning the River Tiber, some of them crossed by invaders and victors in past centuries.

In a symbolic gesture, around 30,000 people in Germany formed a human chain between the northern cities of Munster and Osnabrueck, a 35-mile route taken in 1648 by negotiators who ended Europe's Thirty Years War.

Police said more than 23,000 people took part in two separate marches in the German capital, culminating at the country's "Victory Column" in the Tiergarten park. A giant globe-shaped map of the world emblazoned with the slogan "No War" marked out the destination.

Police arrested 25 people who tried to block a highway leading to the U.S. Rhein Main air base in Frankfurt during a protest by more than 1,000 people. Some 4,000 others formed a chain around the U.S. European Command headquarters in Stuttgart.

Hundreds of protesters, some carrying Iraqi flags and posters of Saddam Hussein, gathered in Caracas, Venezuela, and chanted slogans against President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"This is an illegal war, it has no justification," said 18-year-old Muslem Fuad, a Venezuelan student of Syrian origin.

Bangladeshi protesters, mostly from the radical Islamic Constitution Movement, burned American flags and effigies of Bush.

Demonstrators called for Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be tried as war criminals.

In Melbourne, protesters ripped up an American flag and accused Australian Prime Minister John Howard of betraying the rule of law by backing the war, local media reported.

Hundreds of Russian protesters gathered in front of the U.S. embassy in Moscow, waving red banners and calling on the Kremlin to form an international coalition to oppose the U.S.-led strikes and to help Iraq.

Thousands marched through Paris in the city's fifth protest since the war began, but organizers this time stepped up efforts to avert anti-Semitic violence after two Jewish youths were beaten up at a similar march last week.

By NDUKA UZUAKPUNDU Sunday, March 30, 2003

THE United States-led unjust aggression against   Iraq is progressing as planned. But, if you are familiar with received war-time parlance, given the consuming mobilisation and the strategy made by Washington and its allies – in order to sink President Saddam Hussein – you are most likely to think otherwise. Suppose in the first 72 hours of the aerial bombardment of Basra and Umm Qasr by U.S. troops there was a gleeful and genuine beam of footage of broken Iraqi resistance – this time not just by the ubiquitous, Qatar-based Arab satellite television station – Al Jazeera – but also other influential broadcasters – like the BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS etc. – the language of the sitrep issuing from the U.S. Central Command post in Qatar, would have been cheeringly different: “the war is progressing beyond our wildest imagination.” And that could have been General Tommy Franks – the Kosovo veteran – who is in charge of the anti-Saddam aggression – speaking. But this war is not progressing as President George W. Bush, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State General Colin Powell may have expected. It is too unjust and morally indefensible to be.

Iraq - Saddam and his associates in the alleged weapons of mass destruction (W.M.D) saga - as the pre-war ranting went - would be tested within days. That has not been. And yet Rumsfeld did say that Iraq would not be too much of a problem, even if Washington were to take on North Korea at the same time. The friends of Washington are eagerly waiting to see a demonstration of that. While he said Iraq is a new kind of war, neither Washington nor London knows how to fight it. Bush may have - in the weeks ahead - to shift position, for obvious reasons: Iraq is not as backward as Afghanistan; Iraq is about four times the size of Afghanistan; 24 times Kuwait; its people are a justifiably proud lot driven by their 8,000-year long history of civilisation, which has been nurtured by the Euphrates and the Tigris and their leading geo-strategic position in the Arabian Gulf region.

The breadth of Iraqi resistance to the aggression, so far, suggests the inaccuracy of the pre-war intelligence about Iraq gathered by Washington and its regional allies. Iraqis are, for all these traits - and many more - unlikely to bow soon. Bush and his distinguished ‘War Council’- including the famous Congressman from North Texas, alias Tony Blair - are well into plans in readiness for a long, stretching aggression against Iraqis. Almost too early in their self-appointed errand, they have come to realise that Iraq holds forth a telling feature that is quite distinct from Grenada, Haiti, Somalia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. But, like Somalia, there is some unveiled unease in the Bush camp that the casualties: 18 U.S. troops missing in an ambush in An Nasiriyah; the felling of British planes by friendly fires flung from American Patriot missiles; the beamed confessions by some American soldiers that they were unwilling - as opposed to illegal - combatants in the anti-Saddam war; that, indeed, they had nothing against the Iraqis; are developments too unhealthy for the Coalition’s cause.

Still, the latest intelligence forecasts a crippling soar: as ‘another’ anti-Vietnam civil disobedience brews on the U.S’s Atlantic seaboard, a crop of unidentified U.S. troops in Umm Qasr may be plotting to jam the Coalition forces’ central communication lines, disable some B-52 war planes and waste the head of the unjust war out there in Qatar. These are Americans, augmented by the consuming anti-war protests and the fact that theirs is an outing not backed by the resolution of the United Nations Security Council, who have come to realise the duty they owed their conscience - and the cause of justice and peace - that Iraq is decidedly a war of blame. These are Americans who figure that against the run of their country’s war history, the aggression against Iraq would not win them the hearts of Iraqis whenever the din of war subsides. They would rather act now, the way they have planned - by April 9 - so some intelligence say - if only to be seen as having expressed their disapproval of the aggression.  

Cultivated patience 

Meanwhile, American voters and tax-payers are waiting - with some cultivated patience - to task Bush over his promise to send American sons and daughters to war fronts to conquer and amble out unscathed. There is already a build up to an opportunity to that effect right inside Iraq - an opportunity which Afghanistan was, understandably, not magnanimous enough to offer: Several families of captured U.S. legal combatants have been trooping to Fort Bliss - the base of the 507th  Maintenance part of the 111th Air Defence Brigade, in Texas - whence some of the prisoners of war came. Bush expects that their Iraqi captors would treat them humanely, because they are as good as the illegal combatants who have refused to evacuate Guantanamo, because of the unimaginable comfort and bliss they have found on the island; something that wealthy and magnanimous Afghanistan was too stingy to offer them. Said Bush on his return last week to the White House from Camp David: “We expect them (the American POWs) to be treated humanely, just like we’ll treat any prisoner of theirs ... If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals.”  

But for ordering a  criminal aggression  against the people of Iraq, Bush and his associates shall be treated as heroes. The POWs have been shown on Arab, American and British television stations. But, as the spokeswoman of the International Committee of the Red Cross (I.C.R.C), Nadu Doumani, said, the showing of the POWs on television violates Article 13 of the Geneva Conventions, which says POWs should be protected from public curiosity. The unanswered questions posed by Article 13 – in its assumed magisterial disposition are: What is the just definition of ‘curiosity’? Who defines it? Is it Bush, Blair or Saddam?  Because of the aggression against Iraqis, Article 13 ought to be tolerant of certain informed infractions. Although, it is true that those who crafted Article 13 were never that clairvoyant to foresee such obvious falsity that could lead to an unjust aggression, it is, nonetheless, imperative they should retire to their chambers and reflect on all possible unjust future war situations - including what is left of Bush’s “axis of evil” - Iran and North Korea - and loosen it up with some provisos, in a transparently liberal fashion, to accommodate some informed extremities.

In the face of the offensive against the Iraqis, Article 13 is indefensible. It is archaic and unrealistic. If war is not about propaganda - propaganda that, in some instances, is steeled by the footage of POWs and laboriously stuffed body bags, of what relevance is Article 13?. For now, Article 13 should be rested. Here is an unjust war for which, in fairness, the Iraqis should be allowed to press their case by any means within their reach. As it presently is, Article 13 is akin to an unjust crusade to tamper with press freedom, just in case any newspaper naughtily publishes the truth with supposedly an unjust intent to embarrass a public officer. It is morally offensive and unjust to crave a veil - as Article 13 seeks, in every material particular, to do - for the faces behind an unjust aggression. Iraq is enough as an unjust war milieu for which it will be more tolerable to beam the faces of POWs,  than those of lifeless victims. If war has nothing attractive to offer, Article 13 ought to be ambitious enough to ban it. By implication, there will be no more POWs – and the I.C.R.C. will be saved the discomfort of some television stations exposing legal combatants to curiosity. Regrettably, Article 13 is, unjustly, about making the media one of the countless casualties of the war.

Presently, the Saudi crown - torn between its loyalty to Washington and the anger of public opinion against the war - is pondering over what it would look like if the Americans should topple Saddam from his oil empire. Would it corrode the mighty influence of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in global oil politics? Would it be nunc dimitis for the cartel? Would Washington, thereafter, steep itself in creating a permanent glut in the global oil market to cheapen the price? Would it then have transmitted to fruition the threat of the crude Republican Nixon administration, during the 1973 crude oil crisis, when a barrel sold for $40, that those oil-exporting Arab countries - and their accomplices in the oil cartel - who whetted the attendant embargo - shall, whenever the United States found an alternative to Arab petroleum, quaff their hard currency earner. Perhaps. That was in 1973. This is 2003. Some 30 years later. Is crude Nixon’s oil prophecy about to come true? The unjust war against Saddam casts Republican Washington as being too crudely ambitious. It is no longer satisfied with its indisputable leadership of the post-Soviet, unipolar world, especially in the field of space and war technology, it also wants, with the crudest of intentions, to control the supply and demand of the crudest and commonest commodity in international trade. Iraq might well be it: since the bombing of the World Trade Centre and The Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the Afghan campaign, USS Cole and growing Arab unease and open criticisms of U.S. stagnating policy on Palestine, amongst others, Washington had been in search of an alternative source of cheap crude oil – to supplement what it gets from such short hauls from neighbouring Mexico and Venezuela. And because Washington realises that it cannot, for too long, rely on a local Arab instrument to take care of its oil interests in the Gulf – just as the experience with the Shah has shown – it is beginning to eye the treasures of the Gulf of Guinea.    

Clinton administration

  Although the Washington of the mid 90s was well positioned to take on Saddam, soon after the Iraqi troops were chased out of Kuwait, the Clinton administration was pretty wary not to besmirch its image, should it go beyond the brief of the Security Council resolution. The Bush administration says it has an anti-Saddam war plan that would make for an easy encounter with Iraqi troops, with a minimum human catastrophe. Independent reports say the opposite. Today’s U.S.-led aggression against Iraq, in spite of Saddam’s recorded co-operation with the arms inspectors, will surely have the crudest of consequences on both sides.

There was no justification for Bush and his associates to have read the Iraqi case as one of inaction, on the part of the Security Council, which, it is true, characterised its handling of the abuse of human rights and crimes against humanity in the Balkans, and lawlessness and terror in Afghanistan to defend his slipping American troops into a unilaterally declared war. Indeed, British Middle East specialist and journalist, Patrick Seale, charges Washington with deceitful propaganda to justify the aggression, saying Washington has not proved its accusation that Baghdad was developing weapons of mass destruction and had links to terrorist groups. The real target of the war, he says, is to make U.S. supremacy prevail on a strategic oil-rich region, and to protect Israel’s regional superiority and its monopoly over weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. 

The unjust aggression against Iraq will surely  draw upon the Middle East and certain parts of the world, including the U.S. and Britain, humanitarian crisis and mighty pestilence of Biblical magnitude - the kind that would stretch Washington awfully thin. Washington may not find a post-Saddam Iraq and its breathing oil deposits to control. Baghdad, by some accounts, may turn out to be another Stalingrad for the Coalition forces. The historian, Anthony Beevor, speaks of Saddamgrad. It is likely that Iraq, thanks to an informed Arab conspiracy to thwart Washington’s unjust designs, will be balkanised into ungovernable counties – a la Somalia, until all foreign troops disengage from the territory. Before then, you cannot rule out the possibility of some of the hard by complacent, pro-American and undemocratic cronies being swept away. Put differently, this violent campaign against Saddam that is not blessed by a resolution of the Security Council could lead to the disappearance of Iraq from the world map, if only temporarily. And this is one situation that would surely make the retrieval of a belle epoque, a herculean burden.

<a href=news.independent.co.uk>By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor 30 March 2003

Genetically modified crops specially engineered to kill pests in fact nourish them, startling new research has revealed.

The research – which has taken even the most ardent opponents of GM crops by surprise – radically undermines one of the key benefits claimed for them. And it suggests that they may be an even greater threat to organic farming than has been envisaged.

It strikes at the heart of one of the main lines of current genetic engineering in agriculture: breeding crops that come equipped with their own pesticide.

Biotech companies have added genes from a naturally occurring poison, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which is widely used as a pesticide by organic farmers. The engineered crops have spread fast. The amount of land planted with them worldwide grew more than 25-fold – from four million acres in 1996 to well over 100 million acres (44.2m hectares) in 2000 – and the global market is expected to be worth $25bn (£16bn) by 2010.

Drawbacks have already emerged, with pests becoming resistant to the toxin. Environmentalists say that resistance develops all the faster because the insects are constantly exposed to it in the plants, rather than being subject to occasional spraying.

But the new research – by scientists at Imperial College London and the Universidad Simon Rodrigues in Caracas, Venezuela – adds an alarming new twist, suggesting that pests can actually use the poison as a food and that the crops, rather than automatically controlling them, can actually help them to thrive.

They fed resistant larvae of the diamondback moth – an increasingly troublesome pest in the southern US and in the tropics – on normal cabbage leaves and ones that had been treated with a Bt toxin. The larvae eating the treated leaves grew much faster and bigger – with a 56 per cent higher growth rate.

They found that the larvae "are able to digest and utilise" the toxin and may be using it as a "supplementary food", adding that the presence of the poison "could have modified the nutritional balance in plants" for them.

And they conclude: "Bt transgenic crops could therefore have unanticipated nutritionally favourable effects, increasing the fitness of resistant populations."

Pete Riley, food campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said last night: "This is just another example of the unexpected harmful effects of GM crops.

"If Friends of the Earth had come up with the suggestion that crops engineered to kill pests could make them bigger and healthier instead, we would have been laughed out of court.

"It destroys the industry's entire case that insect-resistant GM crops can have anything to do with sustainable farming."

Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association, said it showed that GM crops posed an even "worse threat to organic farming than had previously been imagined". Breed- ing resistance to the Bt insecticide sometimes used by organic farmers was bad enough, but problems would become even greater if pests treated it as "a high-protein diet".

Web By CHERIE JACOBS cjacobs@tampatrib.com Published: Mar 29, 2003

TAMPA - With a $20 bill in her hand, Cindy Arens was skipping the chips.

She topped off her gas tank, stopping the meter just shy of $19, and used the last dollar or so for a Diet Coke inside the 7-Eleven at Gunn Highway and Henderson Road.

``Normally, if I was going in I'd spend $20 on gas and probably $3 or $4 on munchies.''

But gas is now so expensive that it takes more than $25 to fill the tank of her Toyota Camry. So she skimps on both the gas and the food.

``I don't want to go over $20,'' the 52-year-old Tampa woman said.

Arens represents the changing economy. As gas prices hover near all-time highs, consumers are cutting back in other areas.

Friday's Commerce Department report showed consumer spending was flat in January and February, holding at an annual rate of $7.49 trillion.

Although winter weather was a big factor dampening retail sales in February, economists said consumers are becoming more cautious in the muddled economic climate.

From cups of coffee to bags of chips, consumers are trimming nickels and dimes from their everyday expenses.

The chief executive officer of 7-Eleven, Jim Keyes, has noticed. When gas prices rise, his stores across the country sell fewer gallons of milk and cartons of cigarettes, instead selling more quarts of milk and single packs of smokes. Some shoppers eschew large coffees and Slurpees for smaller sizes.

We think gasoline is a bigger driver of the near-term economy than unemployment. When gasoline costs go up 20 cents a gallon, it affects everyone,'' Keyes said. More and more people are looking at gasoline being a daily necessity. It forces a difference in your buying patterns.''

In February, 7-Eleven stores in Florida reflected that trend.

Small coffees were outselling larger sizes by at least 30 percent, compared with the previous month, when gas prices first jumped. In that same time, sales of gallons of milk were down 8.5 percent. Single-serving bags of chips were up 14 percent compared with January's sales.

If the price of gasoline rises 20 cents a gallon, that could cost a customer an extra $50 a month, he said.

If you had $100 in your pocket for the month, and now you have $50, you have no choice; you have to cut your spending back,'' Keyes said. I'm not sure it's as much conscious as it is `How much change do I have in my pocket?' ''

One economist says the concept is real.

``If you have to pay $25 for a tank of gas, you're less likely to buy something at the convenience store,'' said Brad Kamp, associate professor of economics at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Products related to each other are called complementary goods. An example is chips and salsa. When the price of salsa drops, sales of tortilla chips go up, he said.

The stuff at a convenience store is almost entirely complementary to gas,'' Kamp said. You wouldn't think that candy and gasoline are related to each other, but they are.''

The national average gas price has risen nearly 20 cents a gallon since the first of the year because of a recent strike in Venezuela that reduced exports to the United States; tight worldwide crude oil supplies; and nervousness about conflict with Iraq.

Gas rose from about $1.47 for a gallon of regular unleaded to $1.66 - so putting 10 gallons in a tank went from $14.67 to $16.63. That means customers have to shift the extra $2 they would spend on coffee or chips to pay for the higher cost of gas.

Because of that, most convenience stores probably have seen a drop in sales of candy bars and gallons of milk, Kamp said.

``When you just had a sticker shock of putting all your money into your gas tank, you're less likely to buy something on impulse,'' Kamp said.

Times like these trigger patterns in consumer spending, said Cary Silvers, vice president with marketing research firm RoperASW in New York.

It's the nonessential expenditures that consumers slash first, typically - reductions in spending on luxury items, dining out and entertainment, he said. Big-ticket purchases such as cars and houses generally are postponed.

For author David Bach, penny-pinching was such an attractive savings strategy that he registered a trademark on the phrase ``latte factor'' to express the idea that people can save millions of dollars over their lifetimes by cutting out small expenses, like the pricey, milky coffee latte.

That's borne out in February's consumer spending numbers. Shoppers cut spending on big-ticket goods such as cars and appliances by 2.2 percent, on top of a 4.9 percent cut in January. And spending on items such as food and clothes was flat in February, compared with a 1.3 percent rise in January.

Spending on services, including utilities, rose 0.5 percent in February, up from a 0.3 percent gain, a reflection of higher energy prices.

Claudia White is caught in the gas price squeeze. Gone are the days when she pops into the 7-Eleven to get candy or gum. Instead of $14 to fill up her tank, it now costs $18. So she pays at the pump, to avoid the temptation of a cup of coffee or a newspaper.

I don't even go inside anymore,'' she said. I try to pay outside so I don't spend any more money.''

Information from Dow Jones News Service and The Associated Press was used in this report. Reporter Cherie Jacobs can be reached at (813) 259-7668.

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Andy Jackson Saturday March 29, 2003 The Guardian

The Latin American papers, positioned in what the US regards as its "backyard", have been divided over the war in Iraq. "This unilateral decision to attack Iraq is an unprecedented step," lamented La Nacion in Argentina. It felt the US had gone too far this time: "Even its regretful incursions into Latin American politics have been limited to supporting domestic groups."

In Mexico, Reforma questioned why its northern neighbour had blocked the signal of the country's Canal 40 TV station after it showed footage of dead Iraqi civilians. "One of the US's greatest strengths has always been its freedom of expression," said the paper. "But when it denies the right of its people to see what it is doing in their name, it does a great disservice to the principles it is trying to enforce in Iraq."

Less enthusiastic still was Gilberto Lopez y Rivas of La Journada, who wondered in the Mexican paper what principles the US was espousing. "The US has long used the pretext of liberty to commit crimes against the rights of Latin American people," he said. "They did not establish democracy in a single one of the countries in which they intervened - only fictional representations of that promise ... Now it is time for Iraq to be liberated, and Latin Americans know only to well what that liberation means."

Journal de Brasil noted that the war had caused the end of President Lula de Silva's political honeymoon. "The quarrel between George Bush and Saddam Hussein is of little consequence to us," it said. "What is currently at stake for Brazil is our democracy and, above all, our right to live in freedom from fear."

Venezuela has a turbulent and besieged leader of its own, and La Nacional wondered whether President Hugo Chavez could deal with his country's problems. Reports of Colombian guerrillas and drug traffickers operating within Venezuela led the paper to question Mr Chavez's defence policy. "The government can no longer continue on its ambiguous course," it said. "It is obsessed with the defence of Caracas as if it is there that our sovereignty is at risk. But concentrating troops in the capital puts the security of all the regions at risk. Under the indifferent gaze of the government, the rural population has been placed between the sword and the wall. If it is not already too late, our leaders must take responsibility, speak truthfully to the country, and preserve our nation from potentially damaging threats."