ELAINE SMITH, London Free Press Reporter   2003-05-24 03:06:35  

London's immunology researchers are now on par with those at Harvard and the Mayo Clinic.

A team of scientists from the Robarts Research Institute, the Lawson Health Research Institute and the University of Western Ontario landed a prestigious international research designation aimed at accelerating the discovery of treatments for immune system disorders.

"We are among what I would call a unique crowd," said Dr. Joaquin Madrenas, a Robarts physician and scientist and UWO professor who spearheaded the drive to become Canada's only FOCIS Centre for Clinical Immunology and Immunotherapeutics.

"This is a very important club, a very prestigious club whose members have the keenest minds in the world in immunology," added Dr. David Hill, scientific director of LHRI. "This is to be celebrated. We're a member of this club on merit."

The researchers involved in the collaborative effort represent four medical departments and eight clinical divisions at the three institutions.

"It's a virtual centre," said Madrenas. "That's the beauty of it. The institutions represented will continue to support the researchers, but we'll foster communication and interaction and drop the usual barriers."

The researchers will concentrate on immune-mediated diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

"One in every four hospital admissions is related to an immune disorder, so both from a clinical and a financial point of view the implications are significant," said Madrenas.

The centre's projects will have a research component, a care component (for example, a patient registry for clinical trials) and an education component, such as a Web presence, which will allow for community involvement.

In the coming months, the centre network will have funding available for such items as the implementation of clinical trials and for assistance by young researchers.

The FOCIS centres selected by the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies are confined to 22 in the U.S. -- places such as Stanford and Yale -- and eight more worldwide, including England, Italy and Venezuela.

"Here in London, we're finding treatments, cures and ways to affect people throughout the world," Mayor Anne Marie De Cicco told an audience at Robarts where the announcement was made. "We know how to come together in a strategic way."

Dianne Cunningham, Ontario's minister of training, colleges and universities, added congratulations on behalf of the province.

"This is a scientific first for London, for Ontario and for Canada," she said.

"We don't brag enough. I'm looking forward to the day we're announcing a new treatment for an immune-related disorder as a result of this FOCIS designation."

Patricia Yollin, <a href=www.sfgate.com>San francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, May 24, 2003

Manuelito Juarez, a strong-minded boy of 5, wants burgers for dinner. But his brother Osberto lobbies for "the chicken place." They bicker and balk until their father intervenes and tells them to arm-wrestle. The winner gets to choose.

It is the most ordinary of squabbles except for a few things: The boys are in Guatemala City, their father is in San Francisco, and they're in the middle of a videoconference.

"People don't believe it's real," said Gabriel Biguria, whose company, AmigoLatino, had arranged the session. "It's like something out of a science fiction movie."

Although videoconferencing has been around since the mid-'70s, mostly in corporate boardrooms, it's a new medium for immigrants and those they left behind -- especially in Latin America, where many families lack phones or computers. Businesses like Biguria's also have surfaced recently in New Jersey,

Florida and North Carolina.

"With more and more transnational families, this is going to happen more often," said Belinda Reyes, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank in San Francisco. "It's just a reflection of globalism."

Biguria, who immigrated from Guatemala in 1987 and from Silicon Valley last year, decided that videoconferencing could help melt the distance.

He chose to open AmigoLatino in the Flood Building on Market Street because it's next to Muni and BART's Powell Street Station and because it houses eight Latin American consulates. Biguria depends on flyers in their offices, ads in Spanish-language papers and word of mouth to attract clients.

He and his wife, Estefania, have decorated their three-room office with objects from Latin America. Burlap bags of coffee, Indian weavings and ceramic fruits coexist with a $3,000 Polycom Viewstation camera.

HUGGING THE SCREEN

Although Biguria tells clients exactly what to expect, there is, inevitably,

a surrealistic jolt as they stare at a 29-inch Sony TV screen and watch relatives materialize in a Guatemala City office with posters of San Francisco Victorians on the wall.

Sometimes they freeze. Or try to hug the screen. Once the shock and awe subside, the mundane frequently takes over.

"They'll say, 'You're so fat! What happened to you?' " said Carlos Bedoya, whose videoconferencing business in Miami serves Colombian immigrants like himself.

"Sometimes they haven't seen each other for a long time," Biguria said. "The record is 25 years."

During sessions at AmigoLatino, a few things are guaranteed: tears, laughter and requests for more money.

Mario La Torre, who's based in Passaic, N.J., and has targeted the state's 20,000 Peruvians, said, "It's a roller coaster of feelings."

"It really is a powerful tool for uniting families," said Erika Pineda Sharron, consul general of Guatemala.

There are now 28,000 Guatemalans in the nine-county Bay Area -- among a total of 149,000 Central Americans -- according to the latest census estimates.

"Migration has been going on for decades for different reasons," Biguria said. "The result is the same -- split families."

LOGISTICS OF LOVE

For Biguria, the result is a videoconferencing business.

Since starting AmigoLatino in October, he's held exactly 100 sessions. Encounters run $30 to $40 for a half-hour, $60 to $80 for an hour -- more expensive than the widely used prepaid phone cards but less costly than collect calls.

"That's a fair price," said Glenn Adamo, a telecommunications consultant in Miami. "It's an exciting thing and an interesting thing. But it's also a logistical thing. How do you hook up critical masses of people with critical masses of people?"

Since the mid-'90s, a handful of entrepreneurs have tried. Most attempts failed because the technology was too expensive or problematic or the ventures were underfunded. These days the equipment is cheaper, and it works better.

"Now things are a lot more cost effective, so there's a greater likelihood of succeeding," Adamo said. "But it's not an easy proposition."

In December, Mario Martinez opened Enlaces, a videoconferencing service for Salvadoran families, in San Francisco's Mission District. Although the San Salvador native has had only a few clients, he's not discouraged.

"I think there's a market for it," maintained Martinez, who uses an ISDN phone line and charges from $35 for 10 minutes to $170 for 60 minutes. "I heard so many people say, 'I haven't seen my children in seven years.' I said, 'Man, that's a crime with the technology that exists.' "

Elliot Gold, who's put out TeleSpan, a teleconferencing newsletter, since 1981, said, "If you could see your family, of course, you would want to pay for this. I bet they will take money they've allocated for food."

Still, he added, success is unpredictable. "Consumer markets are really fickle," said Gold, of Altadena in Southern California.

FORMING A NETWORKING

Biguria only lately discovered his counterparts in Florida and New Jersey. Together with a Nicaraguan immigrant who operates a similar company in Charlotte, N.C., they've formed a network. Besides their home countries, they can connect to Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Spain and Japan.

Eventually, these young Latinos want their companies to be places to send money back and buy goods for their relatives -- one-stop shopping.

"Once you're able to connect families, there are a number of parallel services you can provide," Biguria said. "You're managing their relationship already."

At 34, Biguria is a veteran of Silicon Valley. He worked for Hewlett- Packard and high-tech startups before opening AmigoLatino with his savings and a loan.

The company's logo is a bus -- the kind of bulging "chicken bus" found all over Latin America.

"It's how most people travel," Biguria said. "It talks to everyone."

It talked to the Juarez family on a recent afternoon. The three children of Oakland residents Consuelo and Osberto Juarez got on a bus with their grandmother, aunt and cousins for a two-hour ride to AmigoLatino's Guatemala City office.

'SACRIFICING OUR HEARTS'

It was the second video visit since January, when construction worker Osberto Juarez saw his children for the first time in four years. For his wife,

25, it had been a three-year separation.

"Here it's living. There it's surviving -- even though we know we're sacrificing our hearts coming here," said Osberto Juarez, 28, in Spanish.

He and his wife -- who came to the United States to make enough money to support their family -- hope to return to Guatemala in two years and build a house. Meanwhile, they rent a place in Oakland's Fruitvale. He puts up Sheetrock and she works at Nation's burgers. They call home once a week, write once a month.

The videoconference uses a high-speed dedicated Internet line. It is intense and immediate, with a picture clear enough to see that 9-year-old Blanqui has lost a tooth and that 5-year-old Victor Manuel can count from 1 to 26.

There is other family news. Blanqui wants a new dress like the shiny kind they show on TV. Osberto Jr., 6, is calling out his father's name in his sleep.

And "Manuelito" is lifting the skirts of the little girls at school.

''He learned it from his dad," said Blanca Ruano, who takes care of her three grandchildren while son Osberto and his wife make their way in the United States.

TEARS AND HOWLS

Suddenly, Consuelo Juarez begins to cry. Biguria dives under the TV screen for a box of Kleenex and sister-in-law Lilian Juarez says, "Don't cry. Because when you cry, the kids cry."

It's too late. Manuelito covers his face with his hands, crawls under the table and howls like a wounded young wolf. "Usually, I just can't watch," said Estefania Biguria, who starts dabbing at her eyes and leaves the room.

Finally, everyone calms down. Gerardo Bobadilla, who runs the Guatemala City office, brings Manuelito some french fries. Osberto Jr. holds up a small Guatemalan flag. And Osberto Sr. promises to send a bicycle and robot.

"It's like you're on Santa Claus' lap and it's their chance to ask for everything," Biguria said.

When it's time to say goodbye, the children wave and Consuelo Juarez touches the screen. After they're gone, she sinks back on the couch, sad and happy.

"This means a tremendous amount," said Juarez who, like her husband, speaks no English. "The only options we had were photos or the phone. We couldn't express all our emotions."

E-mail Patricia Yollin at pyollin@sfchronicle.com.

Tariq Ali Saturday May 24, 2003 The Guardian

Unsurprisingly, the UN security council has capitulated completely, recognised the occupation of Iraq and approved its re-colonisation by the US and its bloodshot British adjutant. The timing of the mea culpa by the "international community" was perfect. Yesterday, senior executives from more than 1,000 companies gathered in London to bask in the sunshine of the re-established consensus under the giant umbrella of Bechtel, the American empire's most favoured construction company. A tiny proportion of the loot will be shared.

So what happened to the overheated rhetoric of Europe v America? Berlusconi in Italy and Aznar in Spain - the two most rightwing governments in Europe - were fitting partners for Blair while the eastern European states, giving a new meaning to the term "satellite" which they had previously so long enjoyed, fell as one into line behind Bush.

France and Germany, on the other hand, protested for months that they were utterly opposed to a US attack on Iraq. Schröder had owed his narrow re-election to a pledge not to support a war on Baghdad, even were it authorised by the UN. Chirac, armed with a veto in the security council, was even more voluble with declarations that any unauthorised assault on Iraq would never be accepted by France.

Together, Paris and Berlin coaxed Moscow too into expressing its disagreement with American plans. Even Beijing emitted a few cautious sounds of demurral. The Franco-German initiatives aroused tremendous excitement and consternation among diplomatic commentators. Here, surely, was an unprecedented rift in the Atlantic alliance. What was to become of European unity, of Nato, of the "international community" itself if such a disastrous split persisted? Could the very concept of the west survive?

Such apprehensions were quickly allayed. No sooner were Tomahawk missiles lighting up the nocturnal skyline in Baghdad, and the first Iraqi civilians cut down by the marines, than Chirac rushed to explain that France would assure smooth passage of US bombers across its airspace (as it had not done, under his own premiership, when Reagan attacked Libya), and wished "swift success" to American arms in Iraq. Germany's cadaver-green foreign minister Joschka Fischer announced that his government, too, sincerely hoped for the "rapid collapse" of resistance to the Anglo-American attack. Putin, not to be outdone, explained to his compatriots that "for economic and political reasons", Russia could only desire a decisive victory of the US in Iraq.

Washington is still not satisfied. It wants to punish France further. Why not a ritual public flogging broadcast live by Murdoch TV? A humbled petty chieftain (Chirac) bending over while an imperial princess (Condoleezza Rice) administers the whip. Then the leaders of a re-united north could relax and get on with the business they know best: plundering the south. The expedition to Baghdad was planned as the first flexing of a new imperial stance. What better demonstration of the shift to a more offensive strategy than to make an example of Iraq. If no single reason explains the targeting of Iraq, there is little mystery about the range of calculations that lay behind it. Economically, Iraq possesses the second largest reserves of cheap oil in the world; Baghdad's decision in 2000 to invoice its exports in euros rather than dollars risked imitation by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and the Iranian mullahs. Privatisation of the Iraqi wells under US control would help to weaken Opec.

Strategically, the existence of an independent Arab regime in Baghdad had always been an irritation to the Israeli military. With the installation of Republican zealots close to Likud in key positions in Washington, the elimination of a traditional adversary became an attractive immediate goal for Jerusalem. Lastly, just as the use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had once been a pointed demonstration of American might to the Soviet Union, so today a blitzkrieg rolling swiftly across Iraq would serve to show the world at large that if the chips are down, the US has, in the last resort, the means to enforce its will.

The UN has now provided retrospective sanction to a pre-emptive strike. Its ill-fated predecessor, the League of Nations, at least had the decency to collapse after its charter was serially raped. Analogies with Hitler's blitzkrieg of 1940 are drawn without compunction by cheerleaders for the war. Thus Max Boot in the Financial Times writes: "The French fought hard in 1940 - at first. But eventually the speed and ferocity of the German advance led to a total collapse. The same thing will happen in Iraq." What took place in France after 1940 might give pause to these enthusiasts.

The lack of any spontaneous welcome from Shias and the fierce early resistance of armed irregulars prompted the theory that the Iraqis are a "sick people" who will need protracted treatment before they can be entrusted with their own fate (if ever). Such was the line taken by David Aaronovitch in the Observer. Likewise, George Mellon in the Wall Street Journal warns: "Iraq won't easily recover from Saddam's terror" - "after three decades of rule of the Arab equivalent of Murder Inc, Iraq is a very sick society". To develop an "orderly society" and re-energise (privatise) the economy will take time, he insists. On the front page of the Sunday Times, reporter Mark Franchetti quoted an American NCO: "'The Iraqis are a sick people and we are the chemotherapy,' said Corporal Ryan Dupre. 'I am starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No, I won't get hold of one. I'll just kill him.' " No doubt the "sick society" theory will acquire greater sophistication, but it is clear the pretexts are to hand for a mixture of Guantanamo and Gaza in these newly occupied territories.

If it is futile to look to the UN or Euroland, let alone Russia or China, for any serious obstacle to American designs in the Middle East, where should resistance start? First of all, naturally, in the region itself. There, it is to be hoped that the invaders of Iraq will eventually be harried out of the country by a growing national reaction to the occupation regime they install, and that their collaborators may meet the fate of former Iraqi prime minister Nuri Said before them. Sooner or later, the ring of corrupt and brutal tyrannies around Iraq will be broken. If there is one area where the cliche that classical revolutions are a thing of the past is likely to be proved wrong, it is in the Arab world. The day the Mubarak, Hashemite, Saudi and other dynasties are swept away by popular wrath, American - and Israeli - arrogance in the region will be over.

• Tariq Ali's new book, Bush in Babylon: Re-colonising Iraq, will be published by Verso in the autumn

tariq.ali3@btinternet.com

Posted on Fri, May. 23, 2003 FABIOLA SANCHEZ SunHerald.com-Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela - Supporters and opponents of President Hugo Chavez have agreed on a plan for a referendum on the president's rule, officials on both sides said Friday.

Opposition representative Juan Raffalli said the proposal also calls for votes on the mandates of other elected officials.

The agreement, brokered by the Organization of American States, prohibits any amendments to election laws while authorities prepare for balloting.

A government delegate involved in the negotiations, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed an agreement had been reached with help from OAS chief Cesar Gaviria.

The pact, which came unexpectedly after six months of OAS-mediated negotiations and is slated to be signed next week, would end formal talks between the sides. It calls for the creation of a special committee, including envoys from the OAS, Atlanta-based Carter Center and United Nations, to ensure the accord is respected.

Opponents accuse Chavez of scaring off foreign investment and becoming increasingly authoritarian. The only democratic solution to the crisis that has dangerously divided this South American nation of 24 million, they argue, is holding a referendum on his rule.

Chavez denies the allegations. Opposition groups, he argues, aim to overthrow his government to regain privileges they lost when he swept to power on promises to cast aside entrenched political parties widely regarded as corrupt.

Chavez, a former paratrooper who led a failed 1992 coup attempt, was elected president in 1998 and re-elected to a six-year term in 2000. The leftist firebrand has vowed to defeat the opposition bid at the ballot box and says he could remain in power until 2021.