By Toby Anderson

London, May 2 (<a href=quote.bloomberg.com>Bloomberg) -- U.K. stocks advanced, paced by oil companies as Shell Transport & Trading Co. reported first- quarter profit that beat analysts' forecasts.

Unilever, the world's largest food and soap maker, fell after saying sales of its 400 leading brands rose less than it forecast.

The FTSE 100 Index climbed 12.8, or 0.3 percent, to 3892.9 as of 10:41 a.m. in London. The index has added 0.6 percent this week and in April posted its largest monthly gain since September 1997. The FTSE All-Share Index rose 0.3 percent to 1877.19 today.

The following stocks are making significant gains or losses today. Stock symbols are in parentheses after company names.

EasyJet Plc (EZJ LN) dropped 11p, or 6 percent, to 174. Martin Borghetto, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, cut his recommendation for Europe's largest low-cost airline to equal- weight/in-line'' from overweight/in-line'' because of concern about competition from rivals.

The ``endurance of traditional carriers puts the longer-term market opportunities for low-cost carriers focused on main hubs into doubt,'' Borghetto said in a note to investors.

Enact Plc (ENA OF) tumbled 5p, or 26 percent, to 14.5. Protherics Plc, a maker of antidotes for snake bites, said it will pay 7.9 million pounds ($12.7 million) for Enact, a maker of cancer treatments. Protherics (PTI LN) added 0.7p, or 0.4 percent, to 17.5.

Homestyle Group Plc (HME LN) dropped 2p, or 1.7 percent, to 118.5. Britain's largest bed and curtain retailer said it may have to pay 15 million pounds in unpaid taxes on the so-called structural guarantees it offers customers on goods such as sofas.

London Clubs International Plc (LCI LN) added 0.75p, or 2.9 percent, to 26.5. The owner of casinos in countries including Egypt and South Africa sold its Palm Beach Club unit to rival Stanley Leisure Plc for 36.25 million pounds. Stanley Leisure (SLY LN) shares slipped a penny, or 0.4 percent, to 270.5p.

Pace Micro Technology Plc (PIC LN) jumped 2p, or 5.4 percent, to 39. The maker of television set-top boxes for clients including British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc named John Dyson as its chief executive officer.

Shell Transport & Trading Company Plc (SHEL LN) added 4.25p, or 1.1 percent to 376.5p. The owner of 40 percent of Royal Dutch/Shell Group said first-quarter profit almost doubled to a record because oil prices surged as war in Iraq loomed and a strike in Venezuela curtailed supplies.

Profit before special items and changes in the value of inventories increased to $3.91 billion from $1.99 billion a year earlier. The result beat the average estimate of $3.67 billion from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Unilever (ULVR LN) dropped 41p, or 6.8 percent, to 566. The world's biggest food and soap maker said sales of its 400 leading brands, such as Knorr soups and Breyers ice cream, rose 3 percent, which was less than it forecast.

First-quarter profit surged 45 percent to 637 million euros ($716 million). Revenue excluding exchange-rate fluctuations fell 4 percent to 11.1 billion euros. Last Updated: May 2, 2003 05:44 EDT

By Alex Lawler

London, May 2 (<a href=quote.bloomberg.com>Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Europe's largest oil company, said first-quarter profit almost doubled to a record because oil prices surged as war in Iraq loomed and a strike in Venezuela curtailed supplies.

Profit, before special items and changes in the value of inventories, increased to $3.91 billion from $1.99 billion a year earlier, Shell said in a statement on PR Newswire.

Shell's result is higher than the average estimate of $3.67 billion, according to a Bloomberg survey of 13 analysts. Forecasts ranged from $3.14 billion to $3.8 billion. Last Updated: May 2, 2003 05:04 EDT

The Boston Globe By Paul Epstein and Chidi Achebe, 5/2/2003

IT IS HARD these days to think about oil. Images of blackened birds, hostages on oil rigs, and war are not pleasant. But since so many of the world's ills stem from drilling this ''black gold,'' a review of its multifarious impacts helps narrow in on solutions that could change our course. In Buzzards Bay, 14,700 gallons lie subject to shifting winds in an oil slick, tarnishing inlets, egrets, shellfish, and loons. On Nigeria's offshore rigs, 97 hostages are being held, crowning decades of conflict over oil.

Once called ''The Prize'' by Daniel Yergin in 1991, oil has become ''the curse.''

In November the spill from the Prestige -- carrying twice the oil as the Exxon Valdez -- stained the rugged Atlantic coast of Galicia, Spain, affecting more than 100,000 porpoises, puffins, gannets, and kittiwakes. It has damaged fisheries, livelihoods, and tourism. In Africa's most populous nation, sludge sickens communities as slicks bathe Niger River banks. From extraction to combustion, oil is hazardous to our health -- and to our security.

The increasing use of oil, as well as coal and natural gas -- all fossil fuels -- has come at an enormous price. An ''oiligarchy'' controls an expanding empire, and its entrails and discharges defile our air and land and water. More drilling threatens our national parks and wildlife refuges. In Nigeria, Ecuador, and Venezuela, oil has widened economic divides and the wealth generated engenders conflicts worldwide. Supply lines -- internationally and via our national grid -- are vulnerable to political instabilities.

Nigeria has suffered profoundly from political unrest fueled by oil and from reprisals in which thousands have been killed. The corruption spawned by oil casts a vast net of social pain that has not abated with the transition to democracy.

Venezuela is in turmoil, with oil the trophy. Angola, rich in oil, diamonds, and gold, has just ended a 30-year war, leaving physical devastation across the land. The war in Afghanistan was brewing for years before 9/11 -- to secure a pipeline from the newest megafind of oil along the Caspian Sea. The list, including the Iraq war and its uncertain aftermath, goes on.

Meanwhile, deep in the Ecuadorean forest, discharges from 333 wells despoil Indian homelands and contaminate the headwaters of the Amazon. In the Gulf of Mexico, fish nibbling near drilling sites get their fill of mercury and pass it on to birds, marine mammals, and humans who eat them. Refining emits benzene, which causes cancer, and burning pollutes the air and water with mercury, particles, and smog and causes acid rain.

Climate change -- a threat the oil companies could not have foreseen -- is the ''de-icing'' on the cake as glaciers and polar caps crack and retreat.

We are rapidly approaching a critical climatic and social threshold, and we must find a substitute for this finite resource. As ''The Prize'' foretold, oil has become the central actor in the modern world, and an unstable climate and disease threaten humans and wildlife and the very forests and coral habitat we all depend upon.

We need a new energy policy -- and urgently. We can double our efficiency -- as is done in most of Europe and Japan -- with hybrid cars, ''green buildings,'' and ''transport oriented growth.'' Alternative energy sources like solar panels already light homes, clinics, and schools in developing nations, power computers and small businesses, cook and refrigerate food, and purify and pump water for consumption and agriculture. As clean water grows dearer, solar energy can turn sea water into fresh supplies.

In the past century, huge subsidies assisted oil and facilitated networks of highways and airports. Switching to clean energy sources will require a lot of creativity and a lot more collaboration than the world has seen to date. But the potential costs of neglect are unthinkable, and the proper incentives can create a new clean engine for the global economy and propel us into a much healthier future.

Dr. Paul R. Epstein is associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Chidi Achebe, a Nigerian physician, works in Boston and studies at the Harvard School of Public Health.

This story ran on page A101 of the Boston Globe on 5/2/2003.

 En un congreso de médicos, un médico judío comenta: "La medicina en Israel esta tan avanzada que nosotros le sacamos un riñón a una persona, se lo ponemos a otra y en 6 semanas ya está buscando trabajo."

 Un médico alemán comenta:

Eso no es nada, en Alemania le sacamos un pulmón a una persona, se lo ponemos a otra, y en 4 semanas ya está buscando trabajo."

 Un doctor ruso comenta:

"Eso tampoco es nada. En Rusia la medicina esta tan avanzada que le sacamos la mitad del corazón a una persona, se la ponemos a otra y en dos semanas ya ambas están buscando trabajo."

 A lo que un médico venezolano responde:

"Nada que ver. Todos Uds están muy atrasados. Nosotros aquí en Venezuela cogimos a un hombre sin cerebro, sin corazón y sin bolas, lo pusimos de Presidente, y ahora todo el país esta buscando trabajo.''

CONNIE CASS, <a href=www.sfgate.com>Associated Press Writer Friday, May 2, 2003
(05-02) 10:50 PDT ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) --

The names of 31 journalists who died covering the news around the world last year were added to a rainbow-hued glass memorial Friday.

The father of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan, said the lost reporters represent "the ultimate strength of open society as well as its ultimate vulnerability."

Judea Pearl said his son was killed "not for what he wrote or planned to write but for what he represented."

"To his killers," Pearl said, "he represented the ideas that every person in every civilized society aspires to uphold -- modernity, openness, pluralism, freedom of inquiry, truth and respect for all people."

Joe Urschel, executive director of the Newseum, said 17 of the 31 journalists were targeted because of their profession.

"In many cases, they knew that their efforts to get close to the story placed them in danger," Urschel said during an annual ceremony to rededicate the memorial, which has a sweeping view of Washington across the Potomac River.

Last year's deaths brings to 1,475 the toll of reporters, photographers, broadcasters and other journalists who died as a result of injury or illness while covering the news, from 1812 to 2002. As the sun painted a rainbow of colors across the spiraling glass memorial Friday morning, journalists and family members read each name aloud.

Already, names are mounting for next year's service.

At least a dozen journalists died while covering the war in Iraq, and two more are missing, said Susan Bennett, director of international exhibits for the Freedom Forum's Newseum. The foundation, dedicated to free speech and free press, maintains the journalists memorial, adding the previous year's names each May.

Names of the war dead, including NBC News reporter David Bloom, Atlantic Monthly editor-at-large Michael Kelly and Associated Press Television News cameraman Nazeh Darwazeh, will be embedded between glass panes in 2004.

Journalists killed in 2002 included a newspaper editor and a broadcaster who were shot in separate incidents in Colombia; both had received death threats. In Russia, attacks on two editors and a reporter were linked to their investigative reporting. Journalists in Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Nepal and the Philippines also appear to have been killed because of their work, the foundation said.

Two journalists died in gunfire while covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One was struck by a U.S. tank during military exercises in Kuwait. Others died in Papua New Guinea, Uganda and Venezuela.

Alongside Pearl, Americans on this year's list are:

• Larry Greene, 50, a photographer with KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, killed in a Navy helicopter crash in the North Arabian Gulf.

• Photographer David Gerdrum, 48, and reporter Jennifer Hawkins Hinderliter, 22, killed in a traffic accident on assignment for KRTV in Great Falls, Mont.

• Freelance reporter Robert I. Friedman, 51, who died of heart complications resulting from a rare disease contracted while reporting in Bombay, India.

• Philippe Wamba, 31, editor in chief of the Web site Africana.com, who died in a car accident while doing research in Kenya.

On the Net:

Freedom Forum: www.freedomforum.org