Syria would consider another UN nuke agency visit

Syria's deputy foreign minister said Wednesday that Damascus would consider a request by the U.N. nuclear watchdog to revisit a site bombed by Israeli jets last year.

The official, Fayssal Mekdad, spoke to The Associated Press a day after diplomats at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna said freshly evaluated soil and air samples from the site provide enough evidence to push ahead with a U.N probe.

Israel bombed the Al Kibar site in Syria on suspicion it was a covert nuclear reactor _ a claim Syria denies. The U.S. has said the facility was a nearly completed reactor that, when on line, could produce plutonium, a pathway to nuclear arms.

Mekdad said Syria was still waiting for an official report on findings from IAEA's visit to the site in June.

Preliminary results made public from that visit were inconclusive, adding weight to Syrian assertions that no trips beyond the initial IAEA visit were necessary.

However, diplomats in Vienna told the AP on Tuesday that IAEA's final evaluation, completed a few days ago, has the agency convinced it needs to press on with its investigation.

"They should make a request and we will study it," Mekdad said.

But despite willingness to consider a request for a revisit, three other sites the IAEA has wanted to visit _ supposedly because they are linked to the bombed location _ will remain off limits because they are in restricted military areas, Mekdad said.

"There isn't a country in the world which allows inspections of its military sites," Mekdad added.

Still, his remarks were a turn from a Syrian statement two months ago that U.N. investigators were barred from revisiting Al Kibar.

Syria fears the IAEA probe could lead to a massive investigation similar to the probe Iran has been subjected to for more than five years _ and to related fallout. Iran is under three sets of U.N. sanctions because of its refusal to heed Security Council demands to curb its nuclear activities.

The common man uncommonly heroic, traveling on the Underground Railroad

The common man uncommonly heroic, traveling on the Underground Railroad

As the Reparations movement gains momentum and as African American citizens play an ever greater role in America's modern destiny, historians and preservationists are telling an aspect of the slavery story that has remained incomplete.

It's the story of the common man -- African American men, women and children -- who risked life and limb to escape the Old South through the legendary Underground Railroad system, which has an outpost near the Defender, at Quinn Chapel AME Church, 2401 S. Wabash.

Cornell University Professor Robert Harris writes that inclusion of the story of the common African American man and woman is essential to understanding the slavery disaster, and its heirs -- discrimination and segregation. He reminds us that it's been only in the past 40 years that segregation was outlawed, and with that development there has followed a shift in historical inquiry that now includes reporting the importance of African Americans' political ascendance.

A key part of that ascendance is the common man's story. It's told with the Underground Railroad as backdrop, and Bronzeville Museum Director Peggy Montes is leading the way in getting at the full story. Montes is trying to identify and preserve those 19th century homes, businesses and churches that were part of the nation's Underground Railroad.

To do so, will give us the opportunity to see for ourselves the safe places where abolitionists protected escaping African Americans heading to freedom.

Through the new Underground Railroad Association, Montes and other preservationists want to restore buildings they believe escaping slaves used as way stations. The Association also wants to affix historical markers to sites that prove to be Chicago structures that were part of a system whose role in the freedom movement was until now, obscure.

Montes, director of the Bronzeville Museum and a DuSable Museum of African-American History board member, is also investigating suburban houses she thinks may have been part of the secret escape route and its way stations.

One Underground Railroad site that has been preserved impeccably is the Owen Lovejoy Underground Railroad Station in mid-state Princeton. Only 110 miles west of the city, the Lovejoy Home was the residence of a minister friend of Abraham Lincoln's whose brother was murdered by slaveholders.

The home is a National Historic Landmark and in it are preserved artifacts and even a hiding place showing the extent to which the abolitionist and his family went to protect the common African American who demonstrated uncommon heroism in his and her escape from slavery and degradation.

The Illinois Underground Railroad Association will lead a conference at Governor's State University in University Park in October as part of a national effort to dramatize the story. It's one that will captivate Americans, we think, as the full story of the African American experience unfolds.

Article Copyright Sengstacke Enterprises, Inc.

Life Changing Relationships: Bad Boys, Bad Girls / Victory in Singleness: A Strategy for Emotional Peace

by Rev. James T. Meeks

Moody Press, February 2002

$9.99, ISBN 0-802-42994-7

by Valerie & Jerome Clayton

Moody Press, 2002

$12.99, ISBN 0-802-44015-0

The latest census data indicate that 47 percent of African-American women have never been married, up from 32 percent in 1990. One need only look in the pews on Sunday mornings to see that sisters, many of whom are unmarried, make up the vast majority of the active church-going population. It's no wonder, therefore, that there is a growing body of literature by African-American Christian writers that addresses issues related to sisters, singleness and spirituality. Prolific Christian writers such …

UN expert warns of bloodbath in Sri Lanka's war

A U.N. human rights expert has warned of a bloodbath in Sri Lanka unless government and rebel forces stop fighting for long enough to allow tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone to flee.

The civilians are in a precarious position, huddled in a narrow "no-fire" zone on the island's northeast coast where the rebels are holed up after a series of military defeats at the hands of government troops.

More than 100,000 civilians are trapped and their lives are more at risk now that the rebels _ the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam _ have been cornered in the zone, said Walter Kaelin, an independent human rights expert appointed …

NASA Starts Countdown on Shuttle Launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA started a countdown Tuesday toward the first space shuttle flight of the year. Engineers reported no major technical problems and the weather forecast looked favorable for a Friday launch.

The countdown clock began ticking on schedule Tuesday at 9 p.m. EDT.

There was a 70 percent chance that the weather would be suitable at 7:38 p.m. EDT Friday, NASA's first opportunity to launch space shuttle Atlantis. The shuttle will carry seven astronauts on an 11-day mission to deliver a third pair of solar wings, which help power the international space station. They also will take three spacewalks to continue construction of the orbiting outpost.

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Disseminating the Truth About Affirmative Action.(Nebraska, University of (Lincoln))(Brief Article)

A recent preliminary study conducted at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln showed disturbing trends in the perceptions of prospective graduate students toward affirmative action and minority students. This investigation entailed in-depth interviews with self-identified Caucasian female undergraduates applying to graduate programs in psychology and psychology-related fields.

Respondents attributed a variety of false meanings to affirmative action policies in graduate school admissions. They ranged from benign associations, such as special funding opportunities for minority students, to more negative connotations such as the ideas of preferences, quotas, percentages and …

ANC admits it knew about health minister's theft conviction.(News)

BYLINE: Boyd Webb

Pretoria: The ANC has, after two weeks of sustained media coverage, broken its silence on Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, saying it had known of her conviction for theft.

In an interview with the Cape Times, ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama confirmed that the ANC and President Thabo Mbeki were aware of the 1976 theft conviction in Botswana when Tshabalala-Msimang was the medical superintendent at the Athlone Hospital in Lobatse.

"Yes, absolutely. People knew," he said. However, the conviction was …