Relatives, Western diplomats visit foreign aid workers detained in Afghanistan
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Two American women jailed in Afghanistan on charges of preaching Christianity met with their parents yesterday in a "very close and warm reunion" more than three weeks after they were arrested, a U.S. diplomat said.
Dana Curry met with her mother and Heather Mercer met with her father for two hours behind 10-foot-high walls that hid a sprawling compound guarded by rifle-toting soldiers of the Taliban - the leadership that imposes its strict version of Islam on the war-ravaged country.
"It was a very close and a warm reunion, as you can imagine it would be," David Donahue, the consul general at the U.S. Embassy in neighboring Pakistan, told reporters after the meeting, which came after weeks of efforts to gain access to the jailed foreigners.
Donahue and two other Western diplomats accompanied John Mercer and Curry's mother, who would not give her name, to a reform school where the Americans and six other foreign aid workers have been held since their arrests in early August.
"I think all of them looked well," Donahue said. "Everyone met together. We discussed things like, 'How are you? How have you been treated? What conditions are you living under? Did you receive the packages we sent you?' and they said they had."
Curry and Mercer are single and in their 20s - their hometowns have not been released. They were arrested along with four Germans, two Australians and 16 Afghan employees of Shelter Now International, a German-based Christian aid group.
"We caught them red-handed," Information Minister Qadratullah Jamal told The Associated Press in an interview yesterday. "We caught them with compact discs that told about Christians and told of becoming Christians. They had bibles and books in our languages."
Under Taliban law, the penalty for a foreigner convicted of propagating a religion other than Islam in the mostly Muslim nation is three to 10 days in jail followed by expulsion. The penalty for an Afghan who converts to Christianity is death.


U.S. renews call on Israel to end targeted killings
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Reacting sharply to the murder of a Palestinian leader, the State Department said yesterday that Israel's targeted killings of Palestinians only inflame an already volatile situation and make it much harder to restore calm.
Spokesman Richard Boucher commented after Israeli rockets killed Mustafa Zibri, 63, leader of the hard-line Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He was the most prominent Palestinian to be killed in recent years.
"The escalation and violence in recent days in the Middle East threatens to overwhelm any chance of restoring calm and of implementing the Mitchell committee recommendations," Boucher said.
He said Israelis and Palestinians know what needs to be done to end their confrontation and to change the situation on the ground.
"Above all, the Palestinian Authority needs to take sustained incredible steps to pre-empt terror and arrest those responsible, as well as take steps to bring the violence under control," he said.
At the same time, he said if the situation on the ground is to improve, then Israel must also take the economic and security steps that are necessary "to alleviate the pressure, the hardship and the humiliations of the Palestinian population."


Federal appeals court throws out race-conscious admissions policy
Associated Press
ATLANTA - A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that a University of Georgia affirmative action policy is unconstitutional because it arbitrarily gave nonwhite applicants a statistical boost.
The three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's ruling in favor of three white women who were denied admission in 1999.
The appeals court said the policy, which awarded race-based points to borderline students, violated the Constitution's equal-protection clause.
"UGA's policy is not only rigid and incomplete, the benefit it awards each and every nonwhite applicant is wholly, and concededly, arbitrary," the court said. "If a university cannot even articulate a basis for the amount of the numerical bonus it awards nonwhite candidates, then it has no right to award such a bonus."
The university suspended the consideration of race last year while it awaited the court's decision. The school could appeal yesterday's ruling to the full appeals court or to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ninety percent of students at the university were accepted on grades and test scores alone. The policy applied only to the remaining 10 percent, assigning them points on factors ranging from alumni relatives to race, with nonwhite applicants getting a boost.
Lee Parks, an attorney for the women who challenged the practice, cheered the ruling.
"The policy that was in place was functioning as a quota," Parks said. "Under any set of rules that would be unconstitutional."
Similar admissions policies at other schools have been challenged and the issue may ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, which can resolve differences among appeals courts' rulings. The 9th U.S. Circuit sided with a Western school that considered race, but a 5th U.S. Circuit ruling led to an injunction barring Texas universities from using race as a factor.


Gas prices continue to dip in the West as holiday approaches
Associated Press
TUCSON - Gasoline prices in Arizona and much of the West Coast continued to dip or hold steady as Labor Day weekend draws near.
Nationwide, prices rose more than 6 cents a gallon in the past two weeks, the first increase in three months, according to the Lundberg Survey of 8,000 stations nationwide.
The price increase was attributed to the shutdown of several refineries for repairs and maintenance, as well as a dwindling inventory of U.S. motor gasoline stocks, analyst Trilby Lundberg said.
"It's not very surprising considering the phenomenal price crash of three months duration during the time of our greatest consumption," Lundberg said. "It had to end sometime."
Prices had declined steadily since peaking May 18 at $1.76. They bottomed out two weeks ago at $1.45. The summer decrease resulted from refiners overproducing to avoid shortages during the vacation driving season, Lundberg said in releasing the latest results late last week.
But, according to data from an AAA Arizona survey last week, prices in Arizona averaged even less - $1.36 across the state. This price is 17 cents less than the cost of a gallon of regular unleaded at the same time last year, the local survey found.
The Phoenix East Valley saw the lowest prices, an average of $1.28. Tucson was at $1.32 and Flagstaff maintained the state high at $1.49.
Lundberg's survey showed the greatest price increases in the past two weeks were in the Midwest, where prices rose 21 cents a gallon overall and as much as 29 cents in some places, including Omaha, Neb., and Milwaukee. The average for a gallon of self-serve regular in the Midwest was $1.63.
Prices fell a nickel overall in the West to $1.50 for a gallon of self-serve regular. The national weighted average price of gasoline, including taxes, at self-serve pumps Friday was about $1.47.