US NEWS SOURCES -May 12, 2003

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---IN TODAY'S NEWS---

BREAKING NEWS / NEWSWIRE
*	*U.S. steps up efforts on Sri Lanka peace bid (Reuters)**
	The United States stepped up efforts on Monday to try to put back in motion Sri Lanka's stalled peace process to end two decades of war. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca held talks with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and was also to meet President Chandrika Kumaratunga. They were to discuss the peace process that has been on hold since the Tamil Tigers announced last month they were suspending talks over what they say is a lack of progress rebuilding war-hit Tamil areas. "I am very happy to be back in Sri Lanka," said Rocca, who toured Jaffna peninsula, the Tamil heartland and epicentre of the war, early last year. Rocca said she would comment on Wednesday after her meetings and after a visit to Kandy to meet Buddhist leaders and a tour of the eastern city of Trincomalee, another flashpoint in the conflict that has killed 64,000.
	http://in.news.yahoo.com/030512/137/247uz.html
*	*Technology sanctions discriminatory, says Vajpayee (Reuters)**
	Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said on Sunday technological sanctions against New Delhi were discriminatory as countries "guilty of missile and nuclear proliferation" continued to get economic help. Several nations including the United States and Japan imposed sanctions against India, many of which have been lifted, after it stunned the world with nuclear tests in May, 1998. Pakistan conducted its own tests within a month, triggering fears of a nuclear confrontation in South Asia. Vajpayee said several sanctions imposed after India's first nuclear tests in 1974 and those slapped in the eighties under discriminatory missile technology control regimes, still remained.
	http://in.news.yahoo.com/030512/137/247nv.html
*	*Armitage says optimistic for peace in South Asia (Reuters)**
	U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage ended a tour of South Asia on Saturday reaffirming that he was cautiously optimistic about a thaw in relations between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. But he told reporters after meeting Indian leaders he saw a long road ahead in a step-by-step process to lasting peace. India and Pakistan came close to war last year over New Delhi's allegations that Islamabad sponsors a Muslim separatist revolt in Indian Kashmir. Pakistan says it gives only moral support to what it calls the Kashmiri "freedom struggle". But this month they announced restoration of full diplomatic ties and an easing of curbs in transport links after Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said he would extend a hand of friendship to Pakistan -- his third peace bid since 1999. "I am cautiously optimistic that the process begun by the act of statesmanship by the prime minister of India could possibly lead to a step-by-step process that would eventually resolve all issues," Armitage told reporters. It's a long trip to when we get there and I just hope we've begun a process," he said after meeting Vajpayee.
	http://in.news.yahoo.com/030511/137/247kc.html

India and Pakistan say they have prepared "road maps" for peace talks, which are likely to start with issues such as travel and cultural exchange. Five Indian policemen, soldiers and a suspected Muslim separatist are killed in a string of clashes in Indian Kashmir. India test fires a third missile in four days. The editorial section states that Pakistan's bid for mutual denuclearization by India is unrealistic. In the business section, see how Indian call centers are responsive to calls coming from the U.S.

HEADLINES

TOP STORIES

India, Pakistan claim ready for talks (Washington Post) (San Francisco Chronicle) (Staten Island Live) (New York Times - Registration required) (Star Tribune) (Seattle Post Intelligencer) (Miami Herald)

Six killed in surging violence in Indian Kashmir (New York Times - Registration required) (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Washington Post)

Air-to-air missile is tested once more (Washington Times) (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Baltimore Sun) (Philadelphia Inquirer) (Hoovers) (Seattle Post Int)

Pakistan Minister says talks with India could begin next month (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers)

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels: Training more fighters (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers)

Nuclear nonproliferation is under threat (Washington Times)

Delays now likely in restarting India-Pakistan flights (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required)

Lay down your guns (Time Magazine)

Indian Prime Minister to visit China next month (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required)

Bangladesh opposition calls for anti-government strike (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers)

Panel: Lift ban on some nuclear research (Philadelphia Inquirer) (Seattle Post Int)

7 die in vote clashes in India (New York Post)

Charges Pending in Ohio Campus Attack (New York Times - Registration required) (San Francisco Chronicle) (Star Tribune) (Chicago Tribune - Registration required) (NY Times - registration required) (May 11) (Seattle Post Int)

American Official Praises India's Move to Defuse Tensions With Pakistan (May 11) (NY Times - registration required)

Senior U.S. Diplomat Commends India for Pakistan Peace Effort (May 11) (LA Times - registration required)

Bhopal's long agony (May 11) (Miami Herald)

Tales of cultural differences and family relationships - Book Review (May 11) (Chicago Tribune - registration required)

TOP STORIES
*	India, Pakistan claim ready for talks
	New Delhi -- India and Pakistan said Monday they have prepared "road maps" for peace talks, which are likely to start with easier issues such as travel and cultural contacts before moving to the thornier problems like their dispute over Jammu-Kashmir. Meanwhile, the Indian Defense Ministry conducted its third test in four days of an air-to-air missile with a range of up to 25 miles. The ministry said Monday's test was part of routine research on the Astra missile before a decision is made on including it in India's arsenal. Pakistan said it was not warned of the test.
	http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AMay12.html
	http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/05/12/international0431EDT0446.DTL
	http://www.silive.com/newsflash/international/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?a0446_BC_India-Pakistan
	http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-India-Pakistan.html
	http://www.startribune.com/stories/670/3877670.html
	http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=India%20Pakistan
	http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/5841495.htm
*	Six killed in surging violence in Indian Kashmir
	Srinagar, India -- Five Indian policemen and soldiers and a suspected Muslim separatist were killed in a string of clashes in Indian Kashmir on Monday, where violence is rising as relations between India and Pakistan thaw. Two policemen guarding a bank were killed and eight wounded in an attack by suspected rebels in Kupwara town, near the Pakistan border, a police officer said. One militant also died.
	http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-kashmir.html
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030512_001718-search,00.html
	http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AMay12.html
*	Air-to-air missile is tested once more
	India test-fired a new air-to-air missile for the second time in three days yesterday, defense ministry officials said. The Astra missile was fired from a test range at Chandipur, in the east coast state of Orissa, said P.K. Bandhopadhyaya, a Defense Ministry spokesman. The Defense Ministry's spokesman called yesterday's test a demonstration to fine-tune the Astra's control and guidance system. "It's a routine test," Mr. Bandhopadhyaya said. "These are purely research trials, which every missile has to go through to help scientists check its parameters."
	http://www.washtimes.com/world/.htm
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030512_001262-search,00.html
	http://www.sunspot.net/news/printedition/bal-te.world12may12,0,3980699.story?coll=bal%2Dpe%2Dasection
	http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/nation/5827979.htm
	http://hoovnews.hoovers.com/newsurl.asp?doc_id=NR_bb5b0001650ffba8
	http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=India%20Missile%20Test
*	Pakistan Minister says talks with India could begin next month
	Lahore, Pakistan -- Peace talks between South Asian nuclear rivals India and Pakistan could begin as early as next month, but Islamabad is waiting for a signal from New Delhi, a foreign ministry spokesman said Monday. "We are ready for the dialogue process to start," Foreign Ministry spokesman Asiz Ahmed Khan told reporters Monday in the federal capital. "We are waiting for a signal from the Indian side." Relations between the hostile neighbors began to thaw late last month with an invitation from Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for talks with Pakistan
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030512_002112-search,00.html
	http://hoovnews.hoovers.com/newsurl.asp?doc_id=NR_7fb1000ab6484e2a
*	Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels: Training more fighters
	Colombo -- Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels said Monday they were training more fighters to maintain their military strength. "The arms training given to our cadres is to strengthen the security of our people and our military infrastructure," Col. Pathuman, the rebel's military commander in eastern Trincomalee city, was quoted as saying by TamilNet Web site, which reports on matters related to ethnic Tamils. The statement came as a senior U.S. official was visiting the island nation to help revive stalled peace talks between the rebels and government.
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030512_001067,00.html
	http://hoovnews.hoovers.com/newsurl.asp?doc_id=NR_c5dd0005409e58ea
*	Nuclear nonproliferation is under threat
	Q: We've heard from diplomats [that] we still have India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea outside the NPT umbrella. How do you get these countries to sign on at a moment [when] the United States has not ratified the [Comprehensive (Nuclear) Test Ban Treaty], and that is also seen as a weak link in the universality of the process? A: I agree; the treaty is being attacked from within by noncompliance by the non-nuclear-weapons states, and noncompliance by the nuclear-weapons states, and it is being attacked from without by Pakistan, Israel and India not being in, and now North Korea having announced its withdrawal. So we've got a real problem with two issues that are very intimately connected. That is, universality and compliance. And the two things are linked. Because if you believe in the treaty, and you join the treaty for your regional security concerns, if you discover some states in your region are never going to join, then you start to rethink your own internal commitments to the treaty. And I think that's what beginning to happen in the Middle East, and I think it maybe is what is beginning to happen in Asia.
	http://www.washtimes.com/world/.htm
*	Delays now likely in restarting India-Pakistan flights
	Karachi, Pakistan -- Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said Monday the civil aviation authorities of India and Pakistan will have to meet first to thrash out an agreement over the resumption of flights between the two countries. When "the aviation authorities of the two countries meet the entire range of issues regarding the flights etc. will be discussed during that time," said Aziz Ahmed Khan at a televised news conference from Islamabad. The statement effectively means more delays in the start of direct flights between India and Pakistan that were banned more than a year ago at the height of tensions when India blamed Pakistan-backed militant groups for launching a terrorist attack on the Indian parliament. Pakistan denied it was involved in the attack.
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030512_001771-search,00.html
*	Lay down your guns
	It's official: India and Pakistan may start playing cricket again. That doesn't seem like much, but any sign that hostility is easing between the two nuclear-armed neighbors is worth cheering. Still, a far trickier game lies ahead: solving their long-simmering dispute over Kashmir and specifically, reining in the violent militants who keep the Kashmir pot boiling.
	http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,,00.html
*	Indian Prime Minister to visit China next month
	New Delhi -- Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will visit China next month, making the first such trip in more than 10 years, defense Minister George Fernandes announced Monday. Fernandes added that there has been no shooting along the two neighbors' 5,580-mile border in three years and that there is a chance for permanent peace. India and China still have border disputes from their 1962 mountain war, but relations have been improving rapidly since 1998, when Fernandes had said that India had tested nuclear weapons because of its fears of China.
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030512_001224-search,00.html
*	Bangladesh opposition calls for anti-government strike
	Dhaka, Bangladesh -- Bangladesh's largest opposition party called for a nationwide general strike on Tuesday to protest what it described as government harassment of political opponents and rising prices. The eight-hour strike called by Awami League is expected to shut down schools and shops and disrupt public transport in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, and other cities and towns. Such protests are a common opposition tactic in Bangladesh .
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030512_001563-search,00.html
	http://hoovnews.hoovers.com/newsurl.asp?doc_id=NR_cd9c0002bd37fbcb
*	Panel: Lift ban on some nuclear research
	A Senate committee said yesterday that it had voted to lift a decade-old ban on the research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons, overriding Democratic arguments that repeal would damage U.S. efforts to stop the spread of nuclear arms. "This is a major shift in American policy," said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. "It just sort of makes a mockery of our argument around the world that other countries - India, Pakistan - should not test and North Korea and Iran should not obtain."
	http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/nation/5827978.htm
	http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1153&slug=Congress%20Defense
*	7 die in vote clashes in India
	Calcutta -- Gun battles and bomb attacks during local elections in India's communist-ruled West Bengal state yesterday killed at least seven people and wounded 13, officials said. The bloodiest clash was in Joynagar, 56 miles south of Calcutta, where communist supporters shot it out with opposition socialist workers over access to a polling booth.
	http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/75468.htm
*	Charges Pending in Ohio Campus Attack
	Charges against a man who allegedly went on a shooting rampage at a university business school won't be filed until police finish gathering evidence in the cordoned-off building where a man was fatally shot and two others wounded, authorities said. Police Sgt. Donna Bell said investigators could finish processing the scene at Case Western Reserve University as early as Monday and file charges against former Case graduate student Biswanath Halder, who was being held in the city jail. He had not hired an attorney or had any visitors as of Sunday, Bell said. Halder, 62, was arrested after a seven-hour standoff Friday with police in the Peter B. Lewis Building, a shiny, swirling building filled with twisting corridors that complicated Halder's capture. Authorities said 93 people had been trapped inside, hiding in offices, classrooms and closets.
	http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/05/12/national0455EDT0451.DTL
	http://www.startribune.com/stories/670/3877681.html
	http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-university-shooting,1,4067221.story
	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/national/11SHOO.html
	http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=University%20Shooting
*	American Official Praises India's Move to Defuse Tensions With Pakistan (May 11)
	Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage concluded a three-day visit to South Asia today, hailing a new peace initiative by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India with neighboring Pakistan as a "far-reaching act of statesmanship." Mr. Armitage also stressed that Mr. Vajpayee took the step to defuse tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals on his own and that it was not the work of American diplomats. "I would let Indian officials speak for themselves," he said, when asked if Pakistan had made concessions India has demanded. Both Indian and Pakistani officials have called the war in Iraq a warning that countries should work to solve their own problems before the United States imposes a solution. Leaders and public opinion in both countries opposed the war.
	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/international/asia/11ARMI.html
*	Senior U.S. Diplomat Commends India for Pakistan Peace Effort (May 11)
	U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage thanked the prime minister of India on Saturday for his peace overture to Pakistan, saying he was hopeful it will lead to neighborly relations between the bitter enemies. Armitage ended a three-day swing through South Asia here in the Indian capital, where he encouraged officials to follow through on the initiative this month by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The U.S. diplomat acknowledged that any peace process would be long and painstaking. Both countries agreed this month to rediplomatic relations, frozen since 2001.
	http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-indopak11may11001420,1,3898877.story
*	Bhopal's long agony (May 11)
	Aliya Bano woke to the screams of children. She retched as burning vapors filled her lungs. She thought, ``I can't breathe; I will die.''She didn't. Her husband, two sons and their wives did. Eighteen years later, Bano, now 60, is still waiting for compensation from the U.S. company she holds responsible for their deaths. It was just after midnight on Dec. 3, 1984, when a storage tank burst at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, unleashing 40 tons of methyl-isocyanate into the early-morning air. The poisonous gas -- a precursor for a pesticide called Sevin -- swept with a stubborn certainty over the shantytowns surrounding the plant, choking the confused as they lay in beds of straw. Men and women grabbed their children and ran for their lives, bursting their lungs with the deep inhalations. The official count from the Indian government: 3,800 dead and 11,000 disabled. The count by several activist groups: 20,000 dead and more than half a million physically injured.
	href="http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/special_packages/focus/5837699.htm" target=_new>
*	Tales of cultural differences and family relationships - Book Review (May 11)
	It is heartening, in times like these, when a new virus is rippling outward from southern China, and when ongoing coverage of the war in Iraq is interrupted by a report from Kinshasa that 966 Congolese people have been massacred in a matter of hours by ethnic rivals, to encounter a writer with the global range and compassion of John Murray. A medical doctor and graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Murray is able to weave brutally horrifying events--the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, a cholera epidemic in the slums of Bombay--into complex, thoughtful, human stories .. "The Hill Station," the finest tale in the lot, is a densely detailed story about Elizabeth, an Indian-American woman who grew up in New Jersey learning about India from her father's tropical-disease textbooks. Now she has gone to Bombay to lecture on the cholera bacteria. After one lecture, she faints. The reason, not revealed until the end of the story, is at firstto interpretation: It is too hot. She has eaten or drunk the wrong thing. Her visits to the clinics in the slums, where cholera victims are being treated, have infected her with the illness she has studied from a distance, under the microscope. The true explanation, and the meaning of the story, are revealed gradually, with exquisite pacing.
	http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/booksmags/chi-may11,1,1124388.story

EDITORIALS / OP-ED
*	Bid by Pakistan to India for mutual denuclearization unrealistic
	In the giddy rush by India and Pakistan to thaw two years of a diplomatic deep freeze, Islamabad has produced the most appealing bid: "If India is ready to denuclearize, we would be happy to denuclearize. But it will have to be mutual." The idea is noble, bold, visionary, prudent and conciliatory. Other nations - notably South Africa - have walked away from nuclear weapons and programs, to the betterment of their regions. Unfortunately, the idea is unrealistic in this case and India, not surprisingly, has rejected it. Why? Because such a move would serve the national-security interests of Pakistan, but not those of India.
	http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/5841866.htm
*	No real reconciliation with Kashmir unsolved
	Usually around this time of year, global security pundits anticipate the seasonal saber-rattling between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan. South Asia's most volatile neighbors have been locked in territorial disputes since their independence from Britain in 1947. In the summer of 1998, both sides wildly upped the ante by detonating atomic bombs, and have been flaunting their nuclear capabilities ever since.
	http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/May/12/op/op02a.html
*	Peace is a long road for India and Pakistan (May 9)
	The snows are melting in the high passes along Kashmir's Line of Control that separate the Indian- and Pakistani-held parts of that tragic territory, a land that has been the cause of two of the three wars fought between the two neighbors. Typically, spring brings an upsurge in militant infiltration across the dividing line and violence against Indian security personnel and civilians in the Vale (Valley) of Kashmir. But this spring, Kashmir may be seeing another kind of thaw that could lead to something new - a political thaw in the relations between these two nuclear protagonists. Indian and Pakistani officials are talking again. When Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee spoke by telephone with Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali on April 28, it was the first high-level contact between the two nations since the collapse of the Agra summit in July 2001. That conversation was the result of Vajpayee's recent visit to Kashmir in which he offered to extend a "hand of friendship" to Pakistan if it would reciprocate.
	http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/5818999.htm
*	Bush's View of Rights - Letter to the Editor (May 10)
	Brownstein then tops that one with: "Bush rejected the Kyoto treaty because he said it threatened the U.S. economy. Neither then, nor since, has his administration appeared much concerned about the effect of such an unequivocal American withdrawal on efforts to forge a common worldwide response to the problem of global warming." The U.S. Senate voted 95 to 0 against the Kyoto accord in a nonbinding resolution in 1997 because the world's biggest polluters, China and India, were excluded. There is no real reason to believe that the measures would be effective, and the U.S. would bear a disproportionate burden in reducing pollution.
	http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-le-dougherty10may10,1,241810.story
*	A Surprising Thaw on the Subcontinent (May 11)
	Diplomacy is back in business in South Asia. After months of hot tempers and frozen relations, India's invitation to Pakistan last week to talk, and Pakistan's immediate and enthusiastic acceptance, means that plain good sense could return to the subcontinent. Just because talking is a good idea, however, doesn't mean that it's enough to repair the fractured Indo-Pakistani relationship � or that a good idea will necessarily work. Both countries have defied their own expectations in thinking about ending their pugnacious behavior, but India is keen to hold the upper hand. Can controlled change turn into a passion for peace? Until last week's surprise proposal, bellicosity ruled relations between the two nuclear powers. India's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee seized every opportunity to hold Pakistan responsible for cross-border terrorism, persistent violence in Kashmir � even the rise of militant Islam. His ruling Bharatiya Janata Party tilts increasingly rightward to unite its vision of India with a Hindu-centric ideology. India's Muslims, however, are becoming victims of state policies and restive nationalist crowds.
	http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-paula11may11,1,5132782.story
*	THE SLOW DEATH OF IT? (May 11)
	It's about time that the disembowelment of the US information technology industry started to get some attention. However, Hiawatha Bray's article ("Passage to India; US financial services firms plan to send more work abroad") on May 6 touches on only one aspect of a much wider problem. The massive movement of IT work to offshore locations, particularly India, is not restricted to financial services. Virtually every major US industry is and has been involved in this practice for nearly a decade now. In my opinion, this is yet another example of greed, shortsightedness, and complete lack of social responsibility on the part of corporate America. During the years leading up to Y2K, corporate lobbyists demanded and received legislation allowing for hundreds of thousands of foreign workers to enter the US, specifically to work in the IT business. Each worker had to be sponsored by a US corporation, and part of the sponsorship process required the corporation to hidden an affidavit stating that "no US worker could be found to do that particular job." This innocuous requirement gradually transformed from a meaningless formality to a major disaster for US IT workers. In Massachusetts, thousands of American IT professionals have been laid off over the past few years by firms who continue to import thousands of foreign workers to do the same jobs.
	http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=0FAFCE7A2A7F69B0&p_docnum=2
*	Blame India, not Pakistan - Letter to the Editor (May 10)
	Recent articles create the impression that India is leading the way in trying to normalize relations between these two nuclear-armed neighbors ("India offering ties to Pakistan," Saturday and "Pakistani-Indian moves toward peace welcomed," Sunday). This belies the efforts of Pakistan at trying to initiate talks between the countries for more than two years. Pakistan's President Musharraf is on record on more than one occasion calling for dialogue and negotiations "any place, any time." India has consistently refused these overtures, accelerated the arms race in south Asia while maintaining in excess of 600,000 military personnel in the disputed region of Kashmir. India also remains in violation of several U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding this dispute. If the main problem, as India claims, is Pakistani-sponsored "cross-border terrorism," why have they disallowed human rights monitors and barred foreign journalists from Indian-controlled Kashmir? It appears that it is India, and not Pakistan, that has been the main impediment to peace in this region
	http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/0510satlet1-104.html

BUSINESS / TECHNOLOGY
*	Some customer service jobs migrating to India
	Bombay, India -- In the early morning hours of May 1, American welfare recipients reached for their phones, dialing toll-free to check on their next infusion of funds. On a steamy Indian late afternoon in her air-conditioned cubicle in Bombay, Manisha Martin was waiting for them. Without a break, the display panel on her phone lit up. Kansas calling. Arizona. Alabama. Tennessee. "Hi, this is Megan," she said to each caller. "How can I help you?" In mostly Southern drawls she had once struggled to understand, they asked about the balances on their electronic benefit cards, which work much like those used at ATMs. "Your food stamp balance is 48 cents," she told one caller. She activated new cards or told callers to speak to their caseworkers. If they unleashed angry tirades, she tried to understand. When young single mothers cried, she listened.
	http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/nation/5840817.htm
	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/international/asia/11INDI.html
*	Pakistan's exports US$5.6 bln worth of textiles in 10 months
	ISLAMABAD -- The country's textile sector earned US$983 million more, to $5.644 billion, during 10 months (July-April) of the current fiscal year as compared to $4.661 billion in last year, showing an increase of 21.1 percent. According to foreign trade figures released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), cotton yarn gained by 3.2 percent to $792 million as compared to $767 million and cotton cloth showed growth of 16.3 percent to $1.05 billion from $908.7 million.
	http://www.globalsources.com/TNTLIST/2003/05/12/ix/0714-0021-.htm
*	The Have and the Have-Nots (May 10)
	That's not the story this year, according to interviews with seniors, career counselors and experts. The road to getting a job is longer and harder. While some graduates are finding work, others, discouraged and frustrated, are settling for less, rethinking their options, or going back to school for a graduate degree. Why, they wonder, their self-esteem in tatters, did they invest all the money and effort to make it through college just to end up among the unemployed, or underemployed? "You pay all that money for the degree that was supposed to take you places, and now what's it worth? I don't even know what I'm worth," complained Cherry Hill business major Snehal Sindhvad, who graduated from Drexel University in March 2002. "My parents came to this country, to the promised land, to give me all the opportunities they never had," said Sindhvad, whose parents emigrated from India in 1971. Until December, he held a short-term management job setting up airport security training. He has since sent out hundreds of resumes a week, with no offers. "It's a hard time," Sindhvad said. "You have to stay strong and keep your head up."
	http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/5827962.htm
*	Destination Chicago - Immigrants put their stamp on suburban housing, buying up to 20% of new-construction homes (May 11)
	And that dream has come true for the native of Colombia and her husband, Mauricio, born in Venezuela. They are among an increasing number of immigrants who are buying homes in the United States and making a major contribution to the housing boom. In fact, Chicago's suburbs are becoming a veritable United Nations of homeowners. The city has long been a medley of nationalities, but now 20 percent of buyers of new-construction housing in the suburbs are foreign-born -- four times higher than 10 years ago -- estimates real estate analyst Tracy Cross. "No home-building records would have been set in the Chicago area in the last three or four years without the impact of immigrant buyers," said Cross. They are coming from Mexico, eastern Asia, India, Eastern Europe and other parts of the world. Each has a story about coming here and their path to homeownership.... Shaxted noted that East Indians have been attracted to Lakewood Ridge in Bolingbrook, and Koreans and Eastern Europeans are buying at Lakewood Grove in Round Lake.
	http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/realestate/chi-may11,1,3575765.story
*	Giving U.S. housing a whole new outlook (May 11)
	Immigration has been pumping new life into America since Colonial days. Just look at our historic architecture, with bricks, mortar and wood reflecting mostly European styles. While it remains to be seen whether our new immigrants will change American residential architecture, they are putting their mark on what is quintessentially American -- the suburban subdivision. Different cultures have different wants and needs, and Chicago-area builders are responding to them. After all, a sizable portion of the current building boom can be traced to immigration. "Cultural understanding and communication are increasingly important," said Daniel Urben, vice president of sales and marketing for Summit Homes, based in St. Charles. He noted his firm arranged a time to have a new house at Summit Glen in Crystal Lake blessed before it closed. The buyers were Hitesh and Bindiya Patadia, who are from northern India. "It is customary in the Hindu religion that a prayer ceremony be held at the beginning of a home's construction," said Hitesh. "A priest from the Hindu temple in Wheeling performed the ceremony. Its purpose is to ward off evil spirits and sanctify the ground. Usually, certain mantras are read and water is sprayed around the perimeter," he explained.
	http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/realestate/chi-may11,1,4493271.story
*	Outsource movement may cost more jobs - Stock market research follows technology trend (May 11)
	J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. plans to outsource some of its stock market research to Bombay this summer, signaling possible new arenas for the trend that already has sent tens of thousands of information technology jobs abroad in recent years. A surge in overseas hiring could result in major job losses in the U.S. professional services sector. A survey of 100 major American banks, brokerage houses and insurance companies by consulting firm A.T. Kearney Inc. projects that a half-million financial-services jobs will move overseas in the next five years--8 percent of total employment in the sector.
	http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-may11,1,3966350.story
*	Indian Minister: MIT Collaboration Costly (May 9)
	An information technology collaboration between India and a cutting-edge U.S. research lab failed because it was expensive and yielded few results, a top Indian official said Friday. Arun Shourie, India's minister for information technology, rejected the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab's statement that the lab was the one that had pulled out because of a clash in styles. Media Lab became known in the 1990s for its cutting-edge technology research developed from a free-flowing, highly experimental style. Its Indian prototype, Media Lab Asia, was founded in 2001 to help develop technologies to benefit India's impoverished masses. The goal was to help transform one of the world's oldest cultures with affordable wireless and Internet technology that could offer everything from low-cost computers to online medical and matrimonial services.
	http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/aptech_story.asp?category=1700&slug=MIT%20India
*	India sends satellite into orbit (May 9)
	India launched its heaviest communications satellite into orbit yesterday, two years after a similar mission had mixed success, officials said. The 160-foot rocket lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota, about 60 miles north of Madras, in southern India, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee told Parliament. The 3,900-pound experimental GSAT-2 satellite -- the heaviest India has tried to launch -- was fired into orbit by a rocket propelled with a Russian-made cryogenic engine. The first such launch was conducted on March 28, 2001. It was aborted seconds before liftoff because one of the engines failed to provide enough power.
	http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/121165_indiarocket09.html
*	Mercury Waste From India Heads to U.S. (May 8)
	A ship carrying 320 tons of mercury contaminated waste from a former Indian thermometer plant left Thursday for the United States, where the material will be recycled.The waste from a closed plant owned by the Indian subsidiary of Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant Unilever was packed in plastic and stuffed in steel containers.The Indamex Chesapeake left the southern Indian coast early Thursday, said a statement from Greenpeace, which welcomed the move as a victory for environmental groups. The company later confirmed the departure.The ship was scheduled to dock in New York on May 29, after which the material will be shipped to Bethlehem Apparatus, a mercury recycling plant in Pennsylvania.
	http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=India%20Mercury%20Waste
*	'The Hero' has all the Bollywood components (May 10)
	HOLLYWOOD - Anil Shama's "The Hero: Love Story of a Spy" has all the classic elements of a Bollywood blockbuster taken to a spectacular level. It has adventure, romance, international intrigue, plus the musical interludes and marathon running time - five minutes shy of three hours, not including an intermission - that the mass Indian audience xpects. Shot in the Swiss Alps and Canada as well as India, it has a typically confounding combination of feverish antique melodrama, complete with some of the phoniest wigs and beards since "The Birth of a Nation"; a topical theme, the danger posed by Muslim extremists in the post-Sept. 11 world; and modern technology. Although it has an old-fashioned comic book sensibility, Sharma and screenwriter Shaktimaan keep the pot boiling throughout. Contributing in a major way to the film's sustained energy is Kabir Lal's dynamic, though unevenly processed cinematography, which resourcefully captures a flurry of action sequences, culminating in nuclear peril amid snow-covered Canadian mountain peaks.
	http://www.azcentral.com/ent/movies/articles/0510thehero10.html
*	Boost your command of economics (May 11)
	Famed money manager Peter Lynch once said an investor who spends 12 minutes a year trying to predict the future course of the economy will wind up wasting 10 minutes of it. But I contend that if you're willing to spend an hour a week over the next six weeks trying to understand the economic forces that have shaped the modern world, you'll be rewarded. I'm referring to the PBS return of Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy starting Thursday at 10 p.m. on Channel 8 (KAET). .... Commanding Heights, which initially aired in April 2002, was taped in 20 nations, and some of the more interesting segments involve such economic outposts as Chile, Bolivia and Poland, where key battles were fought around free markets. Russia, China and India also figure prominently.
	http://www.azcentral.com/business/columns/articles/0511Wiles11.html

OTHER STORIES
*	Charges pending in Ohio campus attack
	Cleveland -- Charges against a man who allegedly went on a shooting rampage at a university business school won't be filed until police finish gathering evidence in the cordoned-off building where a man was fatally shot and two others wounded, authorities said. Police Sgt. Donna Bell said investigators could finish processing the scene at Case Western Reserve University as early as Monday and file charges against former Case graduate student Biswanath Halder, who was being held in the city jail. He had not hired an attorney or had any visitors as of Sunday, Bell said. Halder, a native of Calcutta, India, recently lost an appeal of a lawsuit he filed against a university computer lab employee, accusing him of deleting information from his Web site that bills itself as a network devoted to resources for natives of India living outside of the country.
	http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/05/12/national0455EDT0451.DTL
	http://www.startribune.com/stories/670/3877681.html
	http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-university-shooting,1,4067221.story
	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/national/11SHOO.html
	http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=University%20Shooting
*	Flushed with Asian pride
	The misty air and lingering threat of rain didn't stop hundreds from attending the Asian Pacific Heritage Festival in Flushing yesterday. There were plenty of moms and dads pushing baby strollers along Kissena Boulevard, many of whom paused at the stage to watch martial arts demonstrations, ballet dancers and Chinese opera. "Sometimes it's good to get together and most of the people here are parents," said Jason Jiang as he pushed his 4-year-old daughter, Amanda. Jiang, a sales manager from Bayside, said he tries to visit as many cultural events as possible in Queens to show his support. "We should have more things like this," he said. "It's extremely important and people should be proud of their own culture."
	http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/ny-nyfest123278960may12,0,2037475.story?coll=ny%2Dnews%2Dprint
*	Linking customers with cabs
	Another Olde City driver, Arif H. Khan, 26, said he was the "pampered" son of a prominent Kashmiri businessman. He said he emigrated with his mother in 1996 after the death of his father led to the loss of his family's fortune. Khan said he encountered a "little culture shock" because of the faster pace in this country. "It wasn't like that in Kashmir," he said. But he appears to have made the adjustment. He owns two cabs that, like most taxis here, began life as police cars. He is "looking forward to more." Yet his seven sisters in Kashmir wonder why he opted for such a line of work. "The reputation of cabdrivers is so bad," Khan said. "They see me as the scum of the earth. "This country relies on cabdrivers. There should be a school or something." Sukhwinder Singh, who emigrated from Punjab state in northern India, keeps returning valuables that his customers have left in his cab. It has happened about 10 times in as many years, he said. In one case, he returned a woman's purse containing $500 in cash. For his honesty in returning wallets, Singh recently received a good-service award from the Philadelphia Hotel Association. "I'm Sikh," he said. "I believe in God. That's why I return them."
	http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/business/5839589.htm
*	Himalayan Art (May 11)
	Museum exhibitions in Washington and Chicago are looking at the Himalayas from two different perspectives. "Sir Edmund Hillary: Everest and Beyond," at the National Geographic Society in Washington, celebrates the feats of the New Zealand mountaineer who was the first to scale the world's tallest mountain 50 years ago, on May 29, 1953. The exhibition chronicles the life and adventures of the one-time beekeeper who teamed up with the Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay for their historic climb. The story of that ascent - as well as Hillary's subsequent expeditions to the South Pole and up the Ganges River in India, and his many environmental and social projects in the Himalayas - are told through photos, film footage, text panels and objects like an ice axe and tent. Visitors can walk across a simulated crevasse and stand in the middle of a photo montage showing a 360-degree-view from Everest's summit, on the border of Tibet and Nepal. Also on display are replicas of a Sherpa school and a Buddhist chapel.
	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/travel/11advbx.html
	http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/travel/articles/0511museum11.html
*	Sonia Nikore, Blake Koh (May 11)
	Sonia Nikore, a daughter of Vimal and Pran Nikore of Atlanta, was married yesterday to Bryan Blake Koh, the son of Charlene Scott and Byron Koh, both of Amherst, Mass. Dr. Bhagirath Majmudar, a Hindu priest, officiated at the home of Lizanne and John Stephenson, friends of the bride's family in Atlanta. The bride, 34, is a vice president for casting in NBC's entertainment division in Burbank, Calif.; she oversees casting for prime-time shows including "The West Wing," "ER" and "Frasier." She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Miami. Her father, who is retired, was the chief engineer for India's Ministry of Power in New Delhi. Her mother, a retired psychologist, had a private practice until recently in Atlanta.
	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/fashion/weddings/11NIKO.html
*	Reincarnation for One India Hill Station (May 11)
	In the Savoy hotel bar, where Britain's colonial elite once toasted their empire in Victorian splendor, the clock is frozen at 1:10 and the paint peels in ragged strips. And Lal Singh, the bartender, will smile apologetically if you ask for a whiskey on ice. "No ice," Singh says, shifting in his ill-fitting plaid blazer. A gin and tonic? Another smile: "No tonic." A few decades ago, the drinks flowed at the Savoy, the most popular bar in town. It was an elegant wooden vacation palace and Mussoorie a famous mountainside Hill Station, a haven for colonialists fleeing India's suffocating summer heat for the cool of the Himalayan foothills. These days, the colonialists are long gone and Singh often just wants a customer. Any customer. But Mussoorie still thrives.
	http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-adfg-indiahill11may11,1,3693349.story
*	Spice of Life (May 11)
	My foray into international journalism started with a plate of chicken korma. A singular work of art, the dish�a fragrant mix of chicken, brown curry gravy and spices ladled over rice�was served in a Back Bay, Mass., brownstone in the late spring of 1994. I remember this meal so well because I ate plate after plate until I could barely stand. The creator of this heavenly dish was Dr. Anees Syed, the mother of my journalism school classmate Asif. She had come to the States from Bombay, India, to visit her son and make a home-cooked meal for his friends. What she got was me running laps in the kitchen past her cooking pots, a sight she wouldn't soon forget. Asif later confided, "To this day, whenever she remembers you, it is almost always in connection with your appetite."
	http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/magazine/la-tm-entertaining19may11,1,3826693.story
*	Missile Tests Ahead of Armitage Visit (May 10)
	India test-fired an air-to-air missile only hours before Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage arrived in New Delhi to encourage the unfolding peace initiatives between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has said his country was seeking friendship with Pakistan, but would move prudently toward restoring relations. Sources at India's Defense Ministry said another missile test was scheduled within the next two days, according to the Press Trust of India.
	http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-briefs10.2may10,1,7626493.story
	http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/5828627.htm
	http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-may10,1,3945850.story
*	U.S. envoy praises India's peace overture to Pakistan (May 11)
	Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage concluded a four-day visit to South Asia on Saturday, hailing a new peace initiative by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India with neighboring Pakistan as an ``act of statesmanship.'' Armitage also emphasized that Vajpayee took the step to defuse tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals on his own and that it was not the work of U.S. diplomats. Both Indian and Pakistani officials have called the war in Iraq a warning that countries should work to solve their own problems before the United States imposes a solution. In the week since Vajpayee's surprise initiative, U.S. officials have gone out of their way to play down any U.S. involvement in possible talks. Armitage, speaking at a brief airport news conference before leaving for Washington, said he was not an interlocutor. He declined to take a position on the core dispute between the two countries -- charges that Pakistan allows Islamic militants to train on its territory and to attack Indian forces in disputed Kashmir.
	http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/5834416.htm
*	Shaping the Muslim world of tomorrow - Book Review (May 11)
	Is Islam incompatible with democracy? Are Muslims condemned to live under tyrannies and autocratic regimes because of their faith? Noah Feldman, a professor of law at NYU with a doctorate in Islamic thought, recently named an adviser on efforts to draft a new Iraqi constitution, wades into this ideological battlefield and argues the contrary. With After Jihad, Feldman has written a substantial and important defense of why America should support democratic reform and not the authoritarian status quo in much of the Muslim world. In the follow-up to the conflict in Iraq, no subject could be more timely. Feldman believes that Islam is not incompatible with Western ideals, and that many Muslims yearn for the freedoms associated with democracy. Today, he points out, it is not secular Muslims but their Islamist opponents who are agitating for democracy. He draws a clear and valuable distinction between militant, violent Islamists and the more numerous moderates whose rise has not been as widely noted.
	http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/books/5825739.htm
*	21 AD Asia' an insightful festival (May 11)
	Cross-cultural exchange and understanding were graciously woven through "21 AD Asia"--a pared-down festival devoted to the evolution of traditional Chinese, Indian and Indonesian dance styles--whichd Friday night at Links Hall. But although the artists answered questions from the audience after each dance, the evening did not turn into a didactic lecture-demonstration. Instead an unforced aura of enlightenment filled the space .... Also more culturally specific were three pieces by the Chicago-based Kalapriya Dance, headed by Pranita Jain (who curated the festival with sensitivity to detail). The company specializes in the Bharata Natyam style of southern India. Three dancersd with "Alaripu," using a triangular formation to shape the space into a sacred universe of movement.
	http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-may11,1,7058228.story
*	Scandinavia awarded a Mother's Day bouquet (May 11)
	The best country in the world to be a mother is Sweden, according to Save the Children, a global relief and development organization. Denmark and Norway tied for second place. Coming in last is Niger, at No. 117. Burkina Faso also ranks low, and the United States is only 11th best. The group published its State of the World's Mothers 2003 report a few days before Mother's Day, basing the index on 10 measures related to the health of women and their children, education and political status. The United States earned its 11th place rank this year based on several factors, including maternal and infant mortality. The U.S. also lags with regard to the political status of women. Only 14 percent of seats in the U.S. national government are held by women, compared to 45 percent in Sweden, 38 percent in Denmark and 37 percent in Finland. Save the Children also noted that fewer than 15 percent of births are attended by trained personnel in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Nepal.
	http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-may11,1,4601211.story
*	Dutch Judge Bars Terror Case Testimony
	A judge ruled Monday that key testimony would not be allowed against 12 terror suspects accused of supporting the Netherlands' enemies in a time of conflict, a charge that has not been filed since World War II.Prosecutors say the men recruited two men for suicide missions in the province of Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan, and tried to recruit other young Muslims.
	http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Netherlands%20Terror%20Trial
*	MATERNAL INSTINCTS (May 11)
	It's damp and rainy outside, and the air has the kind of deep spring chill that's hard to shake off. Inside Shifteh Veyssi's kitchen, however, it's all sunshine. A big platter of basmati rice, mixed with lamb, lentils, and plump dates, is garnished with a drizzle of bright-yellow saffron. Traditional flat Persian barbari bread is cut into squares and arranged on plates along with a yogurt dipping spread flavored with cucumbers and fresh mint. A dish of almond and pistachio-caramel candy sits on the table beside small glasses of freshly brewed tea. Veyssi's sons, Cyrus, 8, and Kaveh, 11, are doing homework in the room next to the kitchen. Around 6 p.m., when their father, Babak Veyssi, comes home, the Brookline family will sit down to this beautiful dinner. Shifteh Veyssi, 41, loves this scene. She likes to have something cooking when the boys come home from school, so they can absorb its aroma and warmth. She also likes them studying and doing their schoolwork nearby.
	http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=0FAFCE791A48274B&p_docnum=3
*	TV has Mom in mind (May 11)
	TV networks, like greeting card companies, are increasingly happiest around holidays. Check out some of the programming coming up on Mother's Day, an occasion that doesn't usually prompt thoughts of the family gathering around . . . the boob tube. Still, in an ever-growing TV universe with unending time slots to fill, there's a gnawing need for more programming, new things to celebrate. Thus, this Sunday we'll be treated to Cartoon Network's seven-hour tribute to the "First Lady of Cartoons," Wilma Flintstone; actresses and models who don't normally eat who're "Cooking With Mom" on WE: Women's Entertainment. And that's not all. ----- "World Birth Day: Delivering Hope" 9 p.m. TLC - Expectant women deliver the goods on the same day in countries including Afghanistan, India, South Africa and the U.S.
	http://www.azcentral.com/ent/tv/articles/0510momtv.html