NEW YORK – It’s a question that often prompts a boastful answer or a bashful one: How many sex partners have you had? Now the federal government says it has authoritative statistics, documenting that men are far more likely to play the field than women. A new nationwide survey, using high-tech methods to solicit candid answers on sexual activity and illegal drug use, finds that 29 percent of American men report having 15 or more female sexual partners in a lifetime, while only 9 percent of women report having sex with 15 or more men. The median number of lifetime female sexual partners for men was seven; the median number of male partners for women was four. The survey, released Friday, is based on data collected from 1999 to 2002 for the National Center for Health Statistics, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In previous federal surveys on these topics, participants were asked questions in face-to-face interviews. The CDC believes that caused underreporting of behaviors which might be viewed negatively, although the survey did not provide any comparative results from earlier reports. This time, data was gathered from 6,237 adults, […]
WASHINGTON — The administration was sharply divided over the legality of President Bush’s most controversial eavesdropping policies, a congressman quoted former Attorney General John Ashcroft as telling a House panel Thursday. ‘It is very apparent to us that there was robust and enormous debate within the administration about the legal basis for the president’s surveillance program,’ Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, told reporters after a closed-door meeting with Ashcroft. The point is critical to two matters being considered in the Democratic-controlled Congress: One is the House and Senate Intelligence committees’ ongoing review of 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which includes an extensive examination of the president’s warrantless eavesdropping program. The other is the House and Senate Judiciary Committees’ parallel examinations of current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ service to the administration. Under that probe, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey revealed that Gonzales, then White House counsel, tried to pressure him and a critically ill Ashcroft to certify the legality of the wiretapping program. Comey and Ashcroft, who was in intensive care during Gonzales’ 2004 hospital visit, refused to comply. Also Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee authorized – but did not issue – subpoenas to […]
LONDON — Increasingly, Muslim women in Britain take their children to school and run errands covered head to toe in flowing black gowns that allow only a slit for their eyes. Like little else, their appearance has unnerved Britons, testing the limits of tolerance in this stridently secular nation. Many veiled women say they are targets of abuse. At the same time, efforts are growing to place legal curbs on the full Muslim veil, known as the niqab. The past year has seen numerous examples: A lawyer dressed in a niqab was told by an immigration judge that she could not represent a client because, he said, he could not hear her. A teacher wearing a niqab was told by a provincial school to go home. A student who was barred from wearing a niqab took her case to the courts, and lost. In fact, the British education authorities are proposing a ban on the niqab in schools altogether. David Sexton, a columnist for The Evening Standard, wrote recently that Britain has been ‘too deferential’ toward the veil. ‘I find such garb, in the context of a London street, first ridiculous and then directly offensive,’ he said. […]
HAVANA, Cuba - Yibo Shen came to Cuba five years ago to study Spanish at the University of Havana. He’s still here, working and passing time in Chinese restaurants on the weekends, one of a growing number of Chinese who are living here as Cuban-Chinese trade booms. China is now Cuba’s second-largest trading partner, after Venezuela. Trade between Cuba and China soared last year to $2.4 billion, Ricardo Alarcon, Cuba’s national assembly president, said during a recent trip to China. China’s oil company is exploring offshore oil and Chinese businesses are flourishing. Inexpensive Chinese sneakers and auto parts fill Havana’s bare-bones shops and Chinese pharmaceuticals are being developed in ventures with Cuban firms. ‘We expect a substantial increase in Chinese visitors to Cuba,’ Alarcon said in China. China’s Xinhua news agency reported in March that 10,000 Chinese visit Cuba each year. A 45-year trade embargo prevents most U.S. businesses from trading with Cuba, and a U.S.-imposed travel ban keeps most Americans from visiting the island. But the Chinese have no such difficulties. Shen, for example, represents one of China’s largest bus manufacturers, the Yutong Group. In just a few years here he’s sold thousands […]
The head of the world’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has warned that the organisation is so under-funded that it would have difficulty responding to a nuclear accident. In an unusual and angry appeal, Mohamed ElBaradei also claimed that the IAEA no longer had reliable equipment to detect covert nuclear activity, nor did it have consistent funding for its efforts to combat nuclear smuggling. Dr ElBaradei made his remarks to the IAEA’s board of governors, delegates from national governments, on June 15 but the comments were only made public yesterday. ‘If an accident were to happen tomorrow, we would be hard pressed to carry out core functions. This is a reality,’ he said. In the event of an accident like the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, the IAEA’s incident and emergency centre is supposed to step in immediately, sending technicians to help to limit the spread of radiation, advise on the treatment of casualties and coordinate the international response. Dr ElBaradei added that the IAEA’s ‘safeguards function is being eroded over time’, noting that the organisation was using an unreliable 28-year-old instrument to carry out environmental sampling. That sampling is carried out in and […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
