CLONING BAN BACK: Sen. Sam Brownback (R.-Kan.) says he will be back early next year with a Senate bill to ban the cloning of human beings for any purpose. The same bill passed the House in 2001 by a 100-vote margin, and received a ringing endorsement from President Bush. The bill stalled in the Senate thanks to Daschle & Co., but prospects are much better now: Pro-cloning Senators Strom Thurmond (R.-S.C.), Max Cleland (D.-Ga.), Jean Carnahan (D.-Mo.) and Paul Wellstone (D.-Minn.) will all be replaced by new GOP senators who back Bush on the issue. Also, Sen.-elect Mark Pryor (D.-Ark.) said during his campaign that he was "opposed to the creation of human embryos for research purposes," which would appear to include human cloning.
NO EURO-CLONES: The European Parliament voted 271 to 154 to adopt an amendment in which it "repeats its insistence that there should be a universal and specific ban at the level of the United Nations on the cloning of human beings at all stages of formation and development and urges the commission and the member states to work towards this end." The vote came despite French and German support for cloning for research purposes. Hubert H??¼ppe, a Christian Democrat who is a member of the German parliament, told the United Nations-based Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, "In the face of the European parliament decision, Germany and France, and perhaps the United Kingdom, find themselves isolated at the European level."
THE CLINTON LEGACY: According to Insight magazine (November 12), the White House’s access-control system put in place in the last days of the Clinton Administration is run by a company, Texas’ Ultrak, whose new CEO is a resident of Switzerland and is close to the Russian government. "In a June shareholders meeting, [Niklaus] Zenger was made sole chief executive officer of Ultrak, and new board members were seated. All but one member of that board now are foreign nationals," reported John Berlau. According to Insight, Ultrak is also involved in security at nuclear labs such as Los Alamos. A former business associate who once successfully sued Zenger said that the latter has close ties to Russia. "[Wayne] Jacoby recalls that Zenger ‘always bragged about how he had access to Russia’s nuclear facilities that no other businessman had,’" said Insight. "A former Zenger business associate in Switzerland, who requested anonymity, confirmed Zenger’s boasts about having high-ranking contacts in the Russian military-contacts that went back to the old Soviet Union." Zenger owns a controlling interest in Ultrak, whose White House access-control system makes lots of mistakes, Insight reported. Companies run or owned by Zenger have had various legal disputes with customers, consultants, or associates such as Jacoby in the past decade. "Notra Trulock, the former director of intelligence for the Department of Energy who blew the whistle on lax security at the labs during the Clinton Administration, tells Insight there naturally should be concern about a foreign-owned company doing this type of work."
CHENEY AT CPAC: CPAC organizers have announced that Vice President Dick Cheney will speak to the 30th Annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), to be held January 30 to February 1 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va. "Vice President Cheney has always been one of the most warmly received speakers at CPAC throughout the years," said CPAC Chairman David Keene. "We are honored to, once again, welcome this great conservative back to the conference’s 30th anniversary." Also accepting an invitation to appear at CPAC (800-752-4391; www.cpac.org) is Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.
UNHAPPY MULLAH: On November 17, the Sunday Times of London reported, "The radical north London cleric, Sheikh Abu Hamza, may face arrest after the emergence of secret video tapes in which he incites the death of Americans and suggests that he may have had advance knowledge of a successful plot to blow up an American warship in Yemen two years ago. . . . [An anonymous investigator] posted on the Internet a series of videos shot by the cleric’s supporters of rallies held in Britain in which Hamza incites his followers to commit terrorist attacks. ‘Kill them. It’s okay,’ he tells an audience. In one meeting in 1998 Hamza praises the twin bombings by al Qaeda of the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, in which 224 people died. . . . Hamza, who lives freely in London, says that if a ‘kafir’ (non-believer) enters a Muslim country then he is ‘like a cow’ and can be sold into slavery or killed."
