EAST

REPORT SAID TO CONCLUDE 9/11 EVACUATION SLOWER THAN EXPECTED

A federal report on the collapse of the World Trade Center towers highlights flaws in the emergency response and incorrect assumptions about how quickly people can evacuate a skyscraper in crisis, two individuals who worked on the study said yesterday. A team of engineers who have spent more than two years investigating the collapse of the twin towers are to issue three reports today in New York analyzing the September 11, 2001, building collapses and the response by rescue workers and building occupants.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology will also detail how early decisions played a key role in determining who lived and who died. The attacks killed some 2,749 at the towers, including those who died on the two jetliners that hijackers crashed into the buildings.

The findings represent NIST’s last step before issuing its final recommendations in June, the culmination of exhaustive research and testing that produced 10,000 pages of data. The centerpiece of today’s findings will be the engineers’ final conclusions about to the exact sequence of each tower’s collapse.

– Associated Press

HARVARD TO SHED INVESTMENT LINKED TO SUDANESE GOVERNMENT

Harvard University announced yesterday that is shedding its investment in a Chinese oil firm, Petrochina, because of the company’s involvement with the Sudanese government, which has been held responsible for genocide in the country’s Darfur region. “This decision reflects deep concerns about the grievous crisis that persists in the Darfur region of Sudan and about the extensive role PetroChina’s closely affiliated parent company, China National Petroleum Corporation, as a leading partner of the Sudanese government in the production of oil in Sudan,” three Harvard corporation members who examined the issue wrote.

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvard owns about $4.3 million-worth of PetroChina stock in American markets. It may own additional shares in Hong Kong that are not reported publicly.

“Divestment is not a step that Harvard takes lightly, but I believe there is a compelling case for action in these special circumstances,” Harvard’s president, Lawrence Summers, said in a statement. The university said that PetroChina’s links to Sudan were providing millions of dollars in revenue to the Sudanese government and that oil-related activities may have worsened the humanitarian crisis there, which has cost as many as 300,000 lives.

A PetroChina representative did not reply immediately to an e-mail seeking comment on the Harvard action. The Harvard fellows, or trustees, who announced the decision were the chairman and CEO of Corning, James Houghton, a Manhattan attorney, Conrad Harper, and the president of the Urban Institute, Robert Reischauer. They said the decision came on the recommendation of a 12-member advisory panel that includes faculty, students and alumni.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

NATIONWIDE

REPORT: CONFLICTING TRENDS OF ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA

The level of anti-Semitism in America showed conflicting trends in 2004, according to a report released yesterday by the Anti-Defamation League, an organization based at New York City. The number of documented anti-Semitic incidents in America increased by 17% in 2004 over the number of incidents in 2003.

At the same time, the ADL found that the number of Americans holding anti-Semitic views has declined since 2002. The ADL recorded 1,821 criminal and non-criminal anti-Semitic incidents in America in 2004, including an arson attack on a Jewish cemetery at West Roxbury, Mass., and the destruction of windows of a Jewish day school in North Miami. The ADL recorded 1,557 incidents in 2003. The ADL also reported that a poll it conducted of 1,600 Americans found that 14% of adults hold views that are “unquestionably anti-Semitic,” down from 17% in 2002.

The ADL compiled its report on anti-Semitic incidents, which it describes as a “snapshot of a nationwide problem,” using statistics from law enforcement agencies, as well as information collected by the ADL’s 30 regional offices.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun