BRITAIN: OPENING THE GATE FOR A NEW ERA

OF MEDICINE

Britain may be marching to the forefront of medical research. After a controversial government sponsored bill has taken the last legislative hurdle, it has become the first country to allow human embryo cloning for research and therapeutic purposes. It was a triumph of science over a powerful united front of religionists, when the House of Lords, ignoring the pius moral outcry, followed the example of the House of Commons, which had decided in last December with more than two-third majority to pass the bill. The new law, which will soon be in effect, allows scientists to clone human embryos up to 14 days old. Cloning after this period as well as cloning for other than research and therapeutic purposes (for example for reproduction) remains banned.

The whole spectrum of religious leaders from the Anglican church to British Catholics, Jews and Muslims stood hand in hand against the legislation. In a last ditch effort, a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, Britain's Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and the Dalai Lama urged the parliament in the name of the sanctity of life to abstain from passing the bill. In a long and heated debate, religion finally succumbed.

Not only the holy alliance tried its level best to stop the law, but also the European Parliament. Behind all fine ethical arguments is here the competition angle quite visible: the new law is expected to secure Britain's place at the forefront not only of medical research, but also of a booming biotechnology industry.

Research on embryo stem cells could revolutionize medicine. Stem cells are master cells with the potential to become - and substitute - any type of human cells. Geneticists will be able to grow tissue for any part of the body, which needs repair. Organ transplant operations will become unnecessary. The so-called "body repair kit" characterizes a new era of medicine with new and very successful treatment methods for a wide range of dangerous diseases like leukemia, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and cancer as well as multiple sclerosis, diabetes, hepatitis and stroke. "We owe a measure of respect to the embryo", said Health Minister Lord Hunt, "we also owe a measure of respect to the millions of people living with these devastating illnesses and the millions who are yet to show signs of them".

BRITAIN: HOTBED FOR YUPPIE JIHADIS

Among British Muslims a new type of fundamentalist is emerging: the yuppie jihadi. They come from well-to-do middle class families, are well educated, often university graduates, computer trained, familiar to newest hi-tech, professionally successful and highly paid. They prefer to spend their holidays in mountain camps on the Kashmir-Pakistan border, participating in training of terrorist war techniques from using Kalashnikovs to building bombs and meeting leaders of extremist groups like Lashkar-e-Toyba and Harkat-ul-Jehad-Islami.

According to estimates of the British internal security service M15, about half of the average 1,800 British citizens, who are visiting Kashmir every year, are highly motivated Islamic fundamentalists who come to join the terrorist training. About 10 per cent of them give in to their killer instinct and stay and fight. The others support the holy war back home by fundraising and recruiting of new warriors in their community.

London's Sunday Times published shocking excerpts from interviews with educated young Kashmir jihadis, holding top jobs in London. They proudly reported how they "eagerly awaited the opportunity to kill the enemies" and how they took part in "wiping them out".

Islamic fundamentalism is not only being exported from Britain to Kashmir. According to secret British government documents, which came to public attention in January 1999 (we reported in Bulletin No.5), radical Islamic groups were running guerilla warfare training camps in Britain itself and militants were sent from there to trouble spots across the world, from Kashmir and Bosnia to Palestine. Today these camps may be still in full activity, since the British government, according to a secret foreign office document, revealed at that time, restricted itself to be a silent observer of the activities, which were found not to violate British law.

The new Terrorism Act, to be implemented in February this year, may finally help to handle the alarming developments.

KUWAIT: SETBACK FOR WOMEN'S FIGHT FOR POLITICAL RIGHTS

Kuwait's Constitutional Court has dealt out a blow to women fighting for full political rights. Without giving reasons for their decision, the judges of the highest court rejected a case seeking clarification about the legal status of Kuwait's women citizens. The case was presented by Adnan al-Isa, who complained that during the last general elections, his constituency had illegally refused to accept five women as eligible voters. This is not the only case, seeking clarification about women's right to vote and stand as a candidates in general elections. Several others are still pending before different courts, four have already been dismissed by the Constitutional Court earlier.

The struggle of Kuwaiti women, who are seen as the most emancipated in the Arab world, is as old as the country's independence in 1961. It had never been closer to success than in May 1999, when Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti head of state, took up the matter and issued a decree which granted women equal political status as men had (report in Bulletin No. 11). But Islamic hardliners in parliament did not approve the Emir's initiative and killed the ruling. Since then the fight was carried to the courts. But the influence of the Islamists seems to be omnipresent.

THAILAND: TEENAGE LEADERS OF GOD'S ARMY WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL

In the deep Myanmar (Burmese) jungles at the border to Thailand, God's Army is leading a fierce battle against the Myanmar military. The ethnic Karen guerilla troops fight since years under the command of the legendary teenage twins Johnny and Luther Htoo, who were "send by God" to lead the fight against the Burmese, when they were kids of eleven or twelve years only. Photographs show the tough chain-smoking boys with machine guns. Handling M16s and AK47 automatic rifles with ease, they used to terrify the troops. Scored of blind followers believe that they have mystical powers and that they are impervious to bullets.

Cornered by Thai border patrols that cut off their food supply, the twins decided now to drastically change their lives. They want to give up fighting and go to school, they said in a press conference, after surrendering together with 12 comrades to the Thai authorities. They were also missing their family, they said, who is living in a refugee camp in Thailand. Johnny and Luther denied categorically to have mystical powers, but insisted that they had been "chosen by God" to lead the Karen guerilla's freedom fight.