South Korean leader calls for diplomacy to resolve standoff

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA -… South Korean leader calls for diplomacy to resolve standoff

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – After days of escalating tension over North Korea’s nuclear activities, attention Monday turned to quiet diplomacy in South Korea, where leaders expressed hope that a solution to the nuclear standoff might be found by talking.

There was no specific reaction to a statement made in Seoul by an American envoy that the United States would consider helping with North Korea’s energy needs if it abandoned its nuclear ambitions, but South Korean President Kim Dae Jung said that diplomacy was key.

“I believe there is no problem that can’t be solved through dialogue,” he told former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, stressing Seoul’s opposition to communism and weapons of mass destruction.

-Michael A. Lev Knight Ridder Newspapers

Lieberman announces his presidential candidacy

Sen. Joseph Lieberman on Monday became the fifth Democrat to announce his plan to run for his party’s 2004 presidential nomination. Lieberman, who had pledged not to run if Al Gore did, would be the first Jew on a major party’s presidential ticket.

At his announcement in Stamford, Conn., Lieberman promised a campaign more focused than Gore’s. The story will include coverage of the announcement and an interview with Lieberman

-Knight Ridder Newspapers

Study says modified anthrax might fight cancer

WASHINGTON – Anthrax, the bioterrorism agent that killed five people in 2001 and scared millions, might be a potent cancer-fighter, according to a new study by the National Institutes of Health.

In tests on mice, a genetically engineered form of anthrax – tinkered with so it attacks only cancer cells – shrank 65 to 92 percent of tumors after only one treatment. Two treatments wiped out one type of tumor in 88 percent of the mice. While anthrax may not work to poison human cancers and is years from medical application in any event, researchers are surprised and impressed.

-Seth Borenstein Knight Ridder Newspapers

Poor economy, budget cuts hinder minority quota at U. Nebraska

(U-WIRE) LINCOLN, NEB. – The University of Nebraska fell just short of its goal for hiring minority faculty in 2001, according to a report given to the state Legislature in early January.

Fourteen minority faculty members were added across the university system between fall 2001 and fall 2002. The goal for the four campuses was 15.

Ron Withem, associate vice president for external affairs and director of government relations, expressed confidence that the school would reach its goal and hire 60 new minority faculty by 2005.

He said the poor economy may have affected the university’s ability to hire enough minorities.

“Budget cuts have meant that a lot of vacant positions have not been filled,” he said.

He noted 20 percent of faculty hired in 2002 were minorities.

But for some, the increase in numbers is not enough.

“I think it’s basically still a problem,” said Learthen Dorsey, associate professor of history and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

He noted that in UNL’s department of ethnic studies, only three of 17 faculty members were minorities.

Five years ago, state legislation required the university to reach the midpoint of its peers on employing women and minority faculty by 2002. Last year, that deadline was pushed back to August 2005.

Nebraska has already reached its goal for hiring women, Withem said, citing that 33 percent of new hires in 2002 were women, which exceeded the goal for the year.

Minorities are also being hired faster than the school’s peers, though the midpoint level has not yet been reached.

Withem expects the university to reach the level of its peers by 2005.

“The campuses have made a strong commitment to do this,” he said.

-Krystal Overmyer Daily Nebraskan (U. Nebraska)