Israel holds off on retaliation

Israel holds offon retaliation
JERUSALEM -- Israel held off on immediate retaliation today for a bus bombing that killed 14 Israelis, along with two attackers, and complicated a new U.S. effort to end two years of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
It marked the first time in months that the Israeli military did not respond quickly to a major Palestinian attack. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is under growing pressure to prevent an escalation in fighting as the United States courts moderate Arab countries in preparation for a possible U.S. strike against Iraq.
Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai confirmed that U.S. interests were being considered. "There are those [in Israel] who say that we need to react now and immediately with all power and all force," Yishai told Israel Army Radio today. "On the other hand, we could cause difficulties for the Americans. If the Americans attack Iraq, it's in our interest as well as that of the Americans."
Monday's bombing, the deadliest Palestinian attack in three months, was claimed by the militant Islamic Jihad group.
Al-Qaida suspectsin Buffalo indicted
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Six American-born men of Yemeni descent have been indicted on charges they supported foreign terrorists after allegedly training at an Al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan attended by Osama bin Laden.
The defendants, from the Buffalo suburb of Lackawanna, were scheduled to be arraigned today. Authorities say the charges are largely based on allegations that they attended the terror camp, where bin Laden declared that there "is going to be a fight against Americans."
The suspects have professed their innocence, but prosecutors maintain they were awaiting orders from bin Laden's group to carry out an attack in the United States.
Schroeder gets another term
BERLIN -- Germany's parliament confirmed Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for a second four-year term today, formally approving his center-left coalition's election victory last month.
Schroeder won 305 votes in the 603-seat lower house, three more than required but one less than the narrow majority that voters handed his Social Democrats and the junior coalition partner, the Greens party. Opposition conservatives had said they would vote against Schroeder.
Crackdown targetsdecorative lenses
WASHINGTON -- The government is cracking down on decorative contact lenses -- from the wild-eyed Halloween look to lenses imprinted with sports logos -- that are sold without a prescription, calling them illegal products that could cause blindness.
The Food and Drug Administration began stopping imports of the decorative lenses at U.S. borders Monday, and said it will seize unapproved lenses sold in convenience stores, flea markets and other spots.
The FDA cites dozens of reports of corneal ulcers -- abrasions that can rapidly lead to vision-threatening infections -- and other eye injuries linked to the products. The agency said that in some cases corneal transplants were required to save eyesight.
Pigs with human genes
WASHINGTON -- By manipulating swine sperm, Italian researchers have made a strain of pigs that carry human genes in their hearts, livers and kidneys, an advance that could lead to creating herds of pigs that could provide organs for transplanting into humans.
In a study appearing today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at the University of Milan report they mixed swine sperm with human DNA to transfer a gene called decay accelerating factor, or DAF. The modified sperm was then used to fertilize pig eggs and produce litters of pigs carrying the human gene.
Associated Press