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INTERNATIONAL

VENEZUELA SUFFERS THE WORST FLOODS THIS CENTURY
Between 50,000 and 90,000 people dead and whole areas of the country destroyed.

As the country stopped for a day to vote in favour of the new constitution proposed by President Hugo Chavez the storms continued. Eventually the results and political significance of the referendum were virtually ignored as it became clear A that one of the worst natural disasters of the century was destroying the country. The Venezuelan govermment has declared that it will destine 778 million Euros to the reconstruction of the affected areas and the aid* agencies have calculated that the country will need 10 years to recover from the effects of the floods. The authorities are now using heavy machinery to remove* the debris and the damaged buildings and bodies are buried* or simply covered without identification because of the possibility of infection. The destruction caused by the torrential rains hit 90% of the				State of Vargas and the mud* reached as high as the third floor of some buildings. The authorities have plans to reconstruct the towns, villages and infrastructure damaged by the disaster using 778 miIlion Euros that will come from emergency funds established with money from the export of Venezuela's petrol reserves. More than 40 coun-' tries and international organisations have sent millions of dollars and tons of food and medicine. China, for example, cancelled the celebration that was planned due to the recuperation ofMacao and sent the 10,000 cures not spent on the official reception. Spain has sent 500,000 euros and none tons of food and clothes. However, while all this external help is arriving the army has orders to shoot any person who tries to loot* from the damaged areas. (E)

NO BIG BANG IN KANSAS

In Kansas (United States) schools can't teach anything that contradicts the biblical teachings of the creation of the world

If Darwin were alive today one place where he wouldn't be welcome is the North American state of Kansas. During the summer Protestant fundamental ists were able to change the education laws of the state to ban* all teaching that does not follow the ideas laid down in the Christian bible. This means that as well as Darwin's theory of evolution other scientific theories such as the Big Bang, the periodic table and nuclear reactions can not be studied in public schools. Ever since Darwin first published his theories about the 'survival of the species' American society has been witness to a struggle between the rel i gious and scientific sides of the debate that, to the surprise of most European observers, has still not been completely resolved. In 1996 the state ofNew Mexico introduced a similar law that has only recently been defeated.

It was the reaction and protest of the scientific community with the support of various church leaders (in particular the Catholic Archbishop and Methodist ministers) that made the defeat of the new law possible. Kansas is now seeing the start of similar protests and one of the most important factors would seem to be the position of the text book publishers. They have refused to make the necessary changes to the text books used in the public school system using their ' copyright' over the material as their legal argument. Teachers in the schools affected now have a difficult choice to make. Will they, as the law dictates, simply ignore the pages of explications of the theory of evolution, the Big Bang and all the other scientific laws and theories rejected by the fundamental ists, or will they risk their jobs and continue to answer any questions from inquisitive future Einsteins? (I)

NASA ENDS A BAD YEAR WELL

The Hubble telescope is repaired but Mars remains an enigma The 'Mars Polar Lander" entered into orbit and started its descent and that is all we know and will probably ever know. Scientists at NASA tried for many days to establish contact but couldn't. This meant that both of NASA's missions to the red planet this year ended in failure and that billions of dollars of junk* are orbiting the planet uselessly. Not all was bad news however. In a race against the Y2K* clock the North American space agency sent the Discovery space shuttle into orbit to try to repair the malfunctioning Hubble telescope. Astronaut Steve Smith spent eight hours outside the shuttle and repaired the six damaged giroscopes of the giant telescope. The apparent paradox contained in the mission was that some of the microprocessors replaced in the telescope's computer systems were of the 486 variety, a type considered small and antiquated and no longer used in the personal computers you can buy in the shops. "One must remember", said NASA scientists, "that Hubble doesn't use either Windows or the Internet. " They are also very reliable. (E)


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