After its misadventures in 1093, when American marines were driven out of Somalia by skinny gunmen, America has used a long spoon in supping with Somalia’s warlords. This, like so much else, changed on September 11th. (69) Clandestine, up to a point: within hours of the arrival in Baidoa of nine closely cropped Americans sporting matching satellite phones and shades, their activities were broadcast. After meeting various warlords, the group inspected a compound that had apparently been offered to them as their future base. They also saw an old military depot. Neither can have been encouraging: the compound has been taken over by war-displaced families, and the depot by thorn-scrub. America was already convinced of al-Qaeda’s presence in Somalia. It had listed a Somali Islamic group, al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (Islamic Unity), as a terrorist organization. (70) It fears that lawless Somalia could become a haven for escapes from Afghanistan. The American navy is currently patrolling the country’s long coastline, while spy planes are said to be criss-crossing the heavens. (71) With a little bit of help, he told his American visitors, he would be ready "to liberate the country from these evil forces". America had already heard as much through its embassies in Nairobi and Addis Ababa, which maintain contact with the warlords, and from Ethiopia. The warlords are supported by Ethiopia, which has a historical fear of a strong Somalia, in a bid to oppose the government. But their differing views on where to strike at the "terrorists" reveal that their individual ambitions are even sharper than their dislike of file government. Mr. Ismail says that Merca, which is claimed by his Rahanwein clan, is the capital of terror. (72) The LIN rays there is only an orphanage there now. But the island is close to Mr. Morgan’s home town of Kismaayo, which he failed to capture from a pro-government militia in July, and he is determined not to fail again. None of this looks good for Somalia’s official president, Abdiquassim Salad Hassan, whose government is in control of about half the capital, Mogadishu. He has formed his own anti- terrorism unit, and invited America to send investigators, or even troops. America, armed with stories about the presence of al-Itihaad members held back, but on December 18th sent an envoy to Mogadishu. Both Mr. Hassan and the UN say that al-Itihaad is not a terrorist organization. It emerged as an armed force in 1991, battling for power in the aftermath of Siad Barre’s fall. It had some early successes, briefly taking Kismaayo. But it was always dependent on the blessing of its members’ clan elders. When the elders eventually called their fighters back, a hard core of Islamists fled to the Gedo border region where, in 1997, they were crushed by Ethiopian troops (73) The Baidoa alliance plainly hopes to be supported as proxies in a fight against "terrorism" and the Mogadishu regime. But the latest intelligence leaks suggest that the first reports may have overestimated al-Qaeda’s presence in Somalia. Nor would Mr. bin Laden and his henchmen find it easy to lie low in an oral culture that considers rumour-mongering to be a form of manners. Even so, the warlords seem to believe that they have won some promise of help. Soon after the arrival of the American group, they pulled out of the peace talks they had been holding with their government in Nairobi. A. Al-Itihaad subsequently infiltrated Somalia’s business class, and now runs Islamic schools, courts and clinics with the money it has accumulated. B. According to Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail, the acting chairman of the loose alliance of warlords who control most of Somalia and are based in Baidoa, there are "approximately 20, 480armed extremists" in Somalia and "85% of the government is al-Itihaad". C. Muhammad Hersi Morgan, known as the "butcher of Hargeisa" because he once razed that town to the ground, says an al-Itihaad camp on Ras Kamboni island is still active. D. American intelligence officers are working with two warlords to gather information about suspected al-Qaeda people in Somalia. E. It had also forced the closure of Barakaat, Somalia’s biggest banking and telecoms company, which handles most of the remittances that Somalis working abroad send back to their families. F. On December 9th America sent a clandestine mission to talk to a collection of Somali warlords, who like to claim that their country, in particular their UN-sponsored government, is overrun with terrorists.
Gene therapy and gene-based drugs are two ways we could benefit from our growing mastery of genetic science. But there will be others as well. Here is one of tile remarkable therapies on the cutting edge of genetic research that could make their way into mainstream medicine in the coming years.While it’s true that just about every cell in the body has the instructions to make a complete human, most of those instructions are inactivated, and with good reason: the last thing you want for your brain cells is to start churning out stomach acid or your nose to turn into a kidney. The only time cells truly have the potential to turn into any and all body parts is very early in a pregnancy, when so called stem cells haven’t begun to specialize.Yet this untapped potential could be a terrific boon to medicine. Most diseases involve the death of healthy cells -- brain cells in Alzheimer’s, cardiac cells in heart disease, pancreatic cells in diabetes, to name a few; if doctors could isolate stem cells, then direct their growth, they might be able to furnish patients with healthy replacement tissues.It was incredibly difficult, but last fall scientists at the University of Wisconsin managed to isolate stem cells and get them to grow into neural, gut, muscle and bone cells. The process still can’t be controlled, and may have unforeseen limitations; but if efforts to understand and master stem-cell development prove successful, doctors will have a therapeutic tool of incredible power.The same applies to cloning, which is really just the other side of the coin; true cloning, as first shown with the sheep Dolly several years ago, involves taking a developed cell and reactivating the genome within, resetting its developmental instructions to a pristine state. Once that happens, the rejuvenated cell can develop into a full fledged animal, genetically identical to its parent.For agriculture, in which purely physical characteristics like milk production in a cow or low fat in a hog have real market value, biological carbon copies could become routine within a few years. This past year scientists have done for mice and cows what Ian Wilmut did for Dolly, and other creatures are bound to join the cloned menagerie in the coming year.Human cloning, on the other hand, may be technically feasible but legally and emotionally more difficult. Still, one day it will happen. The ability to reset body cells to a pristine, undeveloped state could give doctors exactly the same advantages they would get from stem cells: the potential to make healthy body tissues of all sorts, and thus to Cure diseases. That could prove to be a true "miracle cure". Towards the genetic research, the author’s attitude can best be said to be that of ().
A. frustration
B. indifference
C. amazement
D. opposition
"She was America’s princess as much as she was Britain’s princess, "wrote the foreign editor of the normally sharp Chicago Tribune a week after the death in Paris of Diana, Princess of Wales. He was not far off the mark. For Americans have indeed taken posthumous possession of Britain’s "People’s Princess".What was happening How was it that a nation whose school children are taught in history class to look down on the "tyranny" of the English monarchy, suddenly appeared so supportive of a member of the British royal family Why was it that numerous American commentators sought to expand into touch the rumour that Diana had planned to move to the United States to livePart of the answer lies in America’s status as the celebrity culture par excellence. It is from their celebrities that many Americans derive their sense of nationhood. Their presidents must be celebrities in order to be elected. Writer and commentator Norman Mailer made the point after the last presidential election that Bill Clinton won because he projected the image of a Hollywood star, while Bob Dole lost because he came across as a supporting actor.What seems to have happened is that the inhabitants of the nation that produced Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley have found it almost impossible to accept that Princess Diana, the world’s biggest, classiest contemporary celebrity by far, should have come from another country. Even that, many seemed to say to themselves, was merely an accident of birth; because in many ways she was so American. Her New Age preferences--the astrologers, the psychics, the aromatherapy--were closer to the style of former US First Lady Nancy Reagan than the House of Windsor. Her dieting and her visits to the gym were lifestyle options that were typically American. Her famous TV confession of adultery and her (purportedly unauthorized) tell-all biography were also hallmarks of the American celebrity approach. Like another former First Lady, Jackie Kennedy, she auctioned her dress-not in London or Pads, but New York. She visited America frequently and felt right at home there, reveling in the generous attentions of the rich and famous and delighting in the unreserved responsiveness of the public to her charms. For she seemed to have adapted brilliantly to another American invention: image manipulation, which all aspirants to political office in the US struggle to learn but which she appeared to have absorbed and refined naturally. She was, in short, a thoroughly modern woman and, like it or not, most of what is modern originates in the united States.But many Americans felt she also had more enduring qualities. Many viewed her as the incarnation of their country’s dominant myth. As an editorial in the Miami Herald put it.. "She was an American dream, a superstar Cinderella with the polish of a natural-born socialite .... In a way she fulfilled the American dream~ to emerge from insignificance and overcome hardship and make something of herself. "Elaine Showalter, a student of American popular culture who teaches English at Princeton University, noted the difference between the dullness of Prince Charles and Diana’s "very American sensibility". "We have a sense here in America that anything is possible, that you are not a predetermined person; that if you are a woman from whom nothing is expected but you want to make your life count, you can do it. She shared that spirit and that’s why she appealed so much to Americans.\ Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage().
A. Chicago Tribune has a keen sense of hot news and is always skillful at singing the praises.
B. The foreign editor of Chicago Tribune was exaggerating saying Diana was America’s princess.
C. While running for presidency, Clinton prepared posters of himself as a movie star.
Diana was dear to the hearts of Americans because she was a modern Cinderella.
信念有科学和非科学之分。下列属于科学信念的是
A. 志当存高远
B. 生死有命,富贵在天
C. 资本主义必然灭亡,全世界最终必将实现共产主义
D. 金钱是万能的,有钱就有了一切