PN GETS SHARE OF MD. ANTI-SMOKING PUSH

Porter Novelli has picked up its share of the $14 million budget that Maryland expects to spend during the next 18 months to encourage people to either quit or never start smoking.

Gov. Parris Glendening, in announcing the PN win, said Maryland wants to close the book on its tobacco heritage.

He noted that more than 7,500 Marylanders die each year from smoking, which is the single most preventable cause of disease and death in the state.

PN is part of a team that includes Gray/Kirk/Vansant Advertising, Logicon/ROW (research) and 21st Century Group (minority outreach).

The team, known as the Maryland Action Partnership, is to create "positive messages" designed to create a community of anti-smokers. Counter-marketing is also on tap.

The contract is with the state's Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene. It considered 16 proposals before chopping down the list to eight. Work begins next month if the final budget is approved by Maryland's Board of Public Works.

PN Worked for Florida

PN, which boasts of using "Madison Ave. techniques for social good," handled the Florida Tobacco Pilot Program's "Truth" campaign, which was the first anti-smoking effort funded by tobacco marketers.

That effort launched in 1998 cut teenage smoking by 20 percent, according to PN.

AMERICAN EXPRESS' JOYCE JOINS CLS

American Express veteran Tom Joyce has joined Carmichael Lynch Spong as chair of its corporate practice. He is responsible for issues management, crisis PR, mergers/acquisitions and employee relations.

"Tom will primarily work on the Cargill account," Doug Spong, CLS's managing partner, told this NL. He also will help out on the ING and Marsh accounts.

Joyce had been AE's public affairs VP since 1995, and director of corporate communications at Prudential Financial Services prior to that.

Spong noted that Joyce brings the experience of working with "two of the most respected global brand names in financial services" to CLS, which is a unit of Interpublic's Carmichael Lynch ad shop in Minneapolis.

ARABS PLAN $2M PR CAMPAIGN

The Arab Intellectual Foundation plans a $2 million media drive to counter what it feels are the "negative images" of Arabs and Islam that are presented in the Western press in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Details of the campaign are to be ironed out at a Jan. 12 meeting in Beirut. Arab businessmen are being asked to contribute cash to the cause.
Saudi Prince Khalid Al-Faisal, president of AIF, sees a need to promote the Arab perspective on the war on terror.

The Beirut meeting will include a discussion about facilitating a dialog between Arabs and the U.S./Europe.

Another item: the fate of the captured Arab fighters who enlisted in the armies of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

The Saudi Government, which uses Burson-Marsteller and Qorvis Communications for PR, has been actively promoting itself as a victim of terrorism.

Ali Awadh Assiri, Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to Pakistan, told a Dec. 24 seminar on terrorism that the Kingdom has suffered mightily at the hands of terrorists.

He cited the assassination of Saudi diplomats overseas and the hijacking of the country's aircraft by terrorists.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers of the U.S. planes that crashed in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania were Saudis.

Osama bin Laden, who was born in Saudi Arabia but has been disowned by the Kingdom, has been waging a jihad against what he feels is the corrupt royal family and its infidel American ally.

2002 CORPORATE DIRECTORY IS BIGGEST

The 2002 Edition of O'Dwyer's Directory of Corporate Communications, which goes to press this week, is the largest Edition, with all 2,800 New York Stock Exchange listed companies among its 5,500 company listings. Also included are 2,100 associations, 130+ Federal Government Depts. and Bureaus, and 187 Foreign Embassies. There are over 18,000 PR/IR professionals listed plus thousands of CEOs. Copies are $130 from the O'Dwyer Co.

Global Communicators received a one-year extension to promote economic development in Switzerland's Lake Geneva region. CEO Jim Harff said the work in the U.S. and Canada is worth $240K.

CPAs REJECT NEW 'GLOBAL' CREDENTIAL

The nation's Certified Public Accountants, already worried about the profession's image because of the Enron scandal, criticisms of earnings reports, and the issue of auditing independence, overwhelmingly voted against further work on a so-called "global business credential" that CPAs and others might have obtained.

The vote was announced Jan. 3 by officials of the American Institute of CPAs including chairman James Castellano.

A vote of the AICPA's 340,000 members has been under way since November.

Participating were 134,000 members, with 62.7% of them rejecting further funding of the initiative, which has already cost $5 million over the past three years.

Castellano said the Institute was determined to have the matter decided by a vote of all the members.

Asked during a teleconference if he was surprised by the vote, he replied that vocal opposition had sprung up in the past several months and that "heavy debate" had developed. Until recently, he said, polling done among members had indicated the vote would not be so lopsided.

He said the AICPA would continue to seek ways for members to market themselves while being committed to serving the public interest.

The proposal was to create the International Institute of Certified Business Professionals.

Applicants would have been subject to a "rigorous qualification process" that would "evaluate their ability to integrate knowledge from multiple business disciplines and to apply this knowledge to provide strategic business insight."

Other professionals, including those in PR, law and management consulting, might have been allowed to take the test.

The New York State Society of CPAs, the biggest CPA group with 30,000 members, was strongly against the proposal. It said the debate was "divisive" to the profession and would diminish the public's perception of the breadth of services offered by CPAs.

ATR SPENT $800K FOR D.C. LOBBYING

Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform spent $800,000 for lobbying the White House, VP Dick Cheney, Senators and Congressmen in 2001, according to the conservative activist group's Lobbying Disclosure Act filing made Dec. 26.

ATR, which has a "liberal lies" section on its website, calls itself a non-partisan coalition of individuals, businesses and groups opposed to all federal and state tax increases. ATR says President Bush, 210 House members and 37 Senators have signed its Taxpayer Protection Pledge.

The group has been a thorn in the side of Majority Leader Tom Daschle. The Senator, according to ATR, is holding up approval of President Bush's economic stimulus program because he is a pawn of Washington special interests rather than the workers and farmers in his home state of South Dakota.

ATR also criticized the Senate's airport security plan which it dismissed as a five-year "Maoist plan."
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has hailed Norquist, who chairs the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, as a courageous leader of the anti-tax effort.

FINEMAN PR NAMES PR GAFFES FOR 2001

San Francisco-based Fineman PR has named Gary Condit, Bill Clinton, Enron and Yahoo! to its annual top 10 list of PR gaffes and blunders.

Topping that list was Philip Morris, after the tobacco company commissioned a study in the Czech Republic which found that deaths related to smoking saved the Czech government $147 million annually ($1,227/person) in social welfare.

PM also filled the number two spot on Fineman's list for its decision to change its corporate name to "Altria." Brandweek columnist Philip Van Munching labeled the move a "breathtaking act of corporate weaselry" and a potential problem surfaced for PM when it became evident that the name is already in use by Altria Healthcare.

Other gaffes which made the list include Bill Clinton's pardon of financier Marc Rich; Gary Condit's handling of Chandra Levy's disappearance; Yahoo! placing an "erotica store" category near those of "family" and "documentary"; Enron's "financial engineering," and "B.C." comic strip artist Johnny Hart, an Evangelical Christian who penned an Easter Sunday strip showing candles of a menorah being extinguished and transformed into a cross.

Fineman assembles the annual list as "a reminder of how critical PR is to businesses and organizations."

C. PAUL LUONGO: 'FASHION CZAR'

A reader has nominated Boston-based PR pro C. Paul Luongo to be U.S. fashion czar for criticizing the way young people dress in his Dec. 19 column in Metro Boston, a free daily paper.

The reader said Luongo's job would be to oversee a nationwide dress code for all people under the age of 18.

The reader said the job was needed to "defeat this troublesome trend toward indecorum."

Another reader was appalled by Luongo's "narrow minded, bigoted views on people who look different than the `business suit and tie' norm."

Luongo said he was pleased to get the "fan mail."

Hill and Knowlton's Tom Hoog has moved from its New York headquarters to Washington, D.C., where he will help run the firm's biggest office. The D.C. office has been without a general manager since Torie Clarke became assistant secretary of defense for public affairs in September. The 62-year-old Hoog headed D.C. from 1993-96. He was succeeded as H&K USA president/CEO by MaryLee Sachs (42) on Jan. 1. Hoog is non-executive chair at H&K and a member of its worldwide executive committee.

TRAVEL OBSERVER: MEDIA SKIP BIG STORIES

While terrorist attacks, attempted bombings and a travel industry in freefall have headlined one of the most unforgettable years in memory, some "equally significant" travel-related events were glossed over by the mainstream media in 2001, said travel commentator Christopher Elliott in his weekly online newsletter (Elliott.org).

Elliott, who is based in Key Largo, Fla., picked these developments as the 10 "most overlooked" travel stories of 2001:

1. The bankruptcies of American Classic Voyages and Renaissance Cruises.
2. Amtrak's worsening financial performance.
3. A "nationwide boycott" of the travel business by frequent travelers.
4. "By overlooking the attempt to re-regulate the airline industry, the press became a silent accomplice in an airline lobby effort to destroy our last, best chance to reform an ailing airline business."
5. The airline industry has tried to "thwart any government efforts to increase security."
6. The hotel business found itself in a "freefall."
7. "As airlines inched closer to zero commission levels, travel retailers focused on how to make more money by hitting still-profitable niches such as selling cruise packages and corporate travel."
8. Dot-com travel is in trouble.
9. The airline industry may never be able to pay back the $15 billion in federal subsidies.
10. The car rental industry's problems.

BALLY TO PUBLISH LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE

Bally Total Fitness, Chicago, will publish a quarterly lifestyle magazine. Custom publisher RB Publishing, Madison, Wisc., will produce the magazine, which will be called Total Fitness.

Lisa Stricker, an employee of the publishing company, is editor of the magazine. She is based in RB's Chicago office at 773/864-3610.

Conrad Swanson, associate publisher, said the magazine will focus on topics and issues that are related to health and fitness. He said it will have articles and departments dealing with emotional and physical health issues, travel, and nutrition.

The magazine will start distribution in the second quarter of 2002, with a minimum printing of 400,000 copies. Distribution of the magazine will include direct mail to members, in-club distribution and potential newsstand distribution.

The target audience will include adult health and fitness enthusiasts.

Bally Total Fitness has approximately four million members and 410 facilities located in 28 states and Canada.

RB Publishing, in business since 1988, specializes in custom publishing. It has created magazines for Xerox, the U.S. Postal Service, Pitney Bowes, Oce Printing Systems, and others.

CNN TOPS FOX NEWS CHANNEL

CNN remained the most watched news network in 2001 despite large gains by Fox News Channel.

About 577,000 people tuned to CNN each day in 2001, according to Nielsen Media Research data. Fox averaged 463,000 viewers.

In prime time, CNN averaged just over one million viewers to Fox's 870,000.

Fox tied CNN in ratings with a 0.6 for the entire day and a 1.0 for prime time.

Ratings are the percentage of all homes that have access to a particular network and have it on.

Fox is available in about nine million fewer homes than CNN.

The ratings of MSNBC and CNN Headline News also rose compared to the previous year. Business news network CNBC was flat.

Recently, CNN hired Jonah Goldberg, the conservative commentator and son of Lucianne Goldberg, the former literary agent who set the Clinton impeachment in motion by urging Linda Tripp to record her conversations with Monica Lewinsky.

Fox has recently hired Greta Van Sustern, a longtime CNN anchor and correspondent, to replace Paula Zahn, who quit Fox to join CNN in September, and Geraldo Rivera as a correspondent.

Bill Carter, who covers broadcasting for The New York Times, said these moves "seem to indicate that their battle is entering a new phase, which may result in both networks pushing to broaden their audiences by bringing in different personalities with different points of view."

PEOPLE

Eric Mink's column in The New York Daily News has been dropped, leaving "Rush & Molloy" as the only gossip column in the paper.

Mink, who had been doing the column for more than three years, has signed a syndication contract with United Media.

Cayli Cavaco, daughter of former fashion publicist Paul Cavaco, who is creative director of Allure magazine, has joined Seventeen magazine as accessories editor.

Andrea Lavinthal has joined Cosmopolitan magazine as assistant beauty editor.

Philip Herrea has retired as executive editor of Town & Country magazine.

Jennifer Braunschweiger has joined The Reader's Digest as health writer.

Dick Schapp, who made his mark as a sportswriter for The New York Herald Tribune, has died. His son, Jeremy Schapp, has replaced him as host of "The Sporting Life" on ESPN.

(Media news continued on next page)

REPORTERS RELY ON BANKS FOR NEWS

More than nine out of 10 financial reporters in major capital markets seek information from banks at least once a week, according to the findings of a new study conducted by the Global Financial Communications Network.

Martin Mosbacher, managing partner and chairman of Trimedia, the U.S. member firm of GFC/Net, said the research "emphasizes that in today's global, fast-moving economy, the need for financial journalists and banks to maintain effective communications is truly indispensable."

The survey, which included interviews with 71 financial journalists from countries around the world, found the three most desired types of information required by reporters are: company strategy, analyst research, and information on deals.

Sixty-three percent of respondents rated banks as either good or excellent in overall effectiveness of corporate communications, while 59% of journalists believe that communication by banks has improved over the last year.

In the U.S., 60% of journalists believe communication by banks has improved, while only 40% stated the overall effectiveness of corporate communications by banks was above average.

Although 78% of all journalists surveyed rated information from U.S. banks as either good or excellent, U.S. journalists rated information from their own banks far lower than journalists from other countries.

The overwhelming majority of journalists believe PR firms were only partly accountable for any improvement in communications.

GFC/Net, which was established in 1996, has nine members. The others are: Anderson Knight (Australia); Farner PR (Switzerland); Fishburn Hedges (UK); Grupo Albion (Spain); I&E (France); Interel Marien SA (Belgium); Kohtes Klewes (Germany), and Van Luyken Comm. Adviseurs (Holland).

PLACEMENT TIPS

Shuz, a quarterly magazine devoted to shoes and shoe enthusiasts, will publish a spring edition focusing on sports and fitness shoes.

The magazine is published by Magnolia Media Group in Fort Worth, Tex.

Publicists may pitch Stephanie Lewis in the Fort Worth editorial office at 3451 Boston ave.; 817/560-6100, and Gay Bryant, executive editor, who is based in New York ([email protected]).

USA Today's "Moneyline" column editor Jeffrey Fick, who works the evening shift-which means he is accessible until 11 p.m. (ET)-is looking for late-breaking stories, especially merger and acquisition news.

The M&A deals should be worth at least $1 billion or be a major consolidation within an industry to qualify for coverage.

He also likes to get survey findings from trade associations that have relevancy to the economy.

Fick is based in the paper's main editorial office in McLean, Va., at 703/854-5692.

Business Week's "Up Front" section, which is edited by Sheridan Prasso, covers trends affecting industry sectors or the workplace.

She wants to get information about company mergers, new product innovations, and surveys that reveal new data about entire sectors of the economy, or a change in the workplace. The news has to concern a national issue.

Information should be sent to Prasso at upfront @businessweek.com or by fax to 212/512-2276.

EDITOR ELECTED PRESIDENT OF IFEC

Mary Petersen, editorial director of Chief Educator Today, in Annapolis, Md., is the newly elected president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, headquartered in Hyde Park, N.Y.

James Estes, PR director for FSA PR, in Louisville, was elected VP; Nora Suarez, director of communications, Johnson & Wales Univ., in Miami, Fla., is the new secretary, and Don Odiorne, VP, Idaho Potato Commission, Boise, was elected treasurer.

The group will hold its annual conference in Santa Fe, N.M., at the Eldorado Hotel, on Nov. 5-8.

Founded in 1956, IFEC is a 275-member association of foodservice communications professionals, including editors, PR and marketing executives.

MEDIA BRIEFS

The New York Times has stopped printing a separate section on terrorism and the war in Afghanistan. The section, titled "A Nation Challenged," was first printed on Sept. 18 to provide coverage of the events of Sept. 11 and their aftermath.

It included a daily presentation of briefs about the victims of the terrorst attacks, called "Portraits of Grief." The number of portraits exceeded 1,800 and included all of the missing or known dead whose families or friends agreed to be interviewed.

The collected portraits will be published in a hardcover book by Times Books, with proceeds going to the Times' Neediest Cases Fund.

Wahine, a quarterly magazine, has been closed due to a drop in ads.

Journal Newspapers has merged the Journals of Arlington, Fairfax, Alexandria and Prince William. The new paper is called The Northern Virginia Journal.

DEATH

Casper Citron, 82, who hosted a radio program for 43 years, died Jan. 1. Starting in 1958, Citron interviewed authors of new books, from the lobbies of New York hotels.

His syndicated program had aired for the past 14 years on WOR in New York.

MCGUINESS, SCOTT LEAVE PRSA

The two most senior staff members of PR Society of America have left the group.

Dorothy McGuinness, 31-year veteran long identified with accreditation and most recently director of the membership development division, left in December after her post was eliminated.

Donald Scott, office services coordinator and with the Society 33 years, retired during 2001.

McGuinness, reached by this NL, said that, "on advice of my legal counsel, I will make no statement." No announcement had been made by PRSA about her departure.

Senior members of PRSA recalled that in 1988 James Barringer sued the Society on charges of race and sex discrimination. He filed a complaint with the New York City Commission on Human Rights, noting that the Society had only one other black employee among the 12-14 on the staff who had managerial titles and that 32 of the 39 employees were women. There were also 11 other black employees who had lower-level jobs.

He said that had he been "other than a black male," he would have communicated better with fellow manager-level employees, who were mostly women.

Barringer won a $12,000 settlement and said he also received severance/back pay equal to that amount.

Scott Retired

Scott, 62, who had triple-bypass surgery last year, said he retired because of his heart condition. He said he is still recovering but feels fine.

"I had 33 beautiful years at PRSA and have no complaints," he said. "Ray Gaulke, Betsy Kovacs and Rea Smith (COOs) treated me fine...I am satisfied," he said. "Rea (who died in 1981) was a doll, a beautiful woman," he added. He also had praise for both Gaulke and Kovacs.

Also leaving PRSA since publication of the 2001 directory of members were staffers Kim Baldwin, Jennifer Meehan, Veronica Hinds, Erica Messing, Christina Pentlow, Angie Figueroa and Karen Guo.
Connie Rotunda, assistant to Gaulke, also left.

With the departure of McGuinness and Scott, there are only ten staffers remaining from the 45 who worked at h.q. in 1991.

Only one of the 21 manager-level staffers in 1992 is still with PRSA.

The accreditation program, on which McGuinness long worked as manager of accreditation and eligibility, has had financial difficulties lately.

The Universal APR board is seeking to raise $300,000 in contributions from APRs in order to revamp the 38-year-old test.

McGuinness moved to membership development with the arrival of Kathy Mulvihill as manager, universal accreditation.

POPCORN NAMES TOP MARKETING TRENDS

In her annual report, marketing futurist Faith Popcorn predicts security systems, filtered air, filtered water, and anything else that makes a person feel protected from the dangers of the outside world will become one of the next big consumer trends.

She makes these other predictions in her new 2002 Popcorn Report:

-A compulsive desire to eat expensive, gourmet-style food in inordinate quantities.
-A need for constant entertainment from every device, including computers, DVDs, PDAs, cell phones, and global positioning systems, whether they are in the car, on the street, or in the elevator.
-Keeping or getting a job you don't like, but being grateful to have a job.
-The practice of taking significant departures between careers.
-Using the Internet to find sexual fulfillment.
-Gaining control of/altering moods will reach the masses, with more people using Paxil, Prozac, Wellbutrin, Xanax, among others.
-A consumer movement at the store level that leaves many retailers in the dust.

A spokesperson for Dan Klores Communications, which handles PR for Popcorn and her company, said Popcorn makes her predictions on future trends after her company consults with its TalentBank of nearly 7,500 professionals each year and 5,000 publications monthly to monitor the mood of consumers.

TRAVEL CONFERENCE MOVES TO ALABAMA

Travel writers and PR practitioners are being invited to this year's Travel Media Showcase, scheduled for June 23-25 at the Montgomery, Ala., Civic Center.

The three-day event had been held for the past two years in Atlantic City, N.J.

TMS director Karen Aarons, who produced the first two conferences for the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority, is also producing this year's conference, and Lois Gerber continues to handle media relations.

Last year's TMS drew about 180 writers and an equal number of travel PR practitioners.

Exhibitors on the floor included convention and visitors bureaus, hotels/resorts, cruise lines and gaming ventures.

Writers who attend are not charged a registration fee, and they are offered free hotel accommodations, meals and discounted travel fares.

Joanne Vero, who runs J. Vero & Assocs. in Freehold, N.J., is handling reservations for booths and sponsorship opportunities for the Montgomery conference. She can be reached at 800/211-5161.

Writers can call Gerber at 845/365-9717, or e-mail her at [email protected].

Sahara Communications, Baltimore, was criticized by students of Morgan State University for saying it only wanted students with straight hair for the school's ad campaign.

University officials said all students will be allowed to participate.

The agency's owner, Sandy Harley, is a graduate of Morgan State.

The CPAs of America have rejected by a wide margin a move to create the "International Institute of Certified Business Professionals" (page 2). Critics mocked the proposed credential as "Certified to Do Anything" and "Certified Business Hustler."

The Electronic Accountant magazine ran a contest for names and the winner was "KIA," standing for "Know it All." The initials also stand for "Killed in Action," which is what happened.

Nearly $5 million was spent on this initiative over the past three years.

CPAs feel they have to clean up their current image before dashing off in a new direction. Critics have raised doubts about CPAs' independence from their well-heeled clients. The new Enron scandal is putting a further spotlight on them. Whitewater, which got so much ink, was only a $65 million scandal. Enron is a $65 billion scandal. Many thousands saw their savings wiped out when the stock collapsed from $90 to 50 cents. Loans that Enron obtained were concealed from investors since they did not hit the balance sheet. Andersen is the company's CPA.

We didn't like the AICPA's attempted educational and credentialing scam on their own members. The Institute is supposed to serve members, not prey on them. Members would have had to pay many hundreds of dollars to study for and take the test for an IICBP credential.

The proposed IICBP is similar to the accreditation program that PR Society of America has been trying to force on members for 38 years (non-APRs cannot vote in the Assembly nor hold national office).

The worldwide or "universal" part of the APR program is a flop because no other PR group outside the U.S. is participating. The contrast between the AICPA and PRSA, however, is that the AICPA took a vote of its entire 340,000 membership on this issue. There was full and open discussion of the topic among leaders, members, and the CPA trade press.

PRSA, on the other hand, has never taken a vote of the entire membership on anything. The last opinion poll was taken in 1997 by president Debra Miller. It was only a sampling of less than 1,000 members. They rejected by a wide margin any dues increase, but the board voted a $50 hike anyway.

Opponents of coupling APR and office-holding have been unable even to get the topic on the agenda of the Assembly in spite of repeated efforts.

AICPA chairman James Castellano made another remark that contrasted with behavior and policy at PRSA. He said that, above all, the AICPA is committed to serving the "public interest." That is the mark of a true profession, he said.

National PRSA leaders almost never make statements directed at the general public or in behalf of the PR profession. Only two texts of speeches have been released in the past three years by the chairs of PRSA. Board members, meanwhile, appear to take vows of perpetual silence. They adopt the philosophy that the elected head of the Society is the "single spokesperson." One good thing happened in 2001. The board did not hold meetings at resorts. Previous boards, whose members liked skiing and golf, went to some of the top resorts in the U.S. The 2000 board even went to London.

There will be no early release of unaudited financials this year like PRSA president Debra Miller did in February of 1997.

News item: Arab Intellectual Foundation plans a $2 million media drive to counter negative images of Arabs and Islam (page 1). Another news item: Saudi Arabia beheaded three homosexuals Jan. 1. Amnesty International said there is also an "alarming number of amputations" in Saudi Arabia. How can there be good PR for the Arab world in the light of such practices? The AIF might argue that Muslim countries take sex very seriously, unlike the Western world where a "fun and games" attitude is prevalent and where out-of-wedlock births and sexual diseases such as AIDS are major problems. A recent New York Times series on AIDS in Africa said promiscuity is the main reason for its spread and that some African countries have a 30% infection rate. Also, the Times noted, men refuse to wear condoms. Religion, Muslim or otherwise, might be something that could reverse the practices of such nations. The Times only sees drugs and condoms as the solution...

Israel, which has suffered a steep drop in tourism, is one of the safest countries in the world and is receiving a bum rap from the U.S. State Dept., which has issued a travel warning telling Americans not to go there. So said New York Post columnist E.V. Kontorovich Jan. 3. He said the number of Israelis killed by Palestinians and ordinary criminals gives Israel a murder rate of 5.2 per 100,000, which is lower than the 5.5 per 100,000 in the U.S. and far lower than the rate in many other countries. Tourists normally avoid Gaza and the West Bank, where almost all the hostility occurs, he said. The Jerusalem Post reported Jan. 1 that the Israeli economy in 2001 had its worst year since 1953, with gross domestic product dropping 0.5%. The shekel ended the year at an all-time low against the dollar...Ha'aretz said Time mag's selection of Rudy Giuliani as "Person of the Year" seemed "bizarre and phony" since he did not fit the definition of POY ("person who most affected the events of the year, for better or for worse."). It leans toward Osama bin Laden or the lone "psychopath" terrorist who can "disrupt" the world.
--Jack O'Dwyer