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Don’t Monkey With Man; O’Connor sez clones mean armies of drones By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

nullFriday, March 14, 1997

Cardinal O’Connor presented an apocalyptic vision of cloning yesterday, warning about a world that might use armies of drones to fight wars or become slaves.

“If you just say they are expendable, we can just keep reproducing them, give them a gun, whatever might be the weapon of the day, and send them out. If they get killed, they get killed,” O’Connor said.

Earlier, O’Connor told lawmakers that though he would urge scientists not to cross the ethical line and clone human beings, he said they should not to be too hasty to ban research completely.

Much of the genetic research necessary for human cloning also is necessary for the cure of diseases as well as other scientific advances, the archbishop of New York said at a hearing of the state Senate Investigations Committee in Manhattan.

Scientists, ethicists and other clergy were invited to testify before the hearing, chaired by State Sen. Roy Goodman (R-Manhattan).

“The most fundamental change is that you could have something, whatever you are going to call it, without any parentage, without any social context, without anyone assuming responsibility or accountability,” O’Connor said of human clones.

He recommended that the Legislature allow scientific research that stops just short trying to create a human being.

Asked where he would draw the line, he replied, “I’m not a scientist and only a scientist could say okay, you do this in the Petrie dish or in the test tube or whatever may be and you can go as far as you have to go in genetic research without trying to manufacture a human being, but I don’t know what that point would be.”

O’Connor’s remarks added to the debate unleashed by the announcement last month that a Scottish doctor had successfully cloned a sheep, the now famous Dolly, the first mammal ever cloned from an adult.

That news was quickly followed by a report that American researchers had produced two clones of a rhesus monkey.

President Clinton subsequently put a temporary ban on the use of government money for any research into human cloning.

State Sen. John Marchi (R-S.I.) recently introduced legislation that would make the cloning of human beings a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Scientists such as Nobelist Joshua Lederberg of Rockefeller University testified that a ban would be clumsy, heavy-handed and unenforceable, while others said that research in this area is sorely needed.

March 14, 1997
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PUSH TO LIFT TATTOO BAN; City Council votes for body art

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 26, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

New Yorkers may soon be able to get openly what they’ve been getting illegally for 35 years — tattoos.

The City Council yesterday passed a law that would lift the official though little-enforced 1962 ban on tattooing.

Councilwoman Kathryn Freed (D-Manhattan), who sponsored the law, said it was absurd for the city to continue pretending that the increasingly popular trend of body art did not exist.

“This way we actually put in regulations so that the artists are protected, and the public at large is protected,” Freed said. “People are going to do it, so you might as well regulate it to safeguard the public.”

The city enacted the ban amid fear that the needles used in tattooing could trigger a hepatitis epidemic. Despite the law, tattoo parlors have continued to operate and city health officials have looked the other way.

The City Council measure, which requires mayoral approval, would replace the ban with a new licensing system.

Before setting up shop, tattoo artists would be required to take a city Health Department course on infectious disease prevention. They would also have to pass a Health Department exam before they would qualify for a license. The license, good for two years, would cost $100.

Tattoo artists found guilty of operating illegally would face fines ranging from $300 to $1,000.

Tattoo artists at the Council meeting, where the proposed licensing system passed by a 38-to-7 vote, said they were happy to gain municipal legitimacy. But some contended that the licensing system would not safeguard the tattoo-craving public.

East Village tattoo artist Tom Murphy complained that the law will not require inspections of tattooing parlors to make sure that they use sanitary and safe body-decorating procedures.

The city Health Department, while endorsing the move to lift the ban, opposed mandatory inspections. Health officials said inspections would be too expensive and time consuming at a time when the city faces more serious health threats.

Health Department spokesman Fred Winters said agency officials would also prefer regulating the tattoo industry through the health code instead of through an amendment of city administrative laws.

Mayor Giuliani said he would consider all sides in the debate before deciding whether to sign the law.

Original Story Date: 022697

February 26, 1997
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STING HAS SHARP EDGE; 43 of 73 stores sell box cutters to kids

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 23, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

Kids working undercover bought box cutters in stationery and hardware stores across the city in open violation of a law barring sales of the dangerous blades to youngsters, officials said yesterday.

The Department of Consumer Affairs sent the kids into 73 stores in a four-day sting last week to buy the box cutters — tragically, weapons of choice in the city’s schools.

“The results are troubling,” said Consumer Affairs Commissioner Jose Maldonado.

Forty-three of the stores sold the cutters without checking their customers’ identification — and 14 of them were openly displaying the blades, also in violation of the law.

The guilty stores include giant chain stores like K-Mart and F.W. Woolworth as well as small neighborhood stores, officials said.

Willie Meistelman, a manager at Barneys Hardware Store on Sixth Ave. in Manhattan, complained that the Consumer Affairs operation was a setup because his underage customers were all accompanied by adults.

“It’s the adults who bought the box cutters,” he said.

Local Law 80, enacted two years ago, makes it a misdemeanor for merchants to sell box cutters to minors or display them openly and for students to carry them on city school grounds.

But the law has proved difficult to enforce. Police could only move in if they received a complaint about a violation at a specific location, and Consumer Affairs, which licenses and inspects many of the stores, had no power to cite them for violations.

That began to change last year after the Daily News found box cutters in open display at Rite Aid stores. Embarrassed, the chain pulled the blades from its shelves across the city.

Mayor Giuliani then ordered a crackdown — and Staples, the national office supplies chain, was one of the stores found to be selling the cutters alongside school supplies.

Consumer Affairs was also given the power to inspect specifically for violations of the box cutter law, with the ability to fine stores up to $500 for each violation and even revoke a store’s license, Maldonado said.

As a result of last year’s crackdown, Staples and Rite Aid stores were on the list of 30 “good stores” that Consumer Affairs released yesterday.

February 23, 1997
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Swiss Ask Jews For Help With Fund

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 14, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

The Swiss government yesterday invited the World Jewish Congress to Switzerland next week to help administer and distribute a fund set up for aged Holocaust survivors.

It was the first gesture by the Swiss, under increasing pressure to compensate Holocaust victims for looted World War II assets, to reach out to Jewish groups.

Ambassador Alfred Defago, the Swiss consul general in New York, offered the invitation at a hearing conducted by the state Assembly’s Standing Committee on Banks at the New York Bar Association in Manhattan.

The hearing was held to examine how the state can help heirs of victims reclaim assets deposited in Swiss banks during the war.

Israel Singer, secretary general of the Jewish Congress, accepted the invitation and called it a “turning point” as he addressed the hearing, led by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and Assemblywoman Aurelia Greene (D-Bronx), the committee’s chairwoman.

Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress, said the invitation moves the two sides “from confrontation to cooperation.”

“The trouble is that the investigation into the looted assets can take many, many years, and the survivors are aged,” Steinberg said. “So that their immediate desperate needs can be taken care of, this fund has been established.”

Switzerland has been weathering accusations from Jewish groups for 18 months that the nation was more than a neutral bystander during the war and that its banks hoarded up to $7 billion left in the country for safekeeping by families who later died in Nazi concentration camps.

The Swiss government established a fund — which now stands at $71 million but is expected to grow as banks, industries and individuals contribute to it — to meet the needs of elderly Holocaust survivors and heirs of Nazi victims.

American and Swiss officials will attend a meeting of the Jewish Congress today to discuss the disbursement of the fund.

Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.), who has been pressuring the Swiss about the assets, has more recently softened his stance after, for instance, accusing Swiss Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti of “arrogance and contempt for history” for announcing that the Swiss government would administer the fund.

Yesterday, D’Amato said he is reassured that Switzerland will do the right thing about the fund, especially now that Jewish groups will be involved.

February 14, 1997
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Poll: Wild About Mayor, Not Rudy

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 12, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and FRANK LOMBARDI, Daily News Staff Writers

City voters soundly approve of Mayor Giuliani’s job performance and would reelect him in a walk, even though they aren’t wild about his personality, according to a new poll.

The Quinnipiac College Poll showed 62% of voters approved of the first-term Republican’s performance as mayor, while 32% disapproved and 6% were undecided. That’s the best showing for Giuliani since the Quinnipiac mayoral surveys began nearly two years ago.

With the help of his high job approval rating, Giuliani would rout any of five potential Democratic challengers in a head-to-head match, the survey showed. That includes former Mayor David Dinkins — who was to announce today if he would take on Giuliani for a third time.

Dinkins, Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer and Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger would lose to Giuliani by at least 20 percentage points if the election were held now, the poll showed.

Giuliani would beat Dinkins 55% to 34%, the poll found. Ferrer would lose 53% to 33%, and Messinger would lose 54% to 34%, it showed. The remaining Democratic contenders, Brooklyn City Councilman Sal Albanese and the Rev. Al Sharpton, would fare even worse.

Still, the survey wasn’t all good news for Giuliani. It found voters split on his hard-charging personal style — with 43% describing him as likeable and 52% disagreeing.

“I can deal with that,” said Giuliani, noting that the poll gave him high marks for leadership and getting things done.

While cautioning that poll results fluctuate, Giuliani said “it always feels a little better [to be ahead] by 20% than to be behind by 20%.”

The survey showed Giuliani has not bridged racial and gender gaps as he tries to expand the narrow margin he won over Dinkins in 1993.

While white voters gave him 77% approval on job performance, that dropped to 52% among Hispanics and 34% among blacks.

Among male voters, 71% gave Giuliani thumbs up on job performance, compared with 55% among women.

White New Yorkers were evenly split on his personal style; 48% liked it and 47% didn’t. Hispanics were equally split, with 49% approving and 48% disagreeing. Among black voters, 29% liked his personality and 66% did not.

“New Yorkers like the way the mayor does his job,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac College Polling Institute. “But they don’t think he’s a likeable guy.”

The poll of 845 voters was conducted Feb. 3 to 9 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Original Story Date: 021297

February 12, 1997
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Rudy Rips Probe Of Diplo Fight

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

January 2, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

Mayor Giuliani yesterday accused the State Department of dragging out its probe of Sunday’s slugfest between city cops and diplomats from Russia and Belarus.

In his latest lashing over the envoys’ invocation of diplomatic immunity, the mayor demanded that federal officials immediately back the two city cops involved in the Manhattan clash.

“If this was an American diplomat, rather than all of this fatuous discussion that is going on I would expect that our government would say that the diplomat acted improperly, he should apologize,” the mayor said.

“We certainly can sit by and pretend as if the police officers acted improperly,” he continued. “They didn’t. They did a good job.”

The mayor said he planned to fire off a letter today asking the Russian and Belarus consuls to remove their two envoys and send them back to their countries.

“We don’t need people here who, behind diplomatic immunity, are abusing police officers,” Giuliani said.

The diplomats, Boris Obnossov, 43, of Russia, and Yuri Nicklaevich Orange, 50, of Belarus, were taken into custody following a fracas with two 20th Precinct cops who tried to ticket their cars for parking too close to a hydrant on the upper West Side.

Cops said Obnossov appeared drunk and refused to present identification when they ordered him out of his car. Orange then got out of the vehicle and punched one of the officers.

Both consulates have disputed police accounts, saying the cops dragged Obnossov from his car and beat him after he showed his identification.

A statement issued in Moscow said police broke his hand, smashed his glasses and tore his clothes before handcuffing him and taking him to the stationhouse, where he was detained for 30 minutes.

The two men, first secretaries at their nations’ missions to the United Nations, went free after invoking diplomatic immunity.

Original Story Date: 01/02/97

January 2, 1997
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Rudy Sez He’s Tops, And Dems Are Flops

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

November 9, 1996

by DAVID L. LEWIS and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers

Mayor Giuliani fired the opening salvo of the 1997 mayoral battle yesterday, slamming potential challengers as inexperienced, extremist or “machine politicians.”

While insisting he hasn’t decided to seek a second term, the Republican mayor for the first time dropped his strategic refusal to rate the chances of possible opponents.

Giuliani also touted his own political strengths, saying any reelection campaign would focus on double-digit decreases in city crime rates during his tenure.

“When I say it’s the capital of the world, which I began saying in my inaugural speech, people now accept it,” the mayor said in an interview set to air tomorrow on WCBS-TV’s “Sunday Edition.”

Giuliani criticized six possible Democratic challengers who were listed in a recent Quinnipiac College poll. Several responded with sharp return attacks. Among his exchanges:

He tabbed Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger as the Democratic front-runner, and said: “Democratic primaries are won by the most extreme candidate and, ideologically, she is the most extreme of that group.”

Messinger spokesman Leland Jones voiced surprise at the sharpness of the attack just 72 hours after Election Day, saying, “It is a little surprising that the campaign hasn’t even started, and the mayor has already decided to go negative.”

Giuliani accused City Controller Alan Hevesi of politicizing his office and labeled the Queens Democrat “very much an old-fashioned machine partisan politician.”

Hevesi shrugged off the Giuliani attack. “He is simply trying to start another personal fight,” Hevesi said.

Giuliani labeled Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer as “very much the product of Bronx machine politics.” The mayor noted that Ferrer succeeded Stanley Simon, who went to prison for his conviction in a racketeering case prosecuted by Giuliani.

Ferrer did not respond to a request for comment.

Giuliani said former Police Commissioner William Bratton would be a weak mayoral candidate because of “inexperience in many, many other areas of government.” Bratton could not be reached for comment.

The mayor said two other candidates — City Councilman Sal Albanese (D-Brooklyn) and the Rev. Al Sharpton — wouldn’t stand a chance in a Democratic primary, much less against him.

Sharpton dismissed the attack and Albanese argued he was more qualified to be mayor than Giuliani.

Original Story Date: 11/09/96

November 9, 1996
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