Portal Strategy Is Key to Interest in AOL

NEW YORK - A year ago, America Online Inc. was seen as an ailing dinosaur of the dial-up era, its Internet access business fading fast. Now that it's tapping into the online advertising boom by opening up its content to anyone who wants it, AOL is a hot property being courted by powerhouse suitors including Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and Comcast Corp.

Google and Comcast are said to be in talks about taking a joint stake in AOL for its Web portal. That follows discussions between Microsoft and AOL parent Time Warner Inc. about a possible partnership with the MSN online business.

Credit AOL's decision to abandon its longtime strategy of exclusivity and unleash its rich array of offerings — concerts, news, sports and e-mail — to the World Wide Web for free, a model Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) drove to become the Web's top brand.

"They were a company waiting to die," industry analyst Rob Enderle said Thursday of AOL. "They've done some work to make the property more attractive. The portal strategy is what gave them a future. It's nowhere near where it needs to be, but at least they've got one."

With such successes as delivering seven separate video feeds from July's Live 8 concerts — all without any meltdowns — AOL is no longer viewed as a drain on its parent even as AOL's dial-up subscribers leave in droves for increasingly cheaper high-speed cable and DSL phone lines.

Indeed, AOL's new strategy lets it tap the growing U.S. Internet advertising market, which jumped 26 percent to a record $5.8 billion for the first half of the year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. And that's only a fraction of the overall ad industry, meaning there's still plenty of room to grow.

Time Warner's chief executive, Dick Parsons, told an investor conference last month that accelerating AOL's transformation into an advertising-driven business was a top priority and the best way to add value to Time Warner's long-slumping share price.

Analysts say a Google-Comcast-AOL deal could benefit all parties and shows how well AOL has managed to shed its image as a dying business. (Subscriptions remain a large part of AOL's revenue base but continue to drop. As of June 30, it had 20.8 million U.S. subscribers, down from a peak of 26.7 million in September 2002).

AOL and its collection of properties, including Moviefone and MapQuest, still aren't viewed as a destination site like Yahoo or MSN, said Enderle.

AOL's free and subscription sites have grown 3 percent in the past year, attracting 72.5 million visitors in September, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. But Google grew 28 percent in visitation, to 79.4 million that month.

And both trailed Yahoo and Microsoft.

A combined AOL-Google would have made the brand tops with 107 million visiting either or both in September, surpassing industry leading Yahoo's 99.3 million.

AOL could benefit through referrals from Google's search site as well as Comcast's high-speed subscribers, said Jonathan Gaw, a research manager at IDC.

For Google, AOL offers video and other programming that Google has been increasingly trying to deliver as it expands beyond search. A stake in AOL also could let Google preserve a lucrative ad-and-search partnership that now accounts for more than 10 percent of Google's revenues, according to Google's regulatory filings.

For Comcast, AOL would give it entertainment content, which the cable company sees as key to its future growth. Last year Comcast tried but failed to acquire The Walt Disney Co., and earlier this year it joined with Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). in a successful bid to acquire the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie studio.

AOL also could give Comcast's high-speed Internet business a major opportunity to lure AOL subscribers looking to drop their dial-up connections.

And it would give Comcast the ability to sell more online advertising, particularly if it makes AOL the home page of choice for its broadband users — similar to how SBC Communications Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. now give their users a window to Yahoo through partnerships.

Gaw said AOL brings experience in making technology user-friendly — a key advantage as computers and televisions converge into one-stop entertainment centers.

"What we're talking about with convergence is taking all these different content sources and putting them into one place," he said. "There's a lot of technology behind that."

Time Warner's share price rose 10 cents, or 0.57 percent, to close at $17.59 Thursday on the
New York Stock Exchange.

Heavy Rain Slows Earthquake Aid in Asia

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - Heavy rain and hail grounded helicopters and stopped trucks loaded with relief supplies Tuesday, imposing more misery on hungry, shivering earthquake survivors as the United Nations warned of potentially lethal outbreaks of measles, cholera and diarrhea.

Dazed, desperate villagers fought over food packages and looted trucks as the first aid reached this devastated city in the mountains of
Kashmir. The Himalayan region was hardest-hit by Saturday's magnitude-7.6 quake.

The Pakistani government said the death toll from Pakistan's worst quake was about 23,000, but a senior army official involved in the rescue operations and local officials said estimates surpassed 35,000, with many bodies still buried beneath piles of concrete, steel and wood. Millions were left homeless after whole communities were flattened in the region touching Pakistan, India and
Afghanistan.

Three days after the quake, survivors still were being pulled from the rubble of pancaked schools and houses by British, German, French and Chinese rescue teams. A Red Cross official said people could survive under the rubble up to five or even seven days.

A 75-year-old woman and her 57-year-old daughter were rescued after 80 hours in the ruins of an Islamabad apartment tower, and a teenage boy was freed in the northern town of Balakot. "He's alive!" rescuers shouted with joy as people gave the boy food and water and kissed him on the head. The air smelled of decomposing corpses. The U.N. World Food Program began a major airlift of emergency supplies, including high-energy bars to feed 240,000 people. NATO agreed to coordinate an airlift of aid supplies from Europe. Eight U.S. military helicopters based in neighboring Afghanistan shuttled 16 tons of food, water, medical supplies and blankets to quake-hit zones, the military said. Chinook and Black Hawk choppers flew 102 relief workers and others into the region and evacuated 126 people, said Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara, spokesman for the U.S. base at Bagram, Afghanistan. In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said 25 to 30 more military helicopters would be in Pakistan within days. The Islamabad government also requested earthmovers, forklifts, bulldozers and trucks, spokesman Larry Di Rita said.

The United Nations appealed for $272 million in donations, saying 2 million people were homeless. The United States pledged $50 million, Japan $20 million, Canada $17 million and Britain $3.5 million. Other nations donated more helicopters, money and supplies, including tents, blankets, medical aid and food kits.

"We as a nation are going through a challenging time," Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said. "We are overwhelmed by the support we are getting both within the country and outside the country and are thankful to those countries, friends and individuals who have made our task easier."

Tuesday's efforts were hampered by torrential rains and hail in the mountains of the Pakistani side of Kashmir, and crates of supplies sat on tarmacs waiting to be delivered. At least one U.S. supply helicopter had to turn around because of a rainstorm in the mountain passes, the military said.

"The recovery efforts have been slowed by bad weather and large parts of the region are still inaccessible because landslides have destroyed the road network," a U.N. statement said.

Bob McKerrow, coordinator of relief efforts for the International Federation of the Red Cross, said in Islamabad that 17 trucks left for affected areas with supplies, including blood.

"Some of the roads are just being reopened and this rain is not going to help at all," McKerrow said. "And the possibility of further landslides blocking roads is a threat every minute of the day."

The senior army official said that "according to our assessment, the death toll is between 35,000 to 40,000 people." Tens of thousands were injured.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media about the toll. The estimate matched that of local officials.

Neighboring India said 1,300 people died in its part of Kashmir, the disputed province at the center of two wars between New Delhi and Islamabad.

India planned to send a planeload of food, tents and medicine to its longtime rival in what was seen as a boost to the peace process between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. Islamabad, however, refused India's offer of helicopters.

One of the places hardest-hit by the quake was Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, where most homes and all government buildings were destroyed. Bodies were still in the streets.

The city had no electricity or running water and many of its 600,000 people had no shelter with winter just six weeks away. Night temperatures have dropped to the low 60s and people sought shelter under wrecked trucks and plastic sheets. Villagers came down from their devastated mountain homes carrying injured children, hoping to get them on helicopter flights to Islamabad. The World Health Organization said field hospitals were being set up to treat the injured.

Turkish doctors, medics from the group Doctors without Borders and assessment teams from other international agencies were working in the city. But the effort seemed nowhere near to meeting the overwhelming need.

About 10 trucks brought by Pakistani charities and volunteers rumbled into Muzaffarabad, where efforts by relief workers to distribute aid turned chaotic as residents scuffled for the handouts of cooking oil, sugar, rice, blankets and tents. Some jumped the trucks and pulled supplies out.

Police looked on helplessly as more than 200 people raided a stock of food arranged by relief workers at a soccer field near the city center — one of six designated aid distribution points. One man took a big sack of sugar and another left on a motorized rickshaw with a crate of drinking water.

"I can't wait for the food to be distributed properly," said Ali Khan, a construction worker who has barely eaten for days. "I need it desperately and I'll take it."

Others desperate to reach a hospital looted gas from a hole in the ground, using an improvised pulley system of plastic bottles.

Religious opposition leaders said the Pakistani army and government were failing to coordinate with civilian relief efforts. Qazi Hussein Ahmed said the army should withdraw troops from Waziristan, where it is fighting al-Qaida-linked groups.

The quake damaged sanitation systems, destroyed hospitals and left many victims with no access to clean drinking water, making them more vulnerable to disease.

"Measles could potentially become a serious problem," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said in Geneva. "We fear that if people huddle closely together in temporary shelters and crowded conditions, more measles cases could occur."

Measles — potentially deadly for children — already are endemic in the region and only 60 percent of children are protected. At least 90 percent coverage is needed to prevent an epidemic, WHO said. The agency will soon start gathering essential vaccines for a mass immunization program.

Rescue teams used high-tech cameras and lifting gear to search for survivors under debris. They also were simply yelling inside the rubble.

"Hello! Rescue team here! Can you hear us?" one German rescuer shouted in Muzaffarabad.

At the collapsed 10-story Margalla Towers in Islamabad, teams pulled 57-year-old Khalida Begum and her mother, Mahbibi, to safety after 80 hours. At least two dozen people died there.

"Thanks to God, my family is safe," Khalida Begum said. "As far as I know, all my family is safe now, thank God. I'm so happy."

Rescuers Try to Reach Asia Quake Survivors

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - Rescuers struggled to reach remote, mountainous areas Sunday after Pakistan's worst-ever earthquake wiped out entire villages, buried roads in rubble and knocked out electricity and water supplies. The death toll stood at 20,000 and was expected to rise.

n this devastated Himalayan city, wounded covered by shawls lay in the street, and villagers used sledgehammers to break through the rubble of flattened schools and homes seeking survivors.

The quake collapsed the city's Islamabad Public School. Soldiers with white cloth tied around their mouths and noses pulled a small girl's dust-covered body from the ruins, while the body of a boy remained pinned between heavy slabs of concrete.

The
United Nations said more than 2.5 million people need shelter after the magnitude-7.6 earthquake along the Pakistan-India border. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Relief said it urgently needed 200,000 winterized tents.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf complained of a shortage of helicopters needed to ferry in relief workers, food and medical supplies, and appealed for international help.

In Washington,
President Bush said eight U.S. military choppers were being moved to help in rescue efforts, and he promised financial assistance. India, which has fought three wars with Pakistan, also offered assistance, as did
Israel, which has no relations with the Muslim nation.

"We are handling the worst disaster in Pakistan's history," chief army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said.

The quake was felt across a wide swath of South Asia from central
Afghanistan to western Bangladesh. It swayed buildings in the capitals of three nations, with the damage spanning at least 250 miles from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory. In Islamabad, a 10-story building collapsed, killing at least 24 people.

Late Sunday, helmeted rescuers found a survivor after hearing his cries for help. The thin man in a blue shirt, looking dazed, emerged on his own with little help and stood in front of a crowd of cheering onlookers. One rescuer patted his head, and the man waved and pumped his fist in the air.

Pakistan said the death toll ranged between 20,000 and 30,000. India reported more than 600 dead, and Afghanistan said four were killed.

"We have enough manpower but we need financial support ... to cope with the tragedy," Musharraf said in Rawalpindi, according to the state-run news agency Associated Press of Pakistan.

He also appealed for medicine and tents.

Musharraf told the British Broadcasting Corp. he knew of as many as 20,000 people killed, and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told CNN about 43,000 people were injured.

Musharraf said the only way to reach many far-flung areas was by helicopter because roads were impassable.

"Our helicopter resources are limited," he told the BBC. "We need massive cargo helicopter support."

Most of the devastation occurred in northern Pakistan. The
U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 60 miles northeast of the capital, Islamabad, in the forested mountains of Pakistani
Kashmir.

"I have been informed by my department that more than 30,000 people have died in Kashmir," Tariq Mahmmod, communications minister for the Himalayan region, told The Associated Press.

Troops "have not started relief work in remote villages where people are still buried in the rubble, and in some areas nobody is present to organize funerals for the dead," he said.

The USGS said there had been at least 26 aftershocks, including a 6.2-magnitude temblor.

Dozens of villages were cut off from rescuers by quake-induced landslides. Relatives desperate to find their loved ones dug through flattened homes and schools with bare hands.

In Muzaffarabad, a city of 600,000 that is the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, residents said they faced food and gasoline shortages. There was no electricity, and people collected water from a mountain stream.

"People are relying on local fruit, and they have little food to eat. I went out to get bread, and could only get a couple of apples," carpet seller Gul Khan said. Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said 11,000 people in Muzaffarabad were killed. At least 250 pupils were feared trapped at the Islamabad Public School, and dozens of villagers, some with sledgehammers, pulled at debris and carried away bodies. Several bright backpacks dotted the rubble. Nearby, a man cried over a child's body. "The communication infrastructure and systems are down and we can't get help to us, that should be the priority," principal Mushtaq Ahmed Kahn said. Hundreds of people waited at bus stations, hoping to leave. The body of a man lay on a roadside, and a family pushed a body in a cart. The military hospital collapsed, and residents said there were bodies inside. Doctors set up a makeshift clinic in a park.

"The situation is very bad. Surgeries are being conducted on soccer fields. There are not enough doctors," Ozgur Bozoglu, a member of a Turkish search-and-rescue team, GEA, told Turkey's NTV television.

Helicopters and C-130 transport planes took troops and supplies to damaged areas Sunday. When confronted by urgent appeals from villagers, Musharraf responded, "For heaven's sake, bear with us."

Bush said he spoke with Musharraf and "told him that we want to help in any way we can."

"Thousands of people have died, thousands are wounded, and the United States of America wants to help," Bush said from the Oval Office.

Aziz said the American helicopters would be drawn from coalition military operations in neighboring Afghanistan.

But Maj. Andrew Elmes, spokesman for
NATO's 11,000-strong force, said it was outside the mission's mandate to operate beyond Afghanistan.

The United Nations, Britain, Russia, China, Turkey, Japan and Germany offered assistance. An eight-member U.N. team of top disaster coordination officials arrived in Islamabad on Sunday.

Aziz said the Pakistani death toll was 19,396 dead, and it was expected to rise.

Officials said Balakot, in the North West Frontier Province about 60 miles north of Islamabad, was one of the hardest-hit areas. Near the ruins of one collapsed school, at least a dozen bodies lay in the streets. More than 200 pupils were feared trapped inside the rubble of a four-story school.

Dozens of villagers pulled at the debris and carried away bodies. Faizan Farooq, a 19-year-old student, said he had heard children under the rubble crying for help immediately after Saturday's disaster.

"Now there's no sign of life," he said Sunday. "We can't do this without the army's help. Nobody has come here to help us."

There was no sign of government help in Balakot. The quake leveled the town's main bazaar, crushing shoppers and strewing gas cylinders, bricks, tomatoes and onions on the streets.

Residents carried bodies on wooden planks. The corpses of four children, aged between 4 and 6, lay under a sheet of corrugated iron.

On the Indian side of the border, at least 54 soldiers were killed when their bunkers collapsed, said Col. H. Juneja, an Indian army spokesman.

The death toll in India exceeded 650 Sunday. Most of the deaths were in the Jammu-Kashmir border towns of Uri, Tangdar and Punch and Srinagar.

Hundreds of angry villagers blocked area roads, protesting the slow pace of rescue efforts. Locals demanded that journalists and soldiers with aid go to their mountainside villages.

"Everything is destroyed — the ground shook and took everything down," Syad Hassan said.

Most people in Jammu-Kashmir spent the cold night in the open, lighting fires with wood from fallen houses to keep warm.

Rescuers Try to Reach Asia Quake Survivors

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - Rescuers struggled to reach remote, mountainous areas Sunday after Pakistan's worst-ever earthquake wiped out entire villages, buried roads in rubble and knocked out electricity and water supplies. The death toll stood at 20,000 and was expected to rise.

In this devastated Himalayan city, wounded covered by shawls lay in the street, and villagers used sledgehammers to break through the rubble of flattened schools and homes seeking survivors.

The quake collapsed the city's Islamabad Public School. Soldiers with white cloth tied around their mouths and noses pulled a small girl's dust-covered body from the ruins, while the body of a boy remained pinned between heavy slabs of concrete.

The
United Nations said more than 2.5 million people need shelter after the magnitude-7.6 earthquake along the Pakistan-India border. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Relief said it urgently needed 200,000 winterized tents.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf complained of a shortage of helicopters needed to ferry in relief workers, food and medical supplies, and appealed for international help.

In Washington,
President Bush said eight U.S. military choppers were being moved to help in rescue efforts, and he promised financial assistance. India, which has fought three wars with Pakistan, also offered assistance, as did
Israel, which has no relations with the Muslim nation.

"We are handling the worst disaster in Pakistan's history," chief army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said.

The quake was felt across a wide swath of South Asia from central
Afghanistan to western Bangladesh. It swayed buildings in the capitals of three nations, with the damage spanning at least 250 miles from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Srinagar in northern Indian territory. In Islamabad, a 10-story building collapsed, killing at least 24 people.

Late Sunday, helmeted rescuers found a survivor after hearing his cries for help. The thin man in a blue shirt, looking dazed, emerged on his own with little help and stood in front of a crowd of cheering onlookers. One rescuer patted his head, and the man waved and pumped his fist in the air.

Pakistan said the death toll ranged between 20,000 and 30,000. India reported more than 600 dead, and Afghanistan said four were killed.

"We have enough manpower but we need financial support ... to cope with the tragedy," Musharraf said in Rawalpindi, according to the state-run news agency Associated Press of Pakistan.

He also appealed for medicine and tents.

Musharraf told the British Broadcasting Corp. he knew of as many as 20,000 people killed, and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told CNN about 43,000 people were injured.

Musharraf said the only way to reach many far-flung areas was by helicopter because roads were impassable.

"Our helicopter resources are limited," he told the BBC. "We need massive cargo helicopter support."

Most of the devastation occurred in northern Pakistan. The
U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 60 miles northeast of the capital, Islamabad, in the forested mountains of Pakistani
Kashmir.

"I have been informed by my department that more than 30,000 people have died in Kashmir," Tariq Mahmmod, communications minister for the Himalayan region, told The Associated Press.

Troops "have not started relief work in remote villages where people are still buried in the rubble, and in some areas nobody is present to organize funerals for the dead," he said.

The USGS said there had been at least 26 aftershocks, including a 6.2-magnitude temblor.

Dozens of villages were cut off from rescuers by quake-induced landslides. Relatives desperate to find their loved ones dug through flattened homes and schools with bare hands.

In Muzaffarabad, a city of 600,000 that is the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, residents said they faced food and gasoline shortages. There was no electricity, and people collected water from a mountain stream.

"People are relying on local fruit, and they have little food to eat. I went out to get bread, and could only get a couple of apples," carpet seller Gul Khan said.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said 11,000 people in Muzaffarabad were killed.

At least 250 pupils were feared trapped at the Islamabad Public School, and dozens of villagers, some with sledgehammers, pulled at debris and carried away bodies. Several bright backpacks dotted the rubble. Nearby, a man cried over a child's body.

"The communication infrastructure and systems are down and we can't get help to us, that should be the priority," principal Mushtaq Ahmed Kahn said.

Hundreds of people waited at bus stations, hoping to leave. The body of a man lay on a roadside, and a family pushed a body in a cart.

The military hospital collapsed, and residents said there were bodies inside. Doctors set up a makeshift clinic in a park.

"The situation is very bad. Surgeries are being conducted on soccer fields. There are not enough doctors," Ozgur Bozoglu, a member of a Turkish search-and-rescue team, GEA, told Turkey's NTV television.

Helicopters and C-130 transport planes took troops and supplies to damaged areas Sunday. When confronted by urgent appeals from villagers, Musharraf responded, "For heaven's sake, bear with us."

Bush said he spoke with Musharraf and "told him that we want to help in any way we can."

"Thousands of people have died, thousands are wounded, and the United States of America wants to help," Bush said from the Oval Office.

Aziz said the American helicopters would be drawn from coalition military operations in neighboring Afghanistan.

But Maj. Andrew Elmes, spokesman for
NATO's 11,000-strong force, said it was outside the mission's mandate to operate beyond Afghanistan.

The United Nations, Britain, Russia, China, Turkey, Japan and Germany offered assistance. An eight-member U.N. team of top disaster coordination officials arrived in Islamabad on Sunday.

Aziz said the Pakistani death toll was 19,396 dead, and it was expected to rise.

Officials said Balakot, in the North West Frontier Province about 60 miles north of Islamabad, was one of the hardest-hit areas. Near the ruins of one collapsed school, at least a dozen bodies lay in the streets. More than 200 pupils were feared trapped inside the rubble of a four-story school.

Dozens of villagers pulled at the debris and carried away bodies. Faizan Farooq, a 19-year-old student, said he had heard children under the rubble crying for help immediately after Saturday's disaster.

"Now there's no sign of life," he said Sunday. "We can't do this without the army's help. Nobody has come here to help us."

There was no sign of government help in Balakot. The quake leveled the town's main bazaar, crushing shoppers and strewing gas cylinders, bricks, tomatoes and onions on the streets.

Residents carried bodies on wooden planks. The corpses of four children, aged between 4 and 6, lay under a sheet of corrugated iron.

On the Indian side of the border, at least 54 soldiers were killed when their bunkers collapsed, said Col. H. Juneja, an Indian army spokesman.

The death toll in India exceeded 650 Sunday. Most of the deaths were in the Jammu-Kashmir border towns of Uri, Tangdar and Punch and Srinagar.

Hundreds of angry villagers blocked area roads, protesting the slow pace of rescue efforts. Locals demanded that journalists and soldiers with aid go to their mountainside villages.

"Everything is destroyed — the ground shook and took everything down," Syad Hassan said.

Most people in Jammu-Kashmir spent the cold night in the open, lighting fires with wood from fallen houses to keep warm.

NYC Mayor Defends Publicizing Threat

NEW YORK - Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his police chief insisted Friday they did the right thing by going public with a terrorist threat to bomb the New York subway, brushing aside suggestions from Washington that they overreacted to information of dubious credibility.

While the mayor and federal officials weighed the threat's severity, the investigation into the alleged plot advanced as a third suspect was arrested and authorities looked into whether a fourth person took part in the scheme.

A law enforcement official in New York, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the tightening of security was prompted by an informant's report of a plot to attack the subway system with bombs hidden in bags and possibly baby strollers.

"If I'm going to make a mistake, you can rest assured it is on the side of being cautious," Bloomberg said.

The dispute came as thousands of extra police officers poured into the city's subway system, pulling commuters out of rush-hour crowds and rifling through their bags or briefcases in a crackdown that was announced late Thursday afternoon and continued on Friday.



The city's announcement of the alleged plot — and the warning to New Yorkers to keep their eyes open for anything suspicious — led to jostling between city officials and homeland security officials in Washington, who downplayed the threat.

Homeland Security spokesman Brian Doyle said Friday: "The specified intelligence was checked out through the intelligence agencies. They looked at all the information and couldn't put a credible factor on it."

But Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly vigorously defended their decision to go public.

"We did exactly the right thing," Kelly said.

The mayor's chief spokesman said the city had been working closely with the
FBI and characterized the disagreement as a dispute within the federal government.

"When different federal agencies have different interpretations of the intelligence, the mayor doesn't have the luxury of knowing which one is right," Ed Skyler said. "He has to make a decision that provides the maximum level of protection to the people of New York."

A Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by The Associated Press said the attack was reportedly scheduled to take place Oct. 9, with terrorists using timed or remote-controlled explosives hidden in briefcases, suitcases or in or under strollers.

The memo said the department had received information indicating the attack might be carried out by "a team of terrorist operatives, some of whom may travel or who may be in the New York City area."

The memo, issued Wednesday to state and local officials, said that homeland security and FBI agents doubted the credibility of the information, but it provided four pages of advice about averting a possible attack, including tips on inspecting baby carriages with bomb-sniffing dogs.

In
Iraq, meanwhile, authorities seized a third suspect Friday and investigated whether a fourth man had traveled to New York as part of the plot, according to the law enforcement official.

The official said the man's trip to New York was described by an informant who had spent time in
Afghanistan and proved reliable in past investigations. But the official added that authorities had not confirmed whether the fourth man even exists.

Bloomberg called it the most specific terrorist threat that New York officials had received to date and said it was essential to err on the side of caution when protecting the city of 8 million.

Bloomberg took office months after the Sept. 11 attacks and is seeking another four-year term in next month's election.

Rep. Peter King (news, bio, voting record), R-N.Y., said it was wrong for federal homeland security officials to try to discount the security concerns of New York officials.

"That sends a mixed message which confuses the people, and besides that, they're wrong," he said. "Even if there was some doubt as to what the right thing to do is, you shouldn't be having public disputes over that."

President Bush, asked if he thought New York officials had overreacted, said: "I think they took the information we gave and made the judgments they thought were necessary."

The dispute played out as new details emerged about the alleged plotters.

U.S. forces in Iraq arrested two suspected plotters who had been under close surveillance until Thursday morning, the law enforcement official in New York said. A third suspect escaped but was captured Friday.

Those arrested had received explosives training in Afghanistan, the law enforcement official said. They had planned to travel through
Syria to New York, then meet with operatives to carry out the bombings, according to the official. The official said that the threat was "specific to place," and that the window for the attack ran from Friday through at least the weekend.

A federal official said one of the suspects arrested in Iraq apparently told interrogators that more than a dozen people were involved in the plot, and that they were of various nationalities, including Afghans, Syrians and Iraqis. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

In Baghdad, spokesmen for the U.S. military and the U.S. Embassy declined to comment on the arrest.

Homeland Security's Doyle said the government has no information that the fourth person possibly connected to the plot "is either here or even exists."

On the streets of New York, more officers were visible in several parts of the city.

"Hopefully, God's with me and I'll be OK," Vinnie Stella said as he entered the subway at Penn Station.

Rob Johnson, 30, said he was not worried: "The cops have it under control."

Rob McGoey, who grew up in New York and now lives in Nebraska, said Friday was the first time he had been stopped and searched. "It was never this way when I lived here," he said. "It's scary, actually."

Authorities briefly closed part of Penn Station after a discarded soda bottle filled with a green liquid was found during morning rush hour. The police commissioner said it was a type of drain-cleaner and not a threat.

An estimated 4.5 million passengers ride the New York subway each day. The system has more than 468 stations. In July, the city began random subway searches in the wake of the train bombings in London.

Researchers Reconstruct 1918 Flu Virus

ATLANTA - It sounds like a sci-fi thriller. For the first time, scientists have made from scratch the Spanish flu virus that killed millions of people in 1918.

Why? To help them understand how to better fend off a future global epidemic from the bird flu spreading in Southeast Asia.

Researchers believe their work offers proof the 1918 flu originated in birds, and provides insights into how it attacked and multiplied in humans. On top of that, this marks the first time an infectious agent behind a historic pandemic has ever been reconstructed.

The scientists involved in the project contend there's no real risk to public safety. The vials of this frightening germ — about 10 of them — are locked away at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said Terrence Tumpey, the
CDC research scientist who constructed the virus.

However, at least one ethicist thinks there should be a broader public discussion before scientists take such bold steps.

"There isn't much input from the public. I think there should be," said Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics.

Like the 1918 virus, the current avian flu in Southeast Asia occurs naturally in birds. In 1918, the virus mutated, infected people and then spread among them. So far, the current Asian virus has infected and killed at least 65 people but has rarely spread person-to-person.

But viruses mutate rapidly and it could soon develop infectious properties like those seen in the earlier bug, said Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger of the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

"The effort to understand what happened in 1918 has taken on a new urgency," said Taubenberger, who led the team that did the gene-sequencing for the project.

The research involved everything from excavation of human remains to application of the latest laboratory technology. "It's the sort of story you could tell high school students to get them excited about science," said Dr. William Schaffner, a vaccine specialist at Vanderbilt University.

"It is a big day for science," said Schaffner, who was not involved in the project.

The Spanish flu of 1918 was a worldwide contagion that in a few months killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million worldwide, including roughly 550,000 in the United States.

In severe cases, victims' lungs filled with fluid and they essentially drowned in a disease process that took less than a week. It was known for being particularly dangerous to young adults, a group usually less susceptible to flu complications than older people.

Some public health experts believe the virus was also devastating because of the malnutrition and poor living conditions that existed in that period at the end of World War I.

The reason the scientists believe their reconstructed virus poses no public health threat is that based on previous research, modern-day medicines are effective against the 1918 flu. And they think most people today are already at least partially immune.

The subtype of virus that caused the 1918 pandemic is now common, and so it would not be as unknown to the immune defense systems of people today. In other words, it would not be as deadly, said Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, microbiologist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

"In each pandemic, it's been a new subtype of virus," not an existing one, said Garcia-Sastre who participated in the effort to reconstruct the virus.

In their research detailed Wednesday in the journals Science and Nature, the scientists explained how they reconstructed that 1918 virus.

Using the remains of a female flu victim buried in the Alaskan permafrost in 1918, federal researchers sequenced the virus's genetic information. They shared it with Garcia-Sastre and others at Mount Sinai, who used the coding to create microscopic, virus-like strings of genes, called plasmids. The plasmids then went to the CDC, where they were inserted into human kidney cells for the final step in the virus reconstruction.

"Once you get the plasmids inside the cell, the virus assembles itself," said Tumpey, the CDC scientist. "It only takes a couple of days."

A flu virus has eight gene segments. Taubenberger and other researchers previously had published the sequences of five of them; the new work completes it.

The three new segments appear to be crucial in explaining how the bird-based virus became adapted to humans, Taubenberger said.

Tumpey also confirmed the 1918 virus's avian-like characteristics by injecting it in fertilized bird eggs. It killed the eggs, just like the Asian bird flu does. Other modern-day flu strains that are human-based don't kill fertilized bird eggs, he noted.

Scientists had already believed the 1918 virus was a bird-adapted agent. This offers evidence of that, Tumpey noted.

The researchers also refined their focus on one gene, the HA gene, that encodes the hemagglutinin surface protein that help the virus attach to cells and multiply. The 1918 virus is deadly with the HA gene, but when the gene was replaced, it was not virulent, Tumpey said.

The virus's genetic properties may explain why it was able to settle deeper in the lungs than most current flu strains, causing the drowning condition, he said.

The gene sequencing information from the new research is being placed in GenBank, a public database operated by the
National Institutes of Health. Sequence information for smallpox and other deadly infectious agents is also stored there. It is accessible to scientists and others, including some who may have harmful intent.

But it won't be simple for terrorists or anyone else to reconstruct their own versions of the 1918 virus, said Diane Griffin, chair of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health.

"These are not easy viruses to reconstruct," she said. "You're not going to do this in a cave in
Afghanistan."

Researchers say their work was carefully reviewed before they were allowed to complete the reconstruction. Among the sign-offs was an approval from the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, a panel created last year to advise federal health officials on biological research that might threaten public health.

That panel includes appointed experts who are outside government, so there was important public involvement in the pre-approval process, Garcia-Sastre said.

Caplan, the ethicist, said he'd like to see more, but he added that the public until now hasn't been particularly interested in the kind of science that allows reconstruction of infectious agents.

"The power of synthetic genomics to make and recreate life is astounding," he said. But policy-makers and the public have been far more interested in human cloning — a scientific development believed to still be years away.

"We're arrogant. We tend to focus on what doctors and engineers can do to genetically engineer us. We tend not to worry as much about what they're doing with tiny little critters that we can't see. But science is much more advanced in terms of microbial engineering," Caplan said.

Southeast Asia on Alert After Bali Blasts

BALI, Indonesia - Investigators on Monday hunted for the two suspected masterminds of suicide bombings on this resort island as Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia and other nations went on high alert to protect their beaches from a repeat of the weekend attacks.

Newspapers published graphic photographs of the three alleged bombers' severed heads, evidence that investigators hope will lead them to the two Malaysians believed to have plotted Saturday's attacks at crowded restaurants that killed at least 22 people and wounded 104, including six Americans.

"It is our hope that people will recognize the faces and call us," police Brig. Gen. Sunarko Dami Artanto told reporters as he released two hot line numbers. "It will help us speed up the investigation."

The men suspected of masterminding the attacks — Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohamed Top — allegedly are key figures in Jemaah Islamiyah, a regional Islamic militant group with links to al-Qaida that is blamed for the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, mostly foreigners.

Azahari is known as "Demolition Man" for his knowledge of explosives, while Noordin has been dubbed "Moneyman" for his ability to raise money and recruit bombers.

Police also sought three accomplices believed to be still on the island.

The bombings came as Southeast Asia geared up for its major tourist season, when millions of Europeans and other foreigners flock to sunny beaches to escape the winter months. It was the second attack targeting Bali in three years.

Indonesia's security level was raised to "top alert" after Saturday's attacks, with two-thirds of the vast archipelago's 300,000 police on standby, national police spokesman Maj. Gen. Aryanto Budihardjo said.



Security was increased around embassies and ambassadors' residences in the capital, Jakarta, and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered the city's 11 million residents to re-register with authorities. Yudhoyono has warned that terrorists could be planning more strikes in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra ordered plainclothes security officials to popular tourist spots, warning that terrorists were "commuting and rotating around in the region."

"They have close connections and links. Their linkages come from relatives, friends and they used to go the same schools," said Thaksin, who usually downplays the terror threat to tourism — his country's economic lifeblood.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer of Australia, whose citizens were among those killed in Bali over the weekend as well as in the 2002 attacks, also struck a warning note.

"People shouldn't think because those bombings took place, there now won't be any bombings for another year or so, or two years," Downer told the Nine television network. "The risk is always there and the risk is significant."

The Philippines placed its 115,000-strong police force on heightened alert and said it would intensify intelligence gathering, while Malaysia tightened border security to prevent the alleged masterminds of the Bali attacks from returning home.

Nobody claimed of responsibility for Saturday night's coordinated attacks, but suspicion immediately fell on Jemaah Islamiyah, which wants to establish an Islamic state across Southeast Asia. If proven, the strikes show how dangerous the group remains despite a regional security crackdown that has arrested hundreds of alleged group members.

Analysts say the group appears to have taken on a different form, using foot soldiers from other organizations to carry out attacks. Saturday's bombers targeted two outdoor seafood restaurants on bustling Jimbaran beach and a three-story noodle and steakhouse in Kuta, the tourist heart of the island.

The explosions occurred within six minutes on the busiest night of the week. The bombers were wearing the explosives — packed with ball bearings and other shrapnel to maximize casualties — around their waists or in bags over their shoulders.

Officers have been helped by video footage obtained from tourists, including one clip showing a suspected bomber, wearing a black T-shirt and clutching a backpack, strolling past diners moments before an explosion from his direction.

Indonesian anti-terror official Maj. Gen. Ansyaad Mbai said investigators hoped to identify the bombers within days.

Authorities have enlisted the help of a former Jemaah Islamiyah operative to help track down the suspects. Nasir Abbas, who has testified against former colleagues in trials, arrived on Bali two hours after the blasts, working as an informant.

Signs of the devastation remained Monday. At Jimbaran, broken tables and chairs, paper plates, bottles and glasses were scattered in the sand with uneaten lobster and crab dinners.

Death tolls in the attacks have varied because the force of the blasts dismembered many bodies. Sanglah, the main hospital treating the victims, posted its death toll as 29.

However, Budihardjo said in Jakarta that 22 people were killed, including the bombers.

The dead included 14 Indonesians, two Australians and a Japanese man. The wounded included 49 Indonesians, 17 Australians, six Koreans and four Japanese.

A waiter killed in the attacks, 32-year-old Gusti Ketut Sudana, was cremated according to religious traditions on Bali, which is mostly Hindu. Villagers carried his corpse on a golden yellow float from his house to a crematorium.

"I am devastated," said Sudana's brother, Gusti Mandalika. "But as Hindus we believe that everything is part of God's plan."

Chilling Video Shows Bali Bombing Suspect

BALI, Indonesia - Police raised the alert level for Indonesia's capital and the president warned of more attacks Sunday as a chilling video shot the day before showed a suspected bomber clutching a backpack and strolling past diners moments before one of three suicide bombings killed 26 people on Bali.

The near-simultaneous bombings on the resort island also injured 101 people, including six Americans.

The attacks apparently were planned by Southeast Asia's two most-wanted men, who are believed to be connected to the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah, said Maj. Gen. Ansyaad Mbai, a top Indonesian anti-terror official.

Fear of more attacks on tourists prompted
Israel to warn its citizens Sunday not to travel to Egypt's Sinai desert during the upcoming month of Jewish holidays, saying it has information that Arab militants planning strikes against Israelis already are located in the resort area.

The alleged masterminds of the Bali attacks were believed to be Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohamed Top, both Malaysians who fled to Indonesia after a crackdown on militants following the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said.

The masterminds were not among the suspected bombers, whose remains were found at the scenes, officials said. All three bombers were believed to be wearing belts of explosives, police said.

Mbai said at least three other people were believed to be involved in the operation, and suspected they were still on Bali. He did not say whether they included the two Malaysian fugitives.

Mbai also said police believe the bombs were detonated by mobile phone.

Authorities have enlisted the help Nasir Abbas, a former Jemaah Islamiyah operative working as an informant, to help in the investigation. Abbas arrived on Bali two hours after the blasts, but it was unclear whether he had concluded a deal with police.

"Police are using him to help find which group is behind this operation, former terrorists can help give details," Mbai told The Associated Press.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono warned that terrorists could be planning more strikes in the world's most populous Muslim nation as Jakarta's police chief put the capital on top alert, with two-thirds of its police force on standby.

"The terrorists are still looking for soft targets," Yudhoyono said at a news conference after viewing the devastation.

Western and Indonesian intelligence agencies have warned repeatedly that Jemaah Islamiyah was plotting more attacks despite a string of arrests.

Last month, Yudhoyono said the extremist network might strike Jakarta during September or October. He explained Saturday that his warning was based on intelligence the terrorists had already prepared the explosives.

There were no claims of responsibility for Saturday night's coordinated attacks on two packed seafood cafes in the Jimbaran beach resort and the Raja Cafe noodle and steakhouse in the bustling tourist center of Kuta.

Video shot by a vacationer at the three-story Raja Cafe captured a suspected bomber in a black T-shirt walking past foreign and local tourists eating dinner, sipping drinks and chatting at candlelit tables.

The man clutches his backpack, adjusts it slightly, then walks out of view. Moments later there is an explosion from his direction, followed by gray smoke and terrified screams. Police said the video, obtained by Associated Press Television News, was part of the investigation.

Suspicion for the blasts fell on the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, which wants to establish an Islamic state across Southeast Asia and has been linked to
Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

Jemaah Islamiyah has been blamed for the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, mostly foreigners, and subsequent attacks on the J.W. Marriott hotel and the Australian Embassy that killed 22. Saturday's blasts occurred nearly three years to the day of the 2002 bombings, which also were in Kuta.

Scores of Jemaah Islamiyah suspects have been arrested in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand since 2002, leading some officials to say the group's leadership has been crippled. But analysts say the group appears to have taken on a different form, working with recruits from other organizations or groups.

"The JI is the only group with the intention and capability to mount an attack on Bali on such a coordinated level," said Singapore-based expert Rohan Gunaratna of the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies.

"No other groups can carry out multiple attacks like that."

Like 2002, the bombings took place on the busiest night of the week, just as crowds began to swell.

The head waiter at the Menega Cafe in Jimbaran said the bomb went off at his beachside restaurant between the tables of two large dinner parties sitting in the sand. Most of the 120 diners at the restaurant were Indonesian, he said.

"Everyone started screaming, `Allah! Allah! Help!'" said Wayan Subagia, 23, who suffered leg injuries. "One woman rushed to pick up her child but the little girl was already dead."

Another blast occurred at the nearby Nyoman seafood restaurant.

On Sunday, Yudhoyono visited Sanglah Hospital, near the island's capital city, Denpasar, where dozens of people, most of them Indonesian, waited in tears for news of friends and relatives missing since the attacks. Several coffins were carried out. One was for a child.

The dead included 12 Indonesians, an Australian and a Japanese man. Officials were trying to identify the nationalities of the other corpses in the morgue, a hospital statement said.

Bobby Nugroho, an Indonesian whose mother and father were killed, went to collect his parents' remains at the hospital's morgue.

"A witness said that my father was sitting, facing the beach when a man opened his jacket and pulled the trigger in front of him," said Nugroho, a Jakarta-based reporter in his late 20s who works for the Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizan Shimbun.

It was unclear whether the death toll included the three suspected bombers.

The 101 wounded included 49 Indonesians, 17 Australians, six Americans, six Koreans and four Japanese, officials said.

Saturday's attacks threaten to ruin a tourist boom on the mostly Hindu island, where hotels and restaurants have in the last 18 months reported that business topped pre-2002 levels, and they were looking forward to a busy Christmas and New Year's season. Some say it may take even longer to recover a second time around.

Veli-Matti Enqvist, 51, was one of hundreds of tourists waiting for flights at the airport.

"We were up all night trying to change our ticket," said Enqvist, who had been scheduled to leave Bali with his wife Wednesday. "We finally found something ... We're going."

Since the 2002 attacks, Jemaah Islamiyah has been tied to deadly bombings outside the Australian Embassy last year that killed 10 and a 2003 blast at the J.W. Marriott hotel that killed 12.

The United States and Australia contend that militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir is the group's spiritual leader. The 67-year-old cleric, serving a two-year sentence for conspiracy in the 2002 attacks, is known for strong anti-Western and anti-Semitic views but has always maintained his innocence.