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  • Gore Accepts Nobel Peace Prize

    2007-12-11

    (OSLO, Norway) — Al Gore and the U.N. climate panel's chief scientist accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on Monday for sounding the alarm over global warming and spreading awareness on how to counteract it.

    Gore shared the coveted award with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change, which was represented at the awards ceremony in Oslo by its leader, Rajendra Pachauri.

    Earlier, Gore said he believes the next U.S. president will shift the country's course on climate change and engage in global efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

    "The new president, whichever party wins the election, is likely to have to change the position on this climate crisis," Gore said. "I do believe the U.S., soon, is to have a more constructive role."

    The former U.S. vice president's remarks come a day after he said reducing carbon dioxide emissions is essential to the "survival of our civilization" — and reiterated he had no plans to run for president.

    At a joint news conference with the U.N.'s chief climate scientist, Gore called for grassroots movements worldwide to push political leaders into action to curb the emissions that contributed to global warming.

    "It is a question of the survival of our civilization," Gore told reporters at the Nobel Institute in downtown Oslo on Sunday. "CO2 increases anywhere are a threat to the future of civilization everywhere.

    The news conference and meetings with Norwegian leaders marked the start of three days of celebrations of the 2007 Nobel Peace laureates. The ceremony Monday will be followed by a parade and banquet in the winners' honor, and the traditional Nobel peace concert on Tuesday.

    Asked whether he had made any final decision on whether to enter the U.S. presidential race, Gore said: "I have no plans to be a candidate." He said he did not expect to re-enter politics in the future "but I see no reason to rule it out entirely."

    Gore spoke as world governments met in Bali, Indonesia, in hopes of hammering out a plan for a tougher treaty to replace the Kyoto climate agreement by 2012.

    Gore, who earlier urged the countries to speed up the timetable for reducing emissions by two years, said he was optimistic about tougher measures partly because growing public awareness of global warming was spurring "the world's first people power movement" on climate change.

    He said that could force political leaders to take action.

    "They have to find some courage to resist the special interests, the special fears, the concern that often have wider influences than they should and instead respect the demands of the human future," Gore said.

    This year's Nobel Peace Prize is part of that process, Gore said, because it "has already caused increased attention to the problem of moving along to solve the crisis of climate."

    Pachauri warned that, in his opinion, data coming in after the panel concluded work on its latest assessment suggests that "the future could very well be far more dire than we believe it is today."

    He said the world cannot hope that technology alone will counter the threat, but that people must be prepared to change to way they live.

    "I don't think this means we have to go back to living in caves but lifestyle change means you have to be conscious of the impact of your actions," said Pachauri.

    Asked by a Norwegian youth newspaper what young people could do, Gore said every effort helps.

    "A lot of them you probably know already: Changing a light bulb," said Gore. "All these individual acts are important. They all help, but they won't solve the problem by themselves unless we have changes in the laws and in treaties."

    The Nobel prizes are always presented on the December 10 anniversary of the death of their creator, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel. The peace prize is presented in Oslo and the other prizes are handed out in Stockholm, Sweden.

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  • How We Learn from Our Mistakes

    2007-12-07

    By LAURA BLUE
    Jackass 2 Johnny Knoxville
    Johnny Knoxville rides a "rocket_propelled" bike off a ramp in Jackass Two.
    Everett
     

    Everyone can learn from their mistakes — but some people have genes that may make it harder. That's the message from German researchers, writing in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science, who have shown how a common gene variant affects some people's ability to respond to, and learn from, the negative repercussions of their actions.

    In a small study, the researchers scanned the brains of 26 men as they each performed a simple task: choosing one symbol from a pair of symbols. After each selection, the participant was presented with a smiley face or sad face, depending on the symbol he had chosen. All men were equally good at learning to pick the symbols that won them a smiley face, but some men were worse than others at avoiding the ones that resulted in sad faces. Those men, it turns out, had a particular gene variant, or allele, that reduces the density of receptors for dopamine — a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in motivation, pleasure and addiction — in certain areas of the brain. Brain scans also showed significantly less activity in those areas in response to the sad-faced negative feedback, in the men who had the allele. When it occurred, however, that brain activity was linked to activity in other parts of the brain that forms memories.

    It's the first strong physiological evidence that the density of dopamine receptors may affect how people respond to negative inputs. Previous studies have established a strong link between a low density of dopamine receptors and addiction, obesity and compulsive gambling — conditions that suggest an impaired ability to learn from the consequences of bad decisions.

    But the good news is that having the allele doesn't necessarily mean you can't learn from your mistakes. Although the men who had the genetic variant did show weaker responses to negative feedback, they did not perform markedly worse on the task at hand: They selected the good symbols from the bad about as often as participants who didn't have the allele. The results suggest that learning — though influenced by dopamine — is a complex process that involves much more than one kind of brain receptor. "It's just one factor that may contribute to some problems that might arise in some people," says Markus Ullsperger, a co-author of the Science paper, based at the Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research in Cologne. "I think you can compensate for many things without even noticing." In fact, a huge number of people have the genotype that Ullsperger studied, and never have trouble learning from their mistakes: About 30% of Europeans have the allele, according to the German researchers. (Comprehensive worldwide statistics don't exist.)

    Like most scientific studies, the Science paper highlights what researchers don't yet know: the interplay of genes, dopamine and the process of learning is still mostly a mystery, and researchers are hesitant to guess how this particular genotype really affects any given individual — or that having it would even be a bad thing. "Under certain circumstances it might be positive [for a person] to ignore negative feedback and to persevere," says Ullsperger. Soldiering on in the face of setbacks, after all, is a key ingredient for success. In the end, these new findings may well be one of many steps toward piecing together the puzzle of learning.

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  • Bush Pledges Subprime Mortgage Aid

    2007-12-07

    By AP/MARTIN CRUTSINGER
     

    (WASHINGTON) — Hundreds of thousands of strapped homeowners could get some relief from a plan negotiated by the Bush administration to freeze interest rates on subprime mortgages that are scheduled to rise in the coming months.

    "There is no perfect solution," President Bush said Thursday as he announced an agreement hammered out with the mortgage industry. "The homeowners deserve our help. The steps I've outlined today are a sensible response to a serious challenge."

    Bush has been accused of moving too slowly to address a crisis that has spread to the broader financial market. But he also was careful not to sound as if he were imposing a government solution and violating his free-market principles. He billed his plan as a voluntary, private-sector arrangement that involves no government money. "We should not bail out lenders, real estate speculators or those made the reckless decision to buy a home they knew they could never afford," Bush said after meeting with industry leaders at the White House. "But there are some responsible homeowners who could avoid foreclosure with some assistance."

    Bush said 1.2 million people could be eligible for help. But only a fraction will be subject to the rate freeze. Others would get assistance in refinancing with their lenders and moving into loans secured by the Federal Housing Administration, Bush said.

    Also, the aid will only come to those who ask for it, he said. Thousands of borrowers who are falling behind on their payments have been sent letters about the options, and Bush also urged people to call a new hot line: 1-888-995-HOPE.

    The announcement followed the news earlier Thursday that home foreclosures surged to an all-time high in the July-September period. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that the percentage of all mortgages that started the foreclosure process in the third quarter jumped to a record 0.78 percent, surpassing the previous record of 0.65 percent of all mortgages in the second quarter.

    The administration's effort is aimed at stemming a further tidal wave of foreclosures in coming years as 2 million subprime mortgages — loans provided to borrowers with spotty credit histories — reset from their introductory rates of around 7 percent to 8 percent to levels as high as 11 percent, adding hundreds of dollars to the typical monthly payment.

    A recent surge in mortgage defaults, part of the worst housing slump in more than two decades, has piled up billions of dollars in losses for big banks, hedge funds and other investors while roiling financial markets worldwide. Some economists think the housing bust may become severe enough to push the country into recession.

    The president mentioned other steps to prevent foreclosures. The FHA has greater flexibility to offer refinancing to homeowners with good credit histories. It is expected that this eventually will help 300,000 families, officials said.

    The Federal Reserve is announcing stronger lending standards this month, while the Housing and Urban Development Department and federal banking regulators are acting to improve disclosure requirements, he said.

    The highest-profile part of the plan would freeze introductory "teaser" rates on certain subprime mortgages, preventing from rates from jumping up for five years.

    This offer would apply only to people living in their homes and who have not missed any payments at the lower rate. It also only would apply to loans taken out between 2005 and this past July 30 and scheduled to rise to higher rates in 2008 and 2009.

    The hope is that the five-year freeze will buy time for the housing sales and prices to start rising again. Such a rebound would enable homeowners to refinance their current adjustable rate mortgages into fixed-rate loans with more affordable monthly payments.

    But even Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who led the negotiations with the mortgage industry, acknowledged the effort is "not a silver bullet."

    "We face a difficult problem," he said.

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  • 9 Dead in Nebraska Mall Rampage

    2007-12-06

    By AP/OSKAR GARCIA
     

    (OMAHA, Neb.) — A man with a rifle opened fire at a busy department store Wednesday, killing eight people before taking his own life, in an attack that made holiday shoppers run screaming through a mall and barricade themselves in dressing rooms. Five more people were wounded, two critically.

    Witnesses said the gunman fired down on shoppers from a third-floor balcony of the Von Maur store.

    The gunman was found dead on the third floor with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and his victims were discovered on the second and third floors, police said.

    "My knees rocked. I didn't know what to do, so I just ran with everybody else," said Kevin Kleine, 29, who was shopping with her 4-year-old daughter at the Westroads Mall, in a prosperous neighborhood on the city's west side. She said she hid in a dressing room with four other shoppers and an employee.

    Keith Fidler, a Von Maur employee, said he heard a burst of five to six shots followed by 15 to 20 more rounds. Fidler said he huddled in the corner of the men's clothing department with about a dozen other employees until police yelled to get out of the store.

    Sgt. Teresa Negron said the gunman killed eight people, then apparently killed himself. His name was not immediately released, and authorities gave no motive for the attack and did not know whether he said anything during the rampage.

    Police received a 911 call from someone inside the mall, and shots could be heard in the background, Negron said. By the time officers arrived six minutes later, the shooting was over, she said.

    A witness, Shawn Vidlak, said he heard four or five rapid shots "like a nail gun." At first he thought it was noise from construction work going on at the mall.

    "People started screaming about gunshots," Vidlak said. "I grabbed my wife and kids we got out of there as fast as we could."

    Shortly after the shooting, which came three weeks before Christmas, a group of shoppers came out of the building with their hands raised. Some were still holding shopping bags.

    President Bush was in town Wednesday for a fundraiser in Omaha, but left about an hour before the shooting.

    The sprawling, three-level mall has more than 135 stores and restaurants, according to the Web site for General Growth Properties, the manager of the mall. It gets 14.5 million visitors every year, according to the Web site.

    Associated Press writers Anna Jo Bratton, Josh Funk and Eric Olson contributed to this report.

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  • A Great Time to Shop — for Foreigners

    2007-11-30

    Thursday, Nov. 29, 2007 By JUSTIN HORWATH AND JAKE GROVUM/BLOOMINGTON
     

    Gunnhildur Lilja Sigmundsdottir came to Minneapolis from Iceland late last week with nothing but pajamas, underwear and an empty suitcase. But during four days of shopping at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., she snagged a wedding dress, five pairs of shoes and seven pairs of pants. "If I needed anything, I just bought it," she says. "[Currency plays] a very big role because the dollar is so low right now." The United States has the best deals in the world right now — that is, if you're not American.

    Overseas shoppers whose countries have a stranglehold on U.S. currency are parachuting into to places like the Mall of America as if they were diplomats — finding deals and flying back to their homelands with their suitcases filled. "They're mentioning the exchange rate more often" as the reason for their visits, says Dan Hildebrant, an assistant sales manager at Oakley, whose sunglasses store in the Mall of America is a beacon for European and Asian shoppers. The numbers are hard to argue with. A Briton shopping at Oakley could buy a $120 pair of newly released Industrial M Frames sunglasses for 60 pounds. Two years ago, the same glasses would have cost more than 70 pounds. A buyer from France can get the same pair for about 80 Euros; just two years ago she would have had to spend 102 Euros.

    Lee Preston was lured to the Altamonte Springs mall in Florida because of the favorable rate, flying in from Britain for Black Friday last week. Showing off three expensive watches to his traveling companions, Preston said the dollar's woes have made his trip especially economical. "I'm sorry for you that the dollar's so low but it's nice for me," Preston told TIME. In the shops of Manhattan, British accents are almost as common as those from New Jersey.

    It's all part of the sinking dollar's mixed messages to the American public. Mark Bergen, chair of the marketing department at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, says the psychology of the falling dollar can be viewed through two different frameworks. For the pessimistic consumer in America, their buying power is depleting as foreign-made goods become more expensive. But for the optimistic economist, America is merely paying off the trade deficit and boosting its gross domestic product. "It can kind of shake your confidence a little," Bergen says. "It's just kind of a thing that looks bad. But when people are looking at the health of the economy, it can just help in the long run." Bergen says he doesn't expect trends to change anytime soon.

    At the Holiday Inn near the Mall of America Tuesday, Evie Walters, director of sales at the hotel, opened a big conference room packed with luggage belonging to Icelanders, whose patronage is especially popular here due to cheap flights and no taxes on clothing and shoes. Most of them, like Sigmundsdottir, come before the holidays and book rooms for about a week, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and leave with over 50 pounds of clothing and toys. "They're power shopping here every day," Walters says. Many interviewed after Black Friday say they spent upwards of $5,000 each.

    Although U.S. consumers are feeling the pinch of the waning dollar, both domestically and abroad, the American seller's ear is keen to accented English. At the Mall of America, the number of international visitors has jumped 10% this year, according to Doug Killian, associate director of tourism at the mall. "We're finding in some cases that a shopper might need a pair of shoes, but because the exchange rate is so favorable they'll buy three or four pairs," he says. Sigmundsdottir said one pair of Puma sneakers costs the equivalent of $200 in Iceland, so she bought two pairs at the Mall of America for $89 apiece. "Anybody who's selling is going to love this," Bergen says. With reporting by Michael Peltier/Miami

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  • Should Fertilized Eggs Have Rights?

    2007-11-22

    Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2007 By RITA HEALY/DENVER
    An implanted fertilized egg. abortion
    An implanted fertilized egg.
    3D4Medical.com / Getty
     

    If Colorado for Equal Rights for Human Life and other anti-abortion groups can wrangle 76,000 signatures in the next six months, theirs could be the first state in the nation to vote on whether a fertilized egg should legally be considered a person. Despite resistance from abortion-rights groups, the Colorado Supreme Court on November 13 approved the ballot measure — 40 years after Colorado became the first state to relax abortion laws — giving a boost to a conservative political movement that has worked doggedly for decades to overturn Roe v. Wade. Colorado Right to Life spokesman Bob Enyart says, "Embryos are living human beings with eternal souls and spirits. You just have to refrain from killing one to see what a precious child it is."

    Voters would decide if a fertilized egg is entitled to the Colorado constitutional protections of inalienable rights, equality of justice and due process of law. But opponents charge that the proposed ballot measure is just another attempt to fight abortion and a particularly misleading attempt because the word "abortion" would not appear on the ballot.

    Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains says the proposal is "far outside the mainstream of Colorado." "By defining 'person' as any fertilized egg, the measure would call into question the legality of most hormonal birth control methods, such as birth control pills, as well as in-vitro fertilization," says regional president Vicki Cowart.

    It would also raise the questions: what would happen to embryos awaiting implantation? Approximately 400,000 of them have been cryo-preserved in U.S. fertility clinics. Unused embryos are sometimes stored for later use, donated to others or given to scientists, according to Barbara Collura, executive director of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association. "We support the patient's right to determine the disposition of the embryos," Collura says.

    But Enyart, who is also a Denver Christian radio talk show personality, holds up the Snowflake Baby Movement as an alternative: Don't kill any embryos; instead, encourage people to adopt them. About 100 frozen embryos have already been adopted in the U.S., says Enyart, who routinely steers his listeners to the Snowflake website for information on how to give an embryo a home.

    It's hard to predict how many signatures Colorado's ballot measure will attract, but what's clear is that the anti-abortion movement is fractured. Colorado Right to Life has a mailing list of 10,000 and a $100,000 budget but is no longer affiliated with the National Right to Life Committee — "kicked out," says Enyart. He explains that the NRLC has refused to back "personhood" for decades, citing the unlikelihood that it would pass muster with the U.S. Supreme Court. The "purists" of the movement are so opposed to anything that even hints of approval for abortion that one new coalition of anti-abortion groups took out full-page ads in national newspapers criticizing evangelical leader James Dobson after he applauded the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the ban on partial birth abortions. In their eyes, Dobson, who opposes abortion, had given tacit approval to the "regulated killing of the unborn" by giving the nod to a court decision that recognizes the legality of the procedure in general even as it sets limits to it. And this week in Washington, the same coalition, with representatives from 12 states, plans to announce a new national splinter group — American Right to Life — which will be headed by Brian Rohrbough, whose son Daniel died in the Columbine shootings and who has been an outspoken critic of the American "culture of death."

    Nationally, pro-choice sentiments appear to remain predominant. The Center for Reproductive Rights in October released poll results indicating that a majority of voters don't support government interference with "medically necessary procedures prescribed by health care professionals." The poll found that 55% of respondents wanted abortion rights protected by federal law. Still, anti-abortion efforts similar to those in Colorado are currently under way in at least a dozen other states, including Georgia, Mississippi and Michigan, while officials in two states — Montana and Oregon — have already given such attempts the official thumbs-down.

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  • A Last Warning on Global Warming

    2007-11-22

    Saturday, Nov. 17, 2007 By BRYAN WALSH
    Polar Bears
    In this image released by Paramount Classics, young polar bear Nanu is shown with her family in Arctic Tale.
    Paramount Classics / AP
     

    The language of science, like that of the United Nations, is by nature cautious and measured. That makes the dire tone of the just-released final report from the fourth assessment of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a network of thousands of international scientists, all the more striking. Global warming is "unequivocal." Climate change will bring "abrupt and irreversible changes." The report, a synthesis for politicians culled from three other IPCC panels convened throughout the year, read like what it is: a final warning to humanity. "Today the world's scientists have spoken clearly, and with one voice," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, who attended the publication of the report in Valencia, Spain. Climate change "is the defining challenge of our age."

    The work of the IPCC, which was co-awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last month with Al Gore, underscores just how momentous that challenge will be. The report predicted that at a warming trend of 3.6 degrees Farenheit — now considered almost unavoidable, due to the greenhouse gases already emitted into the atmosphere — could put up to 30% of species on the planet at risk for extinction. A warming trend of 3 degrees would puts millions of human beings at risk from flooding, wetlands would be lost and there would be a massive die-off of sea corals. Sea levels would rise by 28 to 43 cm, and most frightening of all, the report acknowledged the possibility that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which would release enough fresh water to swamp coastal cities, could occur over centuries, rather than millennia. "If you add to this the melting of some of the ice bodies on Earth, this gives a picture of the kinds of issues we are likely to face," said Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC's chairman.

    As if the potential consequences of climate change weren't scary enough, the IPCC emphasized just how little time we have left to try to change the future. The panel reported that the world would have to reverse the rapid growth of greenhouse gases by 2015 to avert the worst consequences. The clock was running. "What we will do in the next two, three years will determine our future," said Pachauri. "This is the defining challenge."

    That puts the pressure on the world's leaders to finally do something about global warming. They'll have their last, best chance next month, when energy ministers from around the world travel to Bali, Indonesia, for the annual meeting of the U.N.'s Framework on Climate Convention. There policymakers will begin attempting to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. "The breakthrough needed in Bali is for a comprehensive climate deal that all nations can embrace," said Ban.

    All the nations in the world will play a role in those negotiations, but their success and failure will come down to two countries: the U.S. and China. If the world's two biggest carbon emitters can agree to cap their greenhouse gas emissions — neither signed on for limits under Kyoto — we may stand a chance of averting the grimmest consequences of climate change. If they fail, then the IPCC has already written our future. We'll find out in Bali.

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  • Black Beauty

    2007-11-22

    The latest beauty secret from Japan involves some pretty dark science. Shu Uemura's new Phyto-Black Lift ($45 to $125), an anti-aging skin-care line, blends kombucha-fermented black tea and a black sugar complex that contains Pro-Xylane for plumping and reducing age spots. The best news: the stuff is sustainable.

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  • Students Want Guns on Campus

    2007-11-22

    (SAN MARCOS, Texas) — Mike Guzman and thousands of other students say the best way to prevent campus bloodshed is more guns.
     
    Guzman, an economics major at Texas State University-San Marcos, is among 8,000 students nationwide who have joined the nonpartisan Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, arguing that students and faculty already licensed to carry concealed weapons should be allowed to pack heat along with their textbooks.

    "It's the basic right of self defense," said Guzman, a 23-year-old former Marine. "Here on campus, we don't have that right, that right of self defense."

    Every state but Illinois and Wisconsin allows residents some form of concealed handgun carrying rights, with 36 states issuing permits to most everyone who meets licensing criteria. The precise standards vary from state to state, but most require an applicant to be at least 21 and to complete formal instruction on use of force.

    Many states forbid license-holders from carrying weapons on school campuses, while in states where the decision is left to the universities, schools almost always prohibit it. Utah is the only state that expressly allows students to carry concealed weapons on campus.

    College campuses are different from other public places where concealed weapons are allowed. Thousands of young adults are living in close quarters, facing heavy academic and social pressure — including experimenting with drugs and alcohol — in their first years away from home.

    W. Gerald Massengill, the chairman of the independent panel that investigated the Virginia Tech shootings, said those concerns outweigh the argument that gun-carrying students could have reduced the number of fatalities inflicted by someone like Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho.

    "I'm a strong supporter of the Second Amendment," said Massengill, a former head of the Virginia state police. "But our society has changed, and there are some environments where common sense tells us that it's just not a good idea to have guns available."

    His view is echoed by Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, who says campus safety concerns cannot be addressed by adding more guns to campuses.

    "If there's more we need to do, we certainly need to do that, but introducing random access to firearms is not the solution," said Hamm. "You have more victims, not fewer victims."

    Students for Concealed Carry on Campus gathered momentum after the April killings at Virginia Tech, where the gunman shot 32 people dead before killing himself.

    With the help of the social networking Web site Facebook, the group mushroomed and organized its first nationwide protest in October. The group says it is not affiliated with the National Rifle Association, a political party or any other organization.

    Like the students at TSU-San Marcos who were pushing Monday for a student government resolution on the issue, students at more than 110 colleges and universities went to class wearing empty holsters, said Scott Lewis, the national group's spokesman.

    "We're not proposing to arm every student. We're not proposing that every freshmen get a handbook and a Glock," he said.

    But he said students who are licensed to carry concealed firearms to movie theaters, public parks and other places should be allowed to take them on campus as well.

    Candace Soya, a 20-year-old student at TSU-San Marcos, said she fears chaotic shootouts. If someone decided to open fire on the tree-lined quad in the middle of her campus, armed students would likely make matters worse, she said.

    "It's not a situation where you can fight fire with fire," Soya said.

    But advocates pushing for the campus concealed carry right say it's not just incidents like the one at Virginia Tech that create concern.

    Campuses in higher-crime urban neighborhoods also pose risks for students, said Michael Flitcraft, a 23-year-old mechanical engineering student at the University of Cincinnati.

    He argues, like most gun rights advocates, that weapons-free regulations only deter law-abiding students, not thugs or mentally ill shooters.

    "Laws only affect the people who voluntarily abide by them," Flitcraft said.

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  • China Blasts US Security Report

    2007-11-20

    (BEIJING)—Beijing on Monday attacked a U.S. congressional panel's warning about Chinese spying, calling it "brazen interference" in China's internal affairs.

    The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in its annual report to Congress last week that Chinese espionage represents the greatest threat to U.S. technology.

    Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao, in a statement posted on the ministry's Web site, said the report "ignores the fact of China's progress in the areas of politics, economics, and society, is rooted in prejudice, and brazenly interferes in China's internal affairs."

    "We have already raised serious representations with the U.S. side expressing our resolute opposition," Liu said.

    China's response was typical in that it routinely denies any spying and almost never allows such accusations to go unanswered.

    The commission's report came at a time when trade tensions are more raw than usual over America's yawning trade deficit with China, which rose 12 percent last month to $15.7 billion on total two-way trade of $26.7 billion.

    China's economic policies create a trade relationship that is "severely out of balance" in China's favor, said the commission, which Congress set up in 2000 to investigate and report on U.S.-China issues.

    Carolyn Bartholomew, the commission's chairwoman, told reporters that "China's interest in moving toward a free market economy is not just stalling but is actually now reversing course."

    Liu's statement called the commission's report a "smear attack" aimed at misleading public opinion toward China.

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