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INTERNATIONAL EDITION
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2012
109TH YEAR I ©2012 THE MIAMI HERALD
U.N. motion on Syria is path to war, Russia says BY ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY Associated Press
But other blue-diamond questions remain unanswered. For one, why are there any at all? “If you go in your local jewelry store, they’re not blue,” Post said. “We’re talking maybe one out of millions of diamonds that are found each year that are in fact blue enough to be called a blue diamond.” To better understand the blue diamonds, the scientists wanted
BEIRUT — A senior Russian diplomat Tuesday said a draft U.N. resolution demanding Syria’s President Bashar al Assad step aside is a “path to civil war,” as Syrian troops besieged rebellious areas with hours of shelling and machine-gun fire. The U.N. Security Council is set to meet soon to discuss the draft, backed by Western and some Arab powers. But Russia would likely veto any strong action against Damascus. “The Western draft Security Council resolution on Syria does not lead to a search for compromise,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov wrote Tuesday on Twitter. “Pushing this resolution is a path to civil war.” Russia has been one of Assad’s strongest backers as he tries to quell an uprising that began nearly 11 months ago. In October, Moscow vetoed the first Security Council attempt to condemn Syria’s crackdown and has shown little sign of budging in its opposition. Russia fears the new measure could open the door to eventual military intervention, the way an Arab-backed U.N. resolution led to NATO airstrikes in Libya. Some of the most intense violence Tuesday was in the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs, a center of opposition to the regime. Local activist Mohammed Saleh said he heard hours of shelling and machine-gun fire, and thick black smoke was rising in the distance.
• TURN TO HOPE DIAMOND, 2A
• TURN TO SYRIA, 2A
JEFFREY POST/NEW YORK TIMES SERVICE
The Hope Diamond being analyzed.
COLOR ME BLUE SCIENTISTS EXAMINE THE HOPE DIAMOND FOR CLUES TO ITS BLUENESS BY KENNETH CHANG
New York Times Service
The Hope Diamond’s 45.52 sparkling, steely blue carats make it the most famous diamond in the world — shrouded in mystery and intrigue since it was pulled out of the ground in 17th-century India. Scientists also look upon the diamond as a mysterious treasure but for different reasons. Rather than a few centuries of legend and curse, they would like to use
it to study more than a billion years of the Earth’s history. “It sort of gets lumped into this category of being really a piece of jewelry, a cultural icon, a cursed gem, whatever,” said Jeffrey E. Post, a geologist and curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, where the Hope Diamond is on display for millions of visitors a year. “It has a natural history that goes way beyond its human history.”
Last month, writing in the journal American Mineralogist, Post and his Smithsonian colleagues report the latest scientific tidbit about the Hope Diamond: It contains surprisingly high levels of the element boron. Scientists already knew that natural blue diamonds had a smattering of boron. It gives them their color and other unusual properties: The Hope, for example, glows orange-red when irradiated with ultraviolet light.
Israel sees narrowing window for Iran attack BY AMY TEIBEL
Associated Press
MICHAEL R. ROCHFORD/AP
University of Florida researchers hold a 162-pound Burmese python captured in Everglades National Park, Fla.
In Everglades, invasive snakes dominating BY DARRYL FEARS
Washington Post Service
Officials can’t stop invasive pythons and anacondas from marauding in the Everglades, Reed said; they can only hope to contain them. “We’re trying to prevent spread to the Florida Keys and elsewhere north.” The snakes were released by pet owners into the Everglades, where they started to breed. A female python can lay 100 eggs, though 54 is considered the norm. The study was described as the first to show pythons are causing the decline of native mammals in the Everglades. When researchers struck out to count animals along a main road that runs to the southernmost tip of the park, more than 99 percent of raccoons were gone, along with nearly the same percentage of opossums and about 88 percent of bobcats. Marsh and cottontail rabbits, as well as foxes, could not be found.
Every child learns this sad and basic truth about nature: The snake eats the rabbit. But in the southernmost part of the Florida Everglades, things have taken a really wild turn. Pythons and anacondas are eating everything. The most common animals in Everglades National Park, rabbits, raccoons, opossums and bobcats, are almost gone, according to a study released Monday. The snakes are literally fighting with alligators to sit atop the swamp’s food chain. In October, a 16-foot python was found resting after devouring a deer. “There aren’t many native mammals that pythons can’t choke down,” said Robert Reed, a research wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Fort Collins Science Center and a co-author of the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. • TURN TO EVERGLADES, 2A
N.J. GOVERNOR FIRES A ZINGER IN FEUD OVER GAY MARRIAGE, 5A
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JERUSALEM — Officials are quietly conceding that new international sanctions targeting Iran’s suspect nuclear program, while welcome, are further constraining Israel’s ability to take military action — just as a window of opportunity is closing because Tehran is moving more of its installations underground. The officials say that Israel must act by the summer if it wants to effectively attack Iran’s program. A key question in the debate is how much damage Israel, or any-
one else, can inflict, and whether it would be worth the risk of a possible counterstrike. Israel has been a leading voice in the international calls to curb Iran’s nuclear program. Like the West, it believes the Iranians are moving toward nuclear weapons capability — a charge Tehran denies. Israel contends a nucleararmed Iran would threaten its survival, citing Tehran’s calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and its support for anti-Israel militant groups. It also fears an Iranian bomb would touch off a nuclear
arms race in a region still largely hostile to Israel. Israeli leaders say they prefer a diplomatic solution. But — skeptical of international resolve — Israel refuses to rule out the use of force, saying frequently that “all options are on the table.” In comments Friday to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak called for even tougher sanctions against Iran and said time was running out for the world to act. • TURN TO IRAN ATTACK, 2A
HIGH AND DRY IN MEXICO
MARCO UGARTE/AP
Soldiers incinerate marijuana plants at an illegal plantation found during a military operation in northern Mexico. The drought in northern Mexico is so bad that it has hurt even illicit drug growers and their normally well-tended crops of marijuana and opium poppies, a Mexican army commander said.
OBAMA SAYS DRONES LIMIT CIVILIAN DEATHS, 6A
INVESTORS FACE MORE THAN 70% LOSS IN GREEK DEAL, BUSINESS FRONT
GIANTS HAVE BRADY IN THEIR CROSSHAIRS, SPORTS FRONT
INDEX NEWS EXTRA...............3A THE AMERICAS ...........4A OPINION........................7A COMICS & PUZZLES ...6B
2/1/2012 4:27:56 AM