Karzai Cabinet missing women's affairs leader

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai appointed a new Cabinet on Monday but left out popular women's activist Sima Samar, who was not reappointed to her job as minister for women's affairs and faces death threats.

Samar became a symbol of the country's proclaimed new attitude toward women. With Karzai in January, she attended President Bush's State of the Union Address as a special guest of the White House.

Samar was known as a largely secular feminist and critic of Afghan warlords. Her exclusion from Karzai's Cabinet raised concern about the clout religious fundamentalists still have in the post-Taliban era and the possibility of a backlash against recently tested freedoms for women.

She had been women's affairs minister for the emergency government formed Dec. 22 after the fall of the Taliban. A former refugee who ran a network of health clinics, Samar also became a symbol of hope for her Hazara ethnic group, which has usually been under-represented in politics.

But recently she has come under fierce criticism from Islamic fundamentalists and that have escalated into personal threats.

Only one woman now serves in Karzai's new Cabinet, Dr. Soheila Sediq, who was reappointed minister of health last week.

Frustrated by her ministry's limited powers -- she wasn't given an office for the first two months -- Samar had been asking for a different job under the new government. As threats increased, she told Karzai she would accept the chairmanship of a new human rights commission.

As Karzai swore in the rest of his new cabinet Monday, Samar was not included and her post was left unfilled. Karzai announced he was creating a new post, a minister of state for women's affairs, to bolster the work for women. But he said the woman he has chosen was traveling and had not yet been contacted to accept the position.

Fireproofing blamed in WTC towers collapse

NEW YORK -- Fireproofing failures -- rather the impact of the planes crashes -- probably caused the World Trade Center towers to quickly collapse, architects and engineers told a federal panel Monday.

"The insulation is going to turn out to be the root cause," said James Quintiere, a University of Maryland professor in the Fire Protection Engineering Department who analyzed the fireproofing in the towers.

Neither tower, he found, had fireproofing thick enough to withstand the fire's blast furnace intensity for two hours, which is considered the minimum needed for those on the upper floors to escape the towers. "A two-hour fire resistance is right on the ragged edge," Quintiere said.

The north tower, which had 11/2-inch thick fireproofing, fell in 104 minutes while the south tower, with three-quarter-inch thick fireproofing, fell in 56 minutes.

The findings came out at the inaugural hearing by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The nonregulatory group plans to use the hearings, and forthcoming investigations, to improve building codes and high rise tower designs.

In the case of the World Trade Center, said Roger Morse, an architect who specializes in the forensic investigation of building disasters, construction workers apparently failed to apply asbestos properly to some beams 30 years ago. He found asbestos had peeled off the core columns up to the 78th floor.

No asbestos was applied above the 78th floor, as federal regulations changed and prohibited its application. Workers on the higher floors applied a different fireproofing that was not as fire resistant.

Moussaoui wants lawyer's help

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Preparing his own defense, Zacarias Moussaoui wants a Muslim lawyer from Texas to help him question a government witness familiar with the origins of the Sept. 11 hijackers, according to court papers.

Moussaoui, who won permission from U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema this month to act as his own attorney, asked the court to let Charles Freeman help him question the witness and participate today in his second arraignment on Sept. 11 charges.

Brinkema ruled that Freeman cannot participate further until he files the appropriate paperwork.

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