Israel's planned military operation in the Gaza Strip has been postponed - but Israeli tanks and troops remain poised just outside the Palestinian territory. 

Israel Radio says Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer decided to put off the operation because leaks about the plans have enabled wanted fugitives to escape and go into hiding. Israeli officials also were said to be concerned that a major military operation in the heavily populated Gaza Strip could cause many casualties. Other reports say Israel now plans to launch only limited strikes in the Gaza Strip, rather than carry out a major military offensive similar to the recent operation in the West Bank. 

Palestinian officials have welcomed the reported decision to postpone the offensive. Palestinian cabinet minister Nabil Sha'ath urged Israel to call off the invasion completely and resume long stalled peace negotiations. 

Meanwhile, Palestinian radio reports that Israeli troops entered the West Bank town of Tulkarm Saturday and carried out house-to-house searches before withdrawing to the outskirts of the city. 

On Friday, Israeli troops pulled out of Bethlehem after a five-week standoff at the town's Church of the Nativity. The siege ended after 13 Palestinian militants wanted by Israel for terrorism were flown to Cyprus for eventual exile in Europe. Twenty-six others were sent to Gaza and freed. 

Some information for this report provided by Reuters.

 Mr. Assad flew into the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh Saturday and immediately went into talks with his Egyptian counterpart. Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah joins the talks later in the day.

 Mr. Mubarak, speaking with reporters before the meeting, warned that a threatened Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip would be very dangerous and would reflect badly on the Israeli people.

 The three major Arab players in the Middle East peace process are also expected to discuss a U.S. proposal for a Middle East peace conference. Prince Abdullah is expected to brief the other two presidents on his recent talks with President Bush.

 In a wide-ranging interview with an Arab Newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, the Crown Prince praised President Bush for supporting Arab demands for a Palestinian state. He said he is convinced there is no conflict between U.S. and Arab interests.

 At the same time, he said it is too early to say whether his country will take part in possible peace negotiations with Israel.
 
 

Some information for this report provided by Reuters. 

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has announced the creation of a special anti-terrorist police unit, as the hunt for suspects in Wednesday's deadly bombing attack continues. 

President Musharraf said $20 million will be spent on the new, high-tech unit to improve the government's ability to gather intelligence and prevent and investigate crimes linked to terrorists. He made the announcement in response to a suicide bombing attack earlier this week in Karachi that killed 11 French nationals and three Pakistanis. The bodies of the French nationals are to be flown home Saturday following a memorial service in Karachi. 

Police already have arrested more than 400 Islamic militants since Wednesday's blast and have offered a $33,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of three men who bought the car that was used in the attack. The French news agency quotes a senior Pakistani officer as saying five people believed to be connected to the three suspects have been taken into custody. 

Meanwhile, officials in northwest Pakistan say suspected Islamic militants fired a rocket late Friday at a building believed to be housing U.S. special forces in the town of Miranshah. The rocket missed the building and hit a sports complex some 200 meters away. No one was injured in the incident. A second rocket was found and defused hours later. It was the second such attack in two weeks. 

The seven Americans housed at the facility are communications and intelligence experts who are helping local security forces hunt al-Qaida and Taleban fighters in the Pakistan - Afghanistan border area. 

Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters. 

Israel's planned military operation in the Gaza Strip has been postponed - but Israeli tanks and troops remain poised just outside the Palestinian territory. 

Israel Radio says Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer decided to put off the operation because leaks about the plans have enabled wanted fugitives to escape and go into hiding. 

Other reports say Israel plans to launch limited strikes in the densely populated Gaza Strip, rather than carry out a major military offensive similar to the recent operation in the West Bank. 

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres had said the operation would target "centers of terror" in Gaza. 

Gaza residents have been stocking up on food in anticipation of an Israeli military incursion that has been widely expected since a Palestinian suicide bombing Tuesday killed 15 Israelis near Tel Aviv. 

Meanwhile, Palestinian radio reports that Israeli troops entered the West Bank town of Tulkarm Saturday, carrying out house-to-house searches before withdrawing to the outskirts of the city. 

On Friday, Israeli troops pulled out of Bethlehem after a five-week standoff at the town's Church of the Nativity. The siege ended after 13 Palestinian militants wanted by Israel for terrorism were flown to Cyprus for eventual exile in Europe. Twenty-six others were sent to Gaza and freed. 

Some information for this report provided by AFP and Reuters.

Thousands of demonstrators in Taiwan are calling for the island to drop its official name, "Republic of China," and simply call itself Taiwan. 

Former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui kicked off Saturday's march with a statement saying Taiwan is not a province of China, but an independent, sovereign nation. 

Chanting protesters carried placards stating "We are Taiwanese" as they marched to the presidential office to demand that the island's official title be changed to remove any reference to the mainland. The Associated Press reports police estimated eight thousand marchers attended. 

The demonstration was mostly peaceful, but at one point pro-independence protesters hurled rocks at a handful of pro-unification supporters who attempted to hold a counter-protest. 

The Chinese Nationalists took over the title "Republic of China" when they fled to Taiwan after losing a civil war to the Communists on the mainland in 1949. 

Under Chinese pressure, Taiwan has so far only been allowed to enter some world bodies as "Chinese Taipei." 

Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters. 

 Those honored at Saturday's services in Kaspiisk were 15 military officers and the young son of one of the dead soldiers. They were killed when a remote-controlled explosion ripped through a crowd of people in the Caspian Sea port during a parade marking Russia's World War II victory over Nazi Germany.

 Federal Security Service Chief Nikolai Patrushnev said Friday that several people have been detained in connection with the blast. He said the suspects were involved in past terrorist attacks and are linked to Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam.

 The Russian News agency ITAR TASS reports three suspects were flown Saturday to St. Petersburg for questioning.

 Officials say 17 of the 41 people killed in the bombing were children. At least 150 people were wounded - many of them remain hospitalized in serious condition.

 Dagestan borders the breakaway republic of Chechnya where Muslim rebels have been fighting for independence. The fighting in Chechnya often spills over into Dagestan, where small-scale bombings have been frequent.

 At the Kremlin Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and other top officials to discuss the investigation and aid to the blast victims.
 
 

Some information for this report provided by AP and AFP. 

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has urged the international scientific community to speed up research into treatments to help AIDS and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) carriers worldwide. 

Mr. Vajpayee told an international conference in New Delhi Saturday, the disease had reached alarming proportions in Africa and Asia. He says halting the spread of AIDS and HIV was an urgent national task that needed coordinated efforts from all segments of Indian society. 

Health officials say India already has nearly four-million HIV-AIDS cases, and could soon replace South Africa as the country with the highest number of people infected with the disease. 

Prime Minister Vajpayee says his government is willing to collaborate on development partnerships for a vaccine to combat AIDS in India. He says most international research has been devoted to the "B" sub-type of the HIV virus, which is most common in the United States and Thailand. He added that a vaccine for the "C" sub-type of the virus needs to be developed as quickly as possible to treat HIV-AIDS cases in South Asia. 

Some information for this report provided by AFP and Reuters. 

Robert Hanssen

 Authorities say the 58-year-old former FBI agent is likely to be assigned to a federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania which houses other prominent spies - including former CIA agent Aldrich Ames. Ames was convicted of spying for Moscow in 1994, and betrayed some of the same Soviet double agents as Hanssen.

 But U.S. officials say the Hanssen case caused unparalleled damage to the United States after he provided sensitive national security information to Moscow.

 Some U.S. intelligence experts have expressed concern that Hanssen has not told all that he knows during 75 debriefing sessions since his guilty plea 10 months ago. But other officials say they are satisfied by his level of cooperation.

 Hanssen expressed shame for his actions at Friday's court appearance, saying he was sorry for hurting so many people so deeply - especially his family. None of his family members were present at the sentencing. He is to spend the rest of his life behind bars with tight restrictions on his conversations with outsiders and with no access to computers.

 His betrayal has already had a major impact on the FBI, which has broadened the use of lie detectors and financial checks of its agents to prevent future spying.

 Under a plea agreement, Hanssen agreed to tell U.S. investigators all he knows to avoid a possible death sentence. His wife, Bonnie was permitted to receive his FBI pension and to keep the family home.

 Moscow paid Hanssen with two Rolex watches and more than $600,000 in cash and diamonds. 

Some information for this report provided by AP. 

Calls for Palestinian reforms are multiplying both inside and outside the region, as the Palestinian Authority starts to rebuild its infrastructure, destroyed during Israel's military incursions into the West Bank. VOA correspondent Laurie Kassman takes a closer look at the debate over how and when that political overhaul should, or could, be achieved, amid efforts to get Israel and the Palestinians to resume talks aimed at reaching a settlement.

Palestinians have long called for the elimination of corruption and mismanagement blamed on the Palestinian Authority. They also have complained about Yasser Arafat's autocratic style of leadership. 

But Palestinian analyst Ghassan Khatib, of the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, says the voices for change were silenced as Israel stepped up its attacks against Mr. Arafat, and Palestinians rallied around their elected leader. With efforts underway now to rebuild and repair the infrastructure, Mr. Khatib says, Palestinians are renewing their calls for democratic reforms. "This is a continuity of an old demand for reform by many forces and individuals within the Palestinian society," Mr. Khatib says. "It aims to force elections as an approach to reform and change, and also at strengthening the due process of law and allowing for an independent judiciary system." 

Palestinians are not the only ones calling for reform. U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher voices the Bush administration's view that reform is essential, both to building a Palestinian state and responding to Israel's security concerns. "As we look to all the things we need to do in the future, whether establishing the Palestinian state with the ability to have a government, as the president put it, or whether it's humanitarian relief - making sure it gets to the people who need it, or whether it's rebuilding a security apparatus in the Palestinian Authority that can actually exercise authority and stop violence and terror," Mr. Boucher says. "All these things require basic principles of transparency and good governance, responsibility and accountablity. That's what we're looking at." 

The timing of reform is a matter of debate, especially in Israel, which views a revamping of the Palestinian Authority as a precondition to resuming peace talks. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat an enemy, and refuses to deal with him. 

Tel Aviv University analyst Mark Heller says it is not just Israel calling for a change of leadership. "The background for it is the assumption on the part of the Israeli government, and increasingly in Europe and other parts of the world, is that there's not much chance of making real progress, as long as Arafat continues to be in charge, and continues to operate the way he does, and continues to pursue the policies that he does," the Israeli analyst says. 

But Palestinian analyst Khatib says accepting reforms dictated from outside would undermine genuine calls for change from within. And, he adds, accommodating Israeli demands would be the equivalent of setting up a collaborator-state. "This is completely different. The Palestinians are very sensitive about it. It's not practical at all to effect change by external pressure, especially if this external party is the enemy of the Palestinian people," says Mr. Khatib. 

Former State Department official David Mack says that reaction is understandable. "That's quite an understandable response. I think it's fair to say that Israel's interest in what they call reform is interest in having the Palestinian Authority responsive to them, but that would also be more effective, because it would be seen as more representative of Palestinians," Mr. Mack says. "I'm not sure Israel can have both." 

Mr. Mack, who helps run the Washington-based Middle East Institute, says effective reforms take time. And he cautions Israel to be prepared for the consequences of its push for a speedy overhaul of the Palestinian Authority in the current atmosphere of anger and frustration. "During the transition, you could see a popularly-elected alternative to Yasser Arafat who might be even less amenable to a negotiated compromise along the terms that Israelis are likely to push for," he says. 

State Department spokesman Boucher says Palestinian reforms must come from within, and stresses that Washington still considers Yasser Arafat the legitimate Palestinian leader and a key player in any reform effort. 

Laborious negotiations on a final document loomed over the meeting on children. The United States, reflecting its conservative view toward reproductive and family services, wanted no references, even implied, to abortion. It argued for abstinence as the main tool in combating problems associated with early sexual activity. Most other countries took a more liberal position.
 
 

Carol Bellamy

 "This is neither a success nor a failure based on whether it has an outcome document," she said. "It is a success or failure based on what happens after this meeting."

 National leaders and ministers from Wednesday through Friday gave progress reports on what their governments have done since a landmark World Summit on Children in 1990. UNICEF director Bellamy noted progress to date has not been very impressive.

 "If I might say, this 10-year record basically reflects less action than should have occurred over those 10 years," she said. "Lots of commitments back in 1990. More promises than action. So, if we learn anything from this, there has got to be more follow-up."

 The special session on children, and the document governments struggled over, focused on four main goals: promoting healthy lives for children; giving them access to quality education; protecting children against abuse and violence, which includes the recruitment of child-soldiers; and, fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which claims the lives of thousands of youngsters every day.
 
 

Wilmot, 16, from Liberia, testifies on the impact of war on children (UN photo)

Child delegate to UN Special Session (UN photo)

The headlines talk of tumult, riots, separatism and growing Islamic extremism. But the Indonesian reality is less ominous, say analysts who note the spread of democracy and the general tolerance of its people. 

They call themselves the Taliban and act accordingly. They invade hotels and cafes, seize the liquor supply and stash it away alongside boxes of pornographic videos. 

They are planning no party, says the Washington Post, but are cleaning up the Indonesian town of Tasikmalaya on behalf of strict Muslim fundamentalism. They are part of a growing movement to impose Sharia, Koranic law, on Indonesia. Their combined political parties now control an estimated 20-percent of the seats in parliament. They believe the future is theirs. 

Other Indonesians emphatically do not. They say the U.S. war on terror and, in particular, U.S. support of Israel has added to extremist numbers, but their growth is limited. 

That is also the opinion of Ralph Peters, a former military intelligence officer and author of the forthcoming "Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World." He recently returned from extensive travels in Indonesia. "The good news is that the overwhelming majority of the Indonesian people do not want anything to do with extreme fundamentalism. They do not want anything to do with factional or sectional violence," he says. "The problems are created by a minority of a minority, and we need to recognize that. Most of the population wants a tolerant, live-and-let-live version of Islam." 

There surely are Islamic terrorists in Indonesia, says Mr. Peters. Since it is composed of some 17,000 islands, it is a good place to hide. 

The U.S. military could help, says Mr. Peters, but it is currently banned from offering training and assistance because of the Indonesian army's brutality in East Timor in 1999. That is too bad, says Mr. Peters because the U.S. military promotes democracy along with efficiency. 

He cautions that Indonesia is too important to ignore. It has the largest Muslim population of any nation, and much of the world's trade passes through its sea lanes. 

Do not be put off by all the noise coming from Indonesia, says Donald Emmerson of the Asia/Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. That is the sound of democracy in an early stage. Released from the constraints of military rule, Indonesians are discovering their voice and celebrating their religion. "Since these 220-million people who live in Indonesia are 87-percent Muslim, it is not entirely surprising that democratization means a kind of manifestation of the Islamic religion in the political realm," he says. "To some extent, it is unavoidable. It does not mean violence, al-Qaeda, revolution, bloodshed, overthrow - no." 

Mr. Emmerson says he does not mean to minimize the violence that stems from religious zealotry, both Muslim and Christian. But he thinks the headlines are misleading. "Americans reading these media have, perhaps, an unfortunate, but understandable, tendency to conclude that the Muslim world is indeed a very violent place," he says. "That is not so in Indonesia. Indonesia, I think, has an admirable record of having maintained relative social peace among its many diverse communities, and I only hope that record will be maintained." 

Violence often erupts over local issues, but after traveling to many parts of Indonesia, Ralph Peters was struck by a pervasive sense of nation. "One of the real surprises for me, even on outer islands, was the degree to which people of all confessions identified themselves as Indonesians and saw the benefits of their relationship with the central government in Jakarta. We tend to focus, of course, on the violent headlines and miss the fact that this state is making it against tremendous odds," he says. 

Give democracy a chance in Indonesia, urges Mr. Peters. Do not find fault with every misstep. Keep in mind the impressive strides forward. 

In the 10 years since the collapse of communism much has changed in Russia. There is a new religious freedom, people can travel and do many things formerly forbidden to them. But one holdover from the communist past remains: the prohibition on the private ownership of farmland. It is an issue that stirs passion and controversy and one the Russia's lower house of parliament, the Duma, is to take up in the weeks to come. 

If it were not for the Russian flag flying atop the barn, the green pastures dotted with fat beef cattle could pass for any ranch on the American prairie. But this is Andrei Davidov's farm in the Kaluga region 200-kilometers southwest of Moscow. "I love my farm. I like the country. I like to look to my pastures, to my animals. .... I have good luck every day. I like it," he says. 

Mr. Davidov beams with pride as he brags to visitors of the cattle raising techniques he uses, techniques he adopted after a visit to farms in Canada and the United States. "I use North American technology. It is a very good system. Cows and calves go to pasture, eat all they want. I use really good methods for my farming, good quality pastures, good quality air. It is very clean. [I have] healthy animals," he says. "They are happy and I'm happy with them. They can pass on to me the profits." 

Andrei Davidov took up farming 10 years ago after a career in the military and a stint as a publisher. He took the proceeds from the sale of his publishing firm and began to buy land here in Kaluga from shareholders of an old collective farm. He now has over 600-hectares of rolling pastureland and some 150-head of cattle. He uses the Internet to order supplies, like his electric fencing, which he gets from the United States. Several small cottages surrounded by garden plots and apple trees are where Andrei, his wife Marina and some of their farm workers live. 

Andrei Davidov says he would like his farm to serve as a model for others in Russia. I have a dream when all Russia will be like my farm. We will be happy," he says. 

Mr. Davidov is clearly proud of his farm and he says he is making a profit. But there is a problem. Even though Mr. Davidov bought this land, he does not technically own it. He can farm it, but he cannot use it as collateral for a bank loan. And that, he says, is holding him back from expanding his operation. 

Private ownership of property went out with the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. All farms were state-owned collectives. Farm workers were paid by the state and were told what to grow and how much. With the fall of communism, that began to change. Collective farms were turned into "cooperatives" and divided up among farm workers, who were given property shares. 

The new Russian constitution of 1993 permits private ownership but does not provide the mechanisms to implement it. Last year the Duma passed a law allowing private ownership of commercial land. But when the debate moved to agricultural land, fist-fights broke out among lawmakers, and the parliamentary session ended with a number of legislators walking out vowing they would rather die than allow the motherland to be sold off to the highest bidder. 

Viktor Pleskachevsky is chairman of the Duma Property Committee, responsible for spearheading legislation on land reform. "Many people perceive a square meter of land as a square meter of the motherland," he says. "This affects the whole issue. ... In Russia for 80 years, for several generations people were not used to property. Russia has a different notion of property. ... Reform is to change the existing order." 

Mr. Pleskachevsky says such land reform is vital to develop and modernize Russia's agriculture and its economy. But opponents, including communist lawmakers and others, say foreigners and wealthy business tycoons will buy up farmland and squeeze out the average Russian. There are currently seven legislative proposals on land reform before the Duma and the upcoming debate is again likely to be heated. 

Anatoly Suyarko learned his trade in a Soviet agricultural institute and was well versed in running an old-style collective farm. He is now the director of a farm cooperative in Kaluga, down the road from Andrei Davidov's private farm. He says the changes of the past decade have been difficult. "The state used to take care of farmers," he says. "Then, they threw us out into deep water. We had to change first of all ourselves our attitude to work. We had to realize there would be no help, that we had to rely only on ourselves. There was something good about the old times. But now we are given freedom. It is hard. We have not really stepped away from the old system. We have not left socialism and we have not really entered capitalism." 

Anatoly Suyarko's cooperative farms 1,400 hectares. In contrast to the prosperous look of the privately run Davidov farm, the cooperative looks shabby with rundown barns, thin and frail-looking cattle. Mr. Suyarko and his colleagues would like to modernize, but like Andrei Davidov, they are having a hard time getting loans from the bank. 

As things now stand, both so-called private farmers and cooperatives depend on the support of local officials. Valery Krutikov is the head of administration in this area of Kaluga district. He strongly supports land reform because he says the welfare of the farmers cannot be left to any one individual. "The situation cannot be tied to a good or bad governor, good or bad president, general secretary or czar," he says. "The goal is to create a legal base, rules of the game by which everybody will play from the president down to the common worker in the village." 

Russia has more than 400-million hectares of farmland, that is close to 24-percent of the country's total landmass. But for Russians, the issue of land goes straight to the heart. 

That, of course, is why the members of the Duma are finding it so difficult to reform the land code. They must do it in a way that gives farmers an incentive to make improvements on their land, but they must also find a way to persuade other Russians that their motherland remains theirs. 

A dispute among Japanese Americans is seeing a partial resolution this weekend, as a national organization apologizes to men who resisted military service during the Second World War. A ceremony Saturday may help heal a rift that has lasted almost 60 years.

 Frank Emi, a second-generation Japanese American, spent much of the Second World War in an internment camp with his family. He was held with more than 100,000 fellow Japanese-Americans, two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, under an order signed by President Roosevelt in 1942. 

In 1944, the young men in the camps became subject to the draft into the U.S. Army. They were asked to sign a loyalty oath, but two questions on the form bothered Mr. Emi. One asked if he was willing to serve in the armed forces, and he said he was not as long as he was unjustly incarcerated. Another asked if he would forswear any loyalty to the emperor of Japan. As a U.S. citizen, he considered the question insulting. He wrote on the form, "Under the present conditions, I am unable to answer these questions." "It was unbelievable," he says. "We didn't think that was very fair."

 Mr. Emi was married with two children and not subject to being inducted into the army. But he helped form a group of war resisters at his internment camp in Heart Mountain, Wyoming. It was known as the Fair Play Committee. His actions would lead to a court conviction for conspiracy. The conviction was later overturned, but not before he had served a term in prison. More than 300 people in eight internment camps refused to enter the army, and many were jailed. Saturday, the organization that once called the men disloyal is apologizing at a ceremony in San Francisco.

 Japanese-American filmmaker Frank Abe has chronicled the dispute in a documentary called "Conscience and the Constitution." He says young men in the camps were divided over military service. "Many of them were glad to serve. They wanted to show that they were just as American as anyone else," he says. "And to take some active role in the war, and that's as it should be. But a smaller number chose a different battlefield for their fight. And that was by going to court in an attempt to clarify their rights as U.S. citizens, to clarify their U.S. citizenship, in fact."
 
 

Courtesy: Resisters.com

 The resisters were reviled as traitors by some and later largely ignored in Japanese American histories. But some in the community thought they were owed an apology. Former internee Paul Tsuneishi is a member of the Japanese-American Citizens League, the group that once condemned the war resisters. An army veteran himself, he notes that a number of veteran groups now understand the wartime protests. "All together there are four Japanese American veterans organizations which passed resolutions recognizing as a matter of principle, that those who resisted the draft had a right to their stand on constitutional grounds," he says.
 
 

Paul Tsuneishi, in front of a picture of the Heart Mountain, Wyoming, internment camp VOA Photo - M. O'Sullivan

 Mr. Ishii says an apology is unfair to those who were killed or maimed while fighting for their country. A Japanese-American regiment, the 442nd, was the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in U.S. military history.

 Paul Tsuneishi says resisters like Frank Emi were fighting in their own way for the U.S. constitution, which guarantees political freedoms. He says the Japanese-American Citizens League, as a civil rights organization, has come to realize that. 

Two Northwestern students place flowers in a vase in honor of the cadavers they dissected this year in anatomy lab VOA Photo - M. Leland

Some students sang, others danced or read poetry, all to say thank you to the 36-individuals who donated their bodies to research and wound up in the anatomy lab at Northwestern's School of Medicine. Jonathan Newman was among the first-year medical students at this year's Anatomy Closing Ceremony. It is a large gift to receive as we grow into future physicians, and we are indebted to the donors who will be remembered here today," he says.
 
 

Dr. Larry Cochard, professor and director of the anatomy lab at Northwestern's School of Medicine VOA Photo - M. Leland

 The ceremony is also a way of marking the end of the students' first year of medical school. Medical professor Douglas Reifler said the cadavers taught students more than human anatomy. "At the most physical level, you must learn not to flinch, vomit or pass out when you face vivid details of human anatomy or pathology," he said.

 Several students offered memorials in the form of essays or poetry. Vivien Leung recalled her first human dissection. "So I watched someone else make the first cut into leathery skin, and I watched myself all detached and scientific," she said. "I wondered in the back of my mind: does this make me something of a monster?"
 
 

Student Claude Jarrett VOA Photo - M. Leland

 He said this year of studying anatomy has been an amazing experience, and he is thankful for those whose donations made it possible. "It is kind of tough to learn this part of medicine from the textbooks, like other parts of medicine. So, this is a great deed that these people were able to do in order to give us this opportunity," he said.

 At the ceremony, the students for the first time learned the names of the cadavers they had studied since last October. The ceremony closed with the students saying those names aloud, and placing flowers into a single vase on the auditorium stage.