Jockstrip: The world as we know it

NEWS OF OTHER LIFE FORMS

Top executives of bankrupt energy giant Enron Corp. should be made to pay and suffer for their losses, say former employees of the company who testified in the U.S. Senate.

One of them, 61-year-old retiree Janice Farmer, told the Senate Judiciary Committee she had $700,000 in her 401(k) plan, with 100 percent of her pension fund going into Enron shares. She is left with $20,000 from her Enron stock and Social Security for retirement.

Farmer was particularly bitter toward the company's top brass who continued to tout Enron shares to investors until late last autumn, while they themselves had dumped the company's stocks earlier in 2001.

Nearly 20,000 workers lost nearly $1 billion after Enron filed for bankruptcy on Dec. 2,

The judiciary committee is endeavoring to make the Enron executives pay for their employees' losses. Most of the top brass of the company including former heads Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling made out with the bulk of their assets intact.

Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democrat from Delaware, said white-collar criminals were the least likely to be punished of all those who break the law. He said that while car thieves can get up to 10 years in prison, those swindling pensioners would only get a maximum of one year behind bars.

TODAY'S SIGN THE WORLD IS ENDING

It happened three times in the last century -- and nearly again in 1997. Experts say that another killer flu epidemic is brewing, the Web site WebMD reports.

Will it emerge to kill millions -- as did the 1918 Spanish flu? Or will it be nipped in the bud, as in the 1997 emergence of chicken flu in humans?

A report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says flu viruses similar to the killer 1997 strain reappeared in Hong Kong in 2001.

"We don't want this in humans or the world will be in deep, deep trouble," said Dr. Robert G. Webster director of the World Health Organization.

It is going to happen sooner or later, and authorities are not stockpiling effective drugs, Webster said.

While none of the 2001 or 2002 viruses infected humans, they had acquired dangerous new genes. Lab mice exposed to some of these viruses quickly developed brain infections and died.

Flu viruses can change their genes to become more infectious and more deadly to humans and, according to the report, the potentially deadly Hong Kong flu virus known as H5N1 has been shifting in alarming ways.

"This time, this virus has picked up a whole set of new internal genes but the key question is, 'What is the potential for humans?'" Webster asked.

If this virus mates with a virus that allows it to spread from human to human, it would be of great worry, he said.

(Thanks to UPI Senior Business Correspondent Shihoko Goto.)

AND FINALLY, TODAY'S UPLIFTING STORY

A robber in Romania wants to save a woman needing a kidney transplant after a dream told him his tissue was compatible.

Dorel Vidican wants prison authorities to allow him to be tested by doctors treating Diana Moldovan, the Web site Ananova reports.

The 30-year-old inmate had read about her plight while serving three years for robbery at the Bistrita Penitentiary but thought nothing of it.

However, he said, he later dreamed his kidney could save her.

Tissues tests have proved his kidney is compatible and he has agreed to a transplant.

It will be the first time a serving prisoner has donated an organ for transplant in Romania -- if prison authorities allow it to happen.

"I learned about Diana's condition from a short report in a newspaper and made up my mind to try and help after my dream. I really wanted to do something good to make up for my past mistakes," Vidican said.