News reports say that federal authorities are confident that a top research scientist charged with creating new defenses against biological agents is responsible for the 2001 mailings of letters containing anthrax spores that kiled 5 people and wounded 17 more. However, in the wake of that scientist's apparent July 29 suicide, friends, colleagues and independent observers are skeptical.

Since Dec. 27, when Kenya's president Mwai Kibaki was pronounced the winner of a widely-disputed election, violent clashes have killed as many as 360 and displaced at 250,000 more, according to reported United Nations estimates. While the crisis has not claimed the kind of Western press attention given to the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Kenya's stability is important not only for African development, but for international security.