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Amy Eddings of member station WNYC reports U-N Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke to the Millenium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders today. The gathering has been marred by protests over the exclusion of the Dalai Lama because of China's objections. In his speech today, Annan urged political and religious leaders to reaffirm the right to religious freedom.

NPR's Steve Inskeep compares the differing approaches of Presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush toward reforming the Social Security system. Bush favors a plan that would allow people to invest part of their Social Security retirement taxes in private stock market accounts. Gore opposes radical changes to the current system. He supports keeping all Social Security taxes in the federal system and giving people the option of opening supplemental retirement accounts.

Host Bob Edwards talks with Steve Goose, the program director of Human Rights Watch, and editor of a report to be released Thursday from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. It shows progress since the signing of the 1997 international treaty to ban the use, manufacture or trade of anti-personnel mines.

Using a variety of local sources, researchers have managed to assemble a 150-year record of freeze and ice breakup dates for lakes and rivers in such far-flung locales as Wisconsin and Japan. The resulting chronicle shows a consistent trend towards later freezing and earlier thawing that corresponds with other evidence of global warming. NPR Science Correspondent Chris Joyce reports.

NPR's Linda Gradstein in Jerusalem reports that Palestinian students returned to classes this week with something new in their school bags - textbooks written and published by Palestinians. Predictably, the new books have already stirred controversy over what they say, and what they don't say, about Israel.

Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr notes that the prospects are not good for any progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Soldiers in the Gulf War were exposed to a wide variety of agents including the nerve gas Sarin, vaccines designed to protect them from biological weapons, and the depleted uranium in tank armor. A report published today reviews the evidence linking these and other agents to the unexplained illnesses subsequently reported by Gulf War veterans. NPR News Science Correspondent Richard Harris has this story.

In France, protests over the high cost of gasoline have blocked transportation routes and forced gas stations around the country to hang "empty" signs, turning customers away. French truckers and farmers are decrying a forty-percent increase in gas prices in the past year, and demanding a cut in taxes that contribute to the high price of gas there. There are talks between the protesting groups and the government to reduce the gas taxes. Linda talks with reporter Jim Bitterman, who is in Paris.

NPR Diplomatic Correspondent Ted Clark reports on the second day of the Millennium Summit at the UN, where the focus is on efforts to prevent conflict, especially in Africa.

Noah talks to Terry DeGlau, Kodak Manager for trade relations in photography, about how he was able to get all of the world leaders at the U.N. Summit to pose for a group picture. The photo includes Castro, Arafat, Barak, Khatami, Putin, Zemin - 150 world leaders in all, never before photographed together.