The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MS. FARNSWORTH: Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Jim Lehrer is in Florida for the vice presidential debate. On the NewsHour tonight, a debate preview with pollster Andrew Kohut and Shields & Gigot, finding substitutes for blood, Tom Bearden reports, the new rulers of Afghanistan, two analysts explain, and the Dalai Lama's bridge between Buddhists and Christians, "Time" Magazine religion writer Richard Ostling has that. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday. NEWS SUMMARY

MS. FARNSWORTH: The first and only vice presidential debate will be held tonight at the Bay Front Center in St. Petersburg, Florida. The final touches were put on the auditorium as stand-ins for Al Gore and Jack Kemp checked out the equipment. The candidates, themselves, warmed up elsewhere for the big event. The debate begins at 9 PM Eastern Time. It will be carried live on most PBS stations. At the White House today, President Clinton gave a thumbs up to reporters when asked how he thought Gore would do tonight. That vote of confidence followed a White House ceremony attended by families of airplane crash victims. Mr. Clinton signed into law an aviation spending bill that provided $19 billion for anti- terrorism and airport security measures. It also designated the National Transportation Safety Board as the government contact agency for families after airline disasters. President Clinton said the new provisions would make flying safer.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The bill I signed today will increase the safety of our nation and our families by giving us more of the tools we need to fight against terrorism. We have pursued a concerted strategy against terrorism on three fronts: first, working more closely than ever with our allies to build a coalition with zero tolerance for terrorism, second, by giving our own law enforcement officials the most powerful counter terrorism tools available, and third by increasing security in our airports and on our airplanes.

MS. FARNSWORTH: The President said the legislation will also pay for hundreds of state of the art bomb detection scanners and for additional FBI agents assigned to combat terrorism. Bob Dole campaigned in Illinois today. He held a question and answer session with businesswomen at a suburban Chicago factory owned by a woman. He said government regulations on small businesses were too restrictive and costly.

SEN. BOB DOLE: We have regulatory reform. Now if you're a business and there are about 8 million women-owned businesses in America, and their biggest complaint is regulation, regulation, too much regulation, we need some. We want to protect the air, the water, the safety, all these things. But at the same time, we want some common sense. Regulations cost the average family about 7,000 dollars per year because somebody's gone to pass it on to the consumers. You know, you can't absorb it if you're in business. You've got to pass it on.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Dole said his administration would reduce regulations. He also said he might have a few surprises in store for President Clinton at their debate next week in San Diego. In Bosnia today, U.S. troops began withdrawing. More than 200 soldiers and military police left Bosnia for neighboring Croatia en route to bases in Germany. The troops were part of the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia known as IFOR. President Clinton promised the 15,000 U.S. peacekeepers would be withdrawn by late December. Today's departure came as other American troops headed to Bosnia. They are some of the 5,000 soldiers assigned to protect IFOR's withdrawal. The so-called "hover" force may be in the Balkans until next spring. The Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, negotiators met today at the Israel-Gaza border for a fourth day of talks. They focused on the West Bank city of Hebron, the only major Palestinian city still under Israeli control. Israel wants to modify previously signed peace agreements to get additional security for the 450 Jewish settlers living in the city. Palestinian negotiators oppose any changes to the agreements and today suggested the deadlock could be broken by moving the Israeli settlers from Hebron. Two Nobel prizes were awarded today. The physics prize went to three U.S. scientists. They discovered a rare form of helium can flow at extremely low temperatures without losing energy to friction. That finding has had applications to theories about the universe's earliest moments of existence. The chemistry prize went to two Americans and a Briton for discovering a family of soccer ball-shaped carbon molecules, officially known as fullerenes. The Nobel Committee praised that discovery as "fundamental," saying, chemists could use fullerenes to develop new materials and new medicines. The owner of the Fox News Channel filed suit today against Time-Warner, the nation's second largest cable TV operator. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. claims Time-Warner violated antitrust laws by refusing to carry the new 24-hour channel on its cable systems in New York State. The federal lawsuit seeks monetary damages, as well as a permanent injunction against Time-Warner's purchase of Turner Broadcasting System. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to a VP debate preview, blood substitutes, fundamentalism in Afghanistan, and common ground for Buddhists and Christians. FOCUS - DEBATE PREVIEW

MS. FARNSWORTH: Tonight's vice presidential debate is our lead story. Al Gore and Jack Kemp will square off for 90 minutes later this evening in St. Petersburg, Florida. This will be the fifth vice presidential debate since 1976, when Bob Dole, then President Gerald Ford's running mate, took on Democrat Walter Mondale. With the general election only four weeks away, we look now at the politics surrounding tonight's encounter beginning with polls and Margaret Warner.

MS. WARNER: For a look on where the race stands right now and what the vice presidential debate may bring to it we have Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Welcome back, Andy.

ANDREW KOHUT: Happy to be here.

MS. WARNER: First, let's look at the environment for this debate. What did Sunday night's debate between Clinton and Dole do, if anything, to the race?

MR. KOHUT: Not very much. It was one of those debates that confirms choices, rather than changes minds, and if you--there's a lot of evidence for that if you look at the tracking polls, they're the same at the end of the week pretty much as they were at the beginning of the--or before the debates. CBS, the "New York Times" re-interviewed people and a stunning 92 percent of the people that they interviewed said that the debates hadn't changed their minds. 2 percent said they had switched to Clinton, 2 percent said they had switched to Dole, so the net net of this is nothing. And then the other element of it besides viewers not changing their minds is that fewer--there were fewer viewers as we suspected, and the polls are indicating, fewer people watch this debate. Viewership seemed to be down as much as 20 percent compared to 1992, the first debate then.

MS. WARNER: Did the debate affect people's perceptions of the personal qualities of the candidates?

MR. KOHUT: Well, I think they did. I think Dole did help himself among those debate, viewers' favorability ratings for Bob Dole increased, his negatives went down, some of the Gallup Poll ratings found him, more people saying that he was honest, more people saying that he was caring. He was humanized. He humanized himself by his performance. The polls didn't ask who was the most humorous of the two candidates but he probably would have won that and maybe the pollsters can do that for debate too.

MS. WARNER: Now, Donald Rumsfeld, the Dole campaign chairman, was on Monday night on the show, and he said, getting the personal qualities up, those personal ratings up for Dole was very important because only then would people be open to his arguments. Is that true as a general proposition?

MR. KOHUT: Well, I think, I think so. Whether that happened, is another question.

MS. WARNER: Another question.

MR. KOHUT: But I think it is, because a lot of the failure that Dole has had as a candidate I think doesn't have to do with his message, has more to do with him as an individual and the way he's perceived, and so maybe he started something, but boy, there's nothing apparent in these surveys to say that, that this debate was, was crucial. So far, we've put it down in the non-event category.

MS. WARNER: No sign that Step 2 has taken place.

MR. KOHUT: No sign.

MS. WARNER: All right. Turn now to tonight's debate. Historically, have vice presidential debates had any impact?

MR. KOHUT: Well, historically, vice presidential candidates don't matter much and vice presidential debates matter less. I mean, I think the best example of that was in 1988 when Bentsen and Quayle debated; by a 59 percent to 19 percent margin, Bentsen was thought to have won that debate. Of course, he didn't go to become vice president and Quayle did as George Bush's successful race in 1988, so by and large, in terms of outcome, they don't--these races don't matter. They can matter in terms of the articulation of ideas and, and affect the general tone of the campaign, but not in terms of who won, who lost, or people changing their minds, that sort of thing.

MS. WARNER: And how does the public perceive these two men, Al Gore and Jack Kemp?

MR. KOHUT: Well, they perceive them very positively. We are in an unusual situation where the vice presidential candidates, in effect, have better images in a sense than the presidential candidates. Both men have lower negatives than, than the--than people at the top of the ticket. For much of the first term, Gore's favorability ratings were better than Bill Clinton's, and Kemp has a generally positive image. He's not known very well, but what people know about him, they like.

MS. WARNER: Well, briefly, what do they know or think they know about Gore and Kemp?

MR. KOHUT: Well, we asked people to give us one word that describes each of these candidates, and I'll use the words that came out of the mouths of our respondents, and the most frequently mentioned words for Al Gore was intelligent, good, environmentalist, honest, leadership, smart, quiet, of course, stiff is right there under quiet, but by and large a very good image, and Kemp has a comparable image. Football is still part of it but people say good, leader, energetic, okay. They're both defined in positive terms. They're both seen as centrists, and I think one of the interesting things about Gore is he has given a more conservative rating than Bill Clinton, not by much, but a little bit. So we're looking at two men that the American public like.

MS. WARNER: And though this, you don't think this will have much effect on this race. Do vice presidential debates have a big impact on how the public, the lingering image the public has of each of the two candidates?

MR. KOHUT: Well, witness Dan Quayle. Dan Quayle had an opportunity in 1988 to make him--to put aside the doubts that the public had about him. He didn't do that. We'll see what, what these candidates do in terms of presenting themselves in prime time to a big audience.

MS. WARNER: And Bob Dole's '76 performance certainly had a big impact on his lingering image.

MR. KOHUT: Well, it created this image of a tough, if not sometimes mean candidate, and he's had a lot of trouble overcoming it.

MS. WARNER: All right. Andy, thanks a lot.

MR. KOHUT: You're welcome.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And now more on tonight's vice presidential debate from Shields & Gigot, that's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and "Wall Street Journal" columnist Paul Gigot. Good evening. MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Hi, Elizabeth. PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: Hi, Elizabeth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Paul, you heard what Andy said about the debate tonight. How important do you think this debate is in the--in these elections?

MR. GIGOT: Well, it's the chance to speak to millions of people, so it's always important. People tend not to vote for the vice presidential candidate, so ultimately it's a lot less important than either of the presidential debates, but it's certainly important for both of the men, there's no question about it, particularly for Jack Kemp, who is not as well known as Al Gore, who's done this twice, remember. He did it against Dan Quayle in 1992, and then he did it against Ross Perot on the NAFTA debate, where he had a national audience and a lot at stake. This is Jack Kemp's first time in the limelight.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Anything to add to that?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, I think it's very important. I mean, Bob Dole said once, uh, I'll never forget the Dole-Mondale debate in 1976, and don't think I haven't tried, because it--it left a very lasting negative impression in a lot of people's minds about Bob Dole. That's where the hatchet man truly came from. So I agree with Paul that this is a big night for Jack Kemp. It's a bigger night. Al Gore has been Vice President. Being Vice President is a wonderful place to run for President from, and Al Gore I think is preparing to do that. Everybody agrees. And polls now indicate he'll have another four years to do that as Fritz Mondale, a former occupant of that office said, it's all indoor work and no heavy lifting, and you can go around and pick up party chits and all the rest of it, so it isn't a make or break for Gore, but for Kemp, it is the biggest stage, the one time in his career he's got a chance to speak to that many people attentively at the same time. I think it's a big night for Jack Kemp, and the impression for him tonight will shape not only whether he runs in 2000 but whether, in fact, what his chances are.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What do you think he needs to do tonight, Jack Kemp?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, for Bob Dole's sake, he'd like--Bob Dole's campaign would like him to be Bob Dole, uh, the original Bob Dole, to go after Bill Clinton, to slash him, to cut him, to expose him, to whatever. That is not--that is not Jack Kemp. I don't think Jack Kemp could do that effectively. Jack Kemp is enormously positive, enormously upbeat. You're around him, you feel good, you listen to him. He'll talk about the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln. The Republican Party on Capitol Hill, Elizabeth, has spoken with a somewhat exclusionary drawl this past two years, whether it's Trent Lott or Dick Armey or Tom Delay or whatever, and Jack Kemp is the Republican who really, truly believes in inclusiveness. Imean, it's more than a word. He reaches out. He doesn't appear, make public appearances without a major black figure with him, accompanying him. You know he's--I think they'll see a different aspect of the Republican Party than has been seen all year long, and--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you agree with that, Paul?

MR. GIGOT: Part of it. I think that Kemp has really two tasks. One is to, uh, make the argument for Bob Dole's economic plan in a better way than Bob Dole can make it. Bob Dole is not a man of words. He has a hard time making the case as well as it can be made. Kemp is the chief theologian of the Republican Party for the growth wing of the party, for tax cuts, for why they really are a universe--he believes they are something that can really help the average person. He can make that case in a populist, sensible way, and he ought to do that. The other thing is Mark hinted at I think Kemp has an obligation really to try to go after Bill Clinton. This is something that he's temperamentally, as Mark said, not suited to do it. He's an evangelist, an optimist. He thinks he can convert the unconvertible, uh, if just given enough time, uh, but the vice presidential role, especially if Bob Dole is not going to do it, is to go after the other man at the top of the ticket. And I can tell you, Al Gore is not going to be all sweet reason with Bob Dole tonight. He's going to mention Newt Gingrich every third sentence with Bob Dole. So, uh, Jack Kemp really, if he's going to do his--the man who plucked him out of oblivion some good, he's got to go after Bill Clinton.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, if, if Dole--if Gore is going to do that, do you think he's also going to have to bring up some issues in the same way that Kemp will talk about the tax cut? Is Gore also going to have to talk about the environment and the issues that have been really important to him?

MR. GIGOT: Well, I think Gore will try to do that. I mean, Gore is also talking--he has to defend the President, defend him, frankly, better than he did against Dan Quayle in 1992, uh, and he'll try to draw the distinctions that the Clinton campaign is trying to draw, uh, with--on the environment, on education. I assume Medicare will come up oh, several hundred times. I don't know. So, so Gore will definitely do some of that, but I think he's also there to try to deflect some of the Kemp attacks if they do come.

MR. SHIELDS: I think Paul's wrong. I think Medicare won't come up unless they talk about tax cuts at the same time. I think Al Gore is easily underestimated. Paul's right. In 1992, Vice President Quayle was relentless in going after then candidate Clinton and there was a real tension within the Clinton-Gore operation after that debate because there was a feeling on the part of may Clinton people that Al Gore had not been steadfast in his defense of Bill Clinton in that debate. But in 1993, I think it's important to remember, NAFTA hung in the balance. That treaty hung in the balance. It was up for grabs. Over the wishes of many people, the advice of many in the Clinton White House, Al Gore on the Larry King Show debated Ross Perot, who had doubled his own support in the presidential debates in 1992, and he crushed him. He crushed him. I mean, he was aggressive. He was tough, even mean, you could say, personal, and to this moment, to this day, Ross Perot has not recovered from that experience. It threw him totally off his game, and so I would not--I would not underestimate--I don't see any incentive for him tonight, any political incentive for him tonight to be tough or to be harsh.

MR. GIGOT: Well, I mean, certainly not to be harsh but to be tough, I do see an incentive. I mean, he's going to be competing in the year 2000 for the primary nomination.

MS. FARNSWORTH: I wanted to ask you about this. This is sort of a preview for that under the surface.

MR. GIGOT: Sure. Maybe with Dick Gephardt, who's a favorite of the unions and some of the Democrat Party partisans, and Al Gore needs to speak to them and say, look, I can take your case to the people, I can make your arguments, and I can speak for you, and that's a large part of--that's sort of the other Al Gore goal tonight.

MR. SHIELDS: They both ran--both Kemp and Gore ran unsuccessfully in 1988 for their party's nominations. There's a long tradition in the Republican Party of having to run at least once unsuccessfully. Ronald Reagan ran unsuccessfully in '76 before he won in '80. Richard Nixon ran unsuccessfully in '60. He got the nomination before he won in '68. Uh, George Bush ran in '80. Before nominated in '88, Bob Dole ran in '80, '88, and before being nominated in 1996, so I think in that case, in that sense it's important for, for Jack Kemp to take advantage of tonight. And I think it's more important politically for Kemp than it is for Gore. If Gore has a lukewarm performance tonight, it's not going to be devastating, but this is Jack Kemp's golden opportunity. This is his chance to grab the brass ring.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Thank you both very much. FOCUS - NEW BLOOD

MS. FARNSWORTH: Next, a new medical frontier is crossed as doctors begin experimenting with substitutes for human blood. Tom Bearden reports.

MR. BEARDEN: When people lose a lot of blood, replacing it quickly is a matter of life and death. But the necessity of giving the right kind of blood can delay vital transfusions until the person's can be typed and cross-matched. Injecting mismatched blood is deadly. Dr. Ernest Moore runs the emergency department at Denver Health Medical Center, one of the country's premiere trauma centers.

DR. ERNEST MOORE: It takes about 20 minutes to have the blood fully typed and cross-matched and available for infusion into the patient.

MR. BEARDEN: Dr. Moore is now testing a new blood substitute that can be given to anyone. It's called Polyheme. Some of his patients have had as much as 60 percent of their total blood supply replaced under emergency conditions.

DR. ERNEST MOORE: Thus far, we've found that this product works as well as bank blood in terms of picking up and delivering oxygen to the tissues, which is basically what red cells are designed for. And thus far, although the studies are very complicated and we haven't completed our studies, but thus far, this agent appears to be safe.

MR. BEARDEN: Polyheme is one of three blood substitutes now undergoing clinical trials around the United States. Blood substitutes will never entirely replace the real thing because they're absorbed into the system within a few days. If more transfusions are needed, whole blood must be used. But these products do appear to offer solutions to problems that have plagued medical science since the turn of the last century. For example, blood shortages; collecting human blood for transfusions goes on year round because blood only lasts about six weeks before it must be discarded. Demand is usually fairly predictable. But if a major accident raises demand or donations fall off, serious shortages can occur. That's what happened in Massachusetts last August. Blood banks issued urgent appeals for donors.

SPOKESMAN: [Ad] Please give blood. There's a life to be saved right now. Call the American Red Cross.

MR. BEARDEN: Blood substitutes may render these kinds of appeals historical curiosities. Substitutes can be produced in unlimited quantities and have a far longer shelf life than donated blood. Dr. Steve Gould is president of Northfield Laboratories in Chicago, which makes Polyheme.

DR. STEVE GOULD, President, Northfield Laboratories: The maximum storage period for a bag of donated blood today is 42 days. After that, that blood, even if it's perfectly good blood, has to be discarded, literally thrown away, and a large amount of blood in this country every year is thrown away because of the concept of outdating. Polyheme has a shelf life in excess of a year.

MR. BEARDEN: In fact, Polyheme is actually made from outdated blood. Dr. Gould says long shelf life would be a godsend to rural hospitals, where it's impossible to collect and store large amounts of different types of blood that expire all too quickly.

DR. STEVE GOULD: Blood is not always available, even, even for non-trauma situations, ruptured aneurysms, gastrointestinal bleeds, there are a number of large volume surgical bleeding emergencies that basically deplete the resources of hospitals that are farther away from the so-called academic meccas. A product like this I think would have a very important role to play in health, ease over some of the inventory problems related to blood management in general in this country.

MR. BEARDEN: Dr. Moore says he sees such occurrences with some frequency.

DR. ERNEST MOORE: For example, we had a young girl in a severe skiing accident from Vail Mountain who had a massive liver injury and consumed literally all the blood products in Summit County, arrived her virtually on the edge of dying from lack of red cells. Fortunately, she ultimately survived, but this girl clearly was on the brink of dying from lack of blood. If this product would have been available in the Vail hospital, then she clearly would have had a much more stable course.

MR. BEARDEN: Blood substitutes are universally compatible and have longer shelf life because of the way they're made. At Northfield, human blood is placed in these stainless steel tanks. The process induces the red blood cells to burst and the hemoglobin inside is separated from the cellular material. It's the cells that cause the recipient's immune system to react. Without them, there is no rejection problem. Hemoglobin is the protein that actually accomplishes blood's main job--transporting oxygen from the lungs throughout the body. But hemoglobin molecules by themselves are very small and can go right through the walls of blood vessels, causing other serious problems if injected directly. The challenge has been to enlarge the molecule to allow the body to tolerate it. Northfield's process polymerizes or clumps the hemoglobin molecules together. The process has had an unexpected benefit. It eliminated viruses like hepatitis and HIV. Dr. Richard Dewoskin is Northfield's chairman and CEO.

DR. RICHARD DEWOSKIN, CEO, Northfield Laboratories: It was not our design originally to produce a virus-free product. That was not part of our consideration when we began doing this in 1970. But the process is so vigorous, the destruction of blood so complete, the chemical modification so aggressive, that as a natural byproduct, it renders this product virally safe.

MR. BEARDEN: Polyheme has still another characteristic that may revolutionize emergency medicine.

Dr. STEVE GOULD: Blood has to be kept refrigerated. Polyheme in the hospital we keep in the refrigerator but it is perfectly capable of being stored at room temperature for a prolonged period of time which may mean that it has application areas where blood is not currently used outside of the hospital.

MR. BEARDEN: For example, in an ambulance, a helicopter, or on a battlefield.

MR. BEARDEN: It sounds almost too good to be true. It sounds like a free lunch.

DR. STEVE GOULD: Well, I think, I think one should be thoughtful and cautious about characterizing the use of this product. We have never, ever felt that this is going to be a replacement for all blood. This product we think will have an important role to play, particularly in acutely bleeding surgical patients because of the benefits I have described.

MR. BEARDEN: Two other companies are also testing blood substitutes. The Somatogen Company in Boulder, Colorado, is taking a somewhat different approach than Northfield. Instead of separating hemoglobin, it is literally growing it. Tom Keuer is vice president of manufacturing.

TOM KEUER, VP, Somatogen Laboratories: In describing our manufacturing process, I often use the analogy of the brewing industry. For example for the growing of beer, the use large fermenters, such as the one behind me, to grow yeast cells. In our case, we use bacterial cells in equipment that's very similar in design and scale, and bacterial cells have been engineered to contain the DNA sequence for human hemoglobin, and we grow the cells up to a certain density. We then add a small amount of the chemical to induce the culture to produce hemoglobin, and the hemoglobin is produced as a fully functional, soluble protein within the cells.

MR. BEARDEN: Somatogen's blood substitute is called Optro. Unlike Polyheme, which is targeted for emergency medicine, Somatogen is marketing Optro for the operating suite, according to senior vice president Bill Freytag.

BILL FREYTAG, Senior VP, Somatogen Laboratories: One way to look at the market opportunity is to examine where blood is used today. There are roughly six million units of blood that are transfused just in the United States alone to treat blood loss that occurs in surgery. The average cost of a unit of blood to the patient is nearly three to four hundred dollars each, so the numbers are quite large and staggering, in fact.

MR. BEARDEN: Freytag thinks the market potential is huge.

BILL FREYTAG: To be honest with you, I don't think any one of the companies that are involved in this enterprise right now have the manufacturing or planning the manufacturing wherewithal to, uh, to cope with even 10 percent of the market opportunity.

MR. BEARDEN: Clinical trials of these products will take at least two more years, but both companies are confident that blood substitutes will be widely available by the year 2000. FOCUS - REBEL TAKEOVER

MS. FARNSWORTH: We focus next on the South Asian nation of Afghanistan, where Islamic fundamentalists have just come to power. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has the story.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Afghanistan's new rulers are called the Taliban, and they've begun to enforce a strict Islamic social code which, among other things, severely limits women's activities. The decrees are so harsh that even Iran's new laws have criticized the Afghan rulers. And the UN Secretary-General has warned he might stop all UN programs there. The Taliban have taken over a country wracked by nearly 20 years of internal conflict and civil war, including military occupation by the Soviet army from 1979 to '89. We start with a report from Afghanistan by Mark Austin of Independent TelevisionNews.

MARK AUSTIN, ITN: On a hill overlook Kabul, these are Afghanistan's new soldiers of God, praying they say for peace and stability in a country that's known only conflict for nearly two decades. But below them is a battle-torn city where the fear of war is fast being replaced by a fear of repression. It's symbolized by the white flag of the Taliban militia, heavily armed religious students who patrol the streets, enforcing their vision of Islamic law. The penalties for disobedience flogging or even death. Their first edict, women must not work, must not be seen uncovered on the streets. Men must grow beards and pray five times a day. The only sounds from the radio, Islamic prayer and poetry. All music and entertainment is banned here. Television shops are being closed down, TV's and video recorders destroyed, tapes hung from trees.

SPOKESMAN: We will confiscate it and destroy it stage by stage.

MARK AUSTIN: At the gates of the presidential palace, we took tea with one group of militia men who told us their goal was a pure Islamic society, free of crime and corruption. But when we toured the palace, itself, they proudly showed us works of art they destroyed.

SPOKESMAN: The painting is against Islam.

MARK AUSTIN: After 17 years of war and suffering, what this city is now experiencing is the most extreme brand of Islam anywhere in the world. The Taliban takeover may have brought temporary peace of kind, but for the people of Kabul, it's peace at a price. These are the child victims of the Taliban assault on Kabul, appalling injuries caused by shelling and rocket fire. But their tragedy is compounded by the imposition of strict Islamic laws. 80 percent of the nurses and 40 percent of the doctors here are women, and now most are too frightened even to leave their homes. These are the hands of one of the city's top surgeons. She won't risk being identified but says it's almost as if women no longer exist.

SURGEON: I can't go to my job. I can't help my people because they said that the woman must sit in the houses, and they can't go outside. It's really bad for us. I'm very sorry, and I want to leave this country.

MARK AUSTIN: Many are already leaving Kabul. Aid workers say more than 100,000 have fled in the last few days. Reports of arrests and beatings abound in this city, and for the women here, the veil conceals the fear that children do not hide. The Taliban are urging people to say, but there's a sense of panic, and the exodus continues, leaving those who remain to come to terms with life under new rulers with new rules and an existence that many women here say is taking them back to the dark ages.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We now get the views from three native Afghans. Ashraf Ghani has done research on the religious schools from where the Taliban originate. He's now a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University. Spozhmai Maiwandi is the chief of Voice of America's Pushdan News Service which reports on developments inside Afghanistan and Zalmay Khalilzad was Assistant Undersecretary of Defense during the Bush administration. Today, he's the director of Rand's Greater Middle East Studies Center. Thank you all for joining us. Mr. Ghani, starting with you, who exactly are the Taliban?

ASHRAF GHANI, Johns Hopkins University: The Taliban are graduates of Islamic schools in Pakistan that adhere to very strict interpretation of Islam. In terms of ethnicity, they belong to the Pashtuns or the dominate majority group in Afghanistan. And today they control about 2/3 of the country, which is the southern part of Afghanistan.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Khalilzad, I understand that their fighters are young men, poorly trained. How did they manage to get where they are?

ZALMAY KHALILZAD, RAND: I think there's tourism for that. One is that since, as you mentioned at the beginning, the war in Afghanistan has been going on for a long time. A lot of the people in areas that were not controlled by the Taliban before were tired of the war. They had been living in conditions of anarchy and war, and they were longing for peace, and there was an expectation that the Taliban would provide security and, therefore, there was little resistance to them as they advanced. Secondarily, I think that over the past year and a half to two, they had acquired some skills that--in terms of operating in the environment that Afghanistan exists in right now, they scored a number of major victories because of some improvements in their weapons and in their technical skills.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Maiwandi, you've been in touch with them, as well as all of the leaders of the various factions. How do you- -do you have anything to add to how they achieved this control that they have now?

SPOZHMAI MAIWANDI, Voice of America: Yes. Based on our interviews with them, and based on our interviews at the Voice of America with people of the areas that they have captured, uh, they are enjoying popular support. Everywhere they went according to the reports we received people were very tired, were fed up with the atrocities committed by the commanders of the Jihad--or the political factions that were in power and some of them who were in your position, so that helped them. There was no security, no stability, no food, the roads were closed, according to these people, the popular support helped him.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And just to go back to something you said earlier, Mr. Ghani, you said, well--in the taped piece they said this was one of the most extreme forms of Islam, and who--who calls the tune here? Who calls the shots in--within the Taliban and are they all united? Is the Taliban united?

MR. GHANI: No. I think one has to look at the--the divergences within and among them, and primarily between those who are educated in these religious schools of learning who are interpreting now religion in a particular way based on largely in Indian tradition of interpretation, rather than one than that corresponds with traditional Islam. And then there's the rank and file who if joined the movement in the course of the last two years, and largely are from the remnants of groups that were fighting the Soviet army. These people--because of the popularity the Taliban could gain in terms of bringing law and order and freedom of trade and movement, or a secondary group, and as time would pass on, I think we would see divergences between the leadership and the rank and file who would have to adhere far more to the traditional ways of interpretation of Islam and Afghanistan than the strict interpretation that is really bookish interpretation.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Bookish.

MR. GHANI: So, Ms. Maiwandi, how do you explain the decrees, especially those banning women and girls from working in school, requiring that they be shrouded from head to toe?

MS. MAIWANDI: When our own interviews--I've interviewed a large number of Taliban, their spokesmen, and they're relatively high ranking officials, they are telling us that these are temporary measures. They do not disagree with women being educated. They quote Koran as saying that education is a must for both men and women. And about working women outside the home, they say that the Koran does not allow man as supposed to provide for a woman, and that's what happened.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Now you say temporary measures on the education of girls and so forth. And I also read that they said that the covering of the entire body might be temporary, but why is that? How do they justify that?

MS. MAIWANDI: I personally think they cannot justify that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But how do they justify it?

MS. MAIWANDI: They don't give any justification for hajab--they call it Islamic hajab, which is the dress code for Muslim women, and they say that they should follow it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Ghani, I read somewhere that the reason was because of the--they said that some of those rural soldiers that you just described had never seen women not wearing the hajab, except for their mothers and sisters, and that as soon as they went back to the countryside after everything was stable, they might relinquish--

MR. GHANI: I think one has to make two points. One is that traditionally Afghan woman participated in the agricultural labor force, and particularly the Nomadic society and conveyed the bulk of the work, and second that urban Afghan woman has been an incredible force in education and development of the country, so a justification by returning to the past really does not work. This is a new departure. This is not returning to original order.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But do you think it's temporary?

MR. GHANI: I do not think so. I think that if the international society does not come to terms to make it as part of the conditions of the transition and stability, it could be a long-term measure.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Mr. Khalilzad, does any outside power-- all outside powers, by the way have condemned these harsh measures, not just for women but also for the cutting off of hands of thieves and other harsh measures against men in the population but they have rejected the outside world's appeals for greater human rights understanding and practices--does any outside power have any leverage on the Taliban?

MR. KHALILZAD: Well, the Taliban are a movement--they're still in their ascendancy. They will be difficult to influence in the near-term by outside powers, but ultimately they will have to come to terms with outside world because the country needs a lot of outside assistance in order to reconstruct--reconstruct. The country's been largely destroyed as a result of this 20 years war. They need Afghan technocrats who live abroad to be brought back to help. They need foreign financial assistance, and I think they're also faced with internal military potential opposition from groups who do not agree with them in terms of their policies including their policies on women, so I think the outside powers, if they persist, they can influence them, although that may be more in the long-term than in the immediate future.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How much of the country do they control now, Mr. Ghani?

MR. GHANI: About 2/3 of the country. Afghanistan is divided basically between a northern third and a southern two thirds. The chain divides the Northern and the Southern part. And most of the Taliban forces are concentrated in the southern two thirds.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Maiwandi, the Taliban suffered a major setback today in the Hindu Kush, which is North of Kabul, where they are holding, uh, power. How much danger do you see--is there a possibility of danger, the danger of the break up of Afghanistan because of all of this factional fighting?

MS. MAIWANDI: That's what the northern strongmen of Afghanistan- -Rashit Dostum, who is ethnically Uzbek said yesterday if his powers according to the reports we get according to the correspondent reports we get from Kabul. If his powers, his forces get joined or get together with the ousted president's forces, then there will be very, very strong, very heavy, more offensive fighting going on, and the possibility of--and I'm quoting Gen. Dostum's spokesman of dividing the country or disintegration of Afghanistan would exist then, and he says that the country will divide along ethnic lines, linguistic lines, regional--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Regional lines.

MS. MAIWANDI: Regional lines. So that's, you know, the danger is reportedly there.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about the danger also because I saw that the Soviet, former Soviet satellites around there, tell me a little about that, and how much of a danger? Because they--tell me what's happened with them.

MR. KHALILZAD: Well, first I think there is a danger of Afghanistan becoming another Bosnia, ethnic conflict taking place there in a sustained way that could lead to its partition ultimately but as far as the CIS states are concerned--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The CIS being

MR. KHALILZAD: Republics that have become independent from the former Soviet Union, including Russia. They have an emergency summit meeting in Kazakhstan. Russia and Tajikistan are the most worried in the immediate future because Afghanistan borders, Tajikistan, and the Russians have some troops on the border, and- -

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And they think the fighting inside of Afghanistan was still over, or they think the Taliban might try to attack or what?

MR. KHALILZAD: I think both. They think that the--if the Taliban take over the border areas which are not now--are not under their control, they might increase assistance for the Tajik opposition, and therefore they're being forced border with Afghanistan. At the same time, the Uzbek government is concerned, that it--Dostam--I one day spoke about him--is gotten rid of and the Taliban extend their control to, to the--to the Uzbek border, so what you see in a sense is an internal civil war, and at the same time, and many great games are being played by various regional powers seeking influence by supporting one faction or another.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What are the implications of instability, the break up of Afghanistan, or fighting across the board for the region? I mean, does that have any implications say for U.S. involvement or other international--

MR. GHANI: The first thing that we have to recognize is that all the borders in the area were drawn during the colonial period, and any breakdown of a country will pose immensely complicated issues of adjustment of borders, for Pakistan and balance of power in South Asia. In Central Asia, among the republics in Central Asia, and then between them in Iran. Because of that there was a consensus, even despite the anarchy if the last four years that Afghanistan should not disintegrate, that its continuation would be a force for stability in order rather than disorder.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Well, we're just going to have to watch it and leave it there for now. Thank you very much for joining us. FINALLY - DIVINE CONNECTIONS

MS. FARNSWORTH: Finally tonight, strengthening ties between Buddhists and Christians. That was the aim of a recent visit to the United States by the Dalai Lama, a spiritual leader of many Buddhists. Richard Ostling, religion correspondent from "Time" Magazine, has our report.

RICHARD OSTLING: Normally, the historic abbey of Gethsemane, a Trappist monastery nestled in the rolling hills of rural Kentucky, is a retreat for Christian monks and lay pilgrims. SPOKESMAN: This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.

MR. OSTLING: But for six days this summer, a distinguished group of Christians and Buddhists from around the world came for prayer and discussion, seeking better understanding between the two major religions. Among the dozens of visitors was the Dalai Lama, Buddhism's best known leader. He's the spiritual and political ruler of Tibet, now living in India due to Chinese occupation of his homeland. During his long years of exile, he's traveled the world and become increasingly committed to improved relations with other religions.

DALAI LAMA: In spite of different philosophy, I think different viewpoint or different concept, all they have great potential to help humanity, to promote human happiness, human succession. To me, Buddhist approach is best, uh, to me. That's no doubt. But this does not mean that Buddhism is best for everyone.

MR. OSTLING: During the week Buddhist and Christians came together in inter-faith rituals such as this water blessing, drawing from both traditions. [Bell ringing] And each morning at 5:45, the participants sat together in silent meditation, following spiritual practices unique to their faith. Such inter-faith meetings became possible in 1965, when the Catholic bishops of the 2ndVatican Council issued a decree advocating closer relations with non-Christian religion. The Council said, "The Catholic Church rejects nothing which is true and holy in these religions." It was Christian monks who took the lead in carrying out that message from Vatican II. The late Thomas Murtin, a monk from Gethsemane whose writings brought spirituality to a worldwide audience, was a pioneer in reaching out to Buddhism. He met the Dalai Lama while in Asia in 1968 for the first conference between Buddhist and Christian monks.

DALAI LAMA: As a result of meeting with me, my perception, perception or attitude was it was Christian much improved or much changed, so I always considered him as a strong bridge between Buddhism and Christianity.

MR. OSTLING: Monastics from the two traditions are more likely to understand each other than church officials or theologians, says Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Catholic veteran in the dialogue.

BR. DAVID STEINDL-RAST, Catholic Monk: Monks as monks are interested in how other people practice spirituality and how other people are monks, because that's what we have in common with them, while bishops as bishops are not particularly interested in other traditions. They're interested in promoting their own. That's the institution. Now we are starting to ask questions about your experience and forget about the labors. It's more important to me how do you actually do it.

MR. OSTLING: Buddhists say they've learned about service to others in education and health care, for example, from Christians, and Christians are adapting spiritual methods followed by Buddhists. For the Dalai Lama, such practical sharing is more useful than debating doctrine.

DALAI LAMA: In India, and a thousand years, more than two thousand years, the--two centuries, a lot of debate between good Buddhist masters, Buddhist logicians and non-Buddhist logicians. Result, still--[laughing]--still--the argument is still there. So, so it is better to follow according to one's belief and, and practice, implement sincerely, seriously. That's the point.

MR. OSTLING: And he offered some basic advice.

DALAI LAMA: Eat less. [laughing] And then also, getting early morning, that's very good, that's excellent. Some people in the life in the city, it seems like the opposite [laughing].

MR. OSTLING: There is increasing understanding between Buddhist and Christian monks on spiritual experience. But there are important differences in the way the two faiths explain reality. Unlike Christianity, Buddhism teaches that souls are reincarnated over and over in a series of human and non-human lives. And Christians believe in one God, who is personal, all powerful, and the creator of everything. Buddhists do not accept that concept.

DALAI LAMA: God in the sense, infinite love. Then, of course, all is God in the sense ultimate good. The Buddhists again take that in the tradition, but then there's God in the sense, creator. Everything is created by that central force or God as a creator, that the Buddhists do not accept. The Buddhist concept is almost like, except creation due to one's own action. We consider the Buddha originally just like ourself, ordinary being, then through his own practice, meditation, eventually he became enlightened. So you also have the potential to become similar Buddha.

MR. OSTLING: Despite those essential differences, they have found common ground.

BR. DAVID STEINDL-RAST: Buddhists in some mysterious way throw themselves as one of the Christian mystics says over and over into that abyss of silence, which is, which is what we call God. But it's important to me for the dialogue is that the encounter with the ultimate which theists would call the encounter with God, is a basic human phenomenon, and we can trust in that, and we can talk with one another in such a way that we don't force anybody to use any terms that they don't like to use, but we can presuppose that we are talking about the same thing. So when you are not out to show that the other ones are wrong but rather make an effort to see how could they possibly be right, uh, every step you find we're really same, uh, trying to grapple with the same questions and trying to say the same things just in very different images and different forms.

MR. OSTLING: In the course of the Gethsemane meeting, the monks repeatedly discussed a very ordinary human problem, how to overcome anger.

DALAI LAMA: Christian practitioner, Buddhist practitioner, both, they realize anger is something negative. We have to overcome that problem. Then you see a different method. One you see the faith, God, and through that way try to work on that problem. Buddhism is another way, but it is the same objective, same purpose.

MR. OSTLING: Anger among nationalities is also a concern of the Dalai Lama.

DALAI LAMA: Two years ago I was in Southern France--

MR. OSTLING: The Dalai Lama came to Gethsemane as a monk but he's also the political leader of his people. Although he was once an absolute monarch, he hopes to return from exile some day as a purely religious figure in a democratic Tibet, but he fears for the survival of Tibet and Buddhism.

DALAI LAMA: Now that intentionally or unintentionally some kind of culture genocide is taking place. So my main concern is the protection of Tibetan cultural heritage--the Buddhist culture, which essentially I think in--was the peaceful culture--peaceful nature. So that culture you see can develop peaceful relation with fellow human being, peaceful relation with environment, so, therefore, it is that culture I really see some important rule in the future.

[MUSIC IN BACKGROUND]

MR. OSTLING: Christians and Buddhists alike came together to remember Tibetans and others who have died for their faith.

[MUSIC IN BACKGROUND]

MR. OSTLING: Although much still divides the world's creeds, the participants hoped people of all faiths will seek understanding and make religion a source of peace, rather than conflict.

DALAI LAMA: I describe this century as a century--could consider as a century of bloodshed, so our next century, 21st century, should be a century of dialogue.

MR. OSTLING: Out of the encounter at Gethsemane, that search for harmony is expected to spread quietly from monastery to monastery and beyond. RECAP

MS. FARNSWORTH: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, Vice President Al Gore and Republican challenger Jack Kemp prepared for tonight's debate in St. Petersburg, Florida. President Clinton signed an aviation bill authorizing $19 billion for improved airport security, and the first 200 U.S. troops pulled out of Bosnia after a year of peacekeeping duty. We'll be back soon on most public television stations with special NewsHour coverage of the vice presidential debate in St. Petersburg, Florida, and we'll see you on-line, as well as here again tomorrow evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Thank you and good night.