The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, our summary of the news, then a report on the filibuster countdown in the U.S. Senate, a confrontation between a U.S. Senate committee and a member of the British parliament, the hot real estate market in southern California and elsewhere, a rare look inside Syria, and the latest on the search for ways to prevent and treat cancer.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The U.S. Senate passed a highway bill today that could trigger the president's first veto. It totaled $295 billion over six years. That's $11 billion more than President Bush wanted. A White House spokesman warned again today it's too large. The Senate bill still has to be reconciled with a smaller house version. The highway vote cleared the way for a Senate showdown on judicial nominees. Majority Leader Frist said starting tomorrow he'll bring up the contested nominations of Priscilla Owen, and Janice Rogers Brown. Both were picked for federal appeals courts. Democrats said both are too extreme. They warned they'd filibuster. Republicans said they'd move to change Senate rules to prevent that. We'll have more on this story right after this News Summary. A British lawmaker today rejected U.S. allegations he profited from illegal sales of Iraqi oil. George Galloway appeared before a Senate subcommittee in Washington. He denied taking allocations of oil from Saddam Hussein in the U.N. Oil-for-food program. Instead, he blasted his Senate critics. Afterward, Galloway and subcommittee chairman Norm Coleman of Minnesota had sharply different assessments.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: I thought that I established what I intended to establish, namely that the rest of the world doesn't see things the way they are seen from inside the bubble of the neo con right wing Republican power here in washington.

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: This wasn't a wrestling match. I had one goal in this, and that was to simply make a record. I think we did that. Again, I think that Mr. Galloway's credibility is certainly very, very suspect. And if, in fact, he lied to this committee, then there will have to be consequences to that.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have excerpts from today's hearing right after this News Summary. U.S. forces in Iraq fought with militants in Mosul today. The troops came under fire and called in attack helicopters. The police commander in Mosul said the militants had fled to the city from Kime, near the border with Syria. The U.S. conducted an offensive in that region all last week. The Mosul police said 20 militants were killed today. The U.S. Military reported no deaths, but one American was killed in Tikrit. And three Iraqi clerics were found dead in Baghdad. The sentencing hearing began today for another U.S. Soldier in the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal. A military jury convicted army specialist Sabrina Harmon last night at Fort Hood, Texas. She appeared in some of the photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib Prison, and took others. She was also involved in threatening a hooded prisoner with electrocution. Harman could get five and a half years inmilitary prison. The U.S. Government has begun efforts to minimize damage from a story on the Muslim Quran. On Monday, Newsweek retracted its report that U.S. interrogators defiled the Quran at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Overnight, the State Department issued a statement worldwide, saying, "Disrespect of the holy Quran is not the policy of the United States." Violent protests erupted in Afghanistan after the story came to light. At the Pentagon today, Spokesman Larry DiRrita warned it won't end there.

LARRY DiRITA: Detainees and their lawyers will make all kinds of charges. We recognize that. And, in fact, in their own training manuals they say here's what we'll do if we ever get into a court. We allege torture. We allege abuse. We allege all kinds of things to influence public opinion. That's happening. When articles like the Newsweek article come out and it's unsubstantiated and it turns out false, it will encourage other people to do the same thing.

JIM LEHRER: DiRita acknowledged earlier allegations the Quran was desecrated at Guantanamo. He said they were not considered credible. The government of Uzbekistan today defended its actions in last week's violence. The country's top prosecutor said 169 people were killed in eastern Uzbekistan, including 32 security troops. He said, "Not a single civilian was killed by government forces. Only terrorists were liquidated." Opposition groups said just the opposite, and they estimated the number of dead could top 700. Fidel Castro headed a huge anti- U.S. rally in Havana today. He led thousands past the American mission. They demanded the U.S. arrest a Cuban exile seeking asylum in Miami. Luis Posada Carriles is wanted in Cuba for an airline bombing in 1976 that killed 73 people. Late today, U.S. authorities took him into custody. They now have 48 hours to decide his status. Voters in Los Angeles went to the polls to decide who will be mayor. City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa aimed to become the city's first Latino mayor in more than a century. He faced incumbent Mayor James Hahn, who's been behind in recent polls. The two Democrats also faced each other in the 2001 election. The United States formally warned China today to stop pegging its currency to the dollar or face possible sanctions. American businesses have said China's policy makes its goods cheaper here and U.S. goods more expensive in China. The warning helped Wall Street late in the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 79 points to close above 10,331. The NASDAQ rose more than nine points to close at 2004. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the coming of the filibuster, an oil-for-food confrontation, the real estate boom, from inside Syria, and the latest from the cancer wars.

UPDATE - SENATE SHOWDOWN

JIM LEHRER: Kwame Holman has our report on the eve of the Senate's big filibuster showdown.

KWAME HOLMAN: This afternoon, Majority Leader Bill Frist brought before cameras two of the president's re-nominated judicial nominees, Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen and California Justice Janice Rogers Brown. Democrats blocked both candidates when President Bush nominated them during his first term by using the filibuster. But this time, Frist is determined to see they get a vote on the Senate floor.

SEN. BILL FRIST: All of which we feel as we look at the circuit courts and the Supreme Court deserve a fair up-or-down vote, confirm or reject, yes or no, up or down.

KWAME HOLMAN: Frist, expecting he'll have 49 Republican votes to back him up, has vowed to strip Democrats of their right to filibuster judicial nominees. That change in Senate rules, dubbed the "nuclear option," would permit judicial confirmations by a simple majority vote. This morning New Mexico Democrat Jeff Bingaman said he believed Sen. Frist already had the votes needed to thwart the minority.

SEN. JEFF BINGAMAN: Well, my impression is the majority leader would not be pushing this to a head unless he felt he had the votes to win.

KWAME HOLMAN: Democrats, in turn, have vowed to slow Senate business to a crawl, using procedural maneuvers. Frist criticized that threat again this afternoon.

SEN. BILL FRIST: They said they're going to shut down government. So if we vote on Priscilla Owen or if we vote on Janice Rogers Brown or we vote on Pryor, to me that's unreasonable.

KWAME HOLMAN: Sen. Frist and his Democratic counterpart Harry Reid called off their efforts to reach a compromise last night.

SEN. HARRY REID: If you're involved in an athletic contest, let's say a boxing match, and you've trained, you've done everything you could to be as good as you can be and you go out there and are ready to fight, you feel pretty good about yourself. That's how I feel about our caucus. We've done everything that we could.

KWAME HOLMAN: Arizona's Jon Kyl serves in the Republican leadership.

SEN. JON KYL: Well, they've tried very hard. I think both leaders have tried to come to an accommodation but there's a matter of principle involved. I think both sides look at it that way. From Leader Frist's side all of these judges deserve an up-or-down vote. And the other side wanted us to pick and choose and let some of them be voted on but not others. And that's kind of a matter of principle. And so it's tough to compromise on that.

KWAME HOLMAN: Delaware Democrat Joseph Biden said Frist never negotiated in good faith.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: The only thing I'm aware that Mr. Frist has offered is 100 hours of debate. We can do that anyway. I mean, that's not relevant. I think it seems to me that Dr. Frist has concluded that it's in his interest, win or lose, to make this fight. And so I'm not second-guessing that, but that appears to be the reason to me why there's no willingness to compromise at all.

KWAME HOLMAN: Meanwhile, two members, Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson and Arizona Republican John McCain haven't given up hope. Under their proposal, a group of Republicans would agree not to outlaw the filibuster between now and 2006. A group of Democrats would commit not to filibuster President Bush's Appeals Court or Supreme Court nominees during that same period, except in "extreme circumstances." Support of at least six senators from each side would be required.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: We should be able to work this out. There should be a compromise out there that allows votes on most of the judges.

KWAME HOLMAN: This evening Senators McCain, Nelson and several others from both parties convinced Leaders Frist and Reid to sit down with them in a closed door meeting. It's an apparent last ditch attempt to find common ground on the president's judicial nominees before Sen. Frist brings the first of them to the Senate floor tomorrow. Afterward no progress was reported.

FOCUS

JIM LEHRER: The U.S. Senate was the scene of another kind of confrontation today, a most rare one, involving a British member of parliament. Terence Smith has that story.

TERENCE SMITH: The subject was the U.N.'s scandal ridden oil-for- food program, and on the witness stand was British M.P. George Galloway. Three Senate investigative reports charge that from 2000 to 2003, Galloway received vouchers to buy 20 million barrels of Iraqi oil at cut-rate prices, oil that could be resold for a substantial profit. Galloway testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee today, chaired by Republican Sen. Norm Coleman from Minnesota. Galloway vehemently denied the allegations.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader, and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf. Now I know that standards have slipped over last few years in Washington, for a lawyer you're remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice.

TERENCE SMITH: In Britain, Galloway is famous as a radical who was kicked out of Tony Blair's Labour Party for his opposition to the Iraq War and his sharp, personal attacks on the prime minister. Earlier this month, he won back a seat in parliament, this time running on an anti-war platform on the respect party ticket. In the 1990s, Galloway criticized the U.N. sanctions placed on Saddam Hussein after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Here he is in a 1994 meeting with the Iraqi leader.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.

TERENCE SMITH: Later, Galloway said he was talking about the Iraqi people, not their leader. Today, he contended that he'd met Saddam only twice.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: On the very first page of your document about me, you assert that I have had many meetings with Saddam Hussein. This is false. I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein: Once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as many meetings with Saddam Hussein. As a matter of fact, I've met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps, the better to target those guns.

TERENCE SMITH: Galloway continued his offensive against the senators.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies. I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims, did not have weapons of mass destruction. Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong. If the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we're in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smoke screens.

TERENCE SMITH: The questioning was terse, especially on which Iraqi officials and businessmen Galloway knew.

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: Middle East ASI, that was Mr. Zarikat's company?

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Middle East ASI is Mr. Zarikat's company. He may well have signed an oil contract. It had nothing to do with me.

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: I'm asking you specifically in 2001 were you aware he was doing oil deals with Iraq?

GEORGE GALLOWAY: I was aware that he was doing extensive business with Iraq. I did not know details of it. It was not my business.

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: So this is someone who was chairman of committee that you know well and you're not able to say that he was...

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Well, there's a lot of contributors - I've just been checking -- to you political campaigns.

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: There's not many at that level, Mr. Galloway -

GEORGE GALLOWAY: I've checked your website. There are lots of contributors to your political campaign funds. I don't suppose you ask any of them how they made the money they give you.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Certainly not at $600,000 American.

TERENCE SMITH: In addition to Galloway, the Senate reports also charged that Russian and French officials and a Texas- based oil company, Bayoil, allegedly profited from the oil- for-food program.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, booming real estate, inside Syria, and a cancer update.

FOCUS - REAL ESTATE BOOM

JIM LEHRER: There's a hot real estate market in many parts of the country right now. Both housing starts and sales have been strong. There was more evidence today from the Commerce Department, which reported housing construction was up 11 percent last month. Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles reports on one of the hottest of the hot markets in southern California.

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JEFFREY KAYE: With self-help preacher Tony Robbins kicking things off, a recent gathering at LA's convention center had all the trappings of a revival meeting. (Cheers and applause) Thousands came to a two-day expo hoping to learn how they could turn investments in real estate into personal riches. For between $30 and $500 a ticket, attendees could hear tips about buying, selling and trading properties. And they could get an earful from dozens of vendors, all hawking their own products and strategies to reach easy street through real estate.

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JEFFREY KAYE: The carnival atmosphere was a reflection not only of the booming real estate market, but the get-rich-quick investment fever which surrounds it. Nationwide, 55 urban areas are experiencing boom real estate conditions, according to a recent government report. Most of those boom markets are along the coasts. In California, the median price of a home has risen to half a million dollars, more than twice the national price. For those in the housing business, these are gold rush days.

MOHAMED EDLEBI: This is like maybe the most exciting things the last two years for realtors.

JEFFREY KAYE: Mohamed Edlebi is both a real estate agent and an investor. He left a high-end Italian clothing business to trade properties like this one, a San Fernando Valley home he bought for half a million dollars. In seven months, he's almost doubling his investment, as the offers pour in.

MOHAMED EDLEBI: I get six offers between 1:00 and 3:00. By the time I left my office... I left this house at 3:00. I arrived at the office, I have another five there.

JEFFREY KAYE: At Dilbeck Realtors in LA's San Fernando Valley, office manager Bonnie Strassmann says more often than not, buyers engage in bidding wars. She's seen as many as 30 bids on one property.

BONNIE STRASSMANN: Coming in full price is not going to get the buyer the house anymore. So the buyer definitely has to pay more than full price, and then comes, how much more? I heard of one the other day that just went for $75,000 over asking.

JEFFREY KAYE: But housing price inflation has put home ownership beyond the reach of many Californians. Only 18 percent of the state's households can afford to buy that median priced home of half a million dollars.

SYLVIE MADORE: We were surprised by how expensive a lot of the houses that don't look very good are, and the prices just keep going up.

JEFFREY KAYE: Sylvie Madore has been looking for a house for five months. She's made offers on six different homes, and has been outbid every time. The owner wants $800,000 for this property in Sherman Oaks, California. It's a three-bedroom house with a converted garage in the back. Madore's not enthusiastic, but she's learned that if she wants to buy, she'll have to compromise.

SYLVIE MADORE: We've been saving for a few years, and we thought we were at a point where we could find a house that we liked in the neighborhood we liked in the price range we had, and there's no way we can put all three together. So either we have to get a house we don't like as much in the neighborhood we want, or we have to get a house that's really nice in a neighborhood we really don't want to live in.

JEFFREY KAYE: One big reason for the housing boom in southern California, as elsewhere in the country, is low interest rates for home loans. On the supply side of the equation, prices have been driven up by a shortage of affordable housing. One reason for the shortage: Homeowner groups in urban areas often oppose increased density and new developments. Boom prices in cities are fueling a construction boom in the outskirts of suburbia. Developer John Young is one of the largest home builders in the fast growing counties east of Los Angeles, the so-called "inland empire."

JOHN YOUNG: In the state of California, we think we need 250,000 units built per year, and we're building about at a 200,000 clip right now. So what does that do? You keep adding that up for a year, in ten years that's 500,000 homes that we needed. So it accumulates every year that we don't build enough homes.

JEFFREY KAYE: Residents here put up with long commutes, often one to two hours each way, but home prices are half what they are closer to Los Angeles or the coast. Elizabeth and Rene Burgos are moving to a desert community, where housing is more affordable.

RENE BURGOS:$200,000 cheaper. And I know some over here are like a quarter million, a quarter of a million over here. But over there it's like, it was at $100,000, now they're going to $200,000 to $300,000.

JEFFREY KAYE: We met the Burgoses at a forum put on for Spanish- speaking buyers by local government. (Speaking Spanish) Educator Monica Nazar explained there is government assistance for purchasers, but she says enthusiastic buyers should be alert for scams.

MONICA NAZAR: Maybe they thought there was no pre-payment penalty and now there is. Maybe they thought it was a fixed rate and now it turns out to be an adjustable. And people are not knowledgeable and they are afraid to ask the questions, so they sign.

JEFFREY KAYE: High home prices have made it tough for some businesses to recruit workers from outside California. Since buying an affordable home is a pipe dream for most residents, Los Angeles has one of the lowest home ownership rates in the country. About 60 percent of city residents rent. But tenants, too, are facing a crisis. There's a shortage of affordable rental housing.

ALISON DICKSON: So right now the housing authority is basically just trying to duke it out with the owner.

JEFFREY KAYE: Activists, like tenant organizer Alison Dickson of the Coalition for Economic Survival, say real estate speculators are making a bad situation worse by driving up rents.

ALISON DICKSON: The greatest threat to affordable housing are greedy developers, people who are more concerned about making a buck than housing Los Angeles tenants.

JEFFREY KAYE: Dickson says one case illustrates her point: A 48-unit building in central Los Angeles. Tenants here have received federal rent subsidies since 1981, but the property was recently sold. The new owner has pulled out of the subsidy program and is raising rents. Tenant Kathleen Lindo, who is on disability, says she doesn't know what she's going to do.

KATHLEEN LINDO: Now I'm paying $305.

JEFFREY KAYE: And what will... and the increase will be how much more?

KATHLEEN LINDO: About $1,100, $1,200 more. So he wants that as of June 1.

JEFFREY KAYE: And you just don't have the money.

KATHLEEN LINDO: No, I sure don't.

JEFFREY KAYE: While Dickson is critical of the current owner, she is furious at the previous landlord. Ironically, that was the Union Rescue Mission of Los Angeles, which provides services for homeless people in downtown LA. The mission bought the building as an investment, held it for eight months, then sold it last year at a profit of half million dollars.

ALISON DICKSON: Union Rescue Mission, whose very purpose, you know, is to serve the homeless community, and here they are, actively, through their actions, fueling, you know, the fire of the homelessness problem.

JEFFREY KAYE: Union rescue mission representatives say the buyer assured them he'd keep the rents affordable. They say the profit from the sale helps fund homeless services. Neither they nor the building's new owner, Jeffrey Greene, would answer questions on camera. The low-income renters here, worried about rent increases and evictions, seemed a world apart from the nearby expo that screamed "Real estate equals wealth." Experts are debating how long the housing boom might last. Some economists say expensive homes are overvalued, and prices will fall, particularly if interest rates go up and mortgages become more costly. Others point out that home prices are influenced by regional factors such as income levels and housing availability. But at the real estate wealth expo, there was no ambivalence.

DEAN SEIF: There may be adjustments in prices, in values, but it's not a bubble where it's going to burst and you're going to lose everything. That's just not going to happen.

JEFFREY KAYE: In southern California, as the real estate frenzy continues...

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JEFFREY KAYE: ...Would-be tycoons hope to grab what they can while they can.

JIM LEHRER: Jeffrey Brown has more on the housing situation nationwide.

JEFFREY BROWN: And for that I'm joined by Nicolas Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. Welcome to you.

NICOLAS RETSINAS: Nice to be here.

JEFFREY BROWN: So we've just one very hot market. Where else do you see this kind of activity?

NICOLAS RETSINAS: That is among the hottest markets. Over the past several years, the two coasts particularly have had the fastest rate of home price appreciation. There are a couple of other spots but essentially it's bi- coastal.

JEFFREY BROWN: And are the factors driving it similar to what Jeff Kaye was showing us in southern California?

NICOLAS RETSINAS: I think generally true. I mean, the housing market across the country has been very prosperous. Last year nationally home prices went up a little over 10 percent. But in those local areas you do have the supply constraints that were alluded to and you have growing demand. The result is high prices.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, this is not the case everywhere. There are some places where it's flat or even prices falling. Tell us about that.

NICOLAS RETSINAS: Sure. A couple years ago there were nominal drops in places like San Jose, places like Austin, places like Salt Lake City.

JEFFREY BROWN: Some of these around the tech.

NICOLAS RETSINAS: Yes, all around the tech. Today there are a handful of places, pockets of small metropolitan areas in the South and Southwest where there is a flattening. So, no, it's not across the board. Some places are hotter than others.

JEFFREY BROWN: But what makes things flat? What is special about those particular areas or regions?

NICOLAS RETSINAS: Well it is local. It is local, local, local; it's demand and supply.

JEFFREY BROWN: Just as they say about buying a home.

NICOLAS RETSINAS: Absolutely. People don't buy homes in the United States. They buy it in particular areas, even particular neighborhoods. And it's the factors in those neighborhoods that influence prices the most.

JEFFREY BROWN: And so it is really tied to the local economy.

NICOLAS RETSINAS: It is very much so. Overall, the market has been affected by low interest rates but the particular spikes I think are much more directly related to local factors.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now the question that has been raised in this piece and I think probably you and I were talking about this, I don't know where you are, but nothing gets people's interest more than their homes, the price of their homes, what's happening to it. As soon as a "for sale" sign goes up, this is of interest to people.

NICOLAS RETSINAS: Oh, very, very much so. For most Americans, their home is the bulk of their wealth. That is how they have created wealth, how they've accrued wealth. And it far outweighs what they have in the stock market.

JEFFREY BROWN: And the question that Jeff Kaye has put on the table in his piece is about this boom versus bubble.

NICOLAS RETSINAS: Right.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now what are the factors that help us help a person determine what's going on?

NICOLAS RETSINAS: Well it's clearly a boom in that the rate of appreciation has been just so staggering, again, double-digit appreciation. The bubble question is, is it prone to a sharp correction or to a sharp fall? And there are disputes about that. Ultimately though I think you go back to the fundamentals. Look at the demand. Are we forming new households? If we are, they have to have places to live. Are there constraints on supply? To the extent there are constraints on supply and the market can't respond freely, then you're unlikely to see sharp corrections.

JEFFREY BROWN: Do we see the kind of speculative churn that Jeff Kaye showed us in southern California? Do you see that else where, where people are buying them, flipping them rather quickly?

NICOLAS RETSINAS: We do see in selective markets like California where there has been an increase in investor purchases, in some places double what it was five years ago. It's hard to tell. We don't have good data to what extent that's purely for speculation. Some of that may be second homes but you're absolutely right. And he was right. If investors are coming in, in large measure, they are in large measure coming in for resale, as opposed to the homeowner that still is interested in consumption -- that is living in the home.

JEFFREY BROWN: This means in terms for low-income housing, that's a problem in other areas of the country.

NICOLAS RETSINAS: It's a real problem. This has been the story of the last several years of winners and losers. Those who have owned a home have been winners. Those who have not are losers. And with this price appreciation there are many people who are going to be left behind for a good, long time.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, the way Jeff has laid it out there was one way of looking at it is that homes might be overvalued and could fall. Do you see signs of that in specific places yet?

NICOLAS RETSINAS: Well, I don't think it's going to be possible in areas like southern California to maintain this rate of appreciation. Over time, it has to be reconciled with income growth because if you buy a home, you're generally borrowing money. And if you're borrowing money you have got to pay it back, and that's related to how much you earn over time, so at some point there has got to be a closer fit. But I think, given those fundamentals, you're more likely to see stagnating prices as opposed to falling prices.

JEFFREY BROWN: The other way of looking at it is that people have to live somewhere and so they don't necessarily have to turn them over.

NICOLAS RETSINAS: Yes. Really what determines a bubble is generally if you're forced to sell. Home prices are an interesting phenomenon in economics. They have... they're often called sticky prices.

JEFFREY BROWN: Sticky prices?

NICOLAS RETSINAS: Yeah, you put your home on the market. And you think this is what it's worth, and you find out other people don't think what it's worth. What you're likely to do is just take it off the market unless you've lost your job and you've had to move. So that which might determine a bubble in selected areas, look at that economy, look at what's happening at the jobs. That will determine where prices go.

JEFFREY BROWN: So the individual should really look at his or her own local economy or I guess what I'm asking you is how much is it a local phenomenon when we think about what's happening to housing prices as opposed to our national economy?

NICOLAS RETSINAS: Well, it is affected nationally because we have national home markets for loans, for mortgages. And certainly low interest rates have propelled and under girded this market. Particular rates of appreciation above the norm have to do with local factors. So a person in a particular area should, yes, look at their own economy but also look in the mirror. If they're pretty sure they're not going to have to sell, they could probably ride through any sort of correction. So those are the factors you really need to look at most closely.

JEFFREY BROWN: And finally how important are these factors we're talking about the housing market, how important are those to our national economy?

NICOLAS RETSINAS: Oh, it has shored up the economy. Many of us believe even during a recession it was the housing sector that kept us through, the ability of people to refinance and take out cash. Just one specific number to give you an example: Home building accounts for about 5 percent of our economy. But over the last five years it's accounted for 12 percent of our average growth so it is disproportionately contributed to this economy.

JEFFREY BROWN: Okay. Nicolas Retsinas, thank you very much.

NICOLAS RETSINAS: Thank you.

FOCUS - ROAD TO DAMASCUS

JIM LEHRER: Now, a look inside Syria, a country that only occasionally welcomes foreign journalists. Reporter Kate Seelye, a former NewsHour producer, was in Syria recently for the PBS program Frontline/World. Here's an excerpt of her report.

KATE SEELYE: For me arriving in Damascus always feels like a kind of homecoming. I spent several years here as a teenager when my father was posted at the American embassy. Damascus is a city of two million people. Walking around, I couldn't escape the images of the ruling family. For the past 35 years, the Assads have governed Syria with an iron fist, first the father, Hafez, who died in 2000, then his western educated son, Bashar. When he came to power, Bashar promised reforms, but never really delivered. There's talk in Washington that Syria should be a target for regime change. But as I walked through the old city and its ancient marketplace, the Souk, I was surprised to find how calm it was. You'd never know there was turmoil next door in Lebanon. Damascus is one of the world's oldest cities. Whenever I'm here, I feel suspended in time. At the heart of the city is the Umayyad Mosque. Once a Roman temple, then a church, the mosque is home to the tomb of St. John the Baptist. I noticed all over the Souk new posters saying "Bashar, we're all with you." (Speaking Arabic)

SPOKESPERSON (translated on screen): What are the reasons for the posters?

MAN (translated on screen): We love President Bashar al-Assad.

MAN (translated): We're a people who love Syria. We love our president. Here in Syria, there's no opposition. There's nobody against the president or the party.

KATE SEELYE: I heard that kind of praise from a lot of shop keepers but Syria is a police state and many people are afraid to speak openly. The Syrian government is defensive about the lack of freedoms here, not to mention the charges that they killed Hariri.

BUTHEINA SHABAAN: Those who arranged the killing of Hariri were planning things against Syria and against Lebanon. It would be a political suicide for anybody in Syria to think of doing that. Syria is as interested as everybody in the world to find the truth of who killed Hariri because it is in our interest to find the real perpetrator of that terrorist crime.

KATE SEELYE: Shabaan also says the bush administration misunderstands the Syrian president.

BUTHEINA SHABAAN: How could they talk about Bashar al Assad without talking

to him? I think they should talk to him and know who he is before talking about him.

KATE SEELYE: Why is he being compared to Saddam Hussein then?

BUTHEINA SHABAAN: Absolutely stupid comparison. Excuse me. Very stupid. None in Syria would compare... none in the world would compare Bashar al Assad to Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was a criminal against his own people and against Syrian people. So the comparison shows absolute lack of knowledge and that's one of the big problems of the U.S. policy in the Middle East.

KATE SEELYE: Unlike Saddam Hussein, Bashar al Assad is not guilty of mass murders or developing nuclear weapons. But Syria's Baath Party rules under a state of emergency. There are many political prisoners in the state- controlled economy is in trouble. I went to see one of the country's few outspoken dissidents. Anmar Abdel Hamid is a blogger and runs an organization that defends minority rights.

ANMAR ABDEL HAMID: Frankly after five years you just have to see the obvious and admit the obvious. This regime is not... has not been good for this country anymore. It's time for them to go. What I want is an orchestrated collapse, not necessarily the kind of sort of catastrophic collapse as a result of, you know, some kind of an invasion.

KATE SEELYE: Ammar Abdel Hamid says he welcomes U.S. pressure on Syria to reform and democratize but opposes U.S. Military intervention.

AMMAR ABDEL HAMID: I don't want to see insurgents and I don't want to see the destruction of the infrastructure. And I don't want to see Abu Ghraibs happening here in Syria. What I want to see is a peaceful change in this country, a long overdue change. And despite my vehement criticism of this regime, I still hope that they will be able to understand that the reason for my criticism is my desire to avoid having to see an Iraqi-style scenario unfolding in Syria.

KATE SEELYE: I wondered how secure Bashar al Assad's hold on power really is. I went to see an old family friend, Mohammed Aziz Shukri, who's been an advisor to the government.

MOHAMMED AZIZ SHUKRI: We are fighting against time, and we cannot sleep while others are putting the squeeze on us, including the very United States of America. They want everything to happen overnight.

KATE SEELYE: And are you worried about the squeeze? I mean, could the squeeze...

MOHAMMED AZIZ SHUKRI: I am, I am worried. If I tell you I'm not worried, I'd be laughing at myself.

KATE SEELYE: What are you worried about?

MOHAMMED AZIZ SHUKRI: I'm worried that the Syrian economy is going down the drain if we maintain the status quo. The government is under severe pressure, once through Lebanon, once through Iraq, once through Turkey, to the extent that I wonder at times whether the American administration, the American president's administration wants to bring the regime down.

KATE SEELYE: How nervous is this regime that the U.S. might attack?

MOHAMMED AZIZ SHUKRI: On the surface it doesn't act nervously. But I know that everybody almost is nervous. Everybody almost is asking, "What's next? Could we wake up tomorrow and find the marines trying to land in Syria?"

KATE SEELYE: So do you think this American pressure on Syria is threatening the Assad regime?

MOHAMMED AZIZ SHUKRI: Yes. Yes. Yes.

JIM LEHRER: The entire Frontline/World program on Syria, Lebanon, and Liberia will be broadcast tonight on many PBS stations.

FOCUS - CANCER NEWS

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, Ray Suarez has the latest on new findings in cancer research and treatment.

RAY SUAREZ: Intriguing findings in cancer research were announced during the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Several major studies have garnered attention for shedding light on the prevention of and treatment of numerous cancers. Some of those findings include a low-fat diet seemed to reduce the risks of recurring breast cancer. In women who followed the diet, they had more than a 20 percent reduction in their rate of recurrence. Colon cancer patients who took aspirin in addition to their standard treatment had a lower risk of recurrence and longer survival rates. And a separate study found that adults who survive childhood cancer have five times the risk of developing other serious illnesses later in life. The conference wrapped up today.

Here to talk us through the findings and others is Dr. David Johnson, president of the society, and director of the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center. Welcome, Doctor. Let's take a look first at that reduced fat diet. Many studies had been either inconclusive or even pointed to different conclusions in the past. What's different about this one?

DR. DAVID JOHNSON: This study was conducted in a prospective way, Ray. There were two groups of women included in the study; 40 percent of the women were allocated to a group that received a low fat diet, which is about 30 grams of diet. To put that into perspective, a normal American diet might have between 40 and 50 grams of fat in the diet or perhaps even a little more if one is eating fast foods, for example. The remaining women were left on a regular or what their normal diet would be. In addition, all the women included in this study were to receive standard treatment after their surgery for the primary breast cancer. This means that the women all received either chemotherapy or hormonal therapy, drugs such as Tamoxifin which are commonly used after surgery to treat suchwomen. What the study demonstrated, as you pointed out, is that the women on the low fat diet had about a 24 percent reduction in their risk of recurrence at an average follow-up of five years.

RAY SUAREZ: Is it possible to tell why, what happens inside the body of participants to give this good result?

DR. DAVID JOHNSON: It's not yet fully understood why the results are as they are. In fact, it sparked quite a bit of discussion at the meeting itself. There are studies in the medical literature that suggests contrary views about whether fat reduction actually improves outcome or not -- whether or not fat intake predisposes a woman to cancer. That's been known for a number of years, comparing, for example, Japanese women who tend to have a lower fat intake than women in western countries such as the United States; they also have a lower instance of breast cancer. When Japanese women migrate to the United States, say, to Hawaii or to the western part of the United States and begin to adopt the same dietary habits that customary diet is used in the United States, it seems that their incidence of breast cancer rises towards the level of that of Euro-descendent women.

RAY SUAREZ: So quickly, what kind of further work are you going to have to do before you can get a hard-and-fast rule out of this kind of result?

DR. DAVID JOHNSON: Well, I think we're going to need to know a little bit about some of the biochemical changes that take place in the body with the change in diet. We know that insulin levels, for example, do correlate with the risk of breast cancer. Women that are somewhat overweight tend to have a higher incidence of breast cancer. So we think that there may be some relationship with glucose metabolism, with insulin alone that may be contributing to this.

RAY SUAREZ: And now the study that finds that aspirin can reduce the recurrence of colon cancer. How was this established?

DR. DAVID JOHNSON: Well, this was a very interesting study. If I may, let me give you a little background. We've known for quite some time that the use of aspirin or similar type medications such as Ibuprofen which would be Advil in your drugstore can reduce the incidence of polyps in the colon. Polyps are a pre-cancerous lesion that if left intact will go on to develop into invasive cancer. Aspirin has been known for some time to reduce the development of polyps into invasive cancer. This study was slightly different. Individuals who had established cancer, had their cancer removed surgically, they were then treated with the customary therapy which is chemotherapy. And what the study did-- this was a study done by Harvard investigators-- they looked at patients who were taking aspirin on a regular basis, typically this was a single, regular adult strength aspirin once a day or perhaps every other day. And what they observed is the cohort of patients that were taking aspirin at that frequency had about a 44 percent reduction in the risk of recurrence, compared to the patients who did not take aspirin on a regular basis. And yet all the patients received the appropriate standard chemotherapy.

RAY SUAREZ: A lot of the reports that came out of the conference, Dr. Johnson, either show surprising new results for drugs that have been developed for other purposes or a new sort of silver-bullet style drugs aimed at treating or preventing one kind of cancer or another. Is pharmacology really the cutting edge of cancer treatment now?

DR. DAVID JOHNSON: Well, I think our knowledge of cancer biology has improved to a considerable degree in the last five to ten years, allowing us to target our therapy in a more sensible way. For example, a drug that's currently already available, known as Avastin, which was approved by the FDA a year or two ago for the treatment of colon cancer, at this year's meeting we learned that that same drug, which chokes off the blood supply, if you will, to a tumor, also is effective in the treatment of advanced lung cancer, one of the most... actually, the most deadly of cancers, and also was very useful in prolonging survival in women with advanced breast cancer. So now we have a drug that works by limiting blood supply to tumors in all of the big three tumors: Lung cancer, colon cancer and breast cancer. Learning how tumors behave and how they survive and then attacking those vulnerable points is what targeted therapy is all about.

RAY SUAREZ: One study that got a lot of other attention this week was a new analysis of cancer care and disparities in treatment.

To tell us more about that one, we're joined by Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, head of the society's Task Force on Quality Cancer Care and chair of clinical bioethics at the National Institutes of Health. What did your study show about the quality of cancer care in the United States?

DR. EZEKIEL EMMANUEL: Well, we've looked for the last five years; the society has contracted with Harvard and Rand to examine the quality of breast cancer and colorectal cancer. And basically we showed that compared to a standard quality measures, 86 percent of the time women with breast cancer got the right treatment and 78 percent of the time people with colorectal cancer got the right treatment. Importantly, compared to previous studies that had looked at the quality of care for primary care and other diseases like heart disease or stroke these are much better numbers. The society is sort of gratified by that. Oncologists are doing the right things by and large. But we're also disappointed that they're not 100 percent of the time. When someone has a deadly illness, you really want everything to go smoothly and accurately.

RAY SUAREZ: Were there variations in different regions of the country or different types of cancers, where you saw real differences in how well people report that they're being treated?

DR. EZEKIEL EMMANUEL: Absolutely. This wasn't just how people report they're being treated but we also actually looked at the medical record and how things were going in the patient's record of the treatment. And what you see actually is on certain things doctors do very, very well: For example, on assessing lymph nodes in the case of breast cancer or getting patients on to Tamoxifin, one of the hormonal treatments for breast cancer. On other things we do less well: Asking patient about preferences, where there's a choice to be made between mastectomy and breast conserving therapy or in surveillance afterwards. We're very good about ordering the mammogram, less good about telling patients with colorectal cancer that their family members really need to be screened for colorectal cancer. So we did find variations in the different quality measures. And a lot of the quality measures about giving treatment were very good. The ones about eliciting patient preferences and telling them about follow-up were less than optimal.

RAY SUAREZ: So we get piles of reports out of a conference like this, a lot of great research being done. How does research turn into practice? Does anything that you learn in your study change the way you practice oncology? Will Dr. Johnson and you and other oncologists start to give people aspirin whenthere's an opportunity to give them aspirin after colon cancer treatment or prescribe low fat diets? How do we get from a paper report to what happens in a doctor's office?

DR. EZEKIEL EMMANUEL: That's a fascinating question. In some cases it will I think be very effective. I think probably this aspirin case you're going to see a lot of action. It's relatively easy to do. It's a recommendation and there are multiple reasons not just colorectal cancer for people to take aspirin preventing and reducing heart disease. In other cases it's very haphazard. And we aren't perfect at translating for everyone in the country results, path-breaking news into better services. And one of the things that the American Society of Clinical Oncology is concerned about is really measuring the quality of care on a consistent, regular basis. One of the rationales for starting this study five years ago was really could we set up a quality monitoring system and how complicated would it be to actually regularly monitor all the patients getting cancer care? That's an enormous task. And actually one of the measures of this study was the fact that that really is a very complicated and costly process, which we as a country aren't doing regularly now, and I think we really have to if we want to bring the quality up for everyone in the country. Let me just give you an example. On average, every patient who gets treated for cancer has about four doctors that they have to go to. That's a complicated process involving a lot of coordination of care. And we know that the ball can be dropped in a lot of different places. And we need to do better about assessing across all the doctors, making sure they have all the relevant information to do optimal treatment.

RAY SUAREZ: Dr. Emmanuel, Dr. Johnson, gentlemen, thank you both.

DR. EZEKIEL EMMANUEL: Thank you.

DR. DAVID JOHNSON: Thank you.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the other major developments of the day. The U.S. Senate passed a highway bill worth $295 billion. The cost could trigger the president's first veto. Senate Republicans said they'll bring up a disputed judicial nominee tomorrow. That could trigger a showdown over filibusters, and a British lawmaker rejected U.S. Senate findings that he profited from illegal sales of Iraqi oil.

JIM LEHRER: And once again to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq. We add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. Here, in silence, are 13 more.

JIM LEHRER: We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.