Shrines

Your editorial "The Mecca Confrontation" (May 1) is very one-sided and fails to address the basic problem which first started the whole chain of present events in that region, i.e. the Iraqi invasion of Iran. One can even go back and recall the overthrow of democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and inflicting Shah Reza Pahlavi on the unsuspecting people of Iran by U.S. Central Intelligence Agency as the original seed for present day conflicts there. The gang up of Arabs against Iran is unjust, unfair and smacks of racism of sorts which has no place in Islam.

Iran said Monday that it is sending delegations throughout the Muslim world in an apparent effort to stem a wave of anti-Iranian sentiment in the wake of violent clashes at Islam's holiest shrines in Mecca. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran's revolutionary leader, blamed the United States for the Iranian deaths and vowed revenge. "We hold America responsible for these crimes," the 87-year-old patriarch said in a message to leaders of Iranian pilgrims at the holy city in Saudi Arabia.

Most tourists flock to places in French Polynesia with names such as Bora Bora or Moorea, but the island of Huahine, northwest of Tahiti, is an unfamiliar dot on a map. It is a pristine island of sapphire bays and rugged, verdant hills, but perhaps its most striking attractions are man-made. In the pre-European world of Eastern Polynesia, Huahine was one of the great centers of culture. The remnants of that society still are scattered around the island.

Reporting from Nagano, Japan Fame is fleeting, but mountains are eternal. Or so it seems in Nagano, the mountain-ringed city in the center of Honshu, Japan's main island. Nagano had a brief brush with international fame when it hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, but the city center has returned to its former self, a comfortably modern medium-size downtown spread out below the imposing Zenkoji Buddhist Temple. But the mountainous prefecture, or administrative region, encircling it seems ancient, with its Shinto shrines, hot springs and villages trapped in time.

The Getty Conservation Institute and China have agreed to collaborate on the conservation of China's two foremost sites of ancient Buddhist art, involving thousands of sculptures and miles of wall paintings in 545 caves in the northern part of the country. Plans for the international venture were announced Thursday at a press conference in the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles. The multimillion-dollar project, sponsored by the U.N.

The distance between Northridge and Memphis can be calculated in measures other than miles. But to the crowd that marked Saturday's 20th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death by flocking to a quiet San Fernando Valley street to see a copy of the singer's Graceland mansion, such details are beside the point. "I've admired Elvis all my life," said Mary Tribble, 49, of Granada Hills. "It's nice to have something around here so we can remember him."

The supplicant approaches on her knees, hands folded in prayer, nearing the shrine of the soldier who, she says, will bring her miracles. As she inches her way through the cemetery walkway, her mother places narrow strips of tattered carpet on the hard cement path, easing the way. "He helped my other daughter in San Antonio, Tex., become legal," explains her mother, Sara Mora del Melgosa, a resident of the Mexican interior state of Michoacan who says she visits the shrine each year.

A suicide bombing here Thursday morning highlighted the fragility of Iraq's nascent religious tourism industry, which brings hundreds of thousands of dollars in foreign cash to the economically ravaged south each month. Meanwhile, skirmishes between U.S. forces and suspected insurgents continued for a second day in the western city of Ramadi, where Marines have taken over a 400-bed hospital allegedly used by rebels. At least one civilian was killed and two Iraqi police officers were injured, U.

Israeli police Friday fired tear gas canisters into the Al Aqsa mosque, one of the most sacred shrines of Islam, and attacked some Muslim holy day worshipers after they assaulted a policeman, witnesses said. Israeli police confirmed that they entered the mosque but denied firing tear gas into the mosque or beating worshipers. Eyewitnesses said it was one of the most violent clashes ever on the revered Temple Mount, where the mosque is situated in the Old City.

On her parents' former backgammon table in a light-filled corner of the living room, actress, filmmaker and sometime psychic Lucinda Clare keeps a panoply of gods. A resin-red Buddha, Ganesh and Lakshmi keep company with a photo of a Parisian cancan girl lying on a velvet sofa, a pack of worn tarot cards, a Tibetan prayer bag and tiny bottles holding a rainbow of pigments and aura sprays. "It's my creativity altar," she explains.