May 30, 2003

Philippine economic growth slowed to 4.5 percent in first quarter compared with year earlier, falling from 5.8 percent growth in fourth quarter (S)5

San Antonio Spurs defeat Dallas Mavericks, 90-78, to win Western Conference finals, 4-2; advance to NBA finals against New Jersey Nets; photo (M)

Conchita Link and husband Edward Hayes are arrested and charged with conspiring to sell photographs she stole from her former husband, photographer O Winston Link; investigators found photos for sale on eBay site for minimum price of $5,000; Link won $5 million judgment against his ex-wife, who was convicted in subsequent criminal trial and spent five years in prison for stealing 1,400 of his prints, maintaining all along that she did not know where they were; photos (M)

Brazil's economy contracted 0.1 percent in first quarter from fourth quarter of 2002, but grew 2 percent from year earlier (M)

Profile of recent Palestinian suicide bomber Fuad Qawasmeh defies stereotypical profile of bomber as poor, desperate young man with deep involvement in militant Islamic groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad; relatives claim he was radicalized by his months in Israeli jail; say Qawasmeh, factory worker in Hebron, was not interested in politics and not particularly religious before he and his brother were put in administrative detention, status that allows suspects to be held without trial; as Israel's security forces fill prisons, there has been unintended consequence: with all suspects packed together, camps and jails have become natural recruiting ground for militant groups; family says that when Qawasmeh was released from jail he began reading Koran and listening to tapes, many of them extolling jihad, or holy war, and Palestinians who die fighting Israel; on May 17 he blew himself up in Hebron, killing Jewish settler and his wife; his two fellow bombers that day were college students in Hebron who had never been arrested; photos; map (L)