------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Nuclear and Scientology
Breakup Bucks Trend in Mining
UN tribunal hopes to rule on Sellafield early December
Trade group rebuts effort to shut NY nuke plants
Czech n-plant receives second fuel train - CTK
Pakistan Frees Nuclear Scientists
Alarm goes off at Japan radioactive waste facility
South Korea Test-Fires Missile
In Emergency Preparedness, Calvert Cliffs Up to Grade

MILITARY
Taliban to surrender northern stronghold
U.S. Stokes the Fire, Adding Gunships and More
Taliban Will Rise Again
U.S. Wants al - Qaida Troops Locked Up
Foreign Militants Seek Safe Passage From Afghan City
African leaders voice goals of peace
Bill provision has military collectors up in arms
Iraq Rebuts U.S. Claims on Violating Germ Arms Ban
Taliban Took Interest in Kabul Lab
New Anthrax Evidence
US Forces Search for Chemical Weapons
Four U.S. Companies Sign the First Trade Deals With Cuba
U.S. Death Penalty Stops Spain Extraditing Suspects
English Pot Smokers' Pub May Prove a Model
Afghan, Kurdish refugees clash in France
Pakistan Closes Taliban's Last Embassy
Free housing offered to Israeli settlers
Japan's commitment
NATO to Confer With Russia on Closer Ties
NATO chief offers Russia new post-Cold War partnership
Bin Laden, Bombs and Buddhas
UN wants end to food drops
U.N. Seeks More Time For Terror Treaty
Rumsfeld: His choice is a dead bin Laden

ENERGY AND OTHER
Keep energy spats out of US farm bill, growers say
Tiny DNA computer boasts high accuracy
Ibuprofen, Similar Medicines May Slash Alzheimer's Risk
Alzheimer's study bolsters a theory
What Did You Do Before the War?

POLICE / PRISONERS
NORTHWEST WASHINGTON: STIFF SECURITY PLAN
50 nations hold 360 terror suspects
Questioning detentions
Police Are Split on Questioning of Mideast Men
All 19 hijackers entered with valid visas
India, Too, Weighs Antiterror Measure Against Liberties
Terror against India

ACTIVISTS
Bowery Mission Is Improving Itself as It Helps Needy
35 Western Protesters Are Expelled From China
Resistance Rising!



-------- NUCLEAR

Nuclear and Scientology

From: "marco saba" <vlario@yahoo.it>
Thu, 22 Nov 2001

In the book "All about radiation" from L. Ron Hubbard you can find interesting quotes about the political issue on radiation (dated 1957!), vitamins and more.

Hubbard was one of the first student on nuclear in the '30 and after he was a secret agent of the US Navy.

Later he founded the Church of Scientology, apparently to me to tell the truth about contamination, fallout and radiation.

Here is the link: http://www.lronhubbard.org/book/html/sl8.htm

-------- australia

Breakup Bucks Trend in Mining

New York Times
November 22, 2001
By BECKY GAYLORD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/22/business/worldbusiness/22ALUM.html?searchpv=nytToday

SYDNEY, Australia, Nov. 21 - The Australian mining company WMC Ltd. rejected today a $5.8 billion takeover proposal from Alcoa, a partner since the 1960's, calling the offer inadequate.

WMC instead plans to split the company into two, spinning off its 40 percent stake in an alumina venture with Alcoa. The venture, Alcoa World Alumina and Chemicals, produces more than a quarter of the world's alumina, which is used to make aluminum. WMC's nickel, uranium, copper and fertilizer operations will be listed as another company.

Ian Burgess, the chairman of WMC, said, "We believe the stock market will value the two companies more highly than if WMC continued with its current structure."

That strategy, however, puzzled some analysts, who said that the businesses, once apart, might fail to attract a higher price than the one Alcoa had been willing to pay for the whole company.

Investors had been expecting confirmation of a deal with Alcoa when trading in WMC shares was suspended on the Australian Stock Exchange today, and they were disappointed when the announcement came.

WMC's stock price tumbled 9.8 percent, its biggest one-day loss in more than two years, falling to 9.10 Australian dollars ($4.73). Speculation about a deal had driven the stock price up more than 40 percent in the last two months.

Alcoa proposed buying WMC for cash and possibly some stock last month, for about 10.20 Australian dollars ($5.3) a share, Mr. Burgess wrote in a letter to shareholders.

The board rejected the proposal, which would have valued WMC, the third-largest nickel producer, at 11.3 billion Australian dollars ($5.9 billion). A Grant Samuel & Associates report said the company was worth as much as 14.3 billion Australian ($7.4 billion), according to WMC.

The board regards Alcoa's proposal "as an opportunistic attempt to capitalize on the recent downturn in world conditions and base-metal prices," Mr. Burgess said.

Discussions about breaking up the company started almost two years ago, said WMC's chief executive, Hugh Morgan, after the board received overtures from other companies interested in WMC's assets.

Some analysts said the strategy, called Plan B by Mr. Morgan, was cunning because separating the operations removes any tax or antitrust barriers that could otherwise hamper plans by some large mining companies to bid for all of WMC.

-------- britain

UN tribunal hopes to rule on Sellafield early December

Reuters
22/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=13411

LONDON - A United Nations tribunal hopes to rule in early December on whether Ireland should be granted an injunction to prevent Britain opening a controversial 472 million pound ($669 million) nuclear fuel manufacturing plant, a tribunal official said yesterday.

"December 3 is a tentative date for the judges to make a ruling," a spokeswoman for the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea told Reuters.

The Irish government argued on Monday and Tuesday for the tribunal to issue injunctions to prevent the start of operations at British Nuclear Fuels' (BNFL) mixed oxide (MOX) fuel plant and to stop ships transporting nuclear material to and from it.

The Irish legal action is based on what it says are contraventions of the 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea Convention.

Ireland is worried about maritime pollution from the plant, which is located at the Sellafield facility in Cumbria, and which would discharge radioactive material into the Irish Sea.

Britain's rebuttal was to say the tribunal has no jurisdication over the matter and any move to stop the Sellafield MOX Plant from opening would have costly economic consequences for state-owned BNFL.

Ireland's legal action was triggered by Britain's decision in September to approve the start of operations at the plant, which has lain idle since 1996 because regulatory approval to start up was witheld over fears it would not make any money.

In November environmental groups Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth challenged the start-up decision in Britain's High Court, saying it was unlawful because sufficient economic justification for the plant, as required by EU law, was not evident.

But, on November 15 a British judge ruled the government had acted within the law when granting start-up approval.

BNFL has said it is aiming to get the plant operational in late December, pending a decision by the U.N. body and the outcome of an appeal launched by the green groups.

-------- business

Trade group rebuts effort to shut NY nuke plants

Reuters
22/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=13408

NEW YORK - Arguing that customer costs would increase, an electric trade association in New York opposed a recent effort by environmental groups and local elected officials to shut nuclear power plants due to security concerns, the group said in a statement this week.

The Independent Power Producers of New York Inc. (IPPNY), which represents electric generators and marketers in New York, said shutting the plants would "immediately increase the cost of electricity to consumers, cost thousands of jobs, and threaten the reliability of New York's electric system.

"While we understand the issue of plant security is on the minds of everyone who lives and works near a nuclear power plant, prudent steps have been taken to ensure the security of nuclear facilities in New York," IPPNY Executive Director Gavin Donohue said in response to a petition filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to close the Indian Point power plant indefinitely.

About two weeks ago, Riverkeeper, an environmental group that seeks to protect the Hudson River, filed a petition with the NRC calling on the federal nuclear watchdog to immediately shut the Indian Point facility pending a full review of the plant's vulnerabilities and safety systems.

Indian Point's two operating nuclear reactors are located on the Hudson River in Buchanan, N.Y., about 40 miles north of New York City.

The facility, owned by a unit of energy giant Entergy Corp. of New Orleans, provides about 10 percent of the city's power supply.

The petition by Riverkeeper, which is represented by environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., stated that the events of Sept. 11, "clearly demonstrate that the plant's status needs to be reexamined."

Pointing out that 20 million people live within a 50-mile radius of Indian Point, Riverkeeper warned an attack on the facility could have devastating consequences, rendering much of the Hudson River Valley, including New York City, uninhabitable.

IPPNY RESPONSE

The environmental groups are, "taking advantage of recent national security concerns," said IPPNY.

"The NRC already has strict security standards that must be met by nuclear facilities across the country and is currently reviewing those standards to determine if there is room for improvement."

"Calling for plants to shut down is the sort of knee-jerk reaction that won't help security and will certainly have a negative impact on electricity markets and the economy," IPPNY's Donohue said.

Officials at the NRC said they have a well established process for handling petitions and will form a panel to look at the Riverkeeper's filing.

"We just got it, so we are not even close to giving them a response yet," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman at the NRC.

Utilities depend on nuclear power to maintain a reliable, inexpensive supply of electricity.

There are more than 80 nuclear facilities in the U.S.

In New York, nuclear power supplies about 20 percent of the electricity consumed.

"If nuclear plants are shut down, electricity prices will increase significantly," said IPPNY's Donohue.

"This campaign is nothing more than a self-serving attempt to take advantage of the tragedies of Sept. 11 to permanently shut down these facilities," Donohue said.

CLINTON INVOLVEMENT

Earlier this week, New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke at Indian Point about a plan to improve the safety of the nation's nuclear power plants.

Last week, Sens. Clinton and Assistant Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada announced plans for legislation that would station federal agents at nuclear power plants to guard against security threats. The NRC said the bill would also likely seek the expansion of the emergency planning zone from 10 miles to 50 miles.

The emergency planning zone is the area surrounding a nuclear plant where most of the emergency response drilling and radiation testing occurs.

Increasing the zone around Indian Point to 50 miles would be very costly since it would include New York City.

Senators Clinton and Reid said they intend to introduce the bill after the Thanksgiving recess.

-------- czech republic

Czech n-plant receives second fuel train - CTK

Reuters
22/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13410/story.htm

TEMELIN, Czech Republic - A train carrying nuclear fuel has arrived safely at the controversial Temelin nuclear power plant in the southern Czech Republic, the CTK news agency reported yesterday.

Under tight security including a police helicopter escort, the fuel arrived early in the afternoon after making the long journey from the northern Polish seaport of Szczecin, CTK said.

No incidents were reported along the way. It was the second fuel delivery to the plant. Plant officials were not immediately available to confirm the CTK report.

The $2.6 billion station, built just over 50 km (30 miles) from the border of neighbouring Austria, has had a rocky start.

It has suffered several shutdowns during testing because of vibrations and a crack in steam piping in Temelin's turbine in the non-nuclear, power-generating part of the station.

Austrian protesters have staged border blockades demanding its closure, and a series of minor failures have forced repeated shutdowns since it was first launched in October 2000.

Austria says the station, which combines a Russian VVER-1,000 reactor with a U.S.-made control system by Westinghouse, is unsafe and has threatened to block the Czech drive toward EU membership.

Its operator, the government-controlled power company CEZ, insists it is a state-of-the-art project.

The EU has said Temelin in not an accession issue.

-------- india / pakistan

Pakistan Frees Nuclear Scientists

New York Times
November 22, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Nuclear-Scientists.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Two retired Pakistani nuclear scientists detained on suspicion of links with Osama bin Laden's terrorist network have been released, the government said Thursday.

Chief government spokesman Gen. Rashid Quereshi confirmed that Sultan Bashir-ud-Din Mehmood and Abdul Majid had been freed but would not say when.

Both worked for Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission until 1999 and were detained last month for questioning. Both had made frequent trips to Afghanistan, government officials said.

The two scientists denied passing any nuclear secrets to the Taliban or bin Laden. They said their visits to Afghanistan were in connection with a charity organization, which worked with farmers and students.

Neither man has been charged with any offense, and Pakistani officials said there was nothing to suggest that they passed on nuclear information or materials to anyone in Afghanistan.

However, Pakistani officials said the two met bin Laden at least twice during visits to Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar in connection with the construction of a flour mill.

Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and until the Sept. 11 terror attacks, supported Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement. The Taliban have harbored bin Laden and his al-Qaida network, suspected in the attacks on New York and Washington.

But Pakistan insists it has not leaked nuclear information, and says its nuclear weapons remain well protected.

-------- japan

Alarm goes off at Japan radioactive waste facility

Reuters
22/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=13403

TOKYO - A fire alarm went off yesterday at a radioactive waste processing facility at Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo, but there was no fire and no radiation leaked to the outside, an official at the facility said.

"A fire alarm was triggered at 2:58 p.m. (0558 GMT). We are investigating the cause... But we have confirmed that there was no fire," said Masao Osawa, an official at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute's Tokai research centre.

Although the exact cause was being investigated, Osawa said the alarm was apparently triggered when dust, a residue left behind after waste processing, rose in the air and filled an underground room in the facility.

Osawa said the dust contained some radiation, but added that radiation did not leak outside the facility.

JAERI, an institute affiliated with Japan's Education, Science and Technology ministry, conducts research on nuclear energy technology.

Tokaimura was the site of Japan's worst nuclear accident in September 1999, when an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction was triggered at a uranium processing plant operated by JCO Co, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd.

Hundreds of Tokaimura residents, plant workers and emergency personnel were exposed to radiation when an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction was triggered at the plant. Two workers died.

Japan, heavily reliant on nuclear power, has seen a number of accidents over the past decade that have undermined public support for its nuclear programme, which meets a third of the country's electricity needs.

Most recently, a steam leak earlier this month led to the shut down of Chubu Electric Power Co Inc's 540,000 kilowatt No.1 reactor at its Hamaoka nuclear plant.

-------- korea

South Korea Test-Fires Missile

By Sang-Hun Choe
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, November 22, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2135-2001Nov22?language=printer

SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea test-fired a missile with a 62-mile range that landed in the Yellow Sea between South Korea and China on Thursday, military officials said.

In a brief statement, the Defense Ministry said its Agency for Defense Development launched the missile from a launch station on its western coast Thursday.

After flying its full 62-mile range, the missile hit a target 31 miles off Pyonsan, a town on South Korea's western coast about 125 miles south of Seoul, air force Col. Kim Ki-ok told a news briefing.

Kim said the launch was part of South Korea's "regular tests for missile development" and that the government was publicly acknowledging the test to prevent "misunderstandings" in neighboring countries.

The ministry said South Korea has notified the United States of its missile test, as it was required to under a bilateral treaty on missile tests. It also explained its test to Japan, officials said.

Stephen Oertwig, a spokesman for the U.S. forces in Korea, said the American military was not involved.

Japan's Kyodo News agency quoted officials at the Japanese Defense Agency as saying that they had been told by U.S. forces in Japan that the missile launch did not pose a danger.

South Korea has expressed wishes to develop missiles with a longer range. After months of negotiations, Seoul obtained U.S. approval in January to develop missiles with a range of up to 187 miles.

Missiles with a 187-mile range are capable of striking Pyongyang and other key North Korean cities.

Under a 1979 accord with the United States, South Korea had been barred from developing missile with a range longer than 112 miles. Washington agreed to revise that accord on condition that South Korea join the Missile Technology Control Regime.

In March, South Korea signed the regime, which barred it from providing any other country with technology to build missiles with a range longer than 187 miles.

The United States, Russia, Japan and 30 other countries have signed the 14-year-old agreement. Holdouts include Middle Eastern countries, India, Pakistan, China and North Korea.

North Korea is believed to be armed with missiles capable of hitting all of South Korea and most of Japan. It alarmed the region by firing a long-range missile in 1998 which flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific. The North reportedly has completed development of a more powerful missile that experts say could reach Hawaii and Alaska.

-------- u.s. nuc facilities

-------- maryland

In Emergency Preparedness, Calvert Cliffs Up to Grade

By Raymond McCaffrey and Monte Reel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 22, 2001; Page SM02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55730-2001Nov19?language=printer

The Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant seems to have passed two tests in a week's time.

On Thursday, the retest of its emergency sirens in Calvert County succeeded.

And on Monday, Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) toured the facility and proclaimed that he thought it was "taking the steps necessary" to protect the plant from attack.

"The level of security has clearly been substantially beefed up," Hoyer said.

Those changes, according to Hoyer, include the plant conducting more extensive background checks on plant employees.

In addition, there are more private security personnel on site and state police are now stationed there, too.

And there's help from Patuxent River Naval Air Station, if needed.

"Since Sept. 11, we now have Pax River on alert, and they have personnel and assets on alert ready to be deployed," Hoyer said.

And if there were a problem at the plant, the emergency sirens within 10 miles of the site, are in working order now.

Testing was repeated a week ago because during a Nov. 5 check of the 72 sirens within the radius, the 49 in Calvert County failed to sound. The remaining sirens -- 17 in St. Mary's County and six in Dorchester County across the Chesapeake Bay -- worked as planned, so they didn't need to be retested, according to Karl Neddenien, a plant spokesman.

The initial failure of the sirens was blamed on a computer problem at the county's Emergency Operations Center.

The plant conducts weekly and quarterly testing to identify individual sirens that might need maintenance, according to Neddenien. The full siren system is tested annually on the first Monday in November. Last year, all the devices worked properly, he reported.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires testing of the sirens, which are designed to alert the public in an emergency to tune to a particular radio station for information.


-------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

Taliban to surrender northern stronghold

USA Today
11/22/2001
http://usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/11/22/surrender.htm

BANGI, Afghanistan (AP) - Taliban commanders agreed Thursday to let Northern Alliance troops into their last stronghold in northern Afghanistan to oversee a surrender of the besieged city of Kunduz, anti-Taliban officials said. Alliance fighters, apparently unaware of the breakthrough, launched a chaotic offensive outside Kunduz just as details of the agreement emerged. Fighters attacked Taliban positions east of Kunduz with rocket launchers, artillery and tanks. Commanders said they also pushed toward the airport.

In Washington, Marine Lt. Col. Dave LaPan, a Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday that 75 U.S. aircraft struck Taliban military forces, tunnels and caves over the previous 24 hours, concentrating on the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in the south and the Jalalabad area in the east.

Under the purported deal for the surrender of Kunduz, reached during negotiations in the alliance-held city of Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghan fighters would be allowed to leave city, the alliance said.

Arabs, Pakistanis and other foreign fighters loyal to Osama bin Laden would be placed in camps until the alliance and the U.S.-led coalition can decide what to do with them, alliance officials in Tajikistan said. The United States has insisted that suspected al-Qa'eda members not be allowed to go free as part of any deal.

Alliance spokesman Ashraf Nadeem said the alliance would send 5,000 fighters to Kunduz "possibly Saturday" to oversee the Taliban surrender. Both sides agreed to meet Friday in Mazar-e-Sharif to finalize details, Nadeem said.

The Taliban representatives, including Deputy Defense Minister Mullah Fazil Muslimyar, returned to Kunduz late Thursday to explain the deal to the foreigners.

Alliance fighters said they feared the foreign fighters - thought to number up to 3,000 - might try to break out of the city and escape to Uzbekistan or Pakistan rather than accept surrender.

The issue of the foreign fighters had been the main stumbling block to an agreement to surrender the city, which the Taliban militia held on to after their control of the north collapsed following the loss of Mazar-e-Sharif on Nov. 9. The foreigners feared a repeat of the summary executions that followed the alliance's takeover of Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul.

In Geneva, the international Red Cross said Thursday it had recovered 400 to 600 bodies in Mazar-e-Sharif but would not say whether they were killed in fighting or executed.

A senior alliance commander, Atta Mohammed, said he assured the Taliban that none of their troops would not be mistreated.

A spokesman for the Afghan Embassy in Tajikistan, Shamsulkhak Orienfard, said the foreigners would be placed in "filtration camps" and "their fate will be decided by the legal government of Afghanistan and countries of the international anti-terrorism coalition."

Reports of massacres of Pakistanis and other foreign fighters have raised alarm in Pakistan, a key Muslim ally in the anti-terrorism campaign.

Although Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf supports the campaign, the government believes it cannot remain silent while its own citizens are massacred even if it opposes their cause.

On Thursday, Musharraf urged the visiting president of the International Committee of the Red Cross to help prevent massacres. However, ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger said his organization was unable to make safety guarantees.

"It cannot get involved in political negotiations on conditions of a surrender," Kellenberger said in Islamabad.

President Bush launched the campaign against the Taliban in early October for their refusal to hand over bin Laden. After weeks of U.S. bombing against Taliban positions, a Northern Alliance advance swept the Islamic militia out of almost all the north and took Kabul, the capital, on Nov. 13.

A surrender in Kunduz would leave only one major city - the southern base of Kandahar - in Taliban hands. Taliban spokesman Syed Tayyab Agha vowed that the Taliban would fight to defend Kandahar, their spiritual base, and the surrounding provinces they still control.

During the late afternoon attack outside Kunduz, several groups of Taliban fighters appeared to be giving themselves up. One group of Taliban fighters surrendered with trucks, an anti-aircraft gun and rockets. Two higher-ranking Taliban commanders accompanied the defectors.

As tanks fired on Taliban positions in the hills, a Northern Alliance commander radioed over the two-way: "Make the Arabs prisoners! Make the Arabs prisoners!"

U.S. B-52 bombers flew overhead but dropped only a few bombs.

Before the surrender agreement was announced, Taliban fighters shelled the main road leading eastward out of Kunduz, sending refugees streaming from the city by foot, donkey and car. Terrified civilians dashed for cover. The head-to-toe white shrouds worn by women flapped as the shells crashed around them.

One group of women, confused, dived into a ditch exposed to the incoming mortar fire, their fingers tearing desperately at the dirt.

"The United States is bombing, and the people are escaping," said refugee Mahmedi, breathless and too much in a hurry to stop to talk. "The city is empty."

Refugees said they were escaping both the anger of foreign fighters trapped in the city and the U.S. bombs.

As the sun began to set, alliance tanks and armored personnel carriers with waving, smiling troops giving the thumbs up headed across the front line, and reinforcements arrived in trucks, tanks and on foot to back them up.

Fighters launched one push toward the airport, but halted the attack when Taliban fighters there radioed that they wanted to give up, said Shah Jan, an aide to alliance commander Gen. Mohammed Daoud.

In other developments Thursday:

- The United States continued to drop food and blankets and publicize reward money of up to $25 million, offered for information leading to the capture of bin Laden.

- Efforts continued to arrange power-sharing talks for a post-Taliban government next week in Bonn, Germany. Afghanistan's exiled former monarch will send two women and six others reflecting the country's varied ethnic makeup to the talks, the king's grandson said.

- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw traveled to Tehran, Iran, where he met with the chief foreign representative of the Northern Alliance and with his Iranian counterpart, Kamal Kharrazi. Straw and Kharrazi agreed on the need for a broad-based government to replace the Taliban, but Kharrazi criticized the British military presence in Afghanistan.

- The Taliban's isolation grew further when Pakistan closed the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad, the last Taliban post outside the country. "We are delighted to know that Pakistan is severing diplomatic relations with the Taliban," coalition spokesman Kenton Keith said in Islamabad.

- Charles Josselin, a top French foreign ministry official, said in Uzbekistan that he expected 50 French servicemen to be sent from there to Mazar-e-Sharif to secure the local airport.

- Poland agreed to contribute as many as 300 soldiers, including some from an elite commando unit, to support the U.S.-led military operation in Afghanistan.

---

THE BATTLE
U.S. Stokes the Fire, Adding Gunships and More

New York Times
November 22, 2001
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/22/international/asia/22MILI.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - With Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters still resisting in Kandahar and smaller pockets, the Pentagon continues to bolster American forces near Afghanistan, asking Uzbekistan to accept three AC-130 Special Forces gunships and planning to base warplanes in two other Central Asian nations, senior officials said today.

The movement of aircraft closer to their targets - including F-15E fighter-bombers and A-10 attack jets to be deployed for the first time in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan - is intended to intensify pressure on the remaining Taliban and Al Qaeda forces.

At the same time, the Pentagon expanded its net for trapping anyone who flees, putting additional troops on the ground and for the first time using the experimental reconnaissance aircraft Global Hawk to hunt down potential targets as they hide or flee.

The Pentagon also announced today that American warships in the North Arabian Sea would begin intercepting ships suspected of ferrying out Al Qaeda leaders or matériel as they leave Pakistan.

"As a precautionary measure, as you would expect us to, we are looking at how they might try to flee the country," Gen. Peter Pace of the Marine Corps, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said today, referring to Al Qaeda leaders. "One way they might try to flee is by ship, so we're making sure we have the assets in place to handle that if it happens."

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that dismantling the Al Qaeda network inside Afghanistan would require even more American and allied forces, including more Special Operations troops and aircraft.

"The way you have to do that obviously is to pursue those individuals and organizations and forces wherever they are in that country," Mr. Rumsfeld said as he traveled to Pope Air Force Base, near Fort Bragg, N.C., where he visited the headquarters of the Army's Special Operations command.

"They're in a couple of enclaves, large enclaves, in Kunduz and Kandahar," he said, speaking before reports that the Taliban was ending its resistance in Kunduz. "They also are in a number of smaller enclaves spotted all around the country. And there are certainly individuals, we are sure, hiding in caves and tunnels. And we intend to pursue them."

Gen. Tommy R. Franks of the Army, the American commander of the war in Afghanistan, also suggested today that the United States was prepared to deploy conventional forces "in small numbers" inside the country for the first time.

"We have not taken that off the table," he said.

General Franks visited Afghanistan for the first time today, meeting with opposition commanders from the Northern Alliance at airfields in Baghram and Mazar-i-Sharif to continue to coordinate both strategy against the Taliban and humanitarian relief.

"We have a great deal of work left to do," he told reporters in Uzbekistan's capital, Tashkent, after his brief visit to Afghanistan. He added that "all forms of military forces stay on the table and possibly one or other type of forces will be deployed in Afghanistan."

Although General Franks declined to elaborate, officials said that the Pentagon was prepared to send hundreds of marines into Afghanistan from amphibious assault ships now in the North Arabian Sea. The troops, members of the 15th and 26th Marine Expeditionary Units, are equipped for sustained operations and may operate from makeshift bases in Afghan territory for days at a time, according to a retired senior officer still close to Pentagon commanders.

"We can already operate fairly freely within the borders of Afghanistan," a Department of Defense official said today.

An example of that came after an accident involving an Army Special Operations helicopter in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday. The helicopter, an MH-6J "Little Bird" reconnaissance helicopter, crashed in what the Pentagon called "a hard landing," injuring its four crewmen.

The crew and the helicopter itself were flown out of Afghanistan aboard a C-130 cargo aircraft , which requires at least a minimal airstrip to land and take off. One officer suggested that the accident and the rescue took place in what amounted to a forward operating base already inside the country.

"Put it this way," one officer said, "it was not in hostile territory."

In remarks to reporters and to troops at Fort Bragg, Mr. Rumsfeld made it clear the Pentagon would not let up its pursuit. He said that more Special Operations forces were giving "broader and deeper coverage" of pockets of resistance and that warplanes had had some success in killing Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, though he declined to be specific.

Other American officials said today that they had received credible reports suggesting that another important terrorist leader had been killed in Afghanistan.

One intelligence official said that Juma Namangani, the field commander of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which seeks to transform all of Central Asia into a single militant Islamic state, was believed to have been killed somewhere in northern Afghanistan. This reportedly happened several days before the death of Mohammed Atef, a senior lieutenant to Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a bombing raid last week.

While there were some conflicting reports, one intelligence official said, the preponderance of evidence suggests that Mr. Namangani was dead.

Mr. Rumsfeld, after addressing hundreds of soldiers at the Army's Special Operations Command, suggested that the Pentagon would continue moving forces into Afghanistan to help in the hunt for Mr. bin Laden. "We will have to put forces on the ground that will enable us to do that," he said.

He announced that the Pentagon had asked that strike aircraft be based in Uzbekistan, which until now has agreed to permit only reconnaissance, search and rescue and cargo aircraft.

At the Pentagon, a senior officer said the three AC-130 gunships operated by the Air Force's Special Forces could arrive in Uzbekistan within days, allowing intensified attacks on concentrations of enemy troops.

Six other AC-130's have been operating out of a base in Oman.

"It would be helpful for us to have AC-130's up north, particularly when you have a situation like Kunduz, because that particular weapon systems can put off enormous amounts of ordinance with a great deal of precision, without a lot of collateral damage," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

As he has repeatedly in recent days, Mr. Rumsfeld said that it was his preference that the Northern Alliance not allow non-Afghan fighters to leave the country. He has said that American officers with the opposition are asking Northern Alliance commanders to either kill or capture those fighters.

------

THE STRONGHOLD
Taliban Will Rise Again, Aide to Leader Tells Journalists

New York Times
November 22, 2001
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/22/international/asia/22MAND.html

SPINBALDAK, Afghanistan, Nov. 21 - The Taliban said today that they would never give up their stronghold in southern Afghanistan and their spiritual home, the city of Kandahar, ruling out any talks with the Northern Alliance or other opposition groups on a future national government.

In the Taliban's first news conference in Afghanistan since the United States bombing campaign began in early October, a spokesman for their supreme leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, warned that the country was on the verge of the anarchy and warlordism that existed before the rise of the Taliban in the mid-1990's.

Saying that the Taliban still controlled the territory that had served as the springboard for their conquest of the rest of the country last time around, the spokesman, Tayab Agha, predicted that the Taliban once again would unify the country under their vision of Islamic rule.

"We started the movement and then the formation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan before controlling Kabul and before controlling the northern areas of Afghanistan," Mr. Agha said. He later added: "We will defend the present provinces we control. But when the time comes, the compulsion or the responsibility of taking other provinces lies on our shoulders."

This defiant message was delivered as the Northern Alliance's stunning accumulation of victories appeared to be stalling.

Instead of folding, the Taliban have clung to power here in southern Afghanistan.

Without the outside support they enjoyed in the mid-1990's - most importantly from Pakistan's military - the Taliban are unlikely ever to be able to reclaim the entire country. But they may be able to hold on to southern Afghanistan, a condition that could leave the country in Somalia-like chaos, threatening the success of the American war on terrorism here.

In a measure of the Taliban's confidence, they invited journalists to Spinbaldak, a dusty, desert town about five miles from the Pakistani border.

The statements by Mr. Agha, Mullah Omar's 25-year-old private secretary, were clearly intended to dispel recent reports that the Taliban were ceding political power and heading to the hills and caves to wage guerrilla war.

Last week, a news agency close to the Taliban, the Afghan Islamic Press, reported that Mullah Omar was handing over control of Kandahar to Mullah Naqib Ullah and Hajji Bashar, two Pashtun commanders who fought in the war against the Soviet Union in the 1980's.

But today, Mr. Agha said that Mullah Omar "is not going to leave Kandahar, and this is not something of his choice."

Mr. Agha explained that the Taliban's Islamic faith bound them to defend the city.

A Pakistani official in touch with Taliban representatives in Kandahar said that Mullah Omar had experienced a vision in which the Prophet Muhammad told him not to surrender, assuring him that God would save the Taliban.

Flanked by soldiers with Kalashnikov rifles, Mr. Agha denied reports that Kandahar, about 60 miles west of here, was riven by infighting, pitting moderate members of the Taliban against hard-liners, as well as foreign Taliban fighters. He said that journalists would soon be permitted to visit the city.

American bombers have been pounding Kandahar and its surrounding areas, sending many civilians fleeing to refugee camps nearby and across the border into Pakistan. United States Special Forces have also been active in the region, blowing up bridges, blocking roads and working to unify Pashtun tribal leaders against the Taliban.

The Taliban clearly wanted to show that the strategy had not worked.

Mr. Agha began the news conference at an abandoned United Nations compound here with a review of the past quarter-century in Afghanistan. The end of the war against the Soviets, he said, led to anarchy, which was relieved only by the Taliban.

In recent weeks, as the Taliban have lost control over much of the country, the warlords who were chased out of power by the Taliban to popular acclaim between 1994 and 1996 have re-emerged.

In the western city Herat, Ismail Khan reinstalled himself as the governor; in the northern city Mazar-i- Sharif, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum is back in power; and Haji Abdul Qadir, who allowed Osama bin Laden to stay in his province in 1996, filled the vacuum created by the Taliban's retreat from Jalalabad last week.

But here in southern Afghanistan, home to their fellow ethnic Pashtuns, the Taliban remain in charge.

"These people cannot control the nation, but will carry the nation of Afghanistan to division and to other problems that it was facing before 1994 in the time when there was fighting in different factions of Afghanistan," Mr. Agha said.

The return of the warlords has complicated plans to form a national unity government in Kabul. The Northern Alliance, which seized the capital city despite Washington's warnings not to, has agreed to talk with other Afghan factions next week in Germany.

Taliban officials said today that they would not attend any meeting arising from the American intervention or organized by the United Nations, which Mr. Agha described as "working under the instructions of America."

"The foreign intervention and foreign interference can never bring peace and stability in the country," he said.

In this area, as well as in the north, United States Special Forces have intensified their hunt for Mr. bin Laden and his Qaeda terrorist network. Mr. Agha said that Mr. bin Laden was no longer in Taliban-held territory, and that the Taliban no longer knew his whereabouts.

Asked whether the Taliban had made a mistake in shielding Mr. bin Laden, Mr. Agha said: "He was somebody who was ready to give his blood for the sake of this nation during the Russian interference. What is friendship more than that?"

------

U.S. Wants al - Qaida Troops Locked Up

November 22, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Bin-Laden-Fighters.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Thousands of Osama bin Laden's core Arab supporters in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz -- and thousands more who've already melted into the countryside -- pose a perplexing problem for the United States.

If they aren't killed, they must be locked up forever, the Pentagon says, because any who are given amnesty or free passage will simply try to launch more terror.

``It would be most unfortunate if the foreigners in Afghanistan -- the al-Qaida and the Chechens and others who have been there working with the Taliban -- if those folks were set free and in any way allowed to go to another country, and cause the same kind of terrorist acts,'' Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said this week. Later, he added: ``My hope is that they will be either be killed or taken prisoner.''

The issue gained urgency Thursday as northern alliance commanders announced that the Taliban agreed to surrender their last northern stronghold, Kunduz, and hand over thousands of Arabs and other foreign fighters loyal to Osama bin Laden.

U.S. officials have made clear in recent days that these bin Laden loyalists -- essentially the hard-core fighters of his al-Qaida network -- are its main target inside Afghanistan, beyond bin Laden himself and his top aides.

The United States will bomb any who try to flee, officials say. Those captured alive are likely to face President Bush's new military tribunals.

But the United States also must try to head off any potential massacres by the northern alliance or face accusations of complicity, experts warn. The U.S. commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, met with northern leaders this week to urge them to treat prisoners humanely.

``It's a dilemma for the U.S.,'' said John Pike, a defense analyst in Washington. ``This is the one piece of al-Qaida that we know where they are ... You'd certainly like to be able to interrogate some of them.''

On the other hand, Pike noted, ``You'd also just like to have them disappear from the earth forever.''

The foreign fighters in Kunduz are not Afghans, but Arabs -- Yemenis and Saudis -- and Pakistanis, Chechens, even ethnic Uighur Muslims from China's far west, who trained as terrorists in bin Laden's Afghanistan camps, and then joined Taliban forces.

In addition to the group surrounded in Kunduz, more of bin Laden's Arab fighters probably are hiding in southern and eastern Afghanistan or have managed to slip outside the country, perhaps to Pakistan. The Navy said Wednesday it will stop any merchant ships off Pakistan suspected of carrying escaping al-Qaida.

The Taliban who control the southern stronghold of Kandahar, in the only other holdout, are a much-lesser concern for the United States. If the top Taliban leaders there can be killed, the United States expects the rest of the Taliban in Kandahar to simply desert, and thus cease to be a threat, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Wednesday.

There are an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 Taliban in Kunduz, with bin Laden's foreign fighters perhaps 1,000 to 3,000 of those, U.S. officials say. No one knows for sure, Wolfowitz said.

Bin Laden's followers were around Kunduz even before the U.S. military campaign began in early October. When the northern alliance began winning battles, more Taliban retreated there.

The Arab fighters have sworn a fight to the death, in part because they have nowhere else to go. Their countries, fearing Islamic extremism, won't take them back. Refugees fleeing Kunduz have said the bin Laden fighters are trying to prevent any Taliban surrender, even shooting would-be defectors.

The northern alliance warns if they don't surrender, they will be killed. The United Nations has urged alliance fighters to avoid a blood bath, but says it has no way to help troops who wish to surrender.

The United States doesn't have enough troops nearby to negotiate a surrender or take any prisoners, Rumsfeld said. Instead, the Pentagon hopes to soon base deadly AC-130 gunships in Uzbekistan to help hunt down the Arab fighters near Kunduz.

If any bin Laden fighters are captured alive, Bush would ultimately decide if they are candidates for the secret military tribunals. But it's a logical choice, said Ruth Wedgwood, a professor of international law at Yale University and Johns Hopkins University.

``It's traditionally been the prerogative, even the duty, of military commanders to try war crimes in the battlefield,'' Wedgwood said. That would raise the difficult question of what to do with them if they're convicted -- imprisonment or execution.

Nevertheless, ``These are very dangerous people,'' Wedgwood said. ``This, I would think, would be the least-controversial use of a military tribunal.''

------

THE STANDOFF
Foreign Militants Seek Safe Passage From Afghan City

New York Times
November 22, 2001
By DEXTER FILKINS with CARLOTTA GALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/22/international/22KUND.html

EMAM SAHEB, Afghanistan, Nov. 21 - Foreign militants, trapped inside the besieged city of Kunduz and desperate to save their lives, have asked to leave the country through a protected corridor and travel overland to Pakistan, a senior Northern Alliance official said here today.

The militants' evacuation request surfaced here as leaders of the Taliban and Northern Alliance gathered in two distant meetings to discuss the possible surrender of Kunduz. As of late tonight, the city's fate, and that of the foreign fighters trapped inside, remained uncertain amid conflicting reports from the negotiations.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, was firmly opposed to any agreement on evacuating the foreigners.

"My thoughts are very simple about negotiations anywhere in the country, and that is that the people either surrender or they ought to be fought," he said.

Speaking aboard his plane today, he added, "And if they're looking for any kind of conditions whereby the foreigners - there's Chinese in there, there's Chechens in there, there's Arabs in there, there's Al Qaeda in there - any idea that those people should be let loose on any basis at all to leave that country and to go bring terror to other countries and destabilize other countries is unacceptable."

The evacuation proposal, whether or not it proves to be part of an overall Taliban surrender, appeared designed to avert a massacre by Northern Alliance troops of hundreds of foreign soldiers who fought with the Taliban. Alliance leaders believe most of the foreign fighters trapped in Kunduz are Pakistanis.

The proposal, forwarded by Taliban leaders in Kunduz to officials here and in Pakistan, coincides with an official request by Pakistan that the United States ensure the safety of fighters trapped inside Kunduz, a Pakistani government official said today. The Pakistanis, who have not officially acknowledged that their citizens are among those trapped, told the American government that no one deserved to be slaughtered and asked that they be protected.

The situation is a difficult one for the United States because, despite its new alliance with Pakistan, it is likely that Pakistani citizens who fought with the Taliban will be killed.

Alliance leaders said they might support the proposal if Pakistan promised to arrest the militants once they crossed the border.

"Perhaps we should consider it," Atiqullah Baryalai, the alliance's deputy defense minister, said at his headquarters here. "The foreigners are a problem, definitely a problem. We want them out of our country."

But United Nations officials, approached by the Taliban earlier this week about evacuating the militants, said they did not have the wherewithal to transport hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of men across more than 300 miles of rugged terrain that would offer many opportunities for ambush.

Until now, the foreign fighters have been given the choice of surrendering and facing a Northern Alliance trial, or being killed in combat. According to refugees coming out of Kunduz, foreign militants have publicly vowed to fight to the death and have killed Afghan Taliban soldiers who have tried to surrender.

The exact number of foreign fighters trapped inside Kunduz is unclear. Northern Alliance leaders say there are as many 6,000, among a total force of about 16,000 Taliban soldiers. The Pentagon puts the number at about 3,000. Taliban leaders say about 1,000 foreign fighters are there.

Pakistani officials and others have expressed fears that if nothing is done, the Northern Alliance will kill the foreigners left in the city. Alliance fighters have been poised on the edge of the Kunduz since last week and have been promising an offensive for days. Northern Alliance soldiers typically regard the foreigners fighting with the Taliban with contempt, seeing them as invaders who murdered their longtime leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud. After Northern Alliance forces moved into Kabul last week, the bodies of several foreign soldiers were found, apparently the victims of execution.

Fighters from other countries, usually Muslim ones, began joining the Taliban movement when it was born in the Afghan desert seven years ago. Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, thousands of Pakistanis have crossed into Afghanistan with the aim of helping the Taliban.

Last week, Abdul Sattar, the Pakistani foreign minister, urged the Northern Alliance to refrain from brutalizing Taliban soldiers there.

"We hope they would be treated in accordance with international law," Mr. Sattar said.

Taliban leaders pitched the idea to the Pakistanis two days ago. According to a Pakistani government official in Islamabad, the siege of Kunduz is especially sensitive because the relatives of some of the country's most powerful religious leaders are apparently trapped there. Northern Alliance officials say the group includes several members of Al Qaeda, the militant organization headed by Osama bin Laden.

The Pakistani government has made it clear that anyone who is brought onto its soil will be arrested. Fighters from other countries would be sent home.

President Pervez Musharraf said today that the foreign fighters should surrender to the United Nations and be treated as prisoners of war.

At one meeting tonight, the Taliban assistant defense minister, Mullah Fazel Mazloom, pledged to end the fighting and surrender all the troops under his command, including the 2,000 to 3,000 foreigners fighting with them. He made the comments at a meeting in Qala Jangi, at the mud-brick fort of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum of the Northern Alliance.

"The problem will be solved," Mullah Mazloom said. Asked if his pledge meant an end to the fighting in Kunduz. "Yes, nobody will be fighting in Kunduz. We can give the message to the people that fighting will not happen there."

"Fighting is not the way for peace," General Dostum told the room which was full with some 20 Taliban and Northern Alliance local leaders. "We should not wash blood with blood, we should wash blood with water," he said.

Northern Alliance officials here said they were unaware of General Dostum's overtures. They pointed out that his troops were 100 miles away in Mazar-i-Sharif, while troops from the Northern Alliance had Kunduz surrounded.

"What Dostum is doing is not helpful," said Mr. Baryalai. "Dostum, he changes positions by the day, by the hour."

Mr. Baryalai said Taliban leaders in Kunduz told him they were prepared to surrender. But he said he was suspicious of the assurances.

"These are evil people," he said. "When an evil person is cornered, he surrenders. But as soon as he gets a chance to stab you in the back, he will take it."

The possibility of surrender was also discussed at Dashti Abdan, a desolate crossroads north of Kunduz.

There, Northern Alliance commanders handed over to Taliban leaders a proposed schedule for the surrender of the Taliban troops. Under the proposal, Taliban soldiers based in Khanabad, to the east, would surrender first, and others would follow. Under an amnesty offered by the Northern Alliance, all Afghan Taliban, with the exception of an unspecified number of "criminals," would be allowed to turn over their weapons and go home. As midnight approached here, the Northern Alliance commanders had not returned and there was no word on the outcome.

-------- africa

African leaders voice goals of peace

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 22, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011122-75530461.htm

The annual debate in the U.N. General Assembly is an opportunity for presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers to publicly express their nations' aspirations and concerns.

Little "debate" usually occurs in or around the grand assembly chambers, and a few issues and nations dominate the coverage. This year, all ears were tuned to comments relating to the international fight against terrorism and frustration with the situation in the Middle East.

Below is a sampling of speeches that probably didn't get much attention outside the national media of each leader's country. For the full text of speeches in their original languages, see the General Assembly Web site: http://www.un.org-/ga/56.

Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa, spoke on the causes of terrorism:

"The need to realize the goal of determining the matters that make for peace, together, once again underlines the need for properly representative international institutions to build the necessary global consensus," he said.

"It would seem obvious that the fundamental source of conflict in the world today is the socioeconomic deprivation of billions of people across the globe, coexisting side by side with islands of enormous wealth and prosperity within and among countries. This necessarily breeds a deep sense of injustice, social alienation, despair and a willingness to sacrifice their lives among those who feel they have nothing to lose and everything to gain, regardless of the form of action to which they resort.

"As the Durban World Conference concluded, racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance remain a critical part of the practices that serve to alienate billions of people and contribute to mutual antagonisms among human beings. The international community should spare no effort to ensure that this affront to human dignity is totally eradicated."

Frederick Chiluba, president of Zambia, spoke on international peacekeeping obligations to Africa:

"Africa has always been ready and willing to participate in all efforts to restore peace where peace has broken down, irrespective of the location of the region," he said.

"Our men and women have served as peacekeepers in Europe, in Asia and in the Middle East because we believe that peace is indivisible.

"Africa, therefore, expects that, just as we are ready and willing to serve in the promotion and defense of peace everywhere, so too should the international community be full partners in the search for peace in Africa.

"In this regard, I cannot help but register our disappointment that, after the painstaking efforts by Sir Ketumile Masire to organize the Intercongolese dialogue in Addis Ababa on Oct. 15, and not withstanding the many pledges made to finance it, the dialogue could not take off due to insufficient funds. I appeal to the international community, through this august assembly, to provide the necessary assistance and conclude the DRC peace process."

I.S.G. Mudenge, vice president of Zimbabwe, spoke on racial terrorism:

"As the people of the United States grapple with the threat posed by biological weapons of mass destruction in the form of anthrax, we in Zimbabwe, who have to date been the greatest victims of this weapon, know what it means and what you are going through," he said.

"The anthrax spores that were spread by the racist regime of Ian Smith during our liberation struggle some more than 21 years ago continue to claim victims exclusively within the black population in our country to this day. We are thus not only vehemently opposed to this and other forms of terrorism, but we know the pain and loss associated with it.

"One of the most enduring features of the present and the latter part of the last century has been the persistence of the colonial legacy in many developing countries. That legacy has been evident in relations between and within states.

"In Zimbabwe, the colonial legacy is poignantly evident in the racially skewed land ownership structure in the country as a direct result of racist policies and laws of successive colonial regimes between 1890 and 1980. Over 70 percent of the best arable land is owned and utilized by approximately 4,100 white farmers mostly of British descent while over 8 million black peasants eke out a living from the remaining 30 percent of the worst arable land. Such a situation has to be corrected in the interests of equity, justice, social harmony and political stability in the country and indeed in our region of Southern Africa. On the basis of these and other objectives, we have made it abundantly clear that in correcting these imbalances no white farmer with a genuine desire to farm would be taken off the land."

Manuel Inocencio Sousa, minister for foreign affairs for Cape Verde, spoke on the price of terrorism to developing nations:

"In participating in the global effort to eliminate terrorism, the developing countries are, once again, at a serious disadvantage. On the one hand, the scarcity of resources and the lack of sophisticated means of detection and prevention make them more vulnerable to infiltration by terrorist organizations and actions launched within their own borders. On the other hand, when they attempt to respond to demands from the international community, they are forced to mobilize resources that would otherwise be dedicated to their economic and social development and to meeting the basic needs of their people.

"Added to this is the fact, as was emphasized some days ago by the U.N. secretary-general, that the poorer economies are the ones that will pay most dearly for the direct consequences of the terrorist attacks on the world economy. My own country, which depends heavily on tourism revenues, is already feeling the repercussions of the worldwide crisis in the transportation and hospitality industries.

"There is, therefore, a critical need for the international community to effectively help the developing countries, particularly the least developed ones, to bear the added burden that the battle against terrorism is placing on their economies."

Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalghem, foreign minister of Libya, spoke on the Middle East situation:

"Speaking of the situation in the Arab East regions, my country reiterates its unlimited support for sisterly Syria and Lebanon in their steadfastness in the face of the Israeli aggression, condemns all attempts to provoke them and upholds their right to recover their entire occupied lands.

"As we follow up the current state in Iraq, we once again condemn the daily violations of Iraqi sovereignty, and the continuous aggression to which Iraq is subjected. We call upon all peace-loving countries to work towards the practical lifting of the sanctions imposed on the Iraqi people, and ending all schemes aiming at the destruction of their capabilities and the division of their land."

Jakaya M. Kikwete, foreign minister of Tanzania, spoke on debt relief:

"The problem of external debt of developing countries, and particularly of the [least developed countries], continues to pose a serious challenge to the development efforts of these countries.

"External debt servicing has been crowding out priority social investments, diverting the limited revenue available domestically to overseas creditors.

"In Tanzania, for example, debt servicing averaged one-third of the entire government's budget. When another one-third is spent on payment of salaries to government employees, only a third of the budget is left to government to perform its duties, which range from maintaining law and order, to provision of basic social and economic services like health, education, water, communications and transport, etc.

"This clearly underscores the fact that debt relief and debt forgiveness will go a long way towards enhancing government capacity to discharge its duties. In this regard, Tanzania welcomes the various measures undertaken by the international community, in particular the G-8, Bretton Woods Institutions, Paris Club and other creditor countries and institutions aimed at dealing with this chronic problem.

"We particularly welcome the institution of enhanced [heavily indebted poor countries] which compresses the time for the accession and completion.

"Our only concern is that despite all these measures, the scope and magnitude of debt continues to build up to dangerous proportions. It therefore calls for more surgical measures to be taken to deal more effectively with this crippling problem."

Sule Lamido, foreign minister of Nigeria, spoke on disarmament issues:

"As part of the commitment to durable peace and security, there must be a reintensification of our resolve to eliminate all weapons of war, both conventional and nonconventional. Of utmost concern to us in Africa is the havoc caused by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons. The Program of Action adopted at the recently concluded United Nations Conference on Small Arms and Light Weapons provides us a clear road map for effective cooperation. Its effective implementation will attest to our commitment to strengthen the forces of democracy and rule of law in the world.

"We recognize the inexorable march of globalization, and fully embrace the challenges of expanding opportunities in trade, finance, information and communications technology which it portends. But the benefits should not be limited to only a small section of the international community.

"Globalization and its twin phenomena of liberalization and deregulation should work for all countries. The health and stability of the global economic system demands nothing less. For us in Africa, access to such benefits should reflect in concrete actions and measures that would ensure our full integration into a new fair global economic system."

Ahmed Abdi Hashi, U.N. ambassador of Somalia, spoke on accusations that Somalia was a hothouse of terrorists.

"Let me at this juncture address the persistent reports in the media and elsewhere alleging, among other things, the existence of terrorist camps in Somalia.

"First, l should firmly state that the Somali government hosts no terrorists nor offers bases or training camps for them. My government has not and will not offer them any sanctuary. We will arrest and hand over immediately any terrorist who comes to our shores.

"Second, we want to challenge the veracity of these reports. It is also important to evaluate objectively the integrity of the sources of this kind of information.

"But we need to see the evidence and establish the facts in the first place. It is a fundamental principle of law and natural justice that every person is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. This principle is also equally applicable to states.

"In the view of my government's serious concern about these accusations, we propose the setting up of international committee of inquiry under the auspices of the U.N. Security Council to investigate these allegations."

Monie Captan, foreign minister of Liberia, protested the diamond, arms and air embargo imposed on Liberia:

"The Liberian government's capacity to defend its territorial integrity has been impaired by a United Nations arms embargo, despite the right to self-defense as expressed in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.

"The Security Council has taken no measures to prevent the ongoing killing of innocent Liberians, especially women and children who are the targets of atrocities committed in Lofa County by armed dissidents.

"Since the imposition of sanctions by the Security Council, and despite the claim by the council that the sanctions would not have any adverse effect on the ordinary people, socioeconomic indicators show that the living condition of the Liberian people have declined dramatically. Available statistics show a direct correlation between the imposition of sanctions and the decline in the living standards of the Liberian people."

-------- arms sales

Bill provision has military collectors up in arms

November 22, 2001
By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011122-52513264.htm

A sweeping provision in the Senate's Defense Department authorization bill would force collectors who have bought surplus military items to "demilitarize" them - something hobbyists fear means destroying or turning over vintage military vehicles and guns.

House members stripped that section out of the version of the bill they passed, and negotiators from the two chambers are now working to iron out the issue. No agreement has been announced, but several lobbyists from vehicle collectors associations and gun rights groups said House negotiators have promised the provision will be stricken.

Known to opponents simply as Section 1062, the provision of the Senate bill would make it illegal for anyone to possess "significant military equipment" formerly owned by the military unless it has been demilitarized - which means made inoperable as a weapon - according to regulations set out by the Defense Department.

The purpose of the provision, a Pentagon spokesman said, is to prevent a recurrence of past mistakes when a helicopter or tank has been sold without the gun placements removed.

But a broad coalition - from the National Rifle Association to the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans to vintage military jeep owners and even military radio collectors - says the provision is drawn so it encompasses just about anything the military has ever surplused.

"If Uncle George brought an M-1 rifle home from the war, it would include that," said Scott A. Duff, who has written a history of the M-1 Garand rifle, which was a staple for World War II infantry.

Even more ironic, he said, is that the federal government still sells that particular rifle to civilians through a marksmanship program, creating a curious situation: "The FedEx man could come to your door with an M-1 today, and the Defense Department could come to your door [to demilitarize it] tomorrow."

However, the section of the bill has irked more than gun enthusiasts.

Allan D. Cors, president of the Virginia Museum of Military Vehicles and owner of more than 100 tanks, armored vehicles and jeeps, wrote a memo calling the provision "a grotesque and frightening grant of authority to seize [or] destroy legally acquired and legally possessed private property," especially since it would specifically harm people like him whose goal is to preserve artifacts of military history.

Nobody knows how many planes, trucks, pistols, radios and rifles would be covered under the provision - simply that it is a lot.

Several of the groups have been told that demilitarization wouldn't apply to them, and senators have said they do not intend it to apply to Civil War cannon and World War II aircraft. The provision also grants the secretary of defense discretion on what to demilitarize, and how to do it.

But hobbyists say they want to be sure someone doesn't misinterpret the provision in the future.

"We want to believe that, but our concern is the language is so broad that 10 years down the line some bureaucrat may say, 'Oh my goodness, we haven't been keeping up with this, here's all this ex-military aircraft we need to demilitarize,'" said Peter Moll, executive director of the Experimental Aircraft Association Warbirds of America, a group representing civilians who own military aircraft.

Yet there are some groups that say the issue has been blown out of proportion.

"We've been in contact with Senate staffers on this and it seems like some of the concern is typical knee-jerk overreaction of some of the gun extremists," said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

"Congress is trying to do the right thing on this. They're trying to make sure someone doesn't have access to high-powered military weapons. They're not going to take away someone's World War II rifle," he said.

The fate of the provision - like the rest of the bill - rests with Democrats and Republicans who are now in conference.

Tara Andringa, spokeswoman for Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the senator will not comment on the provision until an agreement has been reached.

"All that Senator Levin has said is that he's aware of concerns that have been raised and they're working to iron out differences in conference," she said.

Lisa Atkins, chief of staff to Rep. Bob Stump, Arizona Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he is opposed to Section 1062.

"The congressman is very opposed to it, and doesn't want to include it" in any piece of legislation that is eventually agreed to by both chambers, she said.

-------- biological weapons

Iraq Rebuts U.S. Claims on Violating Germ Arms Ban

Yahoo News
Thursday November 22
Reuters
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011122/wl/iraq_arms_biological_dc_1.html
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011123-60591448.htm

BAGHDAD - Iraq on Thursday denied U.S. accusations that it has developed and produced biological weapons and said it is Washington that has been researching germ warfare.

``Iraq ended its biological program in 1991 in compliance with the Convention that it has joined in the same year,'' a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

``The United States has unleashed in the past few years a new program for secret researches for biological weapons and not Iraq,'' he added.

The spokesman said U.N. weapons inspectors affirmed that Iraq no longer possessed biological weapons or any other banned weapons.

On Monday, the opening day of the three-week conference in Geneva aimed at strengthening the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, the United States accused Iraq and North Korea of having such weapons.

``The U.S. official has affirmed double standards adopted by America by directing false accusation against a group of states, the majority of them are Arab and Muslim countries, without presenting any evidence to these accusations,'' the Iraqi spokesman said.

``The U.S. official exempted the Zionist entity (Israel) from any criticism or accusation, though it has refused to sign the Biological Weapons Convention and despite that evidence indicating its possession of mass destruction weapons were known to the whole world,'' the spokesman added.

Iraq has said it once had a program to develop germ warfare weapons, but says that all stocks have been destroyed.

But it has refused to allow access to United Nations inspectors since 1998. Washington says it has since strengthened its biological arsenal.

------

Taliban Took Interest in Kabul Lab

By Kathy Gannon
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, November 21, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32-2001Nov21?language=printer

KABUL, Afghanistan -- At an Agriculture Ministry laboratory outside Kabul, scientists worked with anthrax. If Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network wanted to get its hands on the deadly substance, this laboratory, now badly damaged by U.S. bombing, could have been a source.

The now defeated Taliban regime has long denied being involved in chemical or biological weapons research, but it seems to have taken an interest in the work being done at the lab, according to scientists there, and it was repeatedly hit by U.S. bombers.

The lab, in a two-story mountainside building, was frequently visited by a Taliban official during the past five years, according to scientists interviewed there Tuesday.

They did not say whether Mullah Qari Abdullah showed a specific interest in anthrax, and the scientists insisted their work was aimed purely at developing animal vaccines.

"The Taliban officer-in-charge, Mullah Qari Abdullah, would come here regularly," said Dr. Mohammed Ali, speaking in the lab amid shards of glass from bomb-shattered bottles.

He declined to elaborate, and when his colleagues began to speak, he snapped at them in Farsi, the language used in Iran and parts of Afghanistan, saying: "Listen to me! Listen to me!"

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said bin Laden likely had some chemical or biological weapons, and that U.S. forces bombed some sites in Afghanistan that could have been involved in producing them. It was not clear whether the government laboratory was on the list of suspects.

Ali and his colleague, Dr. Abdul Wakil, did not say whether any of their research was transferred to al-Qaida or used in weapons experiments. But they acknowledged that the lab's activities meant the Taliban had access to anthrax.

The scientists, long-time workers at the lab, showed a large container which they said held concentrated anthrax spores.

Both complained that much of the anthrax vaccine had already expired and that they were having trouble getting fresh supplies to produce more. Before the bombing campaign, private companies in India and Iran were their major suppliers, they said.

Shipments were halted after Sept. 11, and the laboratories have had to rely on their stocks, which are running low.

The research - and the samples of deadly substances - is not in itself unusual. Similar studies, used to produce animal vaccines, are conducted in laboratories around the world, and the government scientists in Kabul received technical assistance from the International Committee of the Red Cross and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Documents relating to deadly chemicals and bacteria have been found in houses abandoned by al-Qaida after the Taliban fled Kabul on Nov. 13 and the opposition northern alliance took over.

Material in Arabic, Urdu, Russian and English indicate al-Qaida was studying chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons. It's not clear whether any was ever produced.

Some papers had handwritten chemical formulas, diagrams that seemed to indicate a mixing of chemicals followed by an explosive reaction.

At a training base on the southern edge of the city was an English-language book with instructions on how to survive a nuclear war, and a letter home from a recruit that indicated al-Qaida trainees were still there earlier this month.

"I would be suspicious of the anthrax research and any research during the Taliban (period) because they were under the control of Osama and al-Qaida," Dalut Mir, deputy head of northern alliance military intelligence, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

"We have strong evidence of their involvement in chemical weapons," he added. "We believe that they were using government facilities, like the Ministry of Agriculture, to do their research in terrorism."

The lab is housed several hundred yards from surrounding buildings, making it an easily identifiable target. Giant cracks run down its cement walls, window frames are twisted. Glass litters the floors. On the second floor doors have been blown off their hinges and shelves toppled.

The Pentagon does not talk publicly about specific targets, but says it is investigating previously suspected chemical and biological sites that no longer are in Taliban control. Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked at Tuesday's Pentagon briefing whether any conclusions had been reached and said he knew of none.

----

New Anthrax Evidence

New York Times
November 22, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/22/opinion/22THU2.html

After a period of relative quiet on the bioterrorism front, two developments over the past week could give investigators new leads to help resolve some of the most puzzling aspects of the continuing anthrax crisis.

Discovery of an anthrax-laced letter mailed to Senator Patrick Leahy strengthened the likelihood that the terrorist is home-grown rather than foreign. The letter bore the same Trenton postmark, the same fictitious return address and the same block handwriting as an anthrax-tainted letter previously sent to Senator Tom Daschle, the majority leader. Since Senator Leahy is primarily associated with social and law enforcement issues, he seems more likely to attract the attention of home-grown terrorists.

The Leahy letter also helped explain how anthrax spores could spread so widely in Washington-area postal facilities, farther than could be easily blamed on the Daschle letter alone. The Leahy letter was misrouted in a way that could also account for a puzzling inhalation anthrax case at a remote State Department postal facility.

Meanwhile, the death of a 94-year-old Connecticut woman from inhalation anthrax yesterday has raised perplexing questions as to how she could possibly have been exposed. She was a widow who lived alone in a rural community. Last month a 61-year-old woman who lived alone in New York City also died of the disease. Investigators have been unable to identify the source of her infection.

They may have better luck with the Connecticut woman, who was said to be accompanied by a friend or relative whenever she left the house. Investigators should be able to trace virtually every step she took in recent weeks. That could shed light on whether she was infected through the mails and whether the elderly are particularly susceptible. There is much still mysterious about this anthrax crisis, and the Connecticut case could help decipher it.

---

US Forces Search for Chemical Weapons

New York Times
November 22, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Military.html?searchpv=aponline http://wire.ap.org/?PACKAGEID=attacks-military

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. teams are searching and taking samples from sites in Afghanistan where the al-Qaida terrorist network may have been building chemical or biological weapons, a top Pentagon official says.

Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace said U.S. forces have visited some, but not all, areas where al-Qaida may have been making such weapons of mass destruction. Results of tests from those sites have not come back yet, Pace said Wednesday.

``That one place where the only vial that had English on it said 'anthrax' kind of gives you pause,'' said Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ``We are going to have the analysis, and don't have that yet.''

Sept. 11 attacks suspect Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida's leader, has said his group has chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons. U.S. officials have said al-Qaida probably has crude chemical or biological weapons but not a nuclear bomb.

U.S. planes have bombed sites that officials believe could have been used to produce chemical or germ weapons. U.S. airstrikes hit a laboratory in Kabul that worked with anthrax, for example. Scientists at the lab say they only made anthrax vaccines for livestock.

Two journalists killed in Afghanistan on Monday had reported finding what they believed were glass vials of deadly sarin nerve gas at an abandoned al-Qaida camp southwest of Jalalabad, an eastern city near the border with Pakistan. At other sites abandoned by the Taliban or al-Qaida, reporters have found guides to making chemical and biological weapons.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited special operations troops at Fort Bragg, N.C., Wednesday to thank them for their service. Special forces in Afghanistan have helped guide bombs to targets and given anti-Taliban forces advice and supplies.

``The success of the targeting has just improved so dramatically'' since special forces landed in Afghanistan, Rumsfeld told the soldiers: ``The air war enabled the ground war to succeed.''

Airstrikes also have killed several al-Qaida and Taliban leaders, such as al-Qaida military chief Mohammed Atef, killed in a raid Nov. 14.

``There's one (leader) right now that is trying to get out of the country because his legs were badly damaged in an attack, a senior official,'' Rumsfeld said Wednesday on CBS' ``60 Minutes II.''

``We have had good luck in finding these folks and putting weapons on them.''

Rumsfeld said the United States hopes to base AC-130 gunships in Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic on Afghanistan's northern border. The airplanes are armed with rapid-fire cannons that rain down 2,500 rounds per minute.

Rumsfeld said AC-130s were not yet in Uzbekistan. He said the U.S. wants to use them to support anti-Taliban forces besieging Kunduz, the only northern city still under Taliban and al-Qaida control.

The Pentagon probably will send up to 1,500 Marines into Afghanistan, perhaps this week, officials said on condition of anonymity.

They would come from one of two Marine Expeditionary Units based on ships in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Pakistan. Those troops are specially trained for quick raids, counterterrorism and urban warfare, as well as reconnaissance and more traditional forms of combat.

The Pentagon also announced Wednesday that U.S. Navy ships in the Arabian Sea would begin stopping and searching vessels that could be carrying Taliban or al-Qaida leaders. The fleeing leaders would have to cross through Pakistan to the coast before getting on a ship, since Afghanistan is landlocked.

Pace said no ships have been chased, boarded or searched so far. He said the Pentagon did not have specific information indicating Taliban or al-Qaida leaders would flee by sea, but said the military wanted to be ready for that possibility regardless.

Rumsfeld confirmed that a new Air Force spy plane -- the high altitude, unmanned Global Hawk -- has begun flying over Afghanistan this week for the first time. He said it was being operated as a demonstration model, since the aircraft is still in development and has never before been used in a real operation.

-------- cuba

Four U.S. Companies Sign the First Trade Deals With Cuba

New York Times
November 22, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/22/international/americas/22CUBA.html

AVANA, Nov. 21 (Reuters) - Four American companies became the first in four decades to sign trade accords with Cuba and will supply food worth about $20 million to aid in the recovery from Hurricane Michelle, a business official said today.

Representatives of the companies - Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Riceland Foods and ConAgra - were in Havana this week to sign the agreements with the state company Alimport to provide wheat, corn, soy and rice, said John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.

The deals came after Cuba, which has been subject to a United States embargo since soon after President Fidel Castro's revolution in 1959, appealed to Washington to speed up authorization to buy food and medicines from the United States on a one-time basis to replenish stocks used after the hurricane hit on Nov. 4.

The storm, the worst in five decades, severely damaged crops earmarked for both export and local needs.

Washington had first offered to send humanitarian aid via nongovernment bodies, but Havana replied with a polite refusal and a counteroffer to buy food and medicines with cash.

Archer Daniels Midland signed the first of its contracts on Tuesday, for about 20,000 metric tons of wheat at a market value of around $2.5 million, Mr. Kavulich said.

Cuba is estimated to want products totaling about $30 million, of which Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill and Riceland appear to have won the largest share.

There was no immediate confirmation from Cuban officials on the deals, which still require approval by the United States Commerce Department.

But Cargill's director of international business development, Van Yeutter, confirmed his company's agreement to sell 20,000 metric tons of wheat, 19,000 tons of corn and 5,000 tons of crude vegetable oil for shipment in January and February.

A spokesman for Archer Daniels Midland, Larry Cunningham, confirmed the company had sold Cuba "tens of thousands" of tons of food products for shipment in the next week to 10 days. The products are expected to be transported on American ships or those of a third country.

Mr. Kavulich said another three companies, Gold Kist of Georgie, Tyson Foods in Arkansas and Perdue Farms in Maryland, were likely to win some remaining Cuban contracts.

Havana has stressed that the sales are exceptional because of the hurricane damage, and has reiterated its appeal for a full lifting of the embargo.

"The contracts being signed with Cuba should not be seen as as a start of an ongoing commercial relationship with Cuba," Mr. Kavulich said. "They are taking place under a humanitarian umbrella after Hurricane Michelle as the Cubans have made clear they don't expect to continue with these purchases."

But the contracts may be an important crack in the embargo, which is opposed by a significant farm and business lobby in the United States.

"The hurricane seems to have broken the logjam," said Phil Peters, vice president of the Washington- based Lexington Institute and a former State Department official who has traveled extensively in Cuba.

The situation has not only brought a symbolic sale to Cuba but has helped reinforce both sides' positions on the embargo.

Washington can demonstrate what it has long been arguing - that sales of food and medicine are in fact possible thanks to modifications of the embargo legislation, if there is a political will in Cuba.

Havana has an opportunity to open a chink in the sanctions, stoke the internal American anti-embargo lobby and perhaps move up Cuba on President Bush's increasingly crowded foreign policy agenda.

-------- death penalty

U.S. Death Penalty Stops Spain Extraditing Suspects

Thursday November 22
Reuters
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20011122/ts/attack_spain_extradition_dc_1.html

MADRID - Spain cannot extradite suspected Islamic extremists to the United States while the death penalty is in force there, judicial sources said on Thursday.

Eight suspected members of a radical Spanish Islamic group were detained in Spain last week, accused of involvement in the September 11 hijacked aircraft attacks on the United States.

High Court Judge Baltasar Garzon said in a committal order that the men, mostly Spanish citizens of Arab origin, had links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group.

The United States accuses bin Laden of masterminding the attacks on New York and Washington that killed thousands.

The arrested men have denied the charges, judicial sources said.

At an informal meeting in Madrid on Wednesday involving a representative of the U.S. ambassador, two officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and two Spanish justice officials, the U.S. was told that extradition was not possible, the sources said.

``The U.S. officials came away from the meeting with the clear message that under Spanish law Spain could not extradite suspects to a country which enforces the death penalty,'' they said.

The death penalty was abolished in Spain with the introduction of the constitution in 1978 three years after the death of dictator General Francisco Franco.

A total of 85 people were executed in the U.S. last year and more than 60 have been executed so far this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

-------- drug war

English Pot Smokers' Pub May Prove a Model

New York Times
November 22, 2001
By SARAH LYALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/22/international/europe/22POT.html

STOCKPORT, England, Nov. 21 - Until the Dutch Experience cafe opened here earlier this fall, providing marijuana by the bag instead of beer by the pint, Stockport never loomed particularly large in the greater British imagination.

"I read in the newspaper that the only thing Stockport is famous for is the hat museum," said Darren Ince, 32, a retail manager, on his way to secure a joint or two at the cafe recently. "I didn't know we were even famous for that."

All that changed this fall, when the cafe opened its doors, let the distinctive smoke waft out and instantly turned this unremarkable suburb of Manchester into a battleground for Britain's growing pot smokers' rights movement.

The Dutch Experience, modeled on the pot-purveying coffee shops of marijuana-friendly Amsterdam, may well prove to be the thin end of the wedge in Britain, where the government is signaling that it might relax laws on the use of soft drugs in the name of creating a workable drug policy.

British drug laws are strict, and the police spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with minor drug offenses, the government says. Sixty-five percent of the 120,000 drug- related arrests in Britain last year were for possession of marijuana.

Saying the police should direct their efforts at eradicating hard drugs like heroin and LSD, Home Secretary David Blunkett last month proposed downgrading marijuana to a Class C drug, from its current Class B status. That would make possession of pot no longer an arrestable offense.

A pilot project in Brixton, a drug- infested neighborhood in south London where police officers spent six months focusing on hard drugs instead of marijuana, has proved effective, the police say.

But Mr. Blunkett's proposals have not yet taken effect, and law enforcement officials across the country are not exactly sure what to do in this interim period.

It is unclear, for instance, what the Stockport police really think of the Dutch Experience. After raiding it in September, on the day it opened, they seemed to have adopted a live-and- let-smoke policy, generously acknowledging, they said in a statement, that there is an "ongoing debate about the medical benefits, or otherwise, of cannabis."

But it appears that the cafe has been attracting too much attention and too boldly flouting the law, no matter how mellow its activities might seem.

On Tuesday, as the BBC was inside filming the cafe for a program about drug policy, the police returned, threw everyone out and charged the owner, Colin Davies, and several others with various drug-related offenses, including selling marijuana.

"The police in appropriate cases exercise discretion and judgment with regard to certain offenses of simple possession of cannabis, and each case is taken on merit," said Superintendent Richard Crawshaw of the Greater Manchester Police's Stockport division. "However, in the face of overt and challenging behavior which amounts to intention to break the law, our stance will be one of enforcement."

It is hard to know how far such enforcement goes. Even as Mr. Davies, one of Britain's best-known campaigners for legalizing marijuana, remained in custody overnight, his cafe reopened. The patrons came back, sipping coffee, rolling joints, discussing nothing and everything.

Despite the occasional police raids, the cannabis cafe, as it is generally known, has proved highly popular with its neighbors. They applaud its strict no-alcohol, no-violence policy, saying they much prefer happy, peaceful druggies to aggressive, unpleasant drunks.

"They always look so pleased, and they're really friendly," said Becky Lees, who works at the front desk of the Outline health club, just across the walkway, speaking of the pot smokers at the Dutch Experience.

She does not smoke - "I'm addicted to coffee, not cannabis," she said - but always welcomes customers who come in from the Dutch Experience, which sells little in the way of food to vanquish the sudden appetites of its often ravenous clientele.

"We get a lot of business out of it, because they get the munchies and come and eat in our cafe," Ms. Lees said.

Eating, yes. But no weightlifting. "We don't let people use the gym if they've been smoking weed," she said. "It's not a good idea, for safety reasons, to let people who are stoned use the machines."

Mr. Davies, who uses the profits from recreational patrons at the Dutch Experience to help pay for pot for medicinal users, says he started smoking marijuana to quell crippling back pains from the vertebrae he broke after a fall in 1995.

Shortly afterward, he founded the Medical Marijuana Cooperative, a mail-order service that discreetly provides pot to people with a variety of illnesses, from cancer to multiple sclerosis. Mr. Davies, 44, jokingly calls the cafe the M.H.S., or the Marijuana Health Service. The National Health Service, or N.H.S., runs Britain's system of socialized medicine.

It is not uncommon to see wheelchair users rolling down the path in front of the cafe, seeking drugs inside. "People in wheelchairs shouldn't have to pay for their medicine," said Mr. Davies, who hopes to open a chain of cannabis cafes around Britain. "They should get it free, and that's what we're doing."

Mark Chadwick, 39, who hurt his arm in a motorcycle accident, does not care if he can get it free or not, as long as he can get it. For the last month or so he has been regularly paying £10 (about $14) or so per bag of pot, enough to roll a half-dozen joints that help keep him off his prescribed painkillers and make it easier to sleep at night.

Mr. Chadwick loves the smoky, sleepy atmosphere inside the cafe, with its green tables imported from Amsterdam and its air of festively illicit camaraderie.

"It's nothing like going to a pub," he said. "It's like going to the theater instead of going to a movie. In a pub you spend all your time worrying about who's looking at you, who's going to throw a bottle at you."

At the cannabis cafe, no one throws anything. Because no hard drugs are allowed, there are no dealers trying to introduce patrons to the double-edged, and far more criminal, attractions of drugs like heroin and cocaine.

"If I couldn't buy here, I would have to go to a dealer, which is something I don't want to do," Mr. Chadwick said.

At the Stockport Tourist Information center, employees say the Dutch Experience has become one of the most asked-about places in town.

A spokeswoman, who in keeping with tourist office policy insisted that her name not be used, declined to say whether she, or any other council employees, had patronized the cafe themselves. "It's certainly put us on the map," she said, "though whether that's a positive thing or a negative thing I couldn't say."

-------- france

Afghan, Kurdish refugees clash in France

World Scene
November 22, 2001
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011122-46604910.htm

PARIS - Riot police used tear gas to break up clashes between Afghan and Kurdish refugees that left 29 persons injured at an overcrowded Red Cross center near the entrance to the Channel Tunnel, officials said yesterday.

According to the Red Cross in Paris, a quarrel started Tuesday when an Afghan touched a water faucet with his lips, upsetting the Kurds.

By the afternoon, some 300 refugees from both communities, armed with metal bars used to support tents, were exchanging blows inside the camp.

Two of the injured suffered serious knife wounds, a Red Cross official in Paris said.

-------- india / pakistan

DIPLOMACY
Pakistan Closes Taliban's Last Embassy

New York Times
November 22, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-attack-afghan-embassy.html

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan has ordered Afghanistan's Taliban to close their embassy in Islamabad, the radical militia's last remaining diplomatic mission, the Pakistan foreign ministry said on Thursday.

``Yesterday, the decision was taken to close the embassy in Islamabad. It has been communicated officially to the Afghans this morning,'' spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan told a news conference.

Pakistan earlier in the week closed the Taliban's consulates in the northwestern city of Peshawar and the southwestern city of Quetta.

Pakistan was one of only three countries that had recognized the Taliban government, which until last week controlled more than 90 percent of Afghanistan. But after weeks of punitive U.S.-led air strikes, the Taliban has lost control of most of that territory to its opponents, mainly to the Northern Alliance.

Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said on Monday that Pakistan was no longer doing business with the Taliban although it had not withdrawn diplomatic recognition.

Pakistan withdrew all its diplomatic staff from Afghanistan in September but allowed the Taliban embassy in Islamabad to stay open, saying it could serve as a window for the rest of the world for contact with the radical Islamic movement.

-------- israel

[Now here's an idea worth emulating. Unfortunately, it's a one-way street. See second story below. et]

Free housing offered to Israeli settlers

World Scene
November 22, 2001
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011122-46604910.htm

JERUSALEM - Israelis are being offered free housing in an isolated part of the West Bank where settlers have been leaving because of danger from the Palestinian uprising and an economic slump, a municipal official said yesterday.

The newcomers will not be charged rent or municipal taxes, said a spokeswoman for the Jordan Valley Regional Council.

About 4,000 Israelis live in 18 settlements in the Jordan Valley, where four Israelis have been killed in shooting attacks. More than 50 families have left since the outbreak of fighting in September 2000.

-------- japan

Japan's commitment

November 22, 2001
Washington Times
Embassy Row, by James Morrison,
202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278
or e-mail jmorrison@washingtontimes.com.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011122-92643463.htm

The United States believes Japan is making a "powerful" contribution to the war on terrorism, even though it has declined to dispatch battle ships equipped with the sophisticated Aegis anti-missile system.

"It's a very powerful, very real, very visible commitment to the battle against terrorism," James Baker, the U.S. ambassador to Japan told reporters in Tokyo this week.

Japan has decided to send supply ships, destroyers, transport planes and multipurpose planes, along with 1,400 personnel to support the war in Afghanistan.

Mr. Baker said he was disappointed Japan decided against sending an Aegis-equipped destroyer.

"But I don't think it's important in the scheme of things," he added. "They have dispatched significant naval assets to the region."

-------- nato

NATO to Confer With Russia on Closer Ties

New York Times
November 22, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/22/international/europe/22NATO.html

MOSCOW, Nov. 21 (AP) - NATO's secretary general, Lord Robertson, will arrive here on Thursday in an effort to strengthen Russia's relationship with the alliance.

President Vladimir V. Putin's offer of help in the war against terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States has improved the chances for cooperation.

Lord Robertson will seek to "put the relationship on new footing" in light of new threats, a senior American diplomat said.

Since the 1997 signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Russia's contacts with the alliance have been limited to dialogue in a Permanent Joint Council, which gave Russia a voice in NATO but not a role in making decisions.

"The essence of our proposals consists in creating a new mechanism of equal relations between the NATO countries and Russia so that Russia has the right to vote, the right to make decisions," Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has proposed replacing the joint council with a new body in which Russia would have an enhanced role.

---

NATO chief offers Russia new post-Cold War partnership

Thursday November 22
Agence France Presse
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/011122/1/1vi63.html

NATO Secretary General George Robertson promised Russia a new post-Cold war partnership as he met Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov to discuss giving Moscow an unprecedented voice in Western military affairs.

"Once again we are in a coalition against a common enemy, the common enemy of global terrorism," he said at the beginning of the talks.

Western nations and Moscow, bitter foes for four decades during the Cold War, had "wasted an opportunity" after fighting Nazi Germany together in World War II.

"You and I have an obligation to build something better and more permanent. We cannot build the security of future without Russia being an intimate partner of that relationhip," said Robertson.

Ivanov told the NATO chief that his visit came "at an interesting time because modern threats are pushing us towards new levels of cooperation," with Russia a staunch ally in the US-led anti-terrorism coalition.

"As Russia has underlined many times, Russia is prepared for cooperation on an equal basis," said the Russian defence minister, who accepted an invitation to visit NATO headquarters in Brussels next month.

Ivanov pointed to three fields of cooperation: terrorism, non-proliferation, and the drugs trade.

But in signs of continued tensions over contested US plans for a national missile defence system, he told Robertson that "no country can defend by surrounding itself with a fence, no matter how high that fence is."

In a symbolic start to his three-day visit, Robertson earlier on Thursday laid a wreath at a World War II memorial in the southern city of Volgograd.

The Soviet Red Army turned away Nazi Germany forces in the city, then known as Stalingrad, in a horrific battle that marked the last time Moscow and Western allies fought a common enemy and won.

Ahead of Thursday's talks, Russia's defense minister declared that Moscow was seeking the "right to a voice" within the Atlantic alliance following the West's warm reception of the Kremlin's cooperation with the US-led campaign.

However Washington and Moscow still have to surmount serious disagreements on the defense front, including the Alliance's planned expansion into the Baltics and southeastern Europe.

Ivanov said on the eve of Robertson's visit many of these issues could be resolved if Moscow were given the "right to a voice" within NATO.

He argued that the current Permanent Joint Council (PJC) set up between Moscow and NATO in 1997 should be dissolved and replaced by a new entity that treated Moscow as an equal.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has suggested creating a new joint council opening new possibilities for decision-making and joint action in trouble spots of common concern like the Balkans.

Blair stressed that NATO should not grant Russia full membership but still take steps to recognize Moscow's contribution to international security following the September 11 attacks.

-------- terrorism

Bin Laden, Bombs and Buddhas
Documents Left in Kabul Detail Foreigners' Roles

By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 22, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A889-2001Nov21?language=printer

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 21 -- Documents left behind when the Taliban fled Kabul last week shed new light on Afghanistan's role over the last five years as a gathering point for radical Islamic organizations from across the globe. Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, the documents show, gave the groups' volunteers basic military training, from assault weapons to homemade bombs, and provided them with an ideological underpinning of anti-American zeal.

The documents -- books, handwritten notes, leaflets, identity cards and notations scrawled on scraps of paper -- were discovered in several houses scattered around Kabul where Arab, Chechen, Uzbek and other foreign fighters lived. Most were written in Arabic, others in Russian and Chechen. Taken together, they describe in previously unknown detail the workings and names of the foreign Islamic groups that congregated in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, revealing as well an apparently influential role by the foreign militants in last March's Taliban decision to destroy celebrated Buddhist statues in Bamian province.

New militants coming here for training received, for instance, copies of a book called "Jihad Against America," containing bin Laden's speeches and statements. In it, he warns that "Muslims are in danger from Americans and Jews" and vows to drive the U.S. military from his native Saudi Arabia and neighboring Persian Gulf nations.

"They wanted to get me out of Afghanistan and Sudan," bin Laden writes in the preface to the book, whose most recent speech dates from 1998. "After disappearing for a time, I found a place for myself in Afghanistan. I have a stronghold in the Hindu Kush mountain range. I have these mountains and we can defeat the infidels here."

Dozens of copies of the paperback book were found in an al Qaeda house used by Arab volunteers in Kabul. The house and others like it offer new evidence of the way the volunteers lived and trained and the extent of their arsenal. The basement of one house was stacked with crates of French-made Crotale antitank missiles. In another basement, grenades were piled on the floor next to wooden boxes with detonator wires sticking out.

The existence of dozens of such houses around Kabul, well-known to residents, show that while the U.S. military was concentrating on attacking what the Pentagon called terrorist camps in the desert, hundreds of radicals were doing their training in homes in the middle of quiet residential neighborhoods in the Afghan capital.

The disarray of some of the houses also showed the hurried state of the foreign fighters' exit as Taliban defenders left the city the night of Nov. 12 and the early morning hours of Nov. 13. Clothes and papers were strewn about. Food was left on plates. In at least two houses were piles of black hair that looked as if it came from beards, suggesting some of the militants cropped their facial hair to disguise themselves before fleeing.

Most revealing from the hundreds of pages of papers was the extent to which Afghanistan had become the base for a global network of radical Islamic groups stretching from the Middle East through Central Asia to the Far East.

One al Qaeda booklet, 26 thin pages bound with a yellow cover, appears to be a primer on al Qaeda and its sympathizers. One page lists various militant groups it says are "helping Afghanistan in their fight against the infidels." The list includes the Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement; the Libyan Jihad Fighters movement; the Abu Sayyaf separatist movement from the Philippines; a group called Abu Al Hasan-Al Ansar; and what the booklet calls "Jihad militants" from Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Pakistan. Also listed, but unnamed, are "groups from Kashmir, Indonesia, Somalia, Burma, Bosnia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan."

"These Arab-Afghans are helping the Afghans in their fight against the infidels, and this is their list," the booklet reads. "They are fighting for no payment." It adds, "Our aim is to make the Americans leave the Gulf."

Arab-Afghans is the name given to foreign militants in Afghanistan, dating from the 1980s when Arab volunteers -- including bin Laden -- came to Afghanistan to help in the U.S.-sponsored guerrilla war against Soviet occupation. Since that campaign ended a little more than a decade ago, bin Laden's main preoccupation has been U.S. troops who have remained in the Persian Gulf region since the 1991 war against Iraqi forces in Kuwait.

The booklet depicts al Qaeda as just one of the militant groups, and it is not even listed first. One interpretation would be that al Qaeda is not the terrorist "umbrella network" often described by U.S. officials, but one radical organization among many with a base in Afghanistan.

Some of the documents show also that the foreign Islamic groups exercised great influence with the Taliban leadership. For instance, when the Taliban demolished two ancient Buddha statues carved into a cliff last March -- an act that provoked worldwide outrage -- they might have been responding to suggestions from radical groups whose leaders found the historic monuments anti-Islamic.

One document, handwritten minutes of a meeting, describes in Arabic how a group called the Islamic Movements first met and decided to send a delegation to the Taliban to discuss the fate of the Buddha statues, which were carved into a mountainside in Bamian province. The group also wanted the Taliban to destroy Buddhist statues at the Kabul museum, according to the minutes.

The notes describe how the delegation held "different and separate meetings with Taliban authorities and Islamic scholars of the Taliban group." For the museum artifacts, the Taliban suggested "we should collect all the statues in one secure place, until a final decision is reached," according to the document. As for the Bamian monuments, it said that after the meeting "the Taliban authorities agreed the destruction of them is an Islamic act and would make the Islamic world happy."

"Even though the meeting decided the two statues in Bamian were on the side of a mountain and had thousands of years of history dating from the 9th century, they are only pieces of stone and mud, and we don't care," the minutes read. It said the group read aloud a plea from the Italian ambassador to Pakistan that the Buddhas be spared, but rejected his appeal, deciding "it is only a piece of rock."

The meeting between the Islamic groups and the Taliban occurred a few days before the Taliban began destroying the Buddhas. Diplomats and international preservationists wondered why the Taliban leader, Mohammad Omar, had earlier said the Buddhas at Bamian should be viewed with respect and as a source of tourism, and then abruptly changed his mind and said they should be destroyed.

If the reading of the new document is correct, it would suggest the decision to blast the statues was not made by the Taliban alone, but that the radical Islamic groups that had gained a foothold in Afghanistan were pushing for it, if they were not the main instigators.

If the Taliban was responding to the Arabs and other foreign militants in Afghanistan, it would suggest a complex relationship between the country's then-rulers and the various foreign groups based here. Those foreign forces could have helped push the Taliban in more radical directions in its interpretation of Islam.

Another handwritten document, which appears to be a class notebook from a new Arab trainee, describes the role of al Qaeda among the various militant groups as providing the military training to recruits once they arrived in Afghanistan. "Al Qaeda is doing military education and an introduction to different kinds of weapons for the supporters of Afghanistan, and also military training," says one notation in the spiral notebook.

It says al Qaeda "has mostly trained people in light weapons," and it lists as examples AK-47 assault rifles, antitank rockets, rocket-propelled grenades and pistols.

The text in several spiral notebooks shows how al Qaeda instructed recruits in the various types of weapons and bombs, beginning with assault rifles and ending with instructions for making explosives.

"The most important lesson is assembling and disassembling the weapon properly, which is the need of any well-informed militant group," the notebook reads. Also important, it says, is the knowledge of "making light explosives from gunpowder, and knowing how to use them."

"On top of this," it says, "they should know non-verbal communications, code words, symbols and other kinds of communications used in hard times by our militants."

For recruits to Afghanistan's mountainous terrain, the document continues, "Militants should know how to cross peaks which are not easy to climb. A militant crossing a mountain should put his full body weight on his two feet evenly and walk slowly."

From the notebooks, the terrorism students here apparently received extensive lessons in various types of explosives, including hand grenades, dynamite, chemical bombs, C3 and C4 plastic explosives and nitroglycerin. The author of the notebook includes several crude sketches showing where the various types of explosives should be placed against buildings to cause the maximum impact.

The lesson on the final page of a spiral notebook is on "atomic explosions" and includes a short scientific explanation on how the movement of electrons causes an atomic blast.

"One atomic explosion can produce the equivalent of 200 metric tons of TNT," the handwritten notes read. "The atomic explosion causes intense heat, pressure and other side effects. Up to 50 kilometers away, it can cause blindness in people."

The notes contain no instructions for producing an atomic device. The name on the notebook cover was Abdul Rahmin, described only as a recruit from Oman.

Various other documents shed light on the structure of radical groups in Afghanistan and the extent to which they operated along hierarchical military lines, with defined units and commanders. Members coming to fight this year in Kabul were given cardboard identity cards for the "Kabul Front" that listed their name, origin and birth date. One card discovered in an al Qaeda house was from a Yemeni, Abu Mahaz, born in 1983.

Another document uncovered here tells fighters going to the front lines the procedures to follow for changing location or even quitting and returning home. "If you want to change positions at the front line, you should have the written permission of the commander of your base," reads one document. "Whenever you want to go to Kabul, you should be careful and have the written permission of your commander."

The same document says foreign fighters who decide to "leave the country and the jihad permanently" should remember to return their weapons and materials to their commander.

Among the documents are many pages that appear to have been downloaded from the Internet, including newspaper articles in Arabic. One Arabic-language article details how in 1999, bin Laden received Russian antiaircraft rockets from Bulgaria and how the rockets were smuggled through Pakistan with help from "Albanian separatists who are fighting in southern Serbia." The unsigned article claims that the transaction caused a political crisis in Bulgaria.

While the various militant groups could have come here with their own domestic agendas, from places as far apart as Egypt and Chechnya and Burma, once in Afghanistan they received a heavy dose of bin Laden's anti-American view of the world. The book "Jihad Against America" has on its front a map of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, with American flags pinpointing the location of the U.S. military. The same image, the map of the gulf with the American flags, was painted on the wall of one of the al Qaeda houses here in Kabul. Copies of the book were found in Arabic and Bengali.

In the book, bin Laden writes that "Americans and Jews" are "shedding Muslims' blood every day, looting their property." He links the various causes of all the militant groups, saying, "Blood is being shed in Tajikistan, Burma, the Philippines, Uganda, Somalia, Eritrea, Chechnya, Bosnia. . . . These countries have become slaughterhouses for Muslims."

"Their aim is to resume the crusade against us," bin Laden writes. "Under the name of protecting human rights, they are attacking Muslims."

Bin Laden warns, "I want to eliminate all these problems created by the Americans and the Jews."

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UN wants end to food drops
Food parcels and cluster bombs have landed on Herat

By the BBC's
Jim Muir
Thursday, 22 November, 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1670000/1670891.stm

Local United Nations officials in western Afghanistan have asked the Americans to stop dropping food packets in certain areas.

At least one person has been killed and others maimed after mistaking unexploded cluster bombs for the food packets, which are the same bright yellow colour.

On Wednesday, 15-year-old Sayyid Ahmad Sanef spotted what he thought was one of the yellow food packets.

He picked it up to look at it. It blew his head off.

At least one other young boy lost his hand and forearm when he similarly mistook one of the deadly yellow bomblets for a food packet.

Stray bombs

The problem is that during the American bombardment of the Taleban around Herat a few weeks ago, at least three densely populated civilian areas were hit by cluster bombs which went astray.

The bombs are designed to scatter bomblets over a wide area.

Many houses were damaged at the time. Several civilians were killed, and the areas still haven't been cleared of many of the yellow bomblets which did not explode.

In the meantime, the Americans began making food drops in nearby areas on Monday night, creating a dangerous situation, especially as some of the food consignments also damaged houses when they came down.

The UN regional de-mining manager for Herat, Haji Seddiqi, has sent an urgent message to his Islamabad headquarters urging that the US be requested to stop food airdrops in areas where cluster bomblets, or other unexploded ordinance, might be lying around.

Many international and local aid workers on the ground are unhappy about the food drops by military aircraft.

They believe military and humanitarian missions should be strictly separate.

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U.N. Seeks More Time For Terror Treaty

By Gerald Nadler
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, November 21, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A695-2001Nov21?language=printer

UNITED NATIONS -- Under pressure to reach agreement on a comprehensive treaty against terrorism, a key U.N. committee voted Wednesday to hold more talks in January to try to work out the final snags.

Australian diplomat Richard Rowe, who is coordinating the negotiations, said that the legal committee of the General Assembly had come close to completing work on the convention.

Jan Fischer, the General Assembly spokesman, said agreement is needed on just one more article in the 27-article pact: defining what is terrorism and who is a terrorist.

The diplomats have not determined to what extent the pact should exclude actions taken by a nation's armed forces or by national liberation movements, Fischer said.

Syrian diplomat Ghassan Obeid told the panel "foreign occupation was the most heinous form of terrorism," and argued that resistance by the Palestinians against the Israeli occupation is legal.

Houssam Diab, a Lebanese diplomat speaking for Arab countries at the United Nations, labeled the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip "a heinous form of terrorism," which he said included starvation and torture.

Ariel Milo, spokesman for the Israeli mission, criticized the remarks. "It's very unfortunate that Lebanon, speaking on behalf of the Arab group, chose to distort reality when in fact it is Israeli civilians who are subject to cruel terror by terror organizations such as Hezbollah that has headquarters in Damascus and is allowed to operate from Lebanon," he told The Associated Press.

A comprehensive convention, proposed by India, would incorporate key elements from a dozen existing legal instruments, allowing nations to look to one international treaty to fight terrorism.

The United Nations has been working on the convention for years, but the Sept. 11 terror attacks against the United States spurred its efforts.

In the wake of the attacks, Secretary-General Kofi Annan and a number of member-states urged the General Assembly to finally come to an agreement and adopt a document.

The committee working on the comprehensive convention will meet from Jan. 28 - Feb. 1 to try to finish the document. It will also continue negotiations on another new convention against nuclear terrorism, introduced by Russia.

-------- u.s.

Rumsfeld: His choice is a dead bin Laden

USA Today
11/22/2001
By Jonathan Weisman, USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/11/21/rumsfeld.htm

FORT BRAGG, N.C. - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld prefers that Osama bin Laden be killed rather than captured alive, he said Wednesday. Rumsfeld also acknowledged that the number of U.S. special operations forces in Afghanistan continues to climb steadily. Rumsfeld toured Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base to see the capabilities of U.S. commando forces that he said have been "front and center" in a hunt for bin Laden and other leaders of the Saudi exile's al-Qa'eda terrorist network. The display of the capabilities was impressive for Rumsfeld - commandos stormed mock buildings, blasted down doors with deafening plastic explosives, charged into rooms with "flash-bang" stun grenades, fired live bullets at menacing targets, and parachuted to the parched North Carolina earth from a Black Hawk helicopter 8,500 feet above.

"When the president dials 911, it rings right here," Rumsfeld proclaimed outside the U.S. Army Special Operations Command headquarters at Fort Bragg, telling the troops that as Americans reflect on Thanksgiving, "they will be than