------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Nuclear Warhead Arsenal Trimmed
Company plays down sulfuric acid leak during water trials
UK Appeal Court to rule Friday on nuclear plant
Russian Police Arrest Seven Over Uranium Sale Bid
Russian TV: 7 Arrested in Nuke Bust
Russia: U.S. Should Keep ABM Treaty
Eye on a Worldwide Weapons Cache
US NRC plans rules on sabotage, attack drills
Coast Guard to Discuss Safety of Importing Gas to Calvert Plant
Coast Guard joins review of liquid gas tankers in Bay
More questions for Mr. Ashcroft
House to Vote on Bush Trade Powers
For the Record

MILITARY
Landmine Danger Dropping Worldwide But Not in Afghanistan
Bomb error kills three U.S. troops
Surrender Is Slated to Begin on Friday
Bin Laden Hunted in Caves; Errant U.S. Bomb Kills 3 G.I.'s
Somalia trying to root out terrorism
UN Says Five Kosovo Staff Made Ill by Toxic Mail
Man Is Arrested in Threats Mailed to Abortion Clinics
China, U.S. Cooperate on Terror Fight
Colombian workers protest slaying
To Strengthen Military Ties, U.S. Beats Path to India
10 Leading Lawmakers Urge Targeting of Iraq
U.S. presses Arafat to punish militants
Hamas Backers and Palestinian Police Clash
Powell Urges NATO to Act on Terrorism
Bulgaria to rid missiles to court NATO
Veto the Russian-North Atlantic Council
Security Council Backs Plan for Afghan Government
Out of High School and Into a Combat Zone
RISING WATERS COULD SWAMP BLOODSWORTH ISLAND

POLICE / PRISONERS
Mineta Seeks Ship Inspection Limits
Deportation scofflaws to go in database
INS Seeks Law Enforcement Aid in Crackdown Move
Robinson sees progress in curbing youth abuse
Ashcroft Appears Before Senate to Defend Tactics
Three Cleared by DNA Tests Enjoy Liberty After 15 Years
Saudi Man Denies Bin Laden Link
Terror Attacks Galvanize Europeans to Tighten Laws

ENERGY AND OTHER
Democrats Present Alternative Energy Bill
Hydro Tasmania eyes Australia mainland wind power
Russia bows to OPEC on oil-production cut
Unemployed workers seeking fresh start
Study Examines Garlic Supplements
FDA Issues Anesthesia Drug Warning
Agency Warns of Surgeons' Mistakes
Cells in breast fluid predict cancer risk
Hemorrhagic Fever Kills 17 in Congo, Ebola Feared
Saudis act to grant women basic rights
As Refugees Suffer, Supplies Sit Unused Near Afghan Border
Rights Group Says Mexico Ignores Abuses by Military

ACTIVISTS
Nuclear waste site briefing
Assets freeze seen as attack on Islam



-------- NUCLEAR

Nuclear Warhead Arsenal Trimmed
U.S., Russia Meet START I Deadline of Cuts to 6,000 Weapons Each or Fewer

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 6, 2001; Page A36
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64868-2001Dec5?language=printer

Hailing a "milestone in dismantling the legacy of the Cold War," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announced yesterday that the United States and Russia have met a deadline for reducing strategic nuclear forces to no more than 6,000 warheads on each side.

The deadline was contained in the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START I, which was signed by U.S. and Soviet leaders in 1991 and went into effect in 1994.

Powell noted that when the START negotiations began in 1983, each side had more than 10,000 strategic warheads deployed on land-based missiles, bombers and submarines. He added that further reductions are planned in accordance with the Nov. 13 summit in Crawford, Tex., where President Bush said the United States would reduce to between 1,700 and 2,200 strategic warheads over the next 10 years and Russian President Vladmir Putin promised corresponding cuts.

In Moscow, Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Yakovenko marked the date with a terse statement that "Russia has completely fulfilled its commitments under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START I."

Neither country mentioned the START II treaty signed in 1993 by President George H.W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin. That pact, which called for reducing the number of warheads to between 3,000 and 3,500, apparently has been set aside by the current Bush administration in favor of deeper reductions without written agreement.

Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, noted that START I permitted each side to store, rather than destroy, the warheads it removed from missile silos, bombers and submarines. Thus, he said, during the Clinton administration the United States accumulated 4,500 excess warheads as a "hedge" in case quick rebuilding of the arsenal was needed.

Hans M. Kristensen, a nuclear weapons specialist and senior program officer with the Nautilus Institute in California, noted in a recent article that Bush's additional warhead reductions would increase that "hedge." Before START I, he wrote, only 5 percent of the U.S. strategic stockpile was inactive. If the "hedging" practice continues, the reserve could equal or exceed the number of warheads deployed.

In a related matter, the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday voted to cut $46 million from the administration's request for the so-called Nunn-Lugar program that finances the reduction of Russian nuclear weapon systems and helps provide security for dismantled warheads. The administration had sought $403 million for next year, an amount $40 million below the fiscal 2001 level.

-------- australia

Company plays down sulfuric acid leak during water trials

Thur, 6 Dec 2001
ABC News
http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/sa/port/regport-6dec2001-2.htm]

The company which operates the Honeymoon uranium mine, in South Australia's far north-east, has played down a sulfuric acid leak, which happened during water trials two years ago.

Southern Cross Resources project manager, Tom Hunter, says there is no guarantee sulfuric acid and uranium will not escape to contaminate groundwater again.

But he says reports of the leak have been blown out of proportion and the leach solution which entered the middle aquifer would have had about the same level of acidity as red wine.

Mr Hunter says even if it does happen again, the environmental impact will be minimal.

"I think you should bear in mind the quality of water we're talking about, we are talking about saline ground water which is naturally contaminated with uranium and other radioactive elements and with heavy metal.

-------- britain

UK Appeal Court to rule Friday on nuclear plant

Reuters:
6/12/2001
http://www.planetark.org/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=13599

LONDON - Britain's Court of Appeal will decide on Friday whether to grant an appeal to stop the opening of a controversial 470 million pound ($668.6 million) nuclear fuel manufacturing plant.

"The court will rule on Friday morning," a spokesman for Greenpeace, one of the plaintiffs said yesterday.

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are challenging a High Court ruling last month which declared the government had acted lawfully in granting British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) permission to start up its mixed oxide (MOX) plant at Sellafield.

Ministers said the Sellafield MOX Plant (SMP) could start up after a study showed it would deliver net financial benefits of 216 million pounds over its lifetime once build costs were excluded.

On Monday, a United Nations court rejected a call by Ireland to issue an injunction stopping SMP from starting to operate.

The Irish government took Britain to the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea over worries about maritime pollution from the plant which will discharge some low-level radioactive waste into the Irish Sea.

The Hamburg-based court said the two countries should cooperate and exchange information about safety and pollution risks which should then be presented to the tribunal on December 17.

State-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) has said it intends to start up the SMP plant on December 20.

-------- russia

Russian Police Arrest Seven Over Uranium Sale Bid

December 6, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-russia-nuclear.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police said on Thursday they had arrested seven members of an organized crime gang in they Moscow region after they tried to sell over two pounds of radioactive uranium to undercover officers for $30,000.

Six of the gang, whose identities were not released, were arrested in a cafe outside the Russian capital, a police source told Itar-Tass news agency. A seventh man who was storing the uranium-235 was arrested later.

All have been charged with illegal possession of radioactive material.

Detectives are now trying to ascertain the origin of the uranium-235, whose use depends on how concentrated it is.

The private NTV television station said it can be used in nuclear reactors, as fuel for nuclear submarines or, in its most concentrated form, in warheads for nuclear missiles.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, there have been a number of cases of nuclear material being stolen from poorly-guarded facilities, sparking grave concern in the West.

In 1994, three men were arrested at Munich airport carrying 12.8 ounces of weapons-grade plutonium from Moscow.

Russia says security at its nuclear facilities has been stepped up since the September 11 attacks on the United States, which heightened fears that militant groups may be seeking to develop a rudimentary nuclear device.

Last month Viktor Kholstov, head of Russia's radiation, chemical and bacteriological defense forces, said defense ministry staff were being trained to deal with the threat of nuclear terrorism.

John Bolton, the U.S. under-secretary of state for arms control, was in Moscow on Thursday for talks on a number of issues including cooperation in the fight to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

----

Russian TV: 7 Arrested in Nuke Bust

The Associated Press
Thursday, December 6, 2001; 4:26 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3984-2001Dec6?language=printer

MOSCOW -- Russian police have arrested seven people accused of trying to sell more than two pounds of highly-enriched weapons-grade uranium, Russian television said Thursday.

The men, arrested in the town of Balashikha just southeast of Moscow, were trying to sell a capsule containing uranium-235 for $30,000, NTV television said. The suspects were charged with illegal handling of nuclear materials, it said.

If confirmed, the seizure would be the first acknowledged case of theft of weapons-grade material in Russia.

In the economic turmoil following the Soviet collapse, police have regularly seized nuclear materials stolen by people who tried to sell them for profit. But all involved low-active uranium unfit to manufacture nuclear weapons.

Russian officials have repeatedly said no weapons-grade nuclear materials have been stolen.

The report said the suspects allegedly belonged to the Balashikha criminal gang. Police initially arrested those trying to sell the material at a roadside cafe who led them to another suspect who kept the uranium in his house. It did not give the date of the arrest or provide other details.

A duty officer at the Balashikha police station told The Associated Press he was aware of the case, but gave no details, saying the Federal Security Service, the KGB's main successor, was handling the investigation. The officer asked not to be named.

A spokesman at the Russian Interior Ministry in Moscow, which is in charge of the nation's police force, also referred questions to the FSB. A duty officer at the FSB head office refused to comment on the case.

The NTV report contained footage of a roadside cafe where several suspects were arrested and a local police headquarters. It didn't feature any officials who would confirm the arrest.

NTV also interviewed Nikolai Shingarev, a spokesman of the Nuclear Power Ministry, who said there are several plants in and around Moscow where such material could be obtained. Weapons-grade uranium is sometimes used in research nuclear reactors.

Alexander Koldobsky, a senior researcher at the Moscow Engineering and Physical Institute, told NTV the quantity of uranium reportedly seized would be insufficient to make a nuclear weapon.

-------- treaties

Russia: U.S. Should Keep ABM Treaty

December 6, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-US.html?searchpv=aponline also
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3001-2001Dec6?language=printer

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia again warned the United States against withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, saying it would upset global stability at a troubled time.

``It is especially dangerous in the current difficult international situation,'' the Foreign Ministry said Thursday after talks between Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov and U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton.

Their meeting was to prepare for U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit starting Sunday. Overall relations have warmed because of Russia's support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

``Russia again noted the negative consequences for international stability in case the United States decides to unilaterally withdraw from the 1972 ABM Treaty, which is supported by an absolute majority of nations,'' the statement said.

At their summit last month, President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to agree on U.S. plans for a national missile defense, which is barred by the ABM treaty.

Russia opposes any effort to dismantle the ABM pact, but Putin says Moscow is open for further discussions on possible modifications of the treaty.

During the Texas summit, Bush pledged to slash the U.S. arsenal to 1,700 to 2,200 nuclear warheads, and Putin promised similar cuts. Russia urged that the mutual reductions be incorporated into a treaty with control and verification procedures. But Bush, who has voiced skepticism about such binding agreements, did not go along.

The Foreign Ministry reaffirmed Russia's desire for a formal agreement on nuclear weapons' cuts discussed at the summit. It said the ``understanding'' provided that consultations on ABM ``must go in parallel with efforts to codify an agreement on further radical, irreversible and controllable cuts'' of nuclear arsenals.

U.S. and Russian officials said they would continue efforts to reach a compromise and also decide what to do with nuclear warheads removed from missiles.

-------- u.s. nuc weapons

Eye on a Worldwide Weapons Cache

By Dick Lugar
Washington Post
Thursday, December 6, 2001; Page A39
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64851-2001Dec5?language=printer

The United States is engaged in a global war against Muslim religious extremists who seek to reorder the world by destroying our country and various other nations allied with us.

The war proceeds in a world awash with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and materials of mass destruction stored principally in the United States and Russia, but also in India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Israel, Great Britain, France and China and perhaps other nations.

Throughout much of the past decade, vulnerability to the use of weapons of mass destruction has been the number one national security dilemma confronting the United States, even as it received scant attention. The events of Sept. 11 and the subsequent public discovery of al Qaeda's methods, capabilities and intentions have finally brought our vulnerability to the forefront.

The terrorists have demonstrated suicidal tendencies and are beyond deterrence. We must anticipate that they will use weapons of mass destruction if allowed the opportunity. The minimum standard for victory in this war is the prevention of any of the individual terrorists or terrorist cells from obtaining weapons or materials of mass destruction.

The war effort in Afghanistan is destroying the Afghan-based al Qaeda network and the Taliban regime. It is a war meant in part to demonstrate that governments that are hosts to terrorists face destruction.

But as we prosecute this war, we must pay much more attention to the other side of the equation: making certain that all weapons and materials of mass destruction are identified, continuously guarded and systematically destroyed.

The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program was enacted in 1991 to address the dominant international proliferation danger: the massive nuclear, chemical and biological weapons infrastructure of the former Soviet Union. The Nunn-Lugar program has devoted American technical expertise and money to joint U.S.-Russian efforts to safeguard and destroy materials and weapons of mass destruction in Russia.

During the first 10 years of Nunn-Lugar, 5,700 Russian nuclear warheads have been separated from missiles. Many of the warheads have been dismantled and the fissile material (highly enriched uranium or plutonium) safely stored. More than 30,000 tactical nuclear weapons have been collected and stored, and peaceful employment has been provided for thousands of Russian nuclear scientists.

Nunn-Lugar also has worked to contain chemical weapons in Russia, which has ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention requiring destruction of all of these weapons in 10 years. Forty thousand metric tons of chemical weapons have been stored in seven locations awaiting destruction. Progress has been made toward controlling Russian biological materials, though their status is less certain.

Unfortunately, beyond Russia, there are no Nunn-Lugar-style programs aimed at nonproliferation. We lack even minimal international confidence about many weapons programs, including the number of weapons or amounts of materials produced, the storage procedures employed, and production or destruction plans.

This must change. To restate the terms of minimal victory in the war we are now fighting, every nation that has weapons and materials of mass destruction must account for what it has, safely secure what it has (spending its own money or obtaining international technical and financial resources to do so) and pledge that no other nation, cell or cause will be allowed access or use.

This task will be expensive and painstaking. During the first two months of the war, many questions have been raised about the security of Pakistan's nuclear program, and similar questions will be raised about India's. With United Nations inspections of Iraq suspended for more than three years, the presence and status of Iraq's weapons and materials of mass destruction are unknown. Much the same could be said of Iran, Syria and Libya. Following agreement on the KFOR program in North Korea, which provides for internationally financed nuclear power facilities and a halt to North Korea's nuclear weapons development, the world has an improved, but still imperfect, vantage point from which to watch developments in that country.

Some nations, after witnessing the bombing of Afghanistan and the destruction of the Taliban government, may decide to proceed along a cooperative path of accountability regarding their weapons and materials of mass destruction. But others may decide to test our will and staying power.

Precise replication of the Nunn-Lugar program will not be possible everywhere. But a satisfactory level of accountability, transparency and safety must be established in every nation with a program for weapons of mass destruction. When nations resist such accountability, or when they make their territory available to terrorists who are seeking weapons of mass destruction, our nation must be prepared to use force, as well as all diplomatic and economic tools at our disposal.

The writer is a Republican senator from Indiana.

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

US NRC plans rules on sabotage, attack drills

Reuters:
6/12/2001
http://www.planetark.org/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=13594

WASHINGTON - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it would propose in January "performance-based" rules for U.S. nuclear power plants to conduct drills to prepare for possible sabotage or attack.

The NRC mentioned the planned rule as part of its broad agenda for the next six months, which it laid out in a Federal Register notice.

"The proposed rule would amend the commission's regulations to require power reactor licensees to conduct drills and exercises to evaluate their protective strategy against a simulated design basis threat of radiological sabotage," the NRC said.

"The proposed rulemaking would also include risk insights, supporting guidance documents and be more performance-based," the agency said.

Some Democratic lawmakers and activist groups have urged the NRC to adopt tougher regulations to protect commercial nuclear power plants from attacks similar to the Sept. 11 assaults that destroyed the World Trade Center and heavily damaged the Pentagon.

The U.S. nuclear industry maintains that it has tightened security, and that the NRC already supervises mock attacks to test a plant's safeguards.

The draft rule will be published in January 2002, the NRC said. A final regulation should be ready by November after the nuclear industry, environmental groups and other interested parties have a chance to provide suggestions, it said.

YUCCA MOUNTAIN, WEB SITE

The NRC also said it would release a final rule in January establishing regulations for the disposal of high-level nuclear waste at the Energy Department's planned Yucca Mountain site. The rule will include "specific criteria" for Yucca Mountain, the agency said.

The NRC first began considering waste disposal rules for the proposed site in a remote area of Nevada in early 1999. Despite 20 years of scientific and environmental studies, a final decision has yet to be made on whether to build a permanent federal storage site there for the thousands of tons of waste piling up at the nation's 103 nuclear power plants.

The proposed site faces stiff opposition from several lawmakers such as Harry Reid, a Democrat and the Senate's assistant majority leader.

Another planned rule - to be published in May 2002 - will try to ensure that decommissioning funds are available for commercial nuclear plants that decide to shut down, the NRC said.

The rule is intended to expedite transfers of operating licenses similar to those of the Three Mile Island and Pilgrim nuclear power plants in recent years, the agency said.

The NRC said it wants to ensure that decommissioning trust agreements are written in a way to guarantee funds are available for their intended purpose "especially in light of economic deregulation and restructuring of the electric utility industry."

The NRC also said it was continuing to assess thousands of pages of material removed from its Internet site after the deadly Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

The agency, which temporarily shut down its entire Web site on Oct. 11 as a security precaution, has since unveiled a Web site redesigned to be more user-friendly, it said. However, many pages are still blank.

"As reviews are completed, NRC will restore content incrementally in the redesigned format," the agency said. It gave no other details.

-------- maryland

Coast Guard to Discuss Safety of Importing Gas to Calvert Plant

By Raymond McCaffrey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 6, 2001; Page SM02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58466-2001Dec4?language=printer

The Coast Guard will meet today to assess the risk of a Tulsa-based company's $120 million plan to import liquefied natural gas via the Chesapeake Bay to its Cove Point plant.

The meeting, which was scheduled to begin yesterday in Portsmouth, Va., was to include representatives from Maryland and Virginia. Participants were to discuss not only the Williams Co. plan to reactivate the Cove Point plant in southern Calvert County, but also the safety of permitting liquefied natural gas (LNG) importation along the Eastern Seaboard in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"We have invited all the stakeholders involved with the potential resumption of maritime shipment of LNG in the Chesapeake Bay," Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Gordon A. Loebl said.

In October, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted at a meeting in Washington to allow the Williams Co. to reactivate and expand the Cove Point liquefied natural gas plant.

Then FERC announced on Nov. 9 that it would reconsider the plan, just two days after U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) first publicly criticized the commission's original approval. A week after the decision to review the matter again, commission staffers conducted a technical conference not open to the public, during which interested parties and regulatory agencies discussed "any national security issues" raised after Sept. 11.

Calvert County Commissioners President David F. Hale (R-Owings) previously told FERC officials about local support for the reactivated plant, which would become the county's second-highest taxpayer, behind Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant. But, on Nov. 13, Hale and the four other county commissioners sent a letter to FERC requesting an evaluation of the proposal "in reference to the prevention of terrorism."

----

Coast Guard joins review of liquid gas tankers in Bay

December 6, 2001
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20011206-56185009.htm

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) - The Coast Guard joined with representatives from Maryland and Virginia yesterday to begin assessing the risk of allowing foreign tankers to carry liquefied natural gas into the Chesapeake Bay.

The procedure is being examined as part of a Calvert County, Md., project that federal regulators are reconsidering at the urging of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge.

Topics of discussion at the two-day meeting in Portsmouth include the Williams Co. plan to reactivate the Cove Point plant in southern Calvert, and the safety of permitting importation of liquefied natural gas along the Eastern seaboard in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The meeting is closed to the public.

"If we had never received a letter of intent to resume operations at Cove Point, this meeting probably would never have taken place," said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Gordon A. Loebl. "With September 11th, there's lots and lots to look at. Obviously this has become a politically charged issue."

Mr. Ridge's involvement came at the urging of Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland Democrat, who had criticized the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) approval in October of the reopening and expanding of the Cove Point plant just a month after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Miss Mikulski, who sent letters to Mr. Ridge, FERC, the Coast Guard, the FBI and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, wrote that the project "could create a new vulnerability to terrorism." She pointed out that the facility is within three miles of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant.

Mr. Ridge subsequently asked federal officials to move up the completion of a safety review of the project, said Susan Neely, director of communications for the Office of Homeland Security.

Miss Mikulski renewed her call on Nov. 26 for officials to "rigorously review the proposal" following Justice Department warnings about possible threats to gas plants and pipelines.

The Coast Guard has had to respond to concerns about importation of liquefied natural gas from officials elsewhere along the East Coast, all at a time when fuel demand is rising in the United States. The Coast Guard in Boston recently denied port entry to a tanker containing liquefied natural gas and later lifted the ban.

"That's a market that's expanding considerably," Cmdr. Loebl said. "Odds are pretty good that we're going to see more of these requests. And I think that's what prompted the Coast Guard to take a broader look, to use the Cove Point process as a blueprint."

Issues to be decided include whether to require moving buffers around the tankers and Coast Guard escorts for the tankers when they move into the Bay, Cmdr. Loebl said.

In October, FERC voted at a meeting in Washington to allow the Tulsa, Okla.-based Williams Co. to move forward with a $120 million project at the Cove Point liquefied natural gas plant.

The company plans to reactivate the offshore facility, which became dormant after the previous owner ceased operation, and build a fifth storage tank.

Natural gas in a vapor form would be ferried from the plant through a pipeline that runs 87 miles from Calvert to utilities in Prince George's and Charles counties in Maryland and Fairfax and Loudoun counties in Virginia.

The pier where the product is unloaded - about a mile and a quarter offshore and connected to the plant by an underwater tunnel - would be refurbished to handle tankers that typically are about 1,000 feet long, according to the county.

Although company officials contend their plan is safe, residents have expressed concern that terrorists could bomb a tanker, creating a giant fireball that could touch off a nuclear disaster at nearby Calvert Cliffs.

Company officials have continued to express hope that they can get government approval in time to begin importing gas in the second quarter of 2002.

-------- us politics

More questions for Mr. Ashcroft

EDITORIAL
Washington Times
December 6, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-house-200112618545.htm

As Attorney General John Ashcroft prepares to discuss national security and civil liberties concerns about the war on terrorism before the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning, the Bush administration finds itself in a strange position. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that were it not for the herculean efforts by the administration since September 11 - both domestically and abroad - there likely would have been more bloody attacks on American soil. Public opinion polls routinely show that 80 percent to 90 percent of Americans approve of the job President Bush is doing in the war on terror. While much of this is certainly justified, the administration would be making a huge mistake to infer that all is well.

For one thing, based on what is known about Osama bin Laden and his terrorist activities (and the abysmal pre-September 11 job Washington did in keeping track of who was entering the country), there are almost certainly al Qaeda "sleeper" cells in the United States today, waiting for instructions on when and where to strike. No less troubling are proposals that raise serious civil liberties problems, and the administration has done a poor job of explaining them. In particular, Mr. Ashcroft can expect tough questioning about Mr. Bush's Nov. 13 order authorizing presidentially appointed military courts to try non-citizens accused of terrorism.

Questions need to be answered about the military tribunal issue. One very thoughtful article questioning how such a system might work comes from the respected legal affairs analyst Stuart Taylor Jr., who addressed the subject in a Dec. 4 piece published by the Atlantic online, titled "Military Tribunals Need Not Be Kangaroo Courts." Mr. Taylor, who leans toward keeping the military tribunal option "open" under certain conditions, is nonetheless decidedly skeptical about the concept, particularly the way in which the Bush administration wants to implement it. Mr. Taylor writes that, under Mr. Bush's order, the administration "has assumed sweeping power to make [non-citizens] almost disappear," adding that "Unless the as-yet-unwritten procedural rules contain far more specific fair-trial guarantees than those mentioned in the president's order, such presumptively innocent non-citizens accused of terrorism could be plucked from their homes and families, jailed under harsh conditions, and charged, tried, convicted and executed, all in secret - even if there were too little evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt or to convince more than two-thirds of the quasi-jury of military officers. Any trials of that kind would rank among the greatest outrages in our long history of excessive wartime curbs on our liberties."

Mr. Taylor expresses optimism that the Bush administration may be in the process of fine-tuning its proposal to meet these and other concerns. He cites Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff's impressive Nov. 28 Judiciary Committee testimony, in which he promised that detailed rules for the tribunals, which are now being drawn up by the Pentagon, will contain credible fair trial guarantees. Let's certainly hope that, when he testifies today, Mr. Ashcroft clarifies what guarantees will be in place.

----

House to Vote on Bush Trade Powers

By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press Writer
DECEMBER 06, 08:10 ET
http://wire.ap.org/?PACKAGEID=ELNhouse

WASHINGTON (AP) - House leaders hope their promises to help displaced workers and endangered industries will persuade lawmakers to give President Bush sweeping powers to negotiate new trade agreements.

Trade promotion authority, denied to the president since 1994, would allow Bush to negotiate trade pacts that Congress could approve or reject but could not amend. He has made it his top trade priority and has lobbied hard for its passage.

With the outcome of Thursday's vote still in doubt, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., the bill's author, announced a package of more than $20 billion Wednesday to help people who have lost their jobs because of the recession or the Sept. 11 attacks, a major issue for Democrats.

Thomas said he also would expand existing law, in legislation the House is to take up Thursday, to help workers laid off as a result of the disruptions of foreign trade.

The House's top three Republicans, Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader Dick Armey and Majority Whip Tom DeLay, sent Thomas a letter Wednesday endorsing the spending of ``not less than $20 billion'' to help displaced workers and saying ``this bold offer on your part will encourage a number of our Democratic colleagues to support trade promotion authority.''

Money for unemployed workers is being considered as part of an economic stimulus package that House and Senate leaders are struggling to put together.

Democrats were less enthusiastic about Thomas' offer. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, said it was a desperation effort. ``Every hour there's a new variation of the bill,'' he said.

A group of pro-trade Democrats, including Adam Smith and Jay Inslee of Washington and Anna Eshoo and Ellen Tauscher of California, were sending Bush a letter saying Thomas' proposals were a step in the right direction but they wanted a vote on a worker relief package before trade promotion authority is taken up.

Only 29 Democrats voted for trade promotion authority, called ``fast-track'' authority when the House rejected it 243-180 in 1998 for Democratic President Bill Clinton. With the Republican Bush the beneficiary of a favorable vote Thursday, Democratic support could be smaller this time. Democrats say the Thomas bill doesn't go far enough in protecting worker rights and the environment in trade agreements and they want to give Congress a larger presence in the negotiation process.

Bush and administration officials have scrambled to placate Republicans from steel, textile and citrus districts who have balked at backing legislation that could result in a surge of imports.

``He's my president, I love him, but I don't sell out my constituents,'' said Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who is holding out support for ``fast-track'' until he sees language in the bill ensuring that Florida's $9 billion citrus industry wouldn't be overrun by foreign competition.

Thomas said he was confident modifications to the bill would ease individual problems. For farm products, language was included to ensure that the United States won't lower tariffs under trade agreements until trading partners lower their tariffs.

On textiles, the House will move Thursday to reauthorize the Customs Service, providing new money to stop illegal transshipments of goods through third countries.

Commerce Secretary Donald Evans also circulated a letter of commitments on textile trade saying the administration ``will place a high priority on enforcing our existing trade agreements on textiles and apparel and closely monitor foreign textile trade barriers.''

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said his committee would take up ``fast-track'' next week if it should pass the House, but Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said it would not be considered on the Senate floor in the last few days of this year's session.

Supporters say that without trade promotion authority the United States won't be taken as a serious negotiator at a new round of World Trade Organization talks to begin next month. They argue that U.S. exporters are losing because the United States is a participant in only three of more than 130 free trade agreements signed around the world in recent years.

Opponents counter that such recent pacts as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Uruguay Round have accelerated the flow of American jobs and plants overseas, don't adequately protect against dumping and other illegal trade practices and put American businesses in competition with countries without adequate worker rights or environmental protections.

----

For the Record

Here's how some major bills fared recently in Congress and how local congressional members voted, as provided by Thomas's Roll Call Report Syndicate. NV means Not Voting.

Thursday, December 6, 2001; Page HO17
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61896-2001Dec5?language=printer

DEFENSE BUDGET
For: 40 6 / Against: 20

The House passed a bill (HR 3338) appropriating $317.5 billion for the Department of Defense in fiscal 2002, an increase of more than 6 percent over the comparable 2001 figure. The bill funds a 4.6 percent military pay raise. It provides $7.9 billion for advancing the National Missile Defense; $827.4 billion for deploying troops against drug traffickers; $936.8 billion for procuring 11 more of the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey aircraft; $3.1 billion for 48 additional F-18E/F fighters, and $1.6 billion for adding a Virginia class attack submarine to the U.S. fleet.

The bill also appropriates $20 billion in response to the Sept. 11 attacks, including $7.3 billion for the Department of Defense; $4.9 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) spending, mainly in New York City; $2 billion for combating bioterrorism; $1.5 billion for dislocated workers; $1 billion for airport screening; $539 million for the FBI; and $410 million for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

MARYLAND
Bartlett (R) YES
Cardin (D) YES
Cummings (D) YES
Ehrlich (R) YES
Gilchrest (R) YES
Hoyer (D) YES
Morella (R) YES
Wynn (D) YES

VIRGINIA
J. Davis (R) YES
T. Davis (R) YES
Moran (D) YES
Wolf (R) YES
Cantor (R) YES

HOMELAND SECURITY
For: 216 / Against: 211

On a procedural vote the House blocked a Democratic bid to add $6.6 billion for homeland security to $20 billion already included in HR 3338 (above) for fighting terrorism. The procedural vote was decisive because GOP leaders had denied Democrats a direct vote on the substance of the issue.

In part, Democrats sought to add $322 million to help health departments and hospitals deal with bioterrorism threats such as anthrax or smallpox; $500 million for systems to sanitize mail; $200 million for airport safety; $250 million for strengthening cockpit doors; and $191 million for securing nuclear material in the former Soviet Union.

A yes vote was to advance the bill without the Democrats' requested funding.

MARYLAND
Bartlett (R) YES
Cardin (D) NO
Cummings (D) NO
Ehrlich (R) YES
Gilchrest (R) YES
Hoyer (D) NO
Morella (R) YES
Wynn (D) NO

VIRGINIA
J. Davis (R) YES
T. Davis (R) YES
Moran (D) NO
Wolf (R) YES
Cantor (R) YES


-------- MILITARY

Landmine Danger Dropping Worldwide But Not in Afghanistan

December 6, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-06-02.html

WASHINGTON, DC, The number of deaths caused by landmines and unexploded ordnance has fallen to less than 10,000 a year from the previously reported 26,000 casualties annually, according to a new U.S. State Department report.

The report, the third edition of "To Walk The Earth In Safety: The United States Commitment to Humanitarian Demining," also finds that the total number of landmines in the ground has dropped to 45 to 50 million in 60 countries, down from the initial assessment of 80 to 110 million landmines worldwide in 1999.

This Iraqi girl lost her hand in a mine explosion. (Photos courtesy UN/General Board of Global Ministries except where noted)

The U.S. State Department report says the decline in the number of reported casualties could be attributed to efforts by the international community to focus on mine awareness education, greater clearance of mines and other unexploded ordnance, and on better reporting capabilities.

But in Afghanistan, the danger from landmines and unexploded ordnance is a daily threat. As Afghan civilians continue to flee their homes seeking refuge from the bombing in their country, the United Nations is warning that special care must be taken to avoid deadly landmines that litter the territory.

Speaking from Islamabad, Dan Kelly, manager of the UN Mine Action Programme for Afghanistan, said that the danger of existing minefields was compounded by the fact that the coalition bombing of military installations had struck some ammunition depots. "When these depots get hit, they spray all kinds of ordnance over a five kilometre (three mile) radius," he said, noting that some of the depots were in urban areas. "What is left on the ground unexploded is very dangerous and should not be touched."

The United Nations considers Afghanistan to be one of the most mine and unexploded ordnance affected countries in the world, with at least 732 million square metres of the country still mined.

In Kosovo, the landmine legacy of the 1999 conflict has been removed. The United Nations administered Yugoslav province has been cleared of all landmines, a Ljubljana based regional demining trust said November 23.

U.S. soldiers pass out specially designed comic books to children in Bosnia to warn them about the dangers of landmines. (Photo courtesy U.S. Army)

The International Trust Fund for Demining and Landmine Victims Assistance (ITF), that arrived in Kosovo three years ago, said it had cleared 4.7 million square meters (51 million square feet), removing 2,273 landmines and 1,221 other unexploded devices in the province.

The demining of Kosovo was coordinated by the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre. The ITF is active also in Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Albania.

Private non-profit groups are working alongside local communities around the world to remove landmines. The Mines Advisory Group (MAG) is a non-profit organization based in Manchester, England and Washington, DC with over 10 years experience in 20 countries responding to the problems caused by landmines and unexploded ordnance.

"Minefields are nothing like football pitches," MAG says on its new website: http://www.mag.org.uk/. "They are often in and around houses, orchards, schools, riverbeds, wells and hospital compounds. Minefields cover the sides of mountains, terraces and paddy fields. They ring fortified areas on hilltops. Pools and small lakes have to be drained and checked to ensure that no mines remain.

"Land like this has been fought over, it has been booby-trapped against an advancing enemy, and it has been mined to prevent an opposing faction from taking control. Far too often, mines have been used in such areas to prevent civilians from returning, or to control them," MAG says.

Sign warns of landmines in Angola

In 1989, MAG began with the first survey of the impact of landmines in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of Soviet forces. The organization now runs projects in Angola, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, northern Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, Somaliland, southern Sudan, Vietnam and plans more projects through 2002.

The U.S. State Department report the status of current country demining programs. Moldova declared itself mine safe in 2001, while Costa Rica, Guatemala, Namibia, and Rwanda are expected to declare themselves mine safe in 2002 and 2003, the report says.

"The United States first became involved in humanitarian demining in 1988 when it sent a team to assess the landmine situation in Afghanistan," says Lincoln Bloomfield, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs and the special representative to the president and the secretary of state for mine action.

"By the end of 2001," says Bloomfield, "we will have provided more than $500 million to 38 countries, as well as the Province of Kosovo and northwest Somalia, for various humanitarian demining efforts such as deminer training, mine awareness and mine clearance, as well as orthopedic assistance to, and socioeconomic reintegration programs for, landmine accident survivors and their families."

Find out more from the United Nations on mine clearance: http://www.ncrb.unac.org/landmines/UNinfo.html

"To Walk The Earth In Safety" will be posted in the future at: http://www.state.gov

-------- afghanistan

Bomb error kills three U.S. troops

December 6, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011206-20275244.htm

A U.S. satellite-guided bomb missed its target yesterday and killed three Special Forces commandos, as bombing raids intensified on Taliban forces in Kandahar and caves near Jalalabad.

The three commandos were killed when a 2,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb exploded within 300 feet of their position near Kandahar, the Pentagon said.

The errant bombing caused the first confirmed U.S. military combat deaths of the conflict in Afghanistan. A civilian CIA officer was killed last week.

The Pentagon identified the three as Master Sgt. Jefferson Davis, 39, of Tennessee; Sgt. 1st Class Daniel H. Petithory, 32, of Massachusetts; and Staff Sgt. Brian Cody Prosser, 28, of California. They served in the 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., defense officials said.

Heavy bombing strikes were carried out yesterday on Taliban forces in Kandahar and in northeast Afghanistan, according to news agency reports from the region.

More than 1,000 anti-Taliban fighters converged on caves in the area of Tora Bora, south of Jalalabad, in an effort to find Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader blamed for the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The U.S. government is offering a reward of up to $25 million for anyone who captures or kills bin Laden.

Alim Shah, an opposition tribal leader, told Reuters his Afghan fighters were chasing Arab and foreign al Qaeda fighters using mortars, rocket launchers and assault rifles aimed at positions above caves in the region. "We are trying our best to capture them alive," Mr. Shah said. "They are surrounded by us, but they are not surrendering."

In southern Afghanistan, Marines based near Kandahar began heavily armed patrols closer to the city yesterday, according to news pool reports.

The Marines are monitoring roads that fleeing Taliban and al Qaeda forces might use.

"We stepped off into a new phase of this campaign, and that's participating in offensive operations," said Maj. James R. Parrington, executive officer of the battalion landing team of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

"Our operations are really in support of what the opposition groups are doing."

In yesterday's "friendly fire" mishap, at least 19 other fighters were injured. Five anti-Taliban fighters were killed.

Among the Afghan wounded was Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun leader who had just been named to head a post-Taliban interim government. Pentagon officials said Mr. Karzai, who had been meeting with U.S. forces near the site of the bomb mishap, was injured slightly by debris. In a later interview with British television, however, Mr. Karzai denied having been injured.

The dead and injured were moved to the Marine base located about 70 miles south of Kandahar. Some of the injured were evacuated out of the country by C-130 transports.

President Bush said the soldiers "died for a noble and just cause," the U.S. battle against international terrorism. "I, along with all the rest of America, grieve for the loss of life in Afghanistan," Mr. Bush said.

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told reporters an investigation was under way to determine how the bomb went astray. The JDAM bomb uses guidance and propulsion systems that rely on satellite signals for navigation.

In an appearance last night on CNN's "Larry King Live," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the deaths could have been the result of a number of causes.

"Well, the coordinates could have been wrong in the first instance. They could have been transmitted incorrectly. They could have been received incorrectly. They could have been put into the fire-control system incorrectly," he said.

"And many other things that could also have happened. There could be a bent fin on the weapon. The weapon could be one of the weapons that didn't work right."

Mr. Rumsfeld said soldiers understand the risks of friendly fire.

Adm. John Stufflebeem, deputy director of operations for the Joint Staff, said at the Pentagon that the JDAM bomb was dropped on Taliban forces that were engaged in a firefight with opposition forces. Two teams of U.S. Army Green Berets were acting as targeters for the opposition forces.

"The motto of the Special Forces is to liberate the oppressed," Adm. Stufflebeem said of the soldiers. "These men died as heroes and were wounded as heroes, and our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families."

Some military aviators privately questioned the use of high-altitude precision bombing by B-52s against positions so close to friendly forces. High-altitude bombing strikes are more difficult to target precisely than dropping guided bombs from lower-altitude fighter-bombers.

Adm. Stufflebeem said a B-52, rather than some other type of jet or gunship, may have been "on station" to provide close air support. The B-52 has "very long endurance" compared with other warplanes used in Afghanistan, he said.

Adm. Stufflebeem said two teams of Green Berets were in the same location at the time of the accident because two groups of opposition forces had been massing for an attack.

To request a bombing raid, a forward controller - one of the Green Berets - radios an aircraft and provides geographic coordinates for the strike, Adm. Stufflebeem said. The aircraft's crew then programs the bomb with the coordinates. When the aircraft is within seven to 15 miles from the target, the bomb is fired.

"There was a forward air controller who called in a close air-support mission," Adm. Stufflebeem said. "A B-52 responded with JDAM munitions. One of those JDAM weapons landed somewhere in the vicinity of 100 meters from where our troops were at, and that's what has obviously caused the casualties and injuries."

The accident, he said, shows the danger and difficulty that Special Forces face.

"Calling in air strikes, nearly simultaneously on your own position on enemy forces that you're engaged in close proximity to, is a hazardous business and takes very fine control and coordination and precision," Adm. Stufflebeem said. "And this is, I think, illustrative of what we have seen in training when sometimes things just don't work out perfectly."

Two of the U.S. soldiers were killed at the scene and a third died on an aircraft on his way to receive medical care, Mrs. Clarke said.

-------

Surrender Is Slated to Begin on Friday

December 6, 2001
New York Times
By NORIMITSU ONISHI with TERENCE NEILAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/06/international/06CND-STRO.html

QUETTA, Pakistan, Dec. 6 - The Taliban agreed today to surrender their last Afghan stronghold of Kandahar and will start handing over their weapons on Friday, a spokesman in Islamabad said.

As part of the agreement with Hamid Karzai, the Pashtun tribal chief who was named this week to lead a new Afghan government, the life of the spiritual leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, will be spared.

But in an interview with CNN today Mr. Karzai said Mullah Omar would have to renounce terrorism, and "if he does not then he will not be safe." He added that a general amnesty had been offered to the "common Taliban" in the city.

He said the Taliban had signed the terms of the surrender at his base north of Kandahar and he confirmed that the handover would begin on Friday.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the United States would reject any arrangement that allowed Mullah Omar to remain free and "live in dignity" in the region.

In Islamabad, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former Taliban envoy to Pakistan, told reporters: "Both sides, the Taliban and Karzai, agreed to the surrender of Kandahar for the welfare of the people to decrease the casualties to life and to protect the dignity of the people.

"Tomorrow the Taliban will start surrendering their weapons to Mullah Naqibullah, a famous commander. He will be in Kandahar tomorrow."

Asked about the fate of Mullah Omar, Mullah Zaeef said: "His life will be saved and he will be allowed to live with dignity. He is a mujahid, he has worked for the people of Afghanistan and he is not guilty."

An announcement was expected today to be made in Kabul, the Afghan capital.

In a brief interview over satellite phone Wednesday night, Mr. Karzai, who was in Dahla, about 10 miles north of Kandahar, said a delegation of senior Taliban officials from Kandahar had visited him for the first time.

He declined to identify the officials or describe the nature of the talks. He said he hoped the situation in Kandahar would be "resolved soon."

Afghan and Pakistani officials do not believe that Mr. Karzai is negotiating directly with Mullah Omar, but through an aide to the mullah who is also a member of Mr. Karzai's Populzai clan.

Asked about reports circulating in Pakistan that Mullah Omar had sent an envoy to Mr. Karzai with the message that he would surrender in return for amnesty, Mr. Karzai said, "I can't comment."

Mr. Karzai, whose appointment to lead the interim government had been rumored, was negotiating with greater authority Wednesday.

But the talks were in keeping with a strategy that has allowed Mr. Karzai - with little fighting - to win over Taliban-held territory from Oruzgan Province, north of Kandahar Province, all the way down to Arghandab, a town about 10 miles north of the city of Kandahar.

Mr. Karzai's appointment could quicken the pace of talks with the Taliban holdouts, who are mostly Pashtuns and are now cornered in Kandahar, where Mr. Karzai's family is one of the most respected.

As a prominent Pashtun leader with close ties to the exiled former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, Mr. Karzai's appointment should also appease Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, who have felt slighted by the Northern Alliance, which is led by ethnic Tajiks. Tajiks were named to the three most important ministerial posts in the interim government - foreign affairs, defense and the interior.

The talks also came on a day when Mr. Karzai and another Pashtun tribal group engaged in fighting as they tried, with American help, to move closer to Kandahar from different sides.

In an incident apparently involving Mr. Karzai, three American soldiers were killed Wednesday when an Air Force B-52 bomber missed its target and hit Americans fighting alongside Mr. Karzai's soldiers. Late Wednesday night, reports emerged that Mr. Karzai himself was slightly wounded.

Ahmed Karzai, who is Mr. Karzai's brother and lives in Pakistan, said Hamid Karzai did not mention any injuries in several phone conversations Wednesday.

"I asked him how he's doing," Ahmed Karzai said. "He said everything is going well."

Ahmed Karzai said that the incident involving the American soldiers apparently took place in Arghandab. According to Ahmed Karzai, Hamid Karzai's soldiers arrived there early this week and have been trying to secure the area.

As in other areas, United States Special Forces were apparently helping Mr. Karzai's troops secure Arghandab and possibly move further south. But a 2,000-pound satellite-guided bomb dropped by the B-52 missed its Taliban target.

The other tribal group pressing on Kandahar, led by Gul Agha Shirzai, said it was still struggling to seize the airport just south of Kandahar. Its soldiers are dug in a couple of miles south of the airport's boundary, said Yusuf Pashtun, an aide to Mr. Shirzai.

As a sign that Taliban fighters are still roaming areas thought to be under the control of the tribal groups, Mr. Pashtun said 250 to 300 Taliban soldiers attacked Mr. Shirzai's position about 50 miles southeast of Kandahar. After an hour of fighting, Mr. Shirzai's soldiers pushed back the Taliban without suffering any injuries, Mr. Pashtun said.

Mr. Pashtun said that half of the assailants appeared to be Arab fighters and that most of the holdouts in the airport were also Arabs.

Mr. Pashtun, who welcomed Mr. Karzai's appointment despite a rivalry between Mr. Karzai and Mr. Shirzai, said the presence of the Arabs was complicating talks on the surrender of Kandahar.

More than 5,000 Arab fighters are believed to be in Kandahar, "and the Arabs will never surrender," he said. "They know there is no way out of the situation. They cannot live here. They can only die here."

-------

Bin Laden Hunted in Caves; Errant U.S. Bomb Kills 3 G.I.'s

New York Times
December 6, 2001
By JAMES DAO and ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/06/international/06MILI.html

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 - Opposition forces closed in on the last Taliban and Al Qaeda stronghold in the eastern mountains of Afghanistan today, while intensified combat in the south led to the deaths of three American soldiers in an accidental bombing.

American warplanes continued to attack concentrations of Taliban forces near Kandahar and the cave- pocked mountains along the Pakistan border south and west of Jalalabad, including a heavily fortified encampment known as Tora Bora. Anti-Taliban leaders say Osama bin Laden was spotted at Tora Bora last week.

Pentagon officials said that they had seen intelligence reports showing that senior Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders had been wounded or killed in recent American airstrikes against those caves and tunnels. But the officials said they could not confirm reports from anti-Taliban commanders that the casualties included Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of Mr. bin Laden's top lieutenants.

"I've seen reports, single-source reports, about Al Qaeda who may have killed," Rear Adm. John D. Stufflebeem, the deputy director for planning and operations for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon today. "We have not been able to confirm any of that."

Admiral Stufflebeem said that rebel forces familiar with the rugged terrain in the east have begun searching cave and tunnel complexes near Tora Bora. A small number of American commandos, possibly fewer than two dozen, are advising those rebels, but have not participated in cave-to-cave hunts, Pentagon officials said.

The accidental bombing, which also killed five Afghan soldiers and injured 18 Afghan fighters and 20 Americans, occurred when American Special Operations forces in the area called for an airstrike against Taliban units about five miles north of Kandahar, Pentagon officials said.

The Americans were advising troops led by Hamid Karzai, who has been appointed to lead Afghanistan's new interim government. Mr. Karzai was slightly hurt in the explosion of the single 2,000-pound bomb that hit their position after being released from a high-altitude B-52 bomber.

The cause of the errant bombing remained under investigation tonight. Military officials said it was possible that the spotters on the ground provided the wrong coordinates for the intended target, that the bombardier aboard the B-52 erred in aiming the weapon, or that there was a malfunction in the bomb's guidance system or other equipment.

Speaking after a meeting with Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik of Norway, President Bush said: "I want the families to know that they died for a noble and just cause; that the fight against terror is noble and it's just; and they defend freedom. And for that, we're grateful."

The military identified the dead soldiers as Master Sgt. Jefferson Donald Davis, 39, of Watauga, Tenn.; Sgt. First Class Daniel Henry Petithory, 32, of Cheshire, Mass.; Staff Sgt. Brian Cody Prosser, 28, of Frazier Park, Calif. All three served in the Third Battalion, Fifth Special Forces Group, based at Fort Campbell, Ky.

"He was a wonderful guy, very happy-go-lucky," Henry Petithory, Sergeant Petithory's uncle, said tonight, adding that his nephew had always wanted to be a soldier. "I'm very proud of him. He's a real hero. He went right out of high school into the military."

Sergeant Davis was also a career soldier. The Johnson City Press in Tennessee reported that he had graduated from Elizabethton High School in 1981, and played football at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, N.C. He also studied nursing at East Tennessee State University. Sergeant Prosser, too, made the military his career.

"He was a warrior, and he was doing what he wanted to do," his father, Brian D. Prosser, told The Los Angeles Times. "He was a brave man and he was willing to pay the price."

The casualties were the first three American military deaths during combat in the eight-week-old war in Afghanistan. Late last month, a Central Intelligence Agency operative died during a prison uprising near Mazar-i-Sharif. Four Americans have died in truck, ship or helicopter accidents, while a soldier from the 10th Mountain Division died from a noncombat-related gunshot wound in Uzbekistan, possibly a suicide.

This was the second so-called "friendly fire" incident involving American bombs. Last week, five Special Forces soldiers were injured when a bomb dropped by a Marine Corps F/A-18 landed too close to their position during the prison uprising in Mazar-i-Sharif. None of the injuries were life threatening.

As fighting in the eastern mountains intensified, anti-Taliban forces closed in on Kandahar, the Taliban's last major military bastion. From their base about 80 miles southwest of the city, heavily armed marines continued to fan out around the outskirts of the city in helicopters and armored vehicles, setting up roadblocks to stop Taliban forces from escaping or receiving supplies.

Maj. James R. Parrington, the executive officer of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit's battalion landing team, said today that the marines had not yet encountered any Taliban forces. Although he emphasized that the American forces were playing a supporting role in the push on Kandahar, he said the marines were still closely coordinating their operations with rebel groups.

"The opposition groups are closing in on Kandahar," he said. "We're working in support of those groups."

The dead and wounded from today's accidental bombing were evacuated from the battlefield by military search-and-rescue helicopters to the base where 1,400 marines and other American military forces are now stationed. Mr. Karzai was not seriously enough hurt to need evacuation, a Pentagon official said.

According to the United States Central Command, the injured Afghans were flown to two Navy ships, the Bataan and the Peleliu, in the North Arabian Sea. Seventeen injured Americans were flown to a hospital in Oman to see specialists . Their injuries included lost hearing, shrapnel wounds, eye and head cuts, and burns.

The other three soldiers were treated for minor injuries at the marine base and were expected to return to duty soon. The bodies of the dead soldiers were being prepared for their return to the United States at the marine base.

The accident took place while two Special Operations teams were meeting with Mr. Karzai, Pentagon officials said. They were standing about 100 yards from where the bomb exploded. The accident occurred when the ground spotters called for what is known as close-air support, which in the past has involved low-flying attack planes bombing targets near their own forces.

The bomb dropped today was a GBU-31 Joint Direct Attack Munition. The 2,000-pound conventional bomb is transformed into a precision weapon by attaching a guidance system to its tail.

-------- africa

Somalia trying to root out terrorism

December 6, 2001
By Mike Crawley
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011206-83149040.htm

MOGADISHU, Somalia - In the sprawling Bakara market here, a few posters of Osama bin Laden can be spotted on shop walls, but they don't come close to matching the many posters of soccer stars.

While bin Laden may not command much attention among Somali citizens, Somalia is coming under increasing scrutiny. As the Taliban's hold on Afghan territory dwindles, the United States is looking to this east African country as a place where the leader of the al Qaeda network might try to flee.

Bush administration officials have indicated that Somalia may be a target for future military attacks, because al Qaeda has used it as a training base and because bin Laden has traveled here in the past.

This anarchic nation in the Horn of Africa might seem the ideal hideout for bin Laden and his cohorts. Ten years of civil war have left its lengthy coastline unprotected, its interior virtually lawless and its economy in shambles.

The question is: Would Somalia provide a haven for bin Laden today? Diplomats and analysts say probably not.

The United States has posted a $25 million reward on his head. In a country where secrets are not kept easily and people barely can afford to eat, the lure of a bounty would make the suspected terrorist mastermind vulnerable, says one Western diplomat.

"The only reason he'd go [to Somalia] is if he had absolutely nowhere else to go. He'd be sold out in five minutes."

Nevertheless, Somalia keeps coming up when American officials talk about terrorism.

Agence France Presse reports that Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino suggested in Rome on Tuesday that U.S.-led military strikes on Somalia were likely if it were determined that Italy's former African colony was harboring terrorists.

"If nests of terrorists are uncovered in Somalia, one can suppose that there will be military activity," Mr. Martino told the ANSA news agency. "But Italy does not know at the moment if it will be called on to make a contribution."

He said he did not expect requests for military assistance in any Somalia operation beyond providing intelligence. Italy already has committed nearly 3,000 troops in addition to ships and warplanes to the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan.

Yesterday in Nairobi, a Washington official told the Kenyan government the United States is investigating possible links between bin Laden and groups in Somalia.

According to a statement by Kenya's Foreign Ministry, visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Walter Kansteiner made the remark to Kenya's Foreign Minister Marsden Madoka.

Mr. Kansteiner reportedly said the Bush administration was waiting for reports from "some lobby groups" that had agreed to provide information about extremist groups in Somalia and would then decide on what action to take.

Reuters news agency quoted U.S. Embassy officials in Nairobi as saying they know of no evidence that bin Laden's al Qaeda network is linked to any militant groups in Somalia.

Independent Somali experts in Nairobi doubt the Americans could find military targets in Somalia if they wanted to undertake some kind of strike. Washington put the Somali group al Itihaad al Islamiya (Islamic Unity) on its list of terrorist groups after the September 11 attacks, but the Nairobi analysts say the group largely ceased military activities after a series of reverses in the 1990s, and its training camps are thought to have been largely dismantled.]

"The Somali people are surprised to see the Western media give such attention to the unfounded allegation that there are al Qaeda bases here," said Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, president of Somalia's interim government. "Since 1995, there has been no donor or Western power in this country. That's why they know nothing about what's going on."

Indeed, much of what is known about al Ittihad stems from the early 1990s, and the narrative given by outside intelligence sources matches what Somalis say. The group organized itself amid the collapse of the Somali government in 1991, with the goal of setting up an Islamic state. It established militia training camps on Ras Kamboni island near the Kenyan border and near the port of Bosaaso in the northeast.

At various times, it controlled port facilities along the Somali coast and the administration of Gedo, a region in the southwest, providing it with revenue.

The most serious accusations of terrorism came in 1996, when al Ittihad was blamed for bombing hotels and restaurants in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Ethiopian troops crossed the border later that year, and with allied militia, reportedly routed al Ittihad forces.

It is not clear whether al Ittihad remains a terrorist group of any significance today.

Regional diplomats will go no further than to say it has "influence" within the justice system in Mogadishu and within the government of Puntland, the breakaway northeastern region of Somalia. They also say al Qaeda gave the group money when it ran into rough times in recent years.

"They've integrated themselves into Somali society," said another Western diplomat, explaining that the group's members run businesses and provide social services. "They're trying to attract followers so they can eventually achieve an Islamic state." The United States has overstated al Ittihad's strength as a terrorist group, said Mr. Abdiqassim.

"We know of al Ittihad individuals who are present in Mogadishu," he said, adding that they preach in mosques and run a few Koranic schools. "Those are all their activities. We will not allow them to engage in terrorist acts."

If there's one person in Mogadishu who should take al Ittihad seriously, it is Ibrahim Sheikh Mohammed. The doctor and peace activist has had bodyguards for the past three years since members of the group issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling for his execution after he told worshippers at a mosque that many Islamic scholars believe women and men are equal.

But Mr. Ibrahim says al Ittihad no longer exists as a functioning group. "They don't have any organized presence," he said. "I don't think they now constitute any terrorist threat to America or to any other nation."

Accusations of a Somalia connection to bin Laden have been around for years, stemming as far back as the ill-fated U.S. peacekeeping operation in the country initiated by then-President George Bush. U.S. investigators say that some members of the Somali militia that shot down two Black Hawk helicopters and killed 18 American commandos in an October 1993 raid in Mogadishu had received training from al Qaeda.

One of the present interim government's major opponents, who says the Somali government harbors terrorists, is faction leader Hussein Aideed, whose warlord father was the target of that raid. "If [Hussein Aideed] had the chance to be president tomorrow, he would say Somalia has never had al Qaeda or terrorists," said Abdi Hassan Awaale, Mogadishu's police chief and a member of Mr. Abdiqassim's counterterrorism task force.

-------- biological weapons

UN Says Five Kosovo Staff Made Ill by Toxic Mail

12/06/2001
Reuters
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20011206_229.html

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - Five United Nations employees in Kosovo have been made ill by an apparently toxic substance coming from a parcel in a mail room, officials in the U.N.-run Yugoslav province said on Thursday.

The content of the parcel would be tested, but it was not believed to be anthrax or any other biologically hazardous material, U.N. police said in a statement.

It was addressed to a U.N. office in the Kosovo provincial capital Pristina but its origin has not yet been confirmed, the statement said.

U.N. spokeswoman Susan Manuel said a mail room employee on Wednesday noticed that a large envelope in the pouch from New York had a rip on the corner.

"As he was examining the envelope some substance came out of the envelope and he got an immediate rash. Another employee in the room was sick to her stomach, and three other had irritated eyes," she told reporters.

The police statement said the affected employees were taken to hospital for testing and treatment and later released, adding they were doing well. Police cleared the building of personnel after the incident.

"UNMIK (U.N. mission in Kosovo) police are investigating the injuring of five United Nations civilian employees by an apparently toxic substance that was released from a parcel in a Pristina mail-sorting center," it said.

In the United States, five people have died and 13 others have been infected with anthrax since early October, adding to the nation's jitters after the September 11 suicide hijack attacks.

U.S. investigators do not know who is responsible for the anthrax attacks, but believe the tainted letters were an act of domestic rather than international terrorism.

----

HOAX ARREST
Man Is Arrested in Threats Mailed to Abortion Clinics

New York Times
December 6, 2001
By FRANCIS X. CLINES
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/06/national/06HOAX.html

CINCINNATI, Dec. 5 - Clayton Lee Waagner, the fugitive sought in a nationwide wave of hundreds of anthrax threats against abortion clinics, was arrested today by federal agents after an employee at a photocopy store recognized him from a wanted poster.

Mr. Waagner's arrest was announced by Attorney General John Ashcroft, who singled him out last week as the primary suspect in the series of mailed warnings and packets of powdery substances. Those have alarmed officials at clinics across the nation but have thus far proved free of lethal anthrax.

"We can write across the face of that poster, `Apprehended!' " Mr. Ashcroft said with satisfaction in announcing the arrest in Washington at the swearing-in of Ben Reyna as director of the Marshals Service, which has been pursuing Mr. Waagner since he escaped from a federal prison 10 months ago.

The 45-year-old anti-abortion advocate and fugitive was previously convicted on charges involving firearms and car theft. The authorities said he was trying to create a one- man reign of terror at the abortion clinics by exploiting the public's alarm over the five anthrax deaths that occurred after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The father of nine children, Mr. Waagner has styled himself as an anti-abortion "warrior" commissioned by God. He escaped from prison in February and soon was on the most-wanted list of the federal authorities, who circulated warnings that he was considered armed and dangerous and had a $50,000 bounty on his head.

As police officers approached him at midday, Mr. Waagner briefly sought to flee when confronted at a Kinko's copying store in nearby Springdale, the authorities said. But he was apprehended without injury, ending a multistate run that the authorities said was financed by bank robberies.

Marshals on his trail for months learned that Mr. Waagner regularly patronized stores in the round-the- clock Kinko's chain. They sent a special alert and posters to the stores. The fugitive copied materials and used Internet services, the authorities said, to check for e-mail on anti- abortion Web sites.

"We're elated that he was caught," said Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood. "It actually proves the point that it's the eyes and ears of the public that matters. We hope the prosecution will be swift and sure. And now is the time to finish the job and catch all the others who aided and abetted him."

The 280 mailings to clinics were signed "the Army of God" under this warning to clinic officials: "You have chosen a profession, which profits from the senseless murder of millions of innocent children each year. We are going to kill you. This is your notice. Stop now or die."

The fugitive was arrested with a loaded handgun, a stolen Mercedes- Benz, computer material and $10,000, Mr. Reyna said. "He sustained himself and a rather lavish lifestyle by robbing banks in numerous Eastern states," the chief marshal said.

Mr. Waagner escaped from prison in DeWitt County, Ill., by prying open a lock with a comb, scaling the jail roof and getting away in a stolen truck. He had been arrested two years earlier as he arrived in the state with his wife and family in a stolen camper in which four stolen handguns were found. At his trial, the bearded defiant defendant declared that he had been traveling and shadowing abortion clinics across the states while gathering weapons at God's direction to "be my warrior" and kill doctors who provided abortions.

"I know he believed this came from God," his wife, Mary, told The Associated Press from her home in Clintonville, Pa., after the arrest, insisting that her husband would not have harmed anyone.

Described by his pursuers as a wily man with survival skills, Mr. Waagner made numerous stops for only a few days at a time, officials said. He used the delivery-service charge numbers of abortion rights organizations in sending the threats to them, the authorities said.

Federal officials made no mention of possible accomplices. But abortion rights advocate organizations speculated that the threats were so widespread that they were quite likely to be the work of more than one person.

"We think it likely that he had assistance both with the anthrax threats and with evading justice for so long," said Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation.

Marshals said that in recent weeks they had came within minutes of apprehending Mr. Waagner at a Kinko's store in Norfolk, Va., and also in Birmingham, Ala. The fugitive had been featured eight times in the "America's Most Wanted," the televison program.

The authorities had earlier said they had evidence to tie Mr. Waagner to the mailed threats, but they gave few details.

Neal Horsley, an abortion opponent who maintains a Web site called Christian Gallery, said Mr. Waagner had recently showed up at his home in Carrollton, Ga., and claimed responsibility for the anthrax threats while threatening to kill 42 workers in abortion clinics. Mr. Horsley called the authorities.

"The anthrax letter threats exacerbated our concerns, because they carried the tone of previous missives by the fugitive, and we knew he had carried out other crimes on the lam," Mr. Reyna said, confirming that "the most wanted man in America is behind bars."

-------- china

China, U.S. Cooperate on Terror Fight

By Joe McDonald
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, December 6, 2001; 10:43 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5791-2001Dec6?language=printer

BEIJING -- Agreeing to strengthen anti-terrorism cooperation, China has promised to consider letting the United States station an FBI agent in Beijing, an American envoy said Thursday.

Francis X. Taylor, the top State Department counterterrorism official, praised China's help in tackling Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. But Taylor's account of two days of talks with Chinese officials made clear that many issues still separate the two sides.

The governments agreed to hold regular meetings of anti-terrorism officials, Taylor said.

"On counterterrorism, our relationship has been solid - a partnership of shared interest ... toward eliminating this evil," the former Air Force general said at a news conference.

Taylor met with senior Chinese foreign affairs and military officials during the visit. It was his third meeting with Chinese officials and the first since the October meeting of Presidents Bush and Jiang Zemin.

According to Taylor, Chinese officials agreed to "actively consider" a U.S. request to open a law-enforcement liaison office in Beijing. It would be staffed by an FBI agent and handle a full range of issues, including terrorism.

That suggested cooperation on terrorism had added urgency for the proposed office, which has been under discussion for several years. Washington submitted a formal request more than a year ago, according to a U.S. Embassy spokesman.

"We are optimistic that that request will be approved," Taylor said.

Despite a bumpy diplomatic period last spring after a Chinese fighter jet collided with a U.S. spy plane off China's coast, the two nations have smoothed relations and are eager to cooperate in fighting terrorism.

Nevertheless, differences over the scope of the anti-terrorism fight - even how to define terrorism - were readily apparent.

Taylor noted that Chinese Muslims had fought for al-Qaida in Afghanistan, but he stressed that Washington didn't support China's insistence that Muslim separatists in its northwest are part of a global terror threat.

"We discussed the fact that ... the legitimate economic and social issues that confront people in northwestern China are not necessarily counterterrorist issues, and should be resolved politically," he said.

The U.S. envoy said talks touched briefly on weapons proliferation but didn't go into detail. China is accused of supplying missile and nuclear-weapons technology to Pakistan, which was a backer of Afghanistan's former Taliban militia, which gave refuge to bin Laden.

-------- colombia

Colombian workers protest slaying

December 6, 2001
By martin dayani
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/06122001-014605-1641r.htm

BOGOTA, Colombia, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Colombian labor activists said they will step up their strikes throughout the country in protest of the murder of Aury Sará, the regional president of the large USO labor union, on the Caribbean coast.

The union leader and a body guard were abducted last week in the coastal city of Cartagena by the right wing paramilitary militia which calls itself the United-Self Defense Groups of Colombia -- known by its Spanish initials as the AUC.

Sará's corpse, along with that of his body guard, was found in a rural area Wednesday. The bodies had gun shots wounds in the head, and reportedly showed signs of torture.

The AUC said it had abducted Aury Sará in order to give him a "trial" for his alleged links to a left wing guerrilla army. The AUC had earlier claimed that it was prepared to release Sará, but only to high level government delegation.

The government had denounced the kidnapping and rejected the AUC's demand for a special delegation. Government officials called on the group to immediately and unconditionally release the two men.

"One doesn't understand why the AUC emits a communiqué to request that we send a delegate before the labor leader is released, and then we find his body", said Interior Minister Armando Estrada on Wednesday. Estrada also repudiated the murder and categorically rejected the behavior of the AUC.

Jorge Galindo, one of the USO's senior directors, said that the government beared "a big responsibility for the killing."

"We don't know why the government refused to send a delegate to facilitate the release of Sará," said Galindo.

The USO, which represents workers in the state-run petroleum sector, had declared a partial interruption in activities following Sara's abduction. Labor spokesmen said the strikes will now be widened, despite the government's criticism that the action is costing hundreds of thousands of dollars each day.

With the paralysis in the country's oil refineries, the government fears an imminent shortage in fuel supplies. Only five days of gasoline reserves are available.

Union activists view the latest killing as another example of the violent campaign being waged against them. Colombia's labor movement has born the brunt of the country's viscous civil war, with an average of about 100 members being killed each year. In the past three years, at least 315 union activists have been killed.

Most of the killings are carried out by the AUC, or other right wing groups directly linked to the movement.

The AUC claims that there are close links between the labor unions and the left wing guerrillas that have been involved in a decades-old war against the state.

Dozens of labor activists have received death threats and many others have survived failed murder attempts.

Twelve months ago Wilson Borja, another high profile labor leader, was wounded when his armored car came under a hail of bullets in Bogota. His bodyguards fired back, causing the assailants to flee. One bystander and one of the gunmen were killed.

The AUC justified the attack, claiming that Borja had close connections to leftist insurgents.

The Colombian government claims it is spending millions of dollars each year to provide bodyguards and protection to labor activists. But, despite this, the killings continue.

"The problem is of such magnitude that unless we find a way of reducing the general level of violence, we simply won't have enough funds to protect all these people", said Colombia's Minister of Labor in an interview late Wednesday night.

Labor activists in Colombia have denounced what they claim is a concerted campaign of "genocide" against them and condemn the government's lack of adequate protection. International labor organizations have also denounced the crimes being waged against the union movement in Colombia.

Colombia has suffered from decades of internal strife, which claims thousands of lives each year. The country is home to two major guerrilla armies, which claim they are fighting to install a Marxist style government and redress problems of poverty and wealth distribution.

In recent years illegal right wing "paramilitary" forces have grown rapidly throughout the country, establishing themselves as fierce opponents to the leftist rebels.

In addition to individual killings, the "paramilitaries" frequently massacre peasants and others who they claim collaborate, either actively or passively, with the leftist guerrillas. Such multiple killings have become a daily occurrence in the country.

-------- india

To Strengthen Military Ties, U.S. Beats Path to India

New York Times
December 6, 2001
By CELIA W. DUGGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/06/international/asia/06INDI.html?searchpv=nytToday

NEW DELHI, Dec. 5 - The Bush administration's push for closer military ties with India has gathered momentum during recent visits here by senior American officials. The United States and India announced specific agreements on Tuesday to move forward with joint military exercises and American military sales to India.

In a statement, military officials from both countries said they would work together "to counter threats such as the spread of weapons of mass destruction, international terrorism, narcotics trafficking and piracy."

South Asia experts said the United States' willingness to allow India to buy what one of them called "major weapons platforms," particularly fighter aircraft, was especially significant.

The last time such sales were considered was in 1984 when Ronald Reagan was president, said Seema Gahlaut, director of the South Asia program at the University of Georgia's Center for International Trade and Security.

Efforts then to build greater technological cooperation quickly foundered because of differences over the terms of the agreement for military sales. Partly because of concerns related to nuclear nonproliferation issues, American military sales to India have been paltry. In 1996, American technology exports to India, including those with military uses, were worth a mere $25 million, Ms. Gahlaut said.

Even a year ago, sales of American weapons-locating radar, military aircraft and G.E. jet engines for India's "light combat aircraft" - all now in the pipeline - would have been inconceivable. So would the sustained, high-level policy talks that will be taking place regularly now between senior American and Indian military officials.

Sanctions imposed on India after it conducted nuclear tests in 1998 were not lifted until recently. The Clinton administration disapproved of India's nuclear weapons program and was focused on getting India to sign the nuclear test ban treaty. After the tests, the American secretary of defense never again met his Indian counterpart during the Clinton years.

In contrast, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld met India's defense minister, Jaswant Singh, in Washington even before sanctions were lifted and came here to the capital a month ago to see Mr. Singh's successor, George Fernandes.

President Bush, who opposed the nuclear test ban treaty, came into office with the idea of strengthening America's relationship with India, citing its status as the world's largest democracy.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks and America's sudden alliance with India's enemy, Pakistan - which created great unease here - American officials have had an added reason to press forward on military cooperation with India.

While the United States is battling the Taliban in Afghanistan, American officials want to be sure India does not escalate its conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir, a territory India and Pakistan have fought over for half a century. The prospect of a strong military relationship with the United States gives India an added incentive to act with restraint in Kashmir.

Last week, Adm. Dennis C. Blair, head of the United States Pacific Command, was in New Delhi. This week, Richard N. Haass, who is coordinating American policy on the future of Afghanistan, met with all the senior Indian officials involved in national security matters and said he had concluded "that there is no daylight between the positions held by the U.S. and Indian governments when it comes to Afghanistan."

On Monday and Tuesday, Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, and Yogendra Narain, the senior civil servant in India's defense ministry, led meetings of American and Indian officials who are part of the India-U.S. Defense Policy Group.

The elements of military cooperation announced so far are an incremental start that has stayed clear of emotionally charged issues. That suits the United States, which does not want to alienate Pakistan, and suits India, where there is still a large anti-American political constituency that is alive to any sign of superpower domination.

On the eve of Admiral Blair's visit, one such contretemps occurred when an American navy ship, the John Young, came into port in the south Indian city of Madras. A helicopter on the ship went on what American officials say was a routine training exercise over international waters.

But reports in Indian newspapers said it had flown over a nuclear power plant in Chennai without a flight plan. Opposition politicians demanded an explanation and last Thursday staged a walk out in Parliament. The issue fizzled after India's defense minister, Mr. Fernandes, said the helicopter had not violated Indian airspace.

-------- iraq

10 Leading Lawmakers Urge Targeting of Iraq

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 6, 2001; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64661-2001Dec5?language=printer

Ten leading members of Congress have signed a letter urging President Bush to make the Iraqi regime the next major target in the war on terrorism, declaring that "as we work to clean up Afghanistan and destroy al Qaeda, it is imperative that we plan to eliminate the threat from Iraq."

Among the signers are former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.); former vice presidential candidate Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.); the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jesse Helms (N.C.); Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.); House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.); and the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard C. Shelby (Ala.).

The letter adds to the chorus of policymakers calling for efforts to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It follows warnings by Bush that Iraq will face serious consequences if it does not allow United Nations inspectors to search for weapons of mass destruction. "We believe we must directly confront Saddam, sooner rather than later," the letter said.

Noting that this month marks the third anniversary of the last U.N. inspection of Iraqi weapons programs, the lawmakers said the current economic sanctions are not enough to contain Iraq. They said the administration had struggled to close "loopholes" in the sanctions but had failed to stop illicit oil sales. They also said they have no doubt Hussein has "reinvigorated" Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs.

The lawmakers urged Bush to provide more assistance to the opposition Iraqi National Congress. "Successive administrations have funded conferences, offices and other intellectual exercises that have done little more than expose the INC to accusations of being 'limousine insurgents' and 'armchair guerrillas,' " the letter said.

-------- israel

U.S. presses Arafat to punish militants

December 6, 2001
By Beth Gardiner
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011206-13680712.htm

JERUSALEM - U.S. envoys urged Yasser Arafat to take harsh measures against Islamic militants in meetings and a phone call hours before a suicide bomber detonated explosives yesterday outside a Jerusalem hotel, further rattling terror-weary Israelis.

In Mr. Arafat's boldest move yet against militants, Palestinian police put Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin under house arrest late yesterday. Hamas has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks, including deadly weekend suicide bombings in Israel.

Palestinian security officials said Sheikh Yassin, a quadriplegic, was told he would be allowed no visitors, except for relatives, and that his telephone lines would be cut.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said he urged the Palestinian leader to arrest 36 suspected terrorist leaders, while other Israeli officials dismissed Mr. Arafat's arrests of 151 persons in recent days as a show.

Mr. Arafat countered that he was determined to break the terror networks in the Palestinian territories, but Israeli military strikes and sieges were making the job impossible.

"They have to cool down to give me the chance," he told ABC News.

Israel's air force struck Palestinian targets Monday and Tuesday, but there were no Israeli strikes yesterday in what Palestinian officials said was a lull aimed at allowing Mr. Arafat to act.

An early morning explosion outside a central Jerusalem hotel showed that his task was far from finished.

Jerusalem police Chief Mickey Levy said the bomber may have become nervous and detonated the explosives strapped to his body and packed with nails and bolts too early. The attacker died and two bystanders were lightly injured.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the blast - a chilling reminder of a wave of weekend attacks that killed 25 persons - in a statement faxed to the Associated Press.

The United States told Mr. Arafat he must crack down on such activity, Palestinian Cabinet Minister Nabil Shaath said.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Paul Patin said peace envoy Anthony Zinni spoke with Mr. Arafat by telephone Tuesday night. The Palestinian leader met shortly afterward with U.S. Consul Ronald Schlicher and Aaron Miller, another member of the Zinni delegation, Mr. Patin said.

"We are exerting 100 percent efforts to implement our commitments, and the Israelis are exerting 100 percent efforts to topple our efforts," Mr. Shaath said. "I wonder how they can ask the Palestinian policemen who are subject to Israeli raids by day to arrest Palestinian militants at night."

Mr. Peres said Mr. Arafat had made the same complaint to him.

Gen. Zinni met yesterday with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, resuming a peace mission stalled by the suicide attacks and Israeli retaliation. According to a statement from Mr. Sharon's office, Mr. Sharon said only international pressure would cause Mr. Arafat to change his policy of supporting terrorism.

Palestinian security officials said they now had 151 suspected militants in custody, including members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and a radical PLO faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which assassinated an Israeli Cabinet minister in October to avenge the killing of its leader by Israel.

Israel's attacks Monday and Tuesday were retaliation for the weekend Palestinian suicide bombings in Jerusalem and the northern port city of Haifa. As the strikes began, Mr. Sharon accused Mr. Arafat of supporting terrorism.

The Israeli attacks killed two Palestinians, injured more than 100, destroyed three of Mr. Arafat's helicopters and hit his West Bank headquarters just yards from the office where he was working. There were no strikes yesterday.

--------

THE MIDEAST
Hamas Backers and Palestinian Police Clash

New York Times
December 6, 2001
By JOEL GREENBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/06/international/06CND-MIDE.html

JERUSALEM, Dec. 6 - The Palestinian Authority put Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of the militant group Hamas, under house arrest on Wednesday, setting off protests by hundreds of angry supporters near his home in Gaza.

One of three protesters who clashed with the Palestinian police late Wednesday, a Hamas supporter named Mohammed Selmi, 21, died today of his injuries, relatives and hospital officials said.

Witnesses said the police fired in the air to disperse militants who also fired weapons in the air, and unarmed crowds who were summoned to the sheik's home over mosque loudspeakers, and that dozens of officers were sent to the scene.

Protesters chanted "God is greater!" in a tense standoff with the police. Demonstrators said that they had stoned the police and that three protesters were wounded by police gunfire.

The wheelchair-bound sheik, who is 65, was the most prominent militant to be detained by the Palestinian security forces in a sweep of arrests after deadly suicide bombings in Israel last weekend.

The confrontation outside Sheik Yassin's house highlighted the difficulties faced by Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, in trying to move against militant groups like Hamas. It took responsibility for suicide bombings that killed 25 people in Israel last weekend and said the bombings were revenge for the killing of a Hamas leader in the West Bank on Nov. 23.

Mr. Arafat has come under intense pressure from Israel and the United States to crack down on militant groups, and two days of Israeli airstrikes increased that pressure still further. The Israelis hit Palestinian targets across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including Mr. Arafat's helicopters, his compound in Ramallah and security buildings.

Israel suspended the airstrikes on Wednesday, and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said he told Mr. Arafat that he had 12 hours to apprehend militants whose arrest has been demanded by Israel. Palestinians reported further arrests early today of militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

A Palestinian suicide bomber from Islamic Jihad blew himself up in Jerusalem on Wednesday morning, lightly wounding two people in what was apparently a premature explosion before the bomber reached his intended target.

Although there were no new airstrikes on Wednesday, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned that that they could resume if Israel's demand for a crackdown on militants was not met.

"We sent a signal, there's a pause until the next signal, and meanwhile we give time to the Palestinian Authority to contemplate its actions," said Raanan Gissin, Mr. Sharon's spokesman. "We're saying: `Here's the first dish on the menu, if you want the whole meal, it's up to you.' It's right there in the hands of Arafat."

Mr. Sharon said on Wednesday that Mr. Arafat had to carry out "real arrests of terrorist elements" instead of what he called "mostly dummy arrests with attempts at deception" that had been carried out so far. "Real arrests have yet to be made," Mr. Sharon said.

Mr. Arafat declared a state of emergency in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Sunday and ordered his forces to round up suspects.

Palestinian security officials say they have arrested more than 150 members of the militant groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Mr. Gissin said those detained were only "third- and fourth-rate" operatives who had not been involved in major attacks on Israelis.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said on a visit to Turkey Wednesday that Mr. Arafat still had to "show significant results."

Palestinian officials have argued that the Israeli attacks on Palestinian security headquarters were hampering their efforts to make arrests.

Mr. Peres said that Mr. Arafat made a similar assertion in a telephone conversation Wednesday.

"Yasir Arafat called me and told me that he wants to take matters in hand but we're not letting him," Mr. Peres told reporters.

"I told him: `Listen, the matter is now in your hands, and only in your hands. In the next 12 hours you can determine the attitude toward the Palestinian Authority. You've been given a list of 36 people who to the best of our considerations are at the head of the terror, and I highly recommend that you put them in jail.'

"I told him that the Palestinian Authority's problem today is a very low level of credibility, both in America and in Europe, and in Israel."

Mr. Peres and other ministers of his Labor party decided on Wednesday against leaving Mr. Sharon's government in protest over the air strikes. Labor ministers had walked out of a cabinet vote in the early hours of Tuesday on the military action, but the consensus at a meeting on Wednesday was to stay in the government despite policy differences with Mr. Sharon.

"All the ministers understand that at the moment the war is against terrorism, and there is no room to leave the government in the current situation," said Shalom Simhon, one of the Labor ministers.

For his part, Mr. Sharon repeated a list of conditions on Wednesday that he said had to be met by Mr. Arafat before there could be political negotiations. In addition to arrests of militants, Mr. Sharon said, Mr. Arafat had to dismantle terrorist groups, seize illegal arms, prevent attacks and halt anti-Israeli incitement.

The suicide bomber who was killed Wednesday was identified as Daoud Abu Sway, a 45-year-old father of eight from the West Bank village of Artas, near Bethlehem. This was a departure from the usual profile of young, unmarried suicide bombers.

Police said he had nail-studded explosives strapped to his body that exploded as he crossed a street near the David Citadel Hotel, a few minutes walk from the walled Old City in East Jerusalem. Two people waiting at a bus stop were lightly injured and several others were treated for shock. The bomber's blood was spattered on the hotel wall and his remains flew into a hotel room.

Following Israeli radio reports that Public Security Minister Uzi Landau and another cabinet member were staying at the hotel, Islamic Jihad issued a statement in Beirut saying that they were the intended target. However, Jerusalem police officials suggested that the bomber might have been planning to board a bus, or may have been headed for a more crowded area downtown.

-------- nato

Powell Urges NATO to Act on Terrorism

DECEMBER 06, 06:56 ET
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_package.html?FRONTID=WORLD&PACKAGEID=nato&SLUG=NATO

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell told NATO partners Thursday that the alliance must move quickly to improve its capacity to resist terrorism. ``Now, more than ever, NATO matters,'' Powell said.

Powell also sought financial support for the day-old interim post-Taliban government in Afghanistan.

As NATO readied a ``zero tolerance'' declaration on terrorism, Powell sought to ease members' concerns that their offers of troops were being spurned.

``The circumstances of this campaign means that not every ally is fighting in Afghanistan - but every ally is in the fight,'' Powell said.

``Don't stand down, there's a lot more to be done,'' he added.

Many nations have offered troops in the Afghan military effort, including Britain, France, Germany and Italy. But only a relatively few have seen action. That has prompted some frustration among key allies.

``We must move quickly to increase our capacity to resist terrorist attacks,'' Powell said. He also urged NATO to expand its contacts with the nations of central Asia, ``and we need to do that now.''

Powell spoke behind closed doors at the winter meeting of North American Treaty Organization foreign ministers. His remarks, as delivered, were made available by U.S. officials.

The alliance's secretary general, Lord Robertson, opened Thursday's session by declaring that NATO must be ``ready for the long haul.''

``The threats have changed, but our resilience and relevance have not,'' Robertson said in public remarks.

``There has to be zero tolerance on terrorism,'' Robertson said.

Earlier, Powell said he would press NATO allies to help provide emergency funds to help the new coalition government about to take power in Afghanistan.

``We need some money to get these folks started,'' Powell said Wednesday after negotiating factions reached an agreement in Germany for a post-Taliban government.

Powell said he would find some funds in his State Department budget as well as passing a ``collection plate'' among ``our allied friends. ... I've got everybody in town.'' He did not suggest a pricetag.

The anti-terrorism war was at the top of NATO's agenda.

Responding to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the alliance has invoked a clause in its founding treaty declaring that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

As an alliance, NATO is providing such support as blanket overflight clearances to Afghanistan, access to ports and airfields, and increased intelligence sharing for the U.S.-led coalition forces.

Nearly all member nations are providing additional military help on a bilateral basis, and countries such as Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands have offered troops, ships and aircraft.

Powell, on an eight-day, 10-country tour of Europe and central Asia, told Turkish leaders in Ankara on Wednesday that their military would likely play a key role in an Afgan peacekeeping force.

Afghan factions agreed Wednesday on an interim government for the next six months headed by anti-Taliban commander Hamid Karzai. After six months, the former king of Afghanistan, now living in Rome, will call a traditional tribal council to take steps to form a more permanent government.

Powell promptly announced that the U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, James Dobbins, would open a U.S. liaison office in Kabul, the first step toward granting full U.S. diplomatic recognition to the new coalition government.

Powell told reporters on his plane that, ``for the foreseeable future ... an American military presence will be there until that mission is finished.''

Eventually, he said, the United States will pass off the military role to ``a coalition of the willing,'' one that would be led by a nation other than the United States.

NATO ministers were expected to issue a declaration of strong support for the U.S. campaign against terrorism. They were also expected to back closer ties with Russia.

The United States is not seeking anything new from the alliance beyond a renewed common commitment and a declaration that the fight against terrorism is now clearly one of NATO's priorities, NATO and U.S. officials said.

What the allies hope to do during two days of talks in Brussels is to identify the capabilities the 19-nation alliance has for fighting terrorism and begin the long process of adjusting to changing times and new threats.

Alliance officials say individual nations or civilian organizations like the European Union often are better armed for the fight against terrorism through civilian police and financial institutions. But there clearly are areas in which NATO needs to do more thinking, such as civil protection and combatting chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, the officials say.

On Friday, the allies will hold talks with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on bringing Moscow at least part of the way into the NATO fold.

The United States says it appreciates Russia's cooperation in the war in Afghanistan and is willing accept President Vladimir Putin's overtures for closer relations.

The allies believe they must seize this opportunity to take a new direction in Europe, making Russia a full partner in forging European security, alliance officials and diplomats said.

----

Bulgaria to rid missiles to court NATO

December 6, 2001
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011206-819350.htm

Bulgaria, hoping to bolster its chances of becoming a NATO member next year, told the United States yesterday that it would destroy dozens of SS-23 and Scud missiles it had kept since the Cold War.

Visiting Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy also assured senior Bush administration officials that his country had taken strict entry-visa measures that would make it hard for terrorists and other illegal foreigners to use the small Balkan country as a gateway to Western Europe.

Bulgarian citizens can travel without visas to most European countries but not to Britain, Canada and the United States.

"Our visa stamps have 28 levels of protection, and the technology we use is the most advanced in the world," Mr. Passy said in an interview yesterday.

In meetings with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Mr. Passy pledged his country's support for the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism. The Bulgarian parliament has voted to give overflight rights to U.S. aircraft used in the war in Afghanistan.

"As a rotating member of the U.N. Security Council for the next two years, Bulgaria has placed the fight against terror high on its foreign-policy agenda," said Mr. Passy.

The State Department said Mr. Armitage "thanked Mr. Passy for Bulgaria's immediate and ongoing support for the campaign to fight terrorism" and "commended Bulgaria on its ongoing efforts at reform."

Bulgaria has been working hard since 1997 to present itself as an attractive NATO candidate with a strategic geographic location, improving economy and stable political institutions.

Mr. Passy became foreign minister in July after a new political movement founded by Bulgaria's ex-monarch, King Simeon II, won a general election. He said the election of a former Communist Party member as president last month will not change Bulgaria's orientation to the West, and NATO and European Union membership will remain its top foreign-policy objectives.

The North Atlantic alliance is set to extend invitations to more young democracies in Central and Eastern Europe at a Prague summit late next year. It accepted Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999.

Bulgarian President-elect Georgi Parvanov, who heads the country's Socialist Party, has promised to work for entry into NATO and the EU, but his enthusiasm has not been nearly as strong as that of the incumbent, Petar Stoyanov. In October, Mr. Stoyanov hosted a summit of the heads of state of all nine NATO applicants in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital.

In protest to Mr. Parvanov's election, the Bulgarian ambassador to Washington, Philip Dimitrov, has announced he will resign as soon as the new president takes office in late January.

Asked how his boss, a former king, would work in his capacity as prime minister with a president who is an ex-Communist, Mr. Passy compared Bulgaria's new political landscape to the coexistence of a monarch and prime minister in Britain.

----

Veto the Russian-North Atlantic Council

EDITORIAL
Washington Times
December 6, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20011206-60966996.htm

Russian President Vladimir Putin couldn't be doing better. For the past three months, he has basked in the revitalized relationship with the United States as Russia has increased cooperation with America on fighting terrorism. Now British Prime Minister Tony Blair is proposing to create a Russia-North Atlantic Council in which Russia would be granted many of the rights of a NATO member without having to meet the preconditions for being one. As the NATO foreign ministers meet today in Brussels, both they and the Bush administration should make clear their skepticism toward the proposal. Russia's expanded role would not only be a recipe for bringing disunity into the alliance, but would cause NATO to compromise its objectives.

While Moscow should be commended for its support of the United States since September 11, rewarding Russia with virtual NATO membership is not appropriate. First, there is little need to create a new council. In 1997, the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council was created, setting up the perimeters for joint action and increased cooperation between NATO and Russia. That council already allows for consultation on issues from security, to conflict prevention, to arms-control and exchange of information - the same subjects that Mr. Blair's new council would address.

A precondition for the council established in 1997 was that consensus on joint-cooperation measures would be reached before meeting with Russia. The Blair proposal would negate those conditions, allowing Russia to participate in NATO's consensus-making process on certain issues. This would allow Russia to pit members of the alliance against each other, thus allowing Russia to have an unofficial veto right, and to stall consensus.

"It would change definitely the substance of the alliance," German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told this page about Russia becoming a NATO member. "This wouldn't be any longer the alliance as we know it, even if you name it NATO," he said. "The question is, what would be the result if Putin would be successful to bring Russia really to the West . . . based in the same values we believe in: civil society, open society, rule of law, democratic change of power."

Russia has shown that at the present time it is not a part of the West. Mr. Putin continues an autocratic-style rule, suppressing freedom of the press and judicial independence and using the current war on terrorism to gain favor for his own genocidal campaign against the Chechen people. Aside from the difference of political and civil values, Russia poses security risks which must be resolved before Russia should be allowed to sit around the table with other NATO members in the decision-making process. For instance, Russia sold ballistic-missile goods and technology to China, Iran, India and Libya last year, and its contribution to rogue states remains uncertain, Bill Gertz of The Washington Times reported.

Russia is not ready for the Russian-North Atlantic Council, and its expanded role at this time would harm NATO's role as a consensus-builder within Europe. The Bush administration must not compromise the democratic and security values of the alliance in a quick-fix political move to please Russia.

-------- un

UNITED NATIONS
Security Council Backs Plan for Afghan Government

December 6, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Afghanistan.html

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed a power-sharing agreement for a temporary post-Taliban government Thursday and called on all Afghan groups to fulfill its goal of restoring peace to the war-battered nation.

In backing the agreement reached early Wednesday by four Afghan factions after nine days of negotiations, the council declared its willingness to support implementation of the 2 1/2-year transition it envisions.

The U.N.-brokered agreement calls for a 30-member interim authority to govern Afghanistan for six months, starting Dec. 22. The former king will then convene a traditional tribal council, or loya jirga, to ratify a transitional government, paving the way for elections within two years.

U.S. deputy ambassador James Cunningham said the resolution gave a ``political impulse and endorsement to what happened in Bonn.''

A vote on the resolution, which is legally binding, was delayed because the United States sought to include a reference to an international force to provide security, initially in the capital Kabul, diplomats said. The United States wanted the resolution to mention the need for a force to cover any troops that wanted to go into Kabul quickly, diplomats said.

The agreement asks the Security Council to authorize an international force in the capital, and possibly elsewhere later on, but other council members said they did not want to address the issue in Thursday's resolution until a number of questions are answered.

Other members said they want to know exactly what the Afghan parties want from a peacekeeping mission, who is going to contribute troops, and who is going to lead the force, the diplomats said. The council also wants to work out very clear structures and communications system to ensure that there are no clashes between the international security force and the U.S.-led military operation against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, they said.

Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador Andrey Granovsky said the council needed to consult with Afghan leaders. ``We want to know what they think about it. This is not a 'no man's land.' They live there.''

Cunningham, the U.S. envoy, said a number of countries need to discuss how to meet the request for an international force, ``and then it will be up to the council to act on that understanding.''

One Western diplomat insisted the only sticking point now is who will lead the force.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday in Brussels that an international peacekeeping force will soon be sent into Afghanistan, although ``the mix and the leadership'' among nations has yet to be determined. ``There will be no shortage of troops,'' he said.

Council diplomats said they expect a resolution authorizing an international security force to be adopted later this month. Work on drafting the resolution is expected to begin early next week, they said.

The council is also expected to adopt a third resolution authorizing a U.N. mission to provide humanitarian relief in Afghanistan, diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The resolution adopted Thursday declares the council's ``willingness to take further action ... to support the interim institutions ... and, in due course, to support the implementation of the agreement and its annexes.''

One of the annexes mentions the establishment of an international security force.

The resolution, sponsored by Britain and France, notes that the interim arrangements for Afghanistan ``are intended as a first step towards the establishment of a broad-based, gender sensitive, multiethnic and fully representative government.''

It calls on all Afghan groups to implement it ``in full'' and to cooperate with the interim government.

The resolution calls on all Afghan groups to allow humanitarian organizations to get aid to the needy and to ensure the safety of humanitarian workers. It also urges donors ``to assist with the rehabilitation, recovery and reconstruction of Afghanistan.''

On Wednesday, the council issued a press statement welcoming the agreement and urging the parties to implement it ``in good faith.''

-------- us

Out of High School and Into a Combat Zone
Teenage Sailors Shoulder Much of the Responsibility Aboard Aircraft Carrier

By Carol Morello
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 6, 2001; Page A52
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59272-2001Dec5?language=printer

ABOARD THE USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT -- Mary Williams enlisted in the Navy after graduating from high school in New Orleans because she wanted to travel and eventually get money for a college education.

That was July 5, but it sometimes feels like a lifetime ago.

She was just 17 when she joined the Navy, so young her parents had to grant their permission, and so "girly" that her childhood friends were stunned by her decision. She was in boot camp on Sept. 11, and remembers feeling overwhelmed.

By early November, Airman Williams had been deployed to this aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, where she has begun learning how to service the warplanes flying sorties over Afghanistan. Chief Warrant Officer Gene Jones, her supervisor, expects her to qualify to work on the flight deck by January, shortly after her 18th birthday.

"It was my decision to join," said Williams, who works at a dizzying pace on an S-3 refueling plane barely half a year after her prom. "I knew I would be away from home. I made a good decision. I'm proud to be part of what's going on."

It is a maxim of war that young people go off to fight. Nowhere is that more evident than on an aircraft carrier. Aboard the Roosevelt, where the median age is 19, many senior officers say they often pause to marvel at the way sailors still in their teens shoulder so much responsibility.

"It's a testament to the youth of America," said Capt. Richard J. O'Hanlon, commanding officer of the ship. "A year or two ago, they weren't trusted with the family car. You have 19-year-olds repairing $35 million jet fighters and 20-year-olds running our nuclear propulsion plant. They do a wonderful job."

The Roosevelt is one of eight Nimitz-class nuclear-powered carriers in the Navy. It has two nuclear reactors, each generating 1,000 megawatts of electricity. That power propels the 97,000-ton ship at speeds over 30 knots, and converts 400,000 gallons of sea water every day into potable water used for everything from cooking to showering.

The 28 people, some as young as 18, who work on the nuclear reactors have a reputation of being among the brainiest on the ship. That image is heightened by the secrecy in which they work. They are not allowed to talk to their shipmates in any detail about the reactor. They work in a room at the bottom of the ship where most people aboard, including reporters, are prohibited from entering.

"We disappear behind magical doors that no one is allowed to come through," said Lt. Mark Dunbar, 26, a Naval Academy graduate from Tallahassee who is the reactor controls division officer. "Due to the nature of our job, it's hard to convey what we do in an understandable way."

A certain formality characterizes the working environment. Officers and enlisted personnel address one another by their ranks and surnames, shunning the casual use of first names that is common elsewhere on the ship. All who work there have training in reactor theory and electrical theory. "It's not dangerous, as long as you're careful," Dunbar said.

Responsibility is not something they learned after joining the Navy. Several people who work on the reactors could not recall a single act of reckless behavior, not even in their early teens. They said they were the types who studied hard and kept their bedrooms tidy.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Billy Car, 24, who operates the generators, is the son of a pipe fitter who worked at a nuclear power plant near his home town of Casa, Ark. He joined the Navy four years ago because his family could not afford to send him to college.

"My father, my grandpa and my grandpa's grandpa were all pipe fitters, plumbers and electricians," he said, adding that he hopes to go to college and work at a nuclear power plant. It bothers him not one whit that the fighter pilots get all the glory while the nuclear reactor workers get ignored. "I feel real proud of the job I do. It doesn't affect me to see others get more publicity. I feel a deep sense of pride."

Pride also pervades the crews that maintain the ship's 70 planes. Most are still in their teens or early twenties. They tend to be so early into their service that they have the lower rates of E-1, E-2 and E-3. Some are fresh enough that they have yet to be assigned a specialty, or rating.

But their importance is considered so significant that the plane captains who are in charge of the crews are the only ones besides the pilots and co-pilots who have their names painted on the aircraft, typically on the landing gear flap.

Barely a year ago, Chandra Espinoza's life revolved around her high school classes in San Diego and her boyfriend.

"I was trying to figure out what I want from life," said Espinoza, 19, a seaman apprentice who has 13 months in the Navy.

Now Espinoza, who has never had a driver's license and hopes to buy her first car at the end of this deployment, is a plane captain in a squadron of $23 million S-3s.

"At first, I wasn't ready for the responsibility," she said as the screech of a catapult filled the air and a plane left from the flight deck. "If something goes wrong with the plane, then one of the people we're fighting could hit them and we'd lose a pilot or the plane. But eventually, I got tired of being a trainee and I was ready for it."

Five months ago, Espinoza became a captain and her name was painted on the landing gear door of the plane her crew is responsible for. She photographed it and e-mailed it to her mother.

"It felt good to know that in the short time I've been in the Navy, I've done something good," she said. "I know there are probably a lot of people who do more. I have friends who live on their own, have jobs and kids. That's a big responsibility.

"But not many of my friends can say they're 19 and here on a boat in the middle of a war launching planes. That's something to talk about when I go home."

----

RISING WATERS COULD SWAMP BLOODSWORTH ISLAND

December 5, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-05-09.html

NORFOLK, Virginia, Bloodsworth Island, a land mass in Maryland's Patuxent River that is both an important military training site and a haven for wading birds, may be completely submerged by rising waters within the next century.

The island, the northernmost and largest island in a marshy island chain in Chesapeake Bay, lies within Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River's special use airspace and has been an important asset to military testing and training since the Navy acquired it in 1942. Since then, the Navy, other military and even non-military agencies have used it.

For many years, NAS Patuxent River has managed some of the wildlife on Bloodsworth Island, including the establishment and maintenance of a heron rookery on the northern part of the island.

But due to the rising sea level of the Chesapeake Bay, saltwater infiltration has taken place throughout Bloodsworth Island, causing changes in vegetation types and the abundance of wildlife. If steps are not taken, because of the rising water level and an increase in shoreline erosion, the island will be submerged within the next 100 years, the Navy says.

"I think preventing it from becoming submerged would benefit both the Navy and many types of wildlife," said Jim Swift, NAS Patuxent River natural resources specialist. "The Navy benefits from testing and evaluation, and migrating birds benefit from nesting sites in spring and summer to a major wintering ground. Maximizing wildlife benefits without impeding the Navy's mission is the challenge."

The natural resources branch of NAS Patuxent River works with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and other state and federal agencies on the management of the Bloodsworth Island Range.

"The objective of the Navy, NAS Patuxent River and the [Range Management Plan] is to maintain military operational readiness while protecting the environment," said Don Shaver of the Navy's operational environmental planning office. "This is accomplished by incorporating environmental analysis into the operational planning process."


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS

Mineta Seeks Ship Inspection Limits

By Jonathan D. Salant
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, December 6, 2001; 12:05 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2536-2001Dec6?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- The Coast Guard would be able to stop and board ships 12 miles from U.S. shores - four times the current limit - under proposals made Thursday by Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta.

Testifying before a House Transportation subcommittee, Mineta also called for allowing the Transportation Department to conduct security inspections of foreign ports. He said he wants to make permanent a temporary order requiring ships to provide a list of their crew members 96 hours before docking in the United States.

Mineta said the measures are needed to help prevent terrorists from shipping hazardous materials through U.S. ports, or from using a fully laden ship as a bomb the way they used four hijacked commercial airplanes Sept. 11.

"A cargo container arriving at a U.S. seaport today can be virtually anywhere in the heartland of America via truck and/or rail tomorrow," Mineta said.

Mineta's comments came as several senators warned of the increasing threat by sea.

"Perhaps the most vulnerable link in our transportation system is the component few Americans ever see: our major seaports," said Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, who has introduced legislation to improve port security.

Similar sentiments were expressed at the House hearing.

"I am deeply disturbed about port security," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. "I can't imagine a simpler way to distribute a catastrophic device."

The transportation secretary told the House subcommittee that the department would look at the vulnerability of major ports, and that local authorities would be asked to develop their own security plans.

Mineta said the Coast Guard should be allowed to patrol within 12 miles of the U.S. coast, with the power to stop, board and inspect ships. The current limit is three miles.

He said the department should be allowed to conduct security checks of foreign ports. He called for a rapid response team to quickly enhance port security when there are serious threats of terrorist activity. And he said he was looking at technology to make it possible to quickly inspect sealed containers, rather than do an occasional check while largely taking the shippers' word as to the contents.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, said just 1 percent of arriving containers were inspected.

"The ease with which a terrorist could smuggle chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons in a container, without detection, is, in a word, hair-raising," said Lieberman, D-Conn.

----

Deportation scofflaws to go in database

Around the Nation
December 6, 2001
Washington Times
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011206-72450179.htm

The names of more than 300,000 foreigners who disappeared after being ordered deported will be entered in a crime database so police can help track them down, the Immigration and Naturalization Service said yesterday.

By entering their names in the National Crime Information Center database, the missing deportees might be identified by officers in traffic stops or other identity checks, INS Commissioner James Ziglar told the House Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice.

----

INS Seeks Law Enforcement Aid in Crackdown Move
Targets 300,000 Foreign Nationals Living in U.S. Despite Deportation Orders

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 6, 2001; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64742-2001Dec5?language=printer

U.S. immigration authorities announced yesterday that they have enlisted the help of law enforcement agencies in a crackdown on more than 300,000 foreign nationals who have remained in the country illegally after they were ordered deported.

James W. Ziglar, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said the names of as many as 314,000 such foreigners would be entered in a national FBI crime database so police can help identify them. Previously, the government did not pursue most people who ignored orders to leave the country.

Ziglar said the move was part of an effort to tighten domestic enforcement of immigration laws, an area of concern for lawmakers since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"This isn't a sweep" of illegal immigrants, Ziglar said. These are "people who have been on the lam, who have been accorded due process," he told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

The order applies to foreigners who were in the United States illegally and have either skipped their deportation hearings -- resulting in an order to leave the country -- or turned up to receive deportation orders but subsequently vanished while out on bond.

Their names will be placed in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database, a list of millions of records consulted by more than 80,000 law enforcement agencies ranging from local police to the Secret Service.

The new measure would allow even a local police officer writing a traffic ticket to determine that a violator is subject to a deportation order. Previously, only foreign nationals sought on criminal charges, as opposed to immigration violations, were entered into the FBI database.

INS spokesman Joe Karpinski said that local or state police who discovered deportees would turn them over to the INS, which would return them to their home countries. He estimated the new system would lead to the discovery of up to 10 percent of the missing deportees each year. The rest, he acknowledged, might manage to stay in the country undetected.

Karpinski said it would take about a year to gather the names of as many as 314,000 people from INS offices and log them into the FBI database.

Ziglar's announcement represented a shift for the INS, which has devoted little attention to people, known as "absconders," who disappear after deportation orders. Spokesmen said the agency has lacked the staff to go after many of the 7 million to 8 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, and has focused on a few high-priority groups, mainly criminals and immigrant smugglers.

Some of the hundreds of thousands of "absconders" disappeared after receiving a final deportation notice, which is known in immigrant communities as a "run letter" because that is what it prompts many to do. But enforcement has been so limited that many deportees do not bother hiding, said Susan F. Martin, director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University.

"They don't even run anymore. They know the INS won't go to their house to pick them up," she said.

Ziglar said his announcement was not part of the government's anti-terrorism campaign, but instead was aimed at making the INS "more effective." Still, it comes after alarm from legislators over the government's lax enforcement of immigration laws. Three of the 19 men blamed for the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes had stayed in the United States illegally beyond the limits imposed by their visas.

Ben Ferro, an immigration consultant and retired INS district director, said the crackdown was long overdue.

"Up until now, the INS had placed these absconders in the lowest possible priority," Ferro said. "It's courageous because he [Ziglar] is going to catch some flak over this" as people are removed from jobs, homes and families and sent back to their native countries.

Even some pro-immigration activists seemed unfazed. "What's important to know about these folks [is], they did have their day in court," said Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, a Washington group. "In the post-September 11th context, we've seen a lot of people's constitutional rights trampled on. It's those people I'm much more worried about."

Staff writer William Branigin contributed to this report.

----

Robinson sees progress in curbing youth abuse

By Tom Stuckey
ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 6, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20011206-67387624.htm

ANNAPOLIS - Juvenile Justice Secretary Bishop Robinson defended his department's handling of juvenile institutions, telling a legislative committee that substantial progress has been made in curbing abuses of young people.

"Not that I'm comfortable with the progress. There needs to be more," he said Tuesday.

But Mr. Robinson outlined a range of steps he has taken since he was brought in 20 months ago to straighten out the troubled juvenile justice system.

He said he has put child advocates in juvenile prisons, arranged for representatives of the Office of Children and Youth to monitor the institutions and required an investigation and written report on every incident involving possible abuse.

"Abuse will not be tolerated," Mr. Robinson said.

He was brought in to run the Department of Juvenile Justice in April 2000 after the Baltimore Sun reported that juveniles were being abused in a state camp in Western Maryland.

The newspaper recently reported that abuses continue in the system - a charge that Mr. Robinson said is inaccurate.

"Some of the kids have stated that they have experienced some abuse or threats of abuse," he told the committee.

He said most of the incidents cited by the newspaper happened in 2000 and do not reflect what is happening now.

Much of the current controversy involves the Victor Cullen Academy in Frederick County. Mr. Robinson said he will recommend later this month whether the secure facility for juveniles should be closed or reduced in size to concentrate on young people with serious criminal records.

Victor Cullen is operated by Youth Services International, a private company based in Florida. State officials are displeased with the way the company has been running the 225-bed facility and may not extend the contract, which expires next year.

Delegate Nancy Kopp, chairman of the House Education and Economic Development subcommittee, said when private contractors were brought in to run some of the juvenile jails, "there was some thought privatization could make a difference."

"There are some of us who now think it doesn't make a difference one way or the other," said Miss Kopp, Montgomery County Democrat.

Mr. Robinson said private companies can successfully operate smaller institutions. He cited the O'Farrell Youth Center in Carroll County as an example of a well-run facility.

Mr. Robinson was the former head of the adult prison system and was popular with legislators, who gave him high marks for his handling of what is considered one of the most difficult jobs in state government.

He has maintained that credibility in his new position and got a sympathetic reception from the House subcommittee members as he related efforts to improve the way the state handles juvenile criminals.

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Ashcroft Appears Before Senate to Defend Tactics

December 6, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Ashcroft-Senate.html

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft, defending administration measures to counteract terrorism, declared Thursday the nation must not let down its guard against threats that present ``a daily chronicle of the hatred of Americans by fanatics.''

Holding aloft an al-Qaida terrorism manual, Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary Committee: ``We are at war with an enemy that abuses individual rights as it abuses jetliners. ... Defending our nation and its citizens against terrorist attacks is now our first law enforcement priority.''

Ashcroft's appearance came in an atmosphere of mounting criticism by Senate Democrats that the Justice Department moved too far, too quickly, to implement a host of stern investigative measures in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Ashcroft chided critics of the various measures, including the government's detention and questioning of hundreds of Middle Eastern men.

He said critics are uninformed. ``Charges of kangaroo courts and shredding the Constitution give new meaning to the term 'the fog of war,''' he said.

``Each action taken by the Department of Justice as well as the war crimes commission ... is carefully drawn to cover a narrow class of individuals -- terrorists,'' Ashcroft declared.

On the 87th day since the attack, Ashcroft told lawmakers he received chilling daily intelligence reports.

``My day begins with a review of the threats to Americans and American interests,'' Ashcroft said. ``If ever there were proof of evil in the world it is in these reports.

``They are a chilling daily chronicle of the hatred of Americans by fanatics, who seek to extinguish freedom, enslave women, corrupt education, and to kill Americans wherever and whenever they can.''

The committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the government needs a good reason to snoop into bank records, tax returns and e-mails.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, countered: ``Let's keep our focus on where it matters -- protecting U.S. citizens.''

Leahy said the president was taking a risk by acting without Congress to establish a tribunal system that might not survive Supreme Court scrutiny.

``It is a calculated risk that the Supreme Court will uphold something it has not upheld before,'' Leahy said.

Ashcroft replied that Bush has an ``inherent authority and power'' to prosecute war crimes. He would not specify whether terrorists trying to enter the United States would be covered by the tribunals, only promising ``full and fair proceedings.''

``When we come upon those responsible in Afghanistan, are we supposed to read them Miranda rights, hire a flamboyant defense lawyer, bring them back to the United States, create a new cable network of Osama TV or what have you and provide a worldwide platform from which propaganda can be developed?'' he said.

Ashcroft also told the committee:

-- He could not comment on any legal actions to be taken against John Walker, an American caught with Taliban fighters. But he warned, ``History has not looked kindly upon those who have forsaken their countries to go and fight against their countries.''

-- Only individuals accused of war crimes would be subject to military tribunals, not those charged with violating U.S. criminal laws.

-- Some individuals will be detained pending the final outcome of charges in cases involving national security.

Ashcroft was questioned by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., about why the Justice Department denied the FBI access to the National Instant Check System records to determine whether any of the detainees had bought guns.

``The only permissible use for the national check system is to audit the maintenance of that system, and the Department of Justice is committed to following the law in that respect,'' he replied. ``When the request first came, obviously the instinct of the FBI was to use the information to see. When they were advised by those who monitor whether or not we follow the congressional direction, we stopped, and I believe we did the right thing.''

When it comes to listening in on inmates' conversations with their lawyers, Ashcroft said the Justice Department tells all parties that their conversations will be monitored beforehand, and said he is confident that all precautions required by the courts are being taken.

But federal officials are not willing ``to allow individuals to continue terrorist activities or other acts that would harm the American public by using their lawyers and their conversations to continue or to extend acts of terrorism or violence against the American people,'' Ashcroft said.

Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., voiced concern about the legal rights of detainees. ``Will you commit to this committee today that the Department of Justice will take immediate steps to make sure that every detainee is aware of his right to counsel?'' he asked Ashcroft.

Said Ashcroft: ``I believe there are rights, and I will take steps to make sure every detainee knows we believe they have a right to counsel. I do not intend to hold individuals without access to counsel. ... I don't believe that we are.''

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Three Cleared by DNA Tests Enjoy Liberty After 15 Years

New York Times
December 6, 2001
By JODI WILGOREN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/06/national/06DNA.html

NAPERVILLE, Ill., Dec. 5 - Hours after they emerged from spending nearly 15 years in prison for a rape-murder that they apparently did not commit, three young men this afternoon were given gilt- edge plaques etched with today's date and a simple message, "The first day of the rest of your life."

One man, Omar Saunders, 32, bit into a fat red grape, a taste he last had as a teenager. Another man, Larry Ollins, 31, strolled up to a woman in the parking lot and asked for her telephone number.

The third man, his cousin Calvin Ollins, 29, held the flatware as though it was sterling. "Man, this is a real knife," he gasped, cutting into a giant chocolate-chip cookie with `Welcome Home' written in frosting. "Man, real fork. We've been using plastic ware, melt in your mouth."

The three were freed after a hearing in which charges against them and a fourth man, who is in jail in a separate crime, were dropped in the slaying in 1986 of Lori Roscetti, 23, a medical student who was found on a desolate road near a Chicago housing project, her face smashed by concrete, her ribs shattered and a bloody shoe print left on her chest.

The case brings to 98 the number of rape and murder convictions overturned nationwide through the use of DNA evidence, and it also raises broader questions of misconduct by the police and prosecutors.

After months of reinvestigation prompted by the men's lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, officials said semen and hairs found on Ms. Roscetti's body and in her car did not match the four men convicted of the crime. It also appears that a forensic scientist, Pamela Fish, may have given false testimony and that detectives coerced confessions based on a profiler's hypothesis.

"This evidence appeared overwhelming, and yet we know now, obviously, that it was underwhelming," said Rob Warden, director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Northwestern Law School. "When we see the vast numbers of errors that occur in these relatively few DNA cases, what does that say about the rest of the system? We can only wonder about how many innocent people we've executed and how many hundreds, thousands of people are languishing in prison for crimes they did not commit."

No one was at the Roscettis' blue one-story house in Southern View, near Springfield. But in an e-mail message to the local newspaper, the victim's mother said: "We were devastated when she was murdered and we are devastated today. I hope some day the true killers will be locked up."

Illinois was the site of the first conviction to be overturned based on DNA evidence, in 1987. Last year, it became the first state to impose a moratorium on the death penalty, after DNA evidence had cleared 13 people convicted of murder.

In the Roscetti case, Ms. Zellner promised today to sue the police and prosecutors in 60 days. The law enforcement agencies promised to continue searching for the killers.

Ms. Fish, who now works for the state police, has been transferred to an administrative position and has refused to comment.

"It's a mystery right now as to who the DNA profiles belong to," said Celeste Stack, an assistant state's attorney who worked on the reinvestigation. "The investigation is open. Wherever it leads us, we'll go."

The day began with a 15-minute hearing in Cook County Criminal Court in Chicago, where Judge Dennis Porter accepted Ms. Stack's petition to vacate the charges, as Mr. Saunders's fiancée, Patricia Hobson, and godmother, Delores Hamoltin, huddled, shaking and yelping with glee, in the third row.

A caravan of reporters trailed Ms. Zellner to the Stateville prison in Joliet, a southwestern suburb, where Mr. Saunders and Larry Ollins filed their final paperwork and made angry statements about the miscarriage of justice. Then a 10-minute drive over the Des Plaines River to the Joliet prison to collect Calvin Ollins, who is considered mentally retarded, with an I.Q. of 65 to 70.

The two older men bearhugged the younger, whose smile beamed brighter than the gold cross around his neck, and marveled at how tall he had grown since they last saw him, five and eight years ago.

"Long journey, it's been a long journey," Larry Ollins said. "What did I tell you? Hold on, hold on."

Back here at their lawyer's office, 45 minutes outside Chicago, the three men, in matching shiny black shoes with silver buckles, black corduroys and gray V-neck sweaters, kept shaking hands and slapping shoulders, staring at pine trees they thought that they would never see. The eyes of Calvin Ollins's mother were red from crying, and the elementary-school teacher who taught him to read could not stop smiling.

"Any time you take a child and you force him into the wilderness, he's going to turn into a beast or he's going to learn there's a higher power," Calvin Ollins said of his time in jail, where he listened to spiritual music. "Sometimes you have to go through certain things for God to bring you to a certain point."

Mr. Saunders, whose bald head shows scars from a stabbing in prison, said he had spent much of the last few years reading, encyclopedias, dictionaries and a biography of Harry S. Truman that taught him that Jim Crow was a real person and not just a political concept. The hardest part, Mr. Saunders said, was facing relatives and friends who believed the accounts of his guilt.

"I had a dream years ago," he said. "In the dream, everybody I knew, the pupils of their eyes, the part that gives vision, they were gone. It was telling me that everybody that we loved, our friends, they couldn't see what we could see, what I could see."

The men have spent nearly half their lives behind bars. "Michael Jordan - I've been locked up almost his whole career," Calvin Ollins said. Their lawyer is sifting through job and housing offers. But the men said they did not know what they wanted to do tonight or tomorrow, never mind next month and next year.

"One thing we learned from being incarcerated," Calvin Ollins said. "You begin to take one day at a time."

-------- terrorism

Saudi Man Denies Bin Laden Link

The Associated Press
Thursday, December 6, 2001; 10:26 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2010-2001Dec6?language=printer

MANAMA, Bahrain -- A Saudi businessman has reportedly denied a German report that he once tried to procure missiles and other materials for associates of Osama bin Laden.

Hassan Enany was quoted in Thursday's edition of the Saudi newspaper Okaz as saying he is considering legal action against the German magazine Stern for libel.

Stern published an interview Wednesday with an unnamed German businessman who said that in 1993, Enany approached him about purchasing missiles, biological and chemical substances that were intended for Arab friends with connections to bin Laden.

Bin Laden and his al-Qaida network have been blamed for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

A spokesman for Germany's Federal Criminal Office, Juergen Stoltenow, said Wednesday that investigators had questioned the German man quoted in Stern and that an inquiry was under way.

Enany was quoted as saying that the Stern report was full of "false allegations" triggered by "the current Western hounding of Saudis." Efforts to reach Enany, whose company apparently owns a software firm that distributes German-made systems, were unsuccessful.

Fifteen of the 19 suicide hijackers were Saudis. Three of the Sept. 11 hijackers lived and studied in Germany where authorities believe they and at least three others hatched the worst terrorist attack in history.

----

SECURITY U.S.
Terror Attacks Galvanize Europeans to Tighten Laws

New York Times
December 6, 2001
By WARREN HOGE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/06/international/europe/06EURO.html

LONDON, Dec. 5 - European governments have reacted to the terrorist attacks in the United States by proposing new laws that are in many cases tougher and more restrictive than the ones they instituted in response to terrorism at home.

In rapid succession, France has expanded police powers to search private property without warrants, Spain has curbed organizations associated with the Basque guerrilla group E.T.A., and the European Council has moved to create a pan-European arrest warrant and a common definition of "terrorist crime."

Even in Germany, where citizens' experiences with Nazism and Communism have left them particularly sensitive to state intrusion into private lives, the government has loosened restraints on phone tapping and the monitoring of e-mail and bank records and freed up once-proscribed communication between the police and the secret services.

The debate over restricting civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism has not been as heated in Europe as in the United States, where the measures have been more drastic. But the tightening up since Sept. 11 in countries that have faced terrorist bombings and assassinations continually over the last three decades has provoked argument.

"Collective security is not the enemy of individual freedom," said France's interior minister, Daniel Valliant, in introducing antiterrorism legislation in the French assembly last month. "The scale of the attacks on the U.S. and the way they were carried out has made us aware that no one is safe from such terrorist acts."

He said, "We now speak in terms of before and after Sept. 11."

France has proposed new laws to bolster security in public places and to allow the police to search cars without warrants, an issue of particular sensitivity for the French. Under pre-existing laws, cars were classed as "private places" in France, and the police did not have the right to intrude.

"My reaction is very critical," said Dominique Tricaud, a human rights lawyer who works with S O S Racisme, a French civil rights group. "Sept. 11 has done nothing to change the French strategy for fighting terrorism. It was already in place because of the terror bombs in the 1980's and 1990's. There was no need for fresh measures."

Security officials disagree. Mariano Roy, Spain's interior minister, said, "In these 50 days we have advanced more in the struggle against terrorism than in the last decade."

Germany's Interior Minister Otto Schily, who as a lawyer used to represent terror suspects, has proposed loosening restrictions on surveillance, in effect giving investigators the right to pry without any stated suspicion.

When the European Council in Brussels pursued its legislation, a group of high- profile lawyers, judges and legal scholars from six countries put out a lengthy statement condemning the initiative.

"Democratic rights should not become the collateral damage of the war against terrorism," the 70 signers said, claiming that the proposed law "assassinates freedom." The legislation is aimed at setting a common definition of terrorism, increasing cooperation among national security forces and harmonizing punishments. The petition claimed that the legislation risked criminalizing protests like sit-ins, strikes, and other exercises of fundamental rights.

Germany has reintroduced the practice of computer profiling - the search of both public and private records for patterns to help find suspects - that was last seen when it was fighting its Red Army Faction terrorists in the 1970's.

But the new profiling is far more extensive because of advanced software and the wider array of records now open to scrutiny. In the past, the targets were people screened for information like age, family and academic associations. Now, critics charge, the primary criteria will be race, religion and nationality.

"The principle of protecting the people's personal data must not stand in the way of fighting crime and terrorism," said Mr. Schily, who made his name as the primary defense lawyer of the Red Army Faction leaders. His embrace of a law- and-order agenda has earned him the nickname of "Red Sheriff" in the German press.

Joachim Jacob, the federal commissioner for data protection, said he was worried about the planned unrestricted access to the registry of foreigners. "This was not meant to be a police or intelligence registry," he said. In a statement to Parliament, he objected to the proposed opening to police scrutiny of medical and psychological information from insurance companies, hospitals and social and youth agencies. "I am urgently pleading for a limit," he told the legislators. "At the very least the data with underlying confidentiality should be ruled out of bounds."

In Spain, the government has cited the antiterror war as reason to curb organizations associated with the Basque independence movement, E.T.A., which has killed more than 800 people in its 30-year struggle. At home this has meant a legislative campaign against Herri Batasuna, the party considered E.T.A.'s political wing. Abroad, it has meant persuading European Union partners and the United States to declare Herri Batasuna a terrorist organization.

Although a significant and vocal minority in Spain opposes the war in Afghanistan, there has been little public dissent from the government's stand on the E.T.A. guerrillas. Among the few critics of the crackdown was the rival Basque Nationalist Party, which does not espouse violence. "One should not outlaw a political party," said the nationalists' leader, Xabier Arzalluz. "That is like outlawing ideas."

Britain has gone further than any other country in Europe with a new antiterror bill that among other things gives prosecutors the right to detain indefinitely and without trial foreigners suspected of terrorist links. To do so, Britain had to invoke an article of the European Convention on Human Rights allowing countries to opt out of restrictions on such detentions. The other 14 European Union nations continue to require that a person must either be charged with a crime or released.

Home Secretary David Blunkett's push to get the bill through Parliament by Christmas prompted The Independent, a daily with a liberal editorial stance, to suggest that the lawmakers might want to take a little more time to contemplate the removal of a right that can be traced back to an article of the Magna Carta in 1215 and was codified in the Habeas Corpus Act of 1640.

Mr. Blunkett told doubters this week that public opinion was on his side and that he would make only limited concessions while pushing for passage of the antiterrorism legislation by Christmas. One concession was an agreement that provisions for the indefinite detention of suspected foreign terrorists without trial would require renewal after five years. He also offered to include a similar two-year renewal clause in the new regulation requiring Internet companies to retain data for possible disclosure to the police.

Mr. Blunkett's claim of support was borne out in a survey of 1,000 people in the European Union's 15 member states that showed that the British were more supportive of their government's handling of the situation than respondents in the other nations.


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Democrats Present Alternative Energy Bill

By Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 6, 2001; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63689-2001Dec5?language=printer

Senate Democrats yesterday unveiled a wide-ranging alternative to Republican energy plans that stresses conservation, efficiency and development of new resources over expanded drilling on public land, including Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The proposal was drafted by Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and introduced by Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), who plans to schedule it for debate and possible action in late January or early February.

Describing a bill already passed by the Republican-controlled House as "$34 billion in tax giveaways to the profitable energy companies that helped write the plan," Daschle said the Democrats' version would "strengthen our economy, protect our environment and provide energy security for our nation for decades to come."

But conservative groups denounced the bill as a throwback to failed energy policies.

Environmental groups, while hailing the plan in general terms, said major gaps remain, such as details of fuel efficiency proposals.

Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (Alaska), ranking Republican on the energy panel, accused Democrats of shutting Republicans out of drafting the bill and renewed complaints that energy was not scheduled for action this year.

The Daschle-Bingaman bill would create incentives for the use and development of renewable energy sources, expand use of renewable fuels, introduce more competition into the electricity market, clear barriers to production on land and in waters already open to exploration, and streamline procedures for pipeline certification and relicensing of hydroelectric dams.

To reduce greenhouse gases, a national database would be created to track major sources of emissions. Money would be provided for research on breakthrough technologies to curb global warming.

While drilling would continue to be barred in the Alaska refuge, the bill would provide loan guarantees and streamlined procedures to speed construction of a pipeline to carry natural gas from Alaska's North Slope, which is already open to drilling. Democrats say it would create 400,000 new jobs.

----

Hydro Tasmania eyes Australia mainland wind power

Reuters:
6/12/2001
http://www.planetark.org/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=13592

MELBOURNE - Tasmanian state-owned electricity generator Hydro Tasmania said yesterday it was considering investing in mainland Australia wind projects.

"We have identified a number of sites along the southern coast of mainland Australia and we are monitoring them at present to see the potential for wind development," Hydro Tasmania chief executive Geoff Willis told Reuters.

Hydro Tasmania is examining sites in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, but Willis said work was at a very preliminary stage.

Hydro Tasmania provides the island state's power from hydro-electricity schemes, but environmental battles in the 1980s halted expansion plans.

The company is pursuing limited opportunities to boost output from enhancing existing schemes, while looking at increasing its generation through wind projects that could help Australia meet its targets for increasing renewable power use.

Hydro Tasmania has government approvals for the 130 megawatt Woolnorth Wind Farm and is looking at sites at Musselroe and Granville in Tasmania as well as further afield. "We think that there is potential for a very profitable further development in places other than Tasmania," Willis said.

Plans for extensive wind development in Tasmania hinge on approvals for National Grid Croup Plc's undersea Basslink power cable which would link the state's power grid to mainland Victoria, allowing Hydro Tasmania to sell power interstate.

"Tasmania's wind resource has the potential to meet up to 30 percent of Australia's renewable energy target," Hydro Tasmania chairman Peter Rae said in a statement.

Basslink, targeted for 2003/04, faces a number of environmental issues, including concerns about undersea stray currents and community demands for the Victorian onshore section of the link to be placed underground.

Hydro Tasmania yesterday reported a 2000/01 full-year after tax profit of A$15.2 million, up from A$7.2 million the year previously. It also paid a special A$45 million dividend to the Tasmanian government.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has approved rules for Tasmania to enter the eastern state's National Electricity Market if Basslink is completed.

-------- energy

Russia bows to OPEC on oil-production cut

December 6, 2001
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20011206-26501230.htm

LONDON (AP) - OPEC was expected to trigger a 6 percent cut in its official crude-oil output after Russia, relenting to intense pressure, agreed to reduce its production by 150,000 barrels a day to help prop up sagging oil prices.

Russia's decision yesterday ended a showdown with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that threatened to unleash a potentially devastating price war for crude. One energy analyst forecast that the overall decrease in oil output would nudge gasoline prices higher, but said he expected the rise would be modest.

"It's a very positive move in the right direction," said Kuwaiti Oil Minister Adel Sabeeh.

Oil futures surged almost $1 higher on the news, then fell back as skepticism grew about Russia's resolve to honor its commitment.

OPEC was preparing to issue a communique today announcing it would proceed with cuts of 1.5 million barrels a day in its own production, said a cartel official, speaking on the condition of anonymity from the group's headquarters in Vienna, Austria. The group's secretary-general, Ali Rodriguez, was conferring with OPEC oil ministers to agree on the document's wording, the official said.

After the decision in Russia, attention shifted to Norway, the world's third-largest exporter of oil behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. OPEC has asked Norway for similar cuts.

A firm commitment from Norway, a non-OPEC country, together with the pledge from Russia, would come very close to satisfying OPEC's demand that oil-producing countries outside the group cooperate with its plan to reduce its own production by 1.5 million barrels a day, or 6 percent. OPEC supplies about a third of the world's oil.

"I think it makes triggering the OPEC cuts a near certainty," said George Beranek of the Petroleum Finance Co., a Washington consultancy.

"That's going to mean, over time, higher crude prices, which will be reflected in higher refined-product prices," he said.

However, energy analysts noted that U.S. inventories of gasoline and other refined products are plentiful. "I really don't think we have to worry about a return to last spring's very high gasoline prices," Mr. Beranek said.

In an unusual act of diplomatic brinksmanship, OPEC insisted last month that non-OPEC producers promise to trim their output by a total of 500,000 barrels a day before it would put its own cuts into effect Jan. 1. Russia's turnaround appeared to vindicate OPEC's tough stance.

Russia had said for weeks it would cut output by just 50,000 barrels a day. By agreeing yesterday to triple the size of that cut, Russian oil companies appeared to acknowledge that OPEC members were probably better equipped than they were to weather a collapse in prices caused by a potential glut in crude supplies.

Russia's about-face lifted contracts of Brent crude for January delivery 96 cents higher to $20.25 a barrel in early trading on the International Petroleum Exchange in London. Brent futures settled back later in the afternoon to $19.55, up 26 cents.

OPEC has a daily production target of 23.2 million barrels and aims to maintain a benchmark price between $22 and $28 per barrel. The cartel has already curtailed its official output this year by 3.5 million barrels a day without a meaningful contribution from non-OPEC producers.

-------- environment

Unemployed workers seeking fresh start look to high-demand career:
environmental cleanup

Thursday, December 06, 2001
By Joann Loviglio,
Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/12/12062001/ap_45801.asp

PHILADELPHIA - After losing his computer consulting job, Douglas Rowe is adapting to the troubled economic climate by training for a job suddenly in very high demand: building decontamination.

Rowe, 37, is participating in an increasingly popular five-week program that trains and certifies unemployed workers for careers as environmental technicians. They're taught to remove anthrax from office buildings, clean up chemical spills, and do other work with hazardous materials.

"The job market is wide open, and with the times we're in, there's a demand for people with this kind of training," said Rowe, who completes his training at ETI International Inc. next week. "After that, I could be at the Pentagon, I could be in New York, who knows? I'll go wherever I'm needed."

Demand has always been strong for environmental technicians, who are needed at Superfund sites and oil spills, among other places. But the need is greater now, with post offices needing help dealing with anthrax-tainted letters and companies wanting their mail rooms checked for contamination.

An army of technicians has been working on anthrax decontamination in Washington and cleaning up toxic substances created by burning plastic and chemicals at the World Trade Center site in New York.

"It's a way to show your patriotism. I want to do whatever I can to help," said Vernon Coleman, 27, a laid-off construction worker. At a training session Tuesday, Coleman was one of a dozen students clad in paper jumpsuits and gas masks practicing how to set up a "contamination reduction zone."

Interest in the ETI program has increased since the terrorist attacks, said instructor Roy Bowman. He estimated that as many as 150 new people have been turning out each Tuesday for an informational session on the program - a 20 percent jump from before Sept. 11. Up to 400 people graduate each year from the program.

"These are people who never had a career path or lost their career path due to downsizing," said William C. Harcourt, ETI's president and chief executive officer. "We can take someone without a high school degree and, after five weeks of training, put them in a job where they're making $40,000 or $50,000 a year."

Because the training program seeks out economically disadvantaged workers, state and local governments usually pay the $4,500 tuition bill with training grants. And the program gives graduates the state and federal licenses they need to work at many kinds of disasters.

As the trainees prepared to embark on their new career, many of them said the nature of the job doesn't make them fear for their safety. "You can catch anything from anywhere nowadays," said Dawn Butler, 41, an unemployed health care worker and mother of three attending Tuesday's orientation seminar. "I'm doing this for my children and to make some good money."

------- genetics

Study Examines Garlic Supplements

DECEMBER 06, 17:48 ET
Associated Press
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=SCIENCE&STORYID=APIS7G7VB700

WASHINGTON (AP) - Garlic supplements, often taken in hopes of lowering cholesterol, can seriously interfere with drugs used to treat the AIDS virus, a new federal study concludes.

The study makes garlic the second popular herbal remedy found to interact dangerously with prescription drugs. Experts already warn that St. John's wort, which claims to ease depression, can block the effectiveness of several drugs, including AIDS treatments and a medicine vital for organ transplant recipients.

Doctors ``and patients should not assume that dietary supplements are benign therapies,'' wrote Dr. Judith Falloon of the National Institutes of Health, co-author of the garlic study.

NIH researchers recruited 10 healthy volunteers - people who did not have HIV - and gave them doses of an AIDS drug called saquinavir. Saquinavir is a protease inhibitor, one of a class of potent drugs credited with helping thousands of patients battle HIV and live longer lives.

The volunteers took saquinavir for three days, after which researchers tested the drug's level in their bloodstream. Then they took both saquinavir and garlic supplements for three weeks.

Blood levels of the medication dropped 51 percent when it was taken with garlic, the researchers reported Thursday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

A drop that big in an HIV patient could cause treatment failure, doctors say.

----

FDA Issues Anesthesia Drug Warning

By LAURAN NEERGAARD
AP Medical Writer
DECEMBER 06, 09:40 ET
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=SCIENCE&STORYID=APIS7G7O6NO0

WASHINGTON (AP) - A drug anesthesiologists commonly use apparently can cause fatal irregular heartbeats at far lower doses than expected, prompting the government to urge doctors to try different medications.

At issue is droperidol, a tranquilizer often used to treat the nausea many people feel after undergoing anesthesia.

Droperidol has long carried a warning that it could cause sudden cardiac death at high doses in patients at risk of irregular heartbeats.

But the new warning, issued Wednesday, says even standard low doses of droperidol can be dangerous, and thus doctors should try alternatives before using it. Among more than 100 reports of heart-related side effects, the Food and Drug Administration counted four people who died and another three revived after cardiac arrest who were given mere 2.5-milligram doses, said agency anesthetic chief Dr. Cynthia McCormick.

So the FDA put its sternest warning - an attention-grabbing black box - on the drug's label and ordered manufacturer Akorn Pharmaceuticals to write thousands of doctors alerting them to the problem.

Apparently the drug can delay recharging of the heart between beats within minutes after a dose is administered, a problem known as ``QT prolongation.'' If the heart doesn't recover, it can go into a potentially fatal irregular beat.

While apparently rare, the side effect is serious enough that anesthesiologists should reserve the drug for patients who don't respond to alternatives, the letter says. Even then, the drug should not be given to patients at risk for developing QT prolongation, which includes people with certain heart conditions, the warning says.

While droperidol is fairly widely used, it is considered second-line therapy already, so there are alternatives, said Dr. Bruce Cullen of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

Still, he called the warning a surprise.

``It's certainly something that raises concern,'' Cullen said. But despite 30 years of practice, ``I've never heard of a death due to droperidol.''

That may be because many doctors use doses less than 1 milligram, he said.

But the FDA did count one death and one nonfatal cardiac arrest in patients given that low a dose, McCormick said.

----

Agency Warns of Surgeons' Mistakes

DECEMBER 05, 15:25 ET
By LINDSEY TANNER
AP Medical Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=SCIENCE&STORYID=APIS7G785H80

CHICAGO (AP) - A hospital regulatory agency is warning of an alarming increase in incidents in which doctors operated on the wrong body part or the wrong patient.

Wednesday's alert from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations follows a similar message from the group in 1998, when it reported on 15 ``wrong-site'' cases. Since then, 136 have been reported to the commission - 108 in the past two years and 11 in the past month alone.

``This is really an embarrassment for any place that has this happen. This is not infrequent,'' said Dr. Dennis O'Leary, commission president.

Such errors are preventable with measures as simple as using a marker to scrawl messages like ``Operate Here'' on the patient's body, he said.

Most cases involve orthopedic or foot-related surgery - operating on the left knee instead of the right knee, for example.

Of 126 cases analyzed by the group, 76 percent involved operating on the wrong body part, 13 percent involved surgery on the wrong patient and 11 percent involved the wrong surgical procedure.

``You get patients with similar names, X-rays get reversed in view boxes, people are too busy or rushed to check charts and sooner or later something happens,'' O'Leary said.

In a joint effort with the American College of Surgeons and the American Medical Association, the commission is stepping up surveillance of such errors.

The commission plans to start close monitoring of hospitals early next year, and those that are not in compliance with patient safety procedures could risk losing their accreditation, O'Leary said.

Most cases involve a breakdown in communication between the surgical team and the patient and his family. The commission said surgical teams should consider taking a ``time-out'' in the operating room to make sure they have the correct patient, procedure and surgery site.

Surgeons and nurses ``must take responsibility and if there are questions, they should stop and clarify to be sure everyone is on the same page. No one should make assumptions,'' Dr. Thomas Russell, executive director of the American College of Surgeons.

-------- health

Cells in breast fluid predict cancer risk

Around the Nation
Washington Times
December 6, 2001
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011206-72450179.htm

Researchers who studied specimens from thousands of women suggest that the presence of abnormal cells in breast fluid may predict a doubled risk of breast cancer.

In a study appearing today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the researchers said analyzing breast fluids extracted from nonpregnant and nonlactating women showed that those with abnormal cells were twice as likely to develop breast cancer. Women from whom no fluid could be drawn, the study showed, had the lowest risk of breast cancer.

--------

Hemorrhagic Fever Kills 17 in Congo, Ebola Feared

December 6, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-health-congo-fever.html

KINSHASA (Reuters) - An outbreak of hemorrhagic fever which doctors suspect could be the deadly Ebola virus has killed 17 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the health ministry said on Thursday.

It was the second feared outbreak of Ebola this week after six people died of a mystery illness in another Central African country, Gabon.

An adviser to the ministry said a team of epidemiologists had been sent to the town of Misangandu, in Congo's western Kasai province, where 30 cases of haemorrhagic fever had been detected over the past three weeks.

Victims of Ebola, named after the river in the former Zaire where it was first discovered in 1976, bleed to death in a matter of days. There is no known cure and no vaccine.

``We sent a team today ... to investigate in what state people are dying and how contagious the disease is,'' Doctor Mobile Kampanga told reporters in the capital Kinshasa.

``We are used to epidemics in this country... This is the land of epidemics. But it's still serious,'' he said.

Health infrastructure in Congo, Africa's third largest country with a population of about 54 million, has been devastated by three years of civil war.

Ebola, which is passed on through contact with body fluids and begins with aches and fever similar to flu symptoms, killed at least 245 people in the Congolese town of Kikwit in 1995.

Only in the final stages, when the virus eats through the victim's veins and arteries causing massive internal hemorrhaging and blood to pour out of every orifice -- is it clear that Ebola has struck. The mortality rate is 90 percent.

The most recent major outbreak of Ebola killed more than 170 people in Uganda last year.

-------- human rights

Saudis act to grant women basic rights

World Scene
Washington Times
December 6, 2001
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011206-39731230.htm

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Under pressure to give women more rights, Saudi Arabia has begun issuing identity cards to female citizens for the first time, a government official said yesterday.

About 2,000 women have been issued their own identity cards since the program started last month, said an official in the department responsible for the cards, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The cards include a picture of the woman's uncovered face.

Previously, Saudi women were only named, but not pictured, on a "family ID" card identifying them as dependents of their fathers or husbands. For cultural and religious reasons, Saudi women do not reveal any part of their bodies - but for the hands, eyes and feet - to most men except close relatives.

--------

THE DISPLACED
As Refugees Suffer, Supplies Sit Unused Near Afghan Border

New York Times
December 6, 2001
By CARLOTTA GALL with ELIZABETH BECKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/06/international/asia/06REFU.html

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Dec. 5 - Last week it rained and Ramazan's 2-year-old son and 50- year-old father fell ill and died, two more sorry statistics here in the Nasarji refugee camp on the southern part of town where at least 19 people have died in the last month. Ramazan began building mud walls and a roof to replace his makeshift tent, but it snowed on Tuesday and now he is fearful he will lose his other children.

He says everyone is going to die if this goes on. His other son, Hussein, 4, is getting thinner. "Bashir died because he was hungry and because it is cold," he said of his younger son.

Refugee camps are dotted all over this city, bedraggled lines of rags and blankets over thin poles amid thick mud and frozen pools of water. There are an estimated half a million displaced people in northern Afghanistan, some of them with no more than a piece of sacking over a pole for shelter.

Victims of war and three years of crippling drought, these people are at the end of their endurance, aid officials here say.

But help lies just a 45-minute drive away, where tons of supplies sit just across the border in Termez, Uzbekistan. Delivery of the supplies to the desperately needy here is blocked by the Uzbekistan government's refusal to allow trucks across the only bridge that spans the Amu Darya.

So there is virtually nothing here. Nearly a month after the Northern Alliance chased the Taliban from Mazar-i-Sharif, the international assistance that was promised has not followed. Only two international aid agencies have arrived - the International Committee of the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) - and they admit their assistance is not nearly enough.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will be pressing for the opening of that bridge when he visits Uzbekistan on Saturday. But his task will be formidable.

Uzbekistan has been supportive of the antiterrorism war, providing an important military base. But its authoritarian president, Islam Karimov, is disinclined to open the border, fearing that even with the Taliban pushed to the south, Islamic fundamentalism and refugees will seep across.

Uzbekistan has asked the United States to survey the bridge to ensure it is sound and then to provide American military guards to prevent bandits and refugees from entering from Afghanistan.

Uzbekistan clamped the border shut when the Taliban took power in northern Afghanistan in 1998 and built concrete guard posts in the center of the bridge, turning the crossing into an obstacle course.

By the time Secretary Powell arrives in Tashkent, the engineering survey of the bridge will be complete, according to Pentagon officials who say the bridge appears sound.

But a senior State Department official said that Secretary Powell would refuse to commit American troops to guard the bridge. Instead, he would offer opposition Afghan troops who have been trained by American soldiers as an alternative guard corps.

"We don't guard bridges but it is important that the Friendship Bridge is open," the official said. "The bigger challenge is the distribution system throughout Afghanistan."

Private relief organizations are worried that neither the United States nor the United Nations is pushing hard enough to provide adequate security.

Initially the United Nations had expected French troops to secure the bridge for relief operations in the north but the Northern Alliance vetoed that idea.

The United Nations and its humanitarian agencies meanwhile still deem the north a security risk, and a few days ago pulled out their security officer who was supposed to be assessing the situation. They have done little to prepare for a return.

There is a growing sense of frustration among the few aid officials who are here, even the American military and civil affairs people who are now based in a school on the edge of town and are keen to facilitate the flow of relief assistance.

"It is absolutely regrettable that the United Nations and its implementing partners are not here," said Simon Brooks, chief of mission of the Red Cross in Mazar-i-Sharif, adding that the organization had found that it was possible for its staff to work in northern Afghanistan.

"They are too late, the snow is already here," said another aid official, referring to the United Nations.

Some aid is arriving across the river from Uzbekistan on a barge, but only one refugee camp on the road to the port has received sacks of flour, and there appears to be very little organized distribution.

Unable to cross the border into Uzbekistan at Termez, the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders have instead driven their trucks of supplies on a 20-hour trip around through neighboring Turkmenistan and over one of the worst roads in northern Afghanistan to bring in the aid.

According to one foreign aid official, a United States civil affairs unit here has decided, in the absence of the United Nations, to try to get the aid rolling by itself. Engineers cleared unexploded bombs from the airport runway today to ready it for flights, and they hope to open the bridge from Uzbekistan for food trucks within a week, a United States Army spokesman said.

There is need everywhere in Afghanistan. Crowds gather outside the offices of the Red Cross every day and women beg, squatting on the side of the street in the all-enveloping burka. In the camps men, women and children swarm around any visitor, pulling and pushing, desperate to plead their case.

As the snow and sleet descended and the temperatures plummeted this week, thousands of families found themselves in a precarious situation.

Underlining this precariousness, a study was released on Wednesday showing that 63 percent of the children of northern Afghanistan were chronically malnourished even before the war began in October.

A survey conducted for the Centers for Disease Control last spring found that children of northern Afghanistan were dying at a rate three times as high as normal, falling prey to easily preventable diseases like diarrhea and measles because they were malnourished.

Indeed, half of all the deaths were children under 5 years of age.

"This was an extremely high mortality rate even before September," said Dr. Peter Salama, a specialist on emergency health for the Centers for Disease Control and one of the authors of the study. "We can only expect that the situation is much worse today. The article was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and was based on household surveys in a district in Fariab Province conducted by Save the Children, a charity working in Afghanistan, for the Centers for Disease Control.

The authors said that while international aid agencies must transport food throughout the country, they also had to provide immediate vaccinations for the children.

Mindful of these recommendations, Unicef announced in Kabul today that it would undertake a vaccination drive against measles in two weeks, with the aim of inoculating 390,000 children in western Afghanistan.

There are 8,000 people in one camp, Dasht-i-Shor, a muddy spread of tents half a mile long between an open sewer and a cemetery and up to 20,000 in a group of camps at Nansarji.

"We came because we were hungry," said Zair, 25, who arrived with his family from a village four hours drive south and now lives in the Nasarji camp near Mazar-i-Sharif. "There was a drought and the wheat was not growing.

"There was also fighting near our village, our house was destroyed by the Taliban three months ago," he said. "We moved to another village but two months ago we came here. All the people are like this."

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Rights Group Says Mexico Ignores Abuses by Military

New York Times
December 6, 2001
By GINGER THOMPSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/06/international/americas/06MEXI.html

MEXICO CITY, Dec. 5 - A leading American human rights organization reported today that the Mexican government had failed to investigate and punish human rights abuses committed by the military, and has called on President Vicente Fox to do more, including ending the practice of allowing military courts to investigate soldiers' abuses against civilians.

The group, Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York, examined five recent incidents of military violations in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero, including torture, illegal detentions, raids and murders.

Known mostly for the sandy beaches of Acapulco, Guerrero is also ravaged by the violence of drug traffickers, land disputes and scrappy insurgencies where heavily armed soldiers have been granted broad policing authority.

Abuses of that authority are investigated by military prosecutors and tried under the secrecy of military courts. Civilians, including civilian officials of the government, are regularly denied access to documents about military trials and information about the fate of soldiers who had been accused of committing crimes in the line of duty.

In its report, Human Rights Watch argued that the system rarely delivered justice for civilian victims and urged that cases of military abuses be open to civilian scrutiny.

"By our judgment, the military justice system has historically been the most effective mechanism for guaranteeing the impunity of those agents involved in massacres and other violations of human rights," said José Miguel Vivanco, the executive director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch. "It is a system that responds to serious allegations of human rights violations by covering them up and protecting those responsible."

Among the cases cited was a massacre in a village called El Charco, in which at least 11 people were killed, reportedly when soldiers opened fire on a group of people asleep in a schoolhouse where some 60 people had gathered for a meeting that was led by a guerrilla group, the Popular Revolutionary Army. Survivors later reported that they were rounded up and beaten after the shooting. But military prosecutors said they found no evidence of criminal violations on the part of soldiers.

Since the 1940's when military generals gave up control of the Mexican government and promised to stay out of politics, civilian sectors of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party abided by promises to stay out of military affairs, including scrutiny of the military's multibillion-dollar budget and investigations of military conduct. Those quid pro quo agreements are gradually being challenged by an activist civil society and Mexico's first democratically elected president.

President Fox, who unseated the P.R.I., which was in power for more than 70 years, came to office promising to improve Mexico's record on human rights and said he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate some of the worst abuses of Mexico's recent history, including the disappearances of hundreds of suspected subversives during the 1970's and army massacres in the states of Guerrero and Chiapas.

For the first time, Mexico's secretary of defense, Gen. Clemente Vega García, broke the military's tradition of official silence and appeared before Congress to discuss military operations over the last year.

In its report, Human Rights Watch investigators praised President Fox for opening Mexico "to scrutiny by international human rights monitors, something that other governments considered anathema." Over the last week, Human Rights Watch representatives urged the president to turn cases of military human rights abuses over to civilian courts.


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Nuclear waste site briefing - 11:30 a.m.

December 6, 2001
Washington Times
Daybook
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011206-320132.htm

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce hosts an Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth media briefing on its call for a decision by the energy secretary and the Bush administration on the suitability of Yucca Mountain in Nevada to be a federal used nuclear fuel and defense waste storage site. Location: 1615 H St. NW. Contact: 202/463-5682.

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Assets freeze seen as attack on Islam

December 6, 2001
By David Koenig
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011206-10592309.htm

RICHARDSON, Texas - American Muslim groups yesterday called on President Bush to unfreeze the assets of a charity accused of funneling money to terrorists, saying the move could create the impression of "an attack on Islam."

In a joint statement with several prominent Muslim groups, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development said yesterday that shutting down its offices was "unjust and counterproductive."

The move "can only damage America's credibility with Muslims in this country and around the world and could create the impression that there has been a shift from a war on terrorism to an attack on Islam," Holy Land said in its statement with groups including the American Muslim Alliance, American Muslim Council and the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Holy Land officials said it raised millions for Palestinian refugees but denies any connection to the militant Palestinian group Hamas. Court documents indicate the State Department began investigating the organization in the 1990s, but Holy Land kept operating until it was raided Tuesday by federal agents.

The FBI's involvement started as early as 1993, when agents eavesdropped on private meetings between foundation officers and representatives of Hamas, according to an FBI memorandum to the Treasury Department.

Working closely with Israeli intelligence, FBI investigators concluded that some key decision makers in the Palestinian foundation were Hamas members and the charity was the primary U.S. fund-raising organ for the terrorist group, according to the memo, said a federal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Holy Land raised $13 million last year and claims to be the largest Muslim charity in the United States. Federal agents raided the group's suburban Dallas headquarters on Tuesday and closed offices in Paterson, N.J., Bridgeview, Ill., and San Diego.

In announcing the raids, Mr. Bush said Hamas uses money raised by Holy Land to indoctrinate children to become suicide bombers. Most donors don't know how the money is used, Mr. Bush said, "but the facts are clear, the terrorists benefit from the Holy Land Foundation, and we're not going to allow it."

Israel barred the foundation from operating within its borders in 1997 and contends that the group funnels money to the families of terrorists, making it easier for groups such as Hamas to find suicide bombers.

The FBI memo detailed a series of 1993 meetings in Philadelphia - recorded by the FBI - in which Holy Land officials met with Hamas activists, reportedly to discuss increasing funds for the families of suicide bombers, prisoners and the wounded. Most funds collected by the foundation supported Hamas schools, hospitals and annuities for the families of suicide bombers, according to analyses referred to in the memo.

Holy Land President Shukri Abu-Baker called the government seizure a political move to appease the pro-Israel lobby in Washington.

"If the Holy Land Foundation had violated any U.S. law, they would have charged us in a court of law. They wouldn't need to seize our assets," he said, vowing a court fight.

In an interview last month, Mr. Abu-Baker said Holy Land doesn't single out families of suicide bombers for assistance but cannot help it if a handful - he estimated fewer than 10 - have received aid.

The joint statement yesterday said: "No relief group anywhere in the world should be asked to question hungry orphans about their parents' religious beliefs, political affiliations or legal status."

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