------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Uranium and cyanide found in drums at bin Laden base
Uranium found at bin Laden base
U.S. Undermining China's Security
Regulator allows Czech nuke plant to raise output
Georgia says arrests uranium smuggler
Pakistan, India Mass Troops
Bush, Kazakh declare longterm strategic partnership
S.Korea's missile system in trouble
Putin Answers Russians' Questions
Panel: U.S. Must Tighten Nuke Rules
DOE "unlikely" to meet 2010 goal for Yucca plan - GAO

MILITARY
Obasanjo to deploy troops after minister's murder
Scientists cite lax security at Detrick
Once Again, War Is Good for Business
FEDERAL CONTRACTS
Kashmir's Islamic Guerrillas See Little to Fear From U.S.
India Says It Destroys Pakistani Bunkers in Kashmir
BRITS WARN U.S. ON STRIKING IRAQ
Israel pressures Arafat to arrest assassins
Greek landmine explosion kills four, injures three
Pakistan freezes assets of two terror-linked groups
Spying, torture charges added to volatile Indo-Pakistan mix
Pakistan Fears Uncontrollable Flareup with India
Ali to become pitchman to Muslims on war
U.N. Report - Budget chief may go
Air Force Grounds C-141s After Mishap
Use of Pinpoint Air Power Comes of Age in New War
U.S. Resumes Bombing in Afghanistan

POLICE / PRISONERS
Some mentally ill held years for misdemeanors
Dog patrols, shoe checks set up at Paris airport after security breach
Fake British passports are on sale for £7,000
Odor of Burning Was First Sign of Trouble

ENERGY AND OTHER
Vestas bullish on sales if US tax credit extended
US EPA says it won't regulate dioxin in landfills
Congress passes bill to clean up, redevelop toxic waste sites
Myrrh may have potent anticancer effects
Argentina makes biggest debt default in history

ACTIVISTS
Why I Resisted Being Drafted into the Israeli Army
FBI eyes Muslim student groups
A Christmas wreath for Satchmo



-------- NUCLEAR

Uranium and cyanide found in drums at bin Laden base

By Barbie Dutter in Kandahar and Ben Fenton
24/12/2001
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$5UBLXGYAACYDJQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2001/12/24/wbin24.xml&sSheet=/portal/2001/12/24/ixport.html

URANIUM has been found in an al-Qa'eda base outside Kandahar - the first evidence that Osama bin Laden had obtained materials for a nuclear arsenal, it was revealed yesterday.

The discovery gives some credibility to the fear that he could unleash a weapon of mass destruction as his dying act.

Anti-Taliban leaders in Kandahar revealed that the uranium and other materials, including cyanide, had been discovered in a tunnel complex beneath the former base near the city's airport. The find was confirmed by American officials.

It was also revealed that when tribal forces took the al-Qa'eda complex earlier this month they found hundreds of jars, drums and metal cases in an underground labyrinth at the desert compound where Arab fighters staged a bloody last stand before Kandahar was surrendered by the Taliban.

The cache included low-grade uranium 238, which could be used to make a so-called "dirty bomb" if wrapped around a conventional explosive. It would spread radiation over a large area.

Specialised equipment and facilities would be needed to turn uranium 238 into a fissile device like the Hiroshima bomb, and so it would not be suitable for building such a weapon.

American intelligence officials told Newsweek magazine that al-Qa'eda had enough of the material to make a "dirty bomb" and it seems certain that their knowledge is based on the discovery at Kandahar airport.

Haji Gullalai, now the interim intelligence chief for Kandahar province, told The Telegraph that immediately after capturing the airport area, his men had entered one tunnel and discovered the materials in a vast underground workshop.

The find was reported the same day to "international military personnel", thought to be American special forces, who sent experts wearing masks and protective clothing to examine the substances, Mr Gullalai said.

He added: "We knew we were not well equipped to deal with these things so we called in foreign experts who told us it was uranium.

"For our own safety we did not touch the bottles but from a distance we saw there were hundreds of different kinds of containers - small jars and big jars, sealed with metal lids and containing powders and liquids, white and yellowish in colour.

"There were big drums the size of petrol drums and metal boxes with sides seven or eight inches thick. The bottles were labelled in four different languages - Chinese, Russian, Arabic and English."

American officials said that Russia, the states of the former Soviet Union, China and Pakistan were all possible sources for the uranium.

It has been estimated that several hundred Arab al-Qa'eda fighters were killed in the battle for the airport, led by Gul Agha - now Kandahar's new governor - with Mr Gullalai playing a senior commanding role.

The area where the tunnels were found is known locally as Turnak Farms. It is thought to have been the al-Qa'eda network's principal training and military base in southern Afghanistan and and held up to 1,800 people.

Kandahar airport has now been taken over by around 1,500 US marines and coalition forces.

--------

Uranium found at bin Laden base

UPI
From the International Desk
12/24/2001
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=24122001-123942-5293r

LONDON, Dec. 24 -- Uranium and cyanide have reportedly been discovered in drums at an al Qaida terrorist base near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

The discovery -- the first evidence that suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden had obtained materials for a nuclear arsenal -- was confirmed by U.S. officials, the London Telegraph said.

The cache included a low-grade uranium which could be used to make a so-called "dirty bomb," or a crude radiological device wrapped around a conventional explosive. Such a bomb is designed to spread radiation over a large area after exploding.

The suspicious substances were found in tunnels at the edge of an air base controlled by U.S. forces.

Marine Corps Capt. David Romley said that he "cannot deny" that uranium had been found at the airport, USA TODAY reported.

"We are aware that there are CBR (chemical-biological-radioactive)-type environments in the region," he said.

USA TODAY quoted one U.S. official as saying some depleted uranium was found recently, but that the material did not appear to be dangerous and that it isn't clear whether Sunday's claim involves the same discovery. Other U.S. officials said they knew of no discoveries of any radioactive materials anywhere in the country.

Haji Gullalai, the interim intelligence chief for Kandahar province, told The Telegraph that after capturing the airport area earlier this month, his men discovered the materials in the tunnels.

"There were big drums the size of petrol drums and metal boxes with sides seven or eight inches thick," he said.

"The bottles were labeled in four different languages -- Chinese, Russian, Arabic and English."

The Telegraph quoted U.S. officials as saying that Russia, the Central Asian states of the former Soviet Union, China and Pakistan were all possible sources for the uranium.

-------- china

U.S. Undermining China's Security

01/12/24
http://freedomofpress.tripod.com/stratfor10.htm

Summary

The Chinese government Dec. 20 expressed disapproval over the recent decision by the United States to sell warships and armaments to Taiwan. The decision to give weapons to Taiwan is the most recent in a series of seemingly anti-China military decisions by Washington. The move will significantly increase the long-term level of distrust between the two world powers, sending a signal to China that the United States is unsympathetic to its security concerns.

Analysis

The U.S. House of Representatives Dec. 13 passed the 2002 Defense Authorization Act, which included the sale of four Kidd-class destroyers and 12 P-3C aircraft to Taiwan, as well as the promise to help the country obtain eight diesel-powered submarines. Beijing's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told reporters Dec. 20 that the bill contains anti-China content and conflicts with Washington's official commitment to uphold the "one-China" policy.

The bill's passage follows a spate of recent U.S. defense decisions opposed by China. The Bush administration has made clear its intention to press ahead with its own military agenda despite concerns from Beijing. Although U.S. economic investment to China will not likely suffer as a result, long-term political relations between the two nations will deteriorate.

The defense package promised by the United States will establish Taiwan's ability to defend itself should China attack. Beijing has never renounced war as a means to prevent Taiwan from declaring independence, and Taipei has repeatedly expressed its aims to maintain military balance with the mainland.

The four Kidd-class destroyers, originally intended for the Shah of Iran in the late 1970s, can operate defensively against submarines, are equipped with air-defense radar and can launch standard surface-to-air missiles. The 12 P-3C "Orion" aircraft are land-based, anti-submarine (ASW) patrol aircraft. The planes carry advanced submarine detection sensors, including directional frequency and ranging (DIFAR) sonobuoys and magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) equipment.

Beijing Targets Bush NMD Plans

As the Bush administration prepares to abandon the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and pursue a national missile defense system, Chinese officials are searching for ways to impede Washington's plans. China's primary focus is on raising opposition among Washington's allies. But failing that strategy, Beijing will focus on countering regional missile defense systems by targeting Taiwan and U.S. forces in Asia.

Analysis

As the Bush administration accelerates the development of both national and theater missile defense systems, much attention has been focused on Moscow, which retains a substantial nuclear arsenal and signed the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that bars such systems. Click here to continue.

Taiwan hopes the new defensive measures will help the island counter China's increase of 50 short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles per year, with its current supply totaling 300. The purchase, according to a statement by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, will help to ensure Taiwan's security and "maintain stability across the Taiwan Strait."

U.S. President George W. Bush has maintained that the United States will help Taiwan defend itself. The passing of the bill, however, merely follows several decisions that could spell disaster for Sino-U.S relations in the long run.

For example, Israel in July 2000 relented to U.S. pressure and cancelled a $250 million contract to sell the Chinese government a Phalcon Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft. Israel announced Dec. 17 it wants to settle the accounts over the termination of the deal, which has seriously strained relations between the two.

Since coming to power, the Bush administration has accelerated plans to establish a theater missile defense system that could include Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, in addition to the plans for a U.S. national missile defense system. On the same day that the House passed the defense act, the president also announced that the United States would abandon the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that forbids testing and deployment of a ballistic missile defense system.

The president claims that the treaty, which he termed a vestige of the Cold War era, hindered the government's ability to develop the means to protect its people. While Russia gave a muted response, China protested the decision and said it tips the balance of military power between Beijing and Washington in favor of the United States. The U.S. government refuted the claim by saying that China has the capability to launch missiles that could penetrate a missile defense system.

China has also found itself a spectator to the budding U.S. friendship with Russia and India, which could pose a significant military threat to China. And after the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States now believes it has the justification for using whatever means necessary to protect its territory.

Despite the moves to increase economic cooperation between the two countries, the recent U.S. actions indicate to Beijing that it cannot prevent Washington from making military decisions that actively undermine its security. This will have long-term political ramifications, especially as China is expected to undergo a leadership change next year. Heightened tensions with Washington when the new regime takes power will likely color its view of the United States in the years ahead.

-------- czech republic

Regulator allows Czech nuke plant to raise output

CZECH REPUBLIC:
December 24, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13820/story.htm

PRAGUE - Czech nuclear power regulator SUJB has allowed power company CEZ to raise output at the controversial Temelin nuclear power plant to 90 percent of capacity, a spokesman for the supervisory body said last week.

CEZ has been gradually raising output at the Soviet-made 1,000 megawatt reactor, built just 60km from the Austrian border, since launching it late last year.

It was running at 75 percent of capacity last week, the highest level previously allowed by the SUJB.

The plant has strained relations with nuclear-free neighbour Austria, which wants it decommissioned on the grounds it is unsafe.

The Czechs have pledged to boost the plant's safety in order to end an Austrian bid to block talks on the Czech Republic's accession to the European Union.

Temelin has two Soviet-designed VVER 1,000 reactors and a U.S. control system. The International Atomic Energy Agency has said the station is safe to operate.

The plant's second reactor is still under construction.

-------- georgia

Georgia says arrests uranium smuggler

GEORGIA:
December 24, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13818/story.htm

TBILISI - Georgian police have arrested an Armenian smuggler with 300 grams (10.5 ounces) of radioactive uranium that he planned to sell in Turkey, a senior security official said on the weekend.

The official, who asked not to be identified, said Georgian police and security services had arrested Armenian national Eduard Kazaryan on Wednesday in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region in southern Georgia where many ethnic Armenians live.

"We have serious suspicions that the uranium had been stolen from the Armenian nuclear power station," he said.

Kazaryan had with him one plate of low-grade uranium-235 which he had smuggled from Armenia and intended to sell in Turkey for $7,000, the official said.

Safety worries had forced Armenia to shut down its only nuclear power plant in the aftermath of a disastrous earthquake in 1988, but it relaunched the station in 1995 because of acute power shortages.

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

-------- india / pakistan

Pakistan, India Mass Troops
Tensions Escalate As New Delhi Considers Strike

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 24, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19180-2001Dec23?language=printer

NEW DELHI, Dec. 23 -- India and Pakistan have increased deployments of troops and military equipment along their shared border in recent days as the Indian government considers whether to strike at Pakistan-based militant groups that officials here hold responsible for a recent attack on Parliament.

The military buildup, described by officials on both sides as the biggest in years, comes as relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors have slipped to their lowest point in decades. On Friday, India recalled its top envoy to Pakistan for the first time in 30 years and suspended bus and train service between the countries.

The additional troops have massed not just in the disputed Kashmir region, a traditional flash point between the two nations, but all along their frontier, from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea.

In Pakistan, officials say columns of troops left their bases in Punjab and Sindh provinces on Saturday night to take positions closer to the Indian border. Pakistan's strategic command also has redeployed batteries of medium-range ballistic missiles, which can be equipped with nuclear warheads, to areas close to the border, military sources said.

Here in India, Defense Minister George Fernandes said that strike forces, which include tanks and artillery, had been moved close to the border in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Punjab. Military officials have called up extra soldiers from central India, canceling holiday leave and requisitioning special trains that have prevented civilian movements near the border.

Neither country was specific about the number of troops on the move.

U.S. officials have voiced fears that the escalating tensions could complicate the U.S.-led war on terrorism. India and Pakistan have endorsed the anti-terrorism campaign, with Pakistan being a principal ally of the United States in its efforts to unseat the Taliban and hunt down accused terrorist Osama bin Laden. Among other assistance, Pakistan has allowed its air bases to be used for U.S. missions in Afghanistan and has now stationed more than 60,000 soldiers along the border to help capture members of bin Laden's al Qaeda network attempting to flee the U.S. air assault in the eastern Afghan mountains. An outbreak of fighting between Pakistan and India could result in a redeployment of those forces.

President Bush said Friday that he was "very much involved" in reducing tensions between the two countries. He said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell "had been on the phone with India and Pakistan, reminding everybody that a flare-up in that region could really create severe problems for all of us engaged in the fight against terror."

There also is the far graver worry -- shared by officials and analysts in India, Pakistan and the rest of the world -- that a conventional confrontation could escalate into a nuclear exchange. Both countries tested nuclear weapons in 1998, and two of the three wars between them have been fought over Kashmir, where troops continue to exchange fire across the Line of Control that partitions the disputed region.

Indian officials said two Indian paramilitary guards were killed and three wounded in Kashmir today as the two sides traded gun and artillery fire. Pakistan's military said that it destroyed four Indian army bunkers, while India's military said that it destroyed three Pakistani bunkers.

Mindful of the consequences of an all-out war, some Indian officials privately conceded that the troop movements were not part of an offensive strategy, but rather an effort to get the United States to more forcefully push the Pakistani government to crack down on militant groups that strike India from bases over the border. "We are keeping up the warmongering to get the U.S. to put pressure" on Pakistan, one senior official said.

But several other Indian officials said a military strike is under consideration. "All options -- diplomatic and military -- are being weighed right now," said I.D. Swami, the deputy home minister. "We have not ruled out any option."

A senior government official said Indian military intelligence analysts have been asked to identify possible targets and predict Pakistani responses to a strike.

India has blamed the Dec. 13 attack on Parliament, which left 14 people dead, on two Pakistan-based guerrilla groups that are part of the Muslim insurgency fighting to end Indian rule in Kashmir. India has asked Pakistan to crack down on the two groups, Lashkar-i-Taiba (Army of the Pious) and Jaish-i-Muhammad (Soldiers of Muhammad), but Pakistani officials have asked for evidence of the groups' involvement and proposed a joint investigation by both governments, which India has rejected.

No organization has claimed responsibility for the attack, in which five men drove onto the Parliament grounds armed with guns, bombs and grenades. They engaged in a 40-minute shootout with security forces, resulting in the deaths of all five assailants and nine guards.

Officials in Pakistan have said they have no proof that any Pakistan-based groups were involved in the attack. But Indian officials maintain that they have strong evidence that links both groups, particularly Jaish-i-Muhammad, to the incident.

Seeking to defuse tensions, Bush on Friday asked Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to shut down the two groups. Pakistani officials said they would freeze Lashkar's assets -- a move taken against Jaish two months ago -- and consider other steps to restrict the organizations.

[On Monday, Musharraf said he would act against the two militant groups accused of the attacks on Parliament if evidence was found to sustain the charges, the Reuters news agency reported.

["Yes, if we find evidence of it, we would like to move against them," he told reporters in the southern city of Guangzhou as he neared the end of a five-day visit to China.]

The raid on Parliament was the second major attack in India since Oct. 1, when suicide bombers assaulted the legislative assembly building in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, leaving 38 people dead. The two strikes have led to an outpouring of anger here and seemingly widespread support for military action against alleged Jaish and Lashkar training camps in Pakistani Kashmir.

Several senior Indian officials have talked publicly about sending troops across the border in "hot pursuit" of militants and their training camps.

People "have not asked for war, but hot pursuit. What is wrong with that? It is legitimate under international law," India's home minister, L.K. Advani, said in an interview published in the Hindustan Times today.

But several military analysts and even some government officials have questioned India's ability to crush Jaish and Lashkar by destroying their camps. "These are not forts," one official said. "They are just a tent and a shooting range in most places."

Indian intelligence officials contend that many of the camps have been moved away from the border since the Sept. 11 attacks. And, they note, the headquarters of the two groups are in major Pakistani cities.

"Are we going to go deep into Pakistan to attack these groups?" said Afsir Karim, a retired army general. "It's not a feasible proposition. It will lead to all-out war, and that is something we do not want."

Special correspondents Rama Lakshmi, and Kamran Khan in Karachi, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

-------- kazakhstan

Bush, Kazakh declare longterm strategic partnership

USA: December 24, 2001
Story by Elaine Monaghan
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13824/story.htm

WASHINGTON - The United States and Kazakhstan signed a pact last week underlining their interest in multiple east-west oil export routes and creating a more concrete way to help the ex-Soviet state develop its reserves.

A highlight of a visit by President Nursultan Nazarbayev to Washington, the pact was a reminder of how relations have been strengthened by his support for the U.S. war in Afghanistan, where instability has long troubled the most economically successful of the former Soviet Central Asian states.

Nazarbayev and President George W. Bush met and issued a statement declaring a commitment to strengthening what they called a long-term, strategic partnership aimed at bringing Kazakhstan increasingly into the global economy.

Foreign Minister Yerland Idrisov and Secretary of State Colin Powell also signed an energy partnership declaration that the State Department said "reaffirms U.S. support for multiple export routes of oil, particularly along the proposed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline".

It added, "It also strengthens cooperation on energy security and enhanced protection of production and transport facilities and promotes further cooperation on electrical power, nuclear energy and environmental protection."

Idrisov told Reuters the two presidents exchanged letters in which Bush pledged to work to lift sanctions against Kazakhstan which stem from the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment that linked trade ties to Soviet-era restrictions on Jewish emigration. In reply, Nazarbayev vowed to continue economic reforms.

Washington has long sought Kazakh support in keeping track of nuclear materials and tightening border controls in the region to prevent the spread of the hardline brand of beliefs that gripped Afghanistan and threaten less stable former Soviet states sandwiched between Kazakhstan and Afghanistan.

The Sept. 11 attacks on the United States that killed about 3,300 people accelerated contacts with many countries including Kazakhstan, visited by Powell earlier this month.

Nazarbayev would like his country to play as prominent a role as possible in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and in humanitarian efforts aimed at feeding its people.

Idrisov said Kazakhstan was also willing to contribute peacekeepers to an international force for Afghanistan.

OIL THE STRONGEST PULL

But the Kazakh resource most likely to bind the two countries in a long-term embrace is oil, which Nazarbayev says could lead to exports of 150 million tonnes from 2015.

The two countries share an interest in opening multiple export routes for the oil, though they differ over one potential route that would be cheaper but would take it through Iran, regarded in Washington as a "rogue state" for its support of groups opposed to the Middle East peace process.

Idrisov said Kazakhstan continued to support both the Caspian Pipeline Consortium's pipeline to the Black Sea, opened this month, and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan route.

But he added, "Iran is not excluded completely."

A senior State Department official told reporters the energy agreement provided a framework for the United States to help "ensure the Kazakhs are able to develop their energy supplies, develop their energy policy."

"It's a declaration of the ways the governments can cooperate and the fact the governments are cooperating gives a framework for companies to go forward a lot more easily," he added.

-------- korea

S.Korea's missile system in trouble

By Jong-Heon Lee
UPI Correspondent
12/24/2001
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=24122001-043839-6667r

SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- South Korea's missile system will be scrutinized after several missiles failed to fire warheads in a series of tests, defense officials said Monday.

The Air Force has decided to examine its U.S.-purchased Nike Hercules ground-to-air missiles, which have been deployed in the country since 1965.

"The scrutiny will be conducted jointly with the state-run Agency for Defense Development and private LG Innotek," said an official at the Defense Ministry.

The measure came after ADD's report said last week that more than 90 percent of Nike middle-range missiles were unable to fire warheads in recent tests. "Only eight out of 100 Nike Hercules missiles succeeded in launching their warheads during a reliability test three years ago, while only 19 were able to shoot up first-stage propellant motors," an ADD official said on condition of anonymity.

The military has launched a series of reliability tests since December 1998 when a Nike missile accidentally fired and exploded over a residential area in the western city of Incheon, injuring several people and causing massive property losses.

A Nike missile again self-destructed over a major city south of Seoul in 1999. The military imposed a ban on live-fire exercise of the missiles last year due to safety fears, the report said.

The ADD report sparked complaints about the U.S.-made missiles and concerns about South Korea's air defense readiness against rival North Korea which has developed long-range ballistic missiles.

South Korea has hundreds of Nike missiles with a range of 180 kilometers (108 miles) as a key ground-to-air deterrence against the North's air attacks. The missile was developed by Raytheon of the United States in 1958.

South Korea was seeking to replace the Nike missiles with PAC-3 missiles, the advanced version of the Patriot, under a $1.6 billion procurement project, code-named SAM-X.

The Defense Ministry originally planed to award the contract to Raytheon by the end of this year. But military officials said the decision would be postponed until next year after a recent negotiation broke up mainly over price and the timetable for payments.

Raytheon has been the sole bidder to provide South Korea with 48 ground-to-air missiles since Russia's Rosvoorouzhenie dropped out of the race last year.

South Korea has defended its missile program to cope with threats from North Korea. Seoul and Washington signed new missile guidelines in January this year, which allows South Korea to build missiles with a range of up to 187 miles and a payload of 227 pounds.

The agreement came after South Korea, which had been restricted from developing a missile with a range of more than 112 miles, complained that their missiles fall far short of reaching most of neighboring North Korea.

-------- russia

Putin Answers Russians' Questions

By Judith Ingram
Associated Press Writer
Monday, December 24, 2001; 8:35 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20534-2001Dec24?language=printer

MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin went face to face with Russian citizens on Monday, answering a slew of questions in a live, 21/2 hour session broadcast over Russian state television.

The interview, involving television linkups with 11 Russian cities and a stream of questions sent over the Internet beginning last week, was part of the Kremlin's campaign to bring the popular but still somewhat remote leader closer to the people....

Putin expressed optimism about continued improvement in relations with the United States in spite of President Bush's announced withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Putin called a mistake. He said he had no qualms about his close relationship with the leader of the country identified as the "main opponent" during his days as a KGB agent.

"I did not feel uneasy when I spent the night at Bush's ranch," he told one questioner.

"I believe it was up to him to wonder what was going on if he allowed a former staff member of Soviet intelligence into his house," he added with a smile.

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

Panel: U.S. Must Tighten Nuke Rules

December 24, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Plants.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has failed to adequately ensure that owners of nuclear power plants have enough funds to safely own, operate and later decommission the facilities, according to a new congressional review.

The commission needs to tighten its review process for license transfer requests, especially because the future costs to dismantle a plant and dispose of radioactive waste could increase, said the study by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

The review was requested by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., because of concerns that deregulation and recent license transfers have affected decommission funds. Costs of decommissioning ranges from $300 million to $400 million per plant.

The NRC has licensed 125 nuclear power plants for a limited time. Utilities have sold or are in the process of selling all or part of 15 plants. Another 30 plants have had licenses transferred

Before transferring a license to a new plant owner, the commission requires companies to have funds available either by making periodic deposits into a trust fund, prepayment, obtaining a surety bond, insurance or credit or guaranteeing payment if a parent company can meet certain financial requirements.

In general, enough money is being set aside to eventually take a plant out of service, the report said. But the NRC hasn't done enough to monitor the financial arrangements, it said.

The commission's ``reviews were not always rigorous enough to ensure that decommissioning funds would be adequate,'' the report said. ``Moreover, NRC did not always adequately verify the new owners' financial qualifications to safely own and operate the plants.''

The NRC should request guaranteed additional revenue sources and document its review of any financial information -- including revenue projections, the report said.

Also, the report said the commission now allows plant owners to wait too long -- about two years -- before their licenses are terminated to perform radiological assessments to determine what additional cleanup might be needed. The GAO recommended the commission move up that deadline.

The commission, in response, said requiring the surveys earlier ``would not add significant value to the decommissioning process.'' It also disagreed that it should modify its review guidelines to include a checklist process ``because many of the proposed license transfers are unique.''

-------- nevada

DOE "unlikely" to meet 2010 goal for Yucca plan - GAO

USA: December 24, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13819/story.htm

WASHINGTON - The Department of Energy (DOE) is not prepared to recommend to the Bush administration a plan to build a radioactive fuel dump in Nevada's Yucca Mountain, Congress' main investigative arm said last week.

The report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) is little changed from a draft version leaked to the press last month, in which GAO recommended that DOE postpone approval of the project past 2010.

DOE is unlikely to meet its 2010 goal because it "does not have a reliable estimate of when, and (at) what cost, such a repository can be opened," the report said.

DOE disagreed with the findings on the grounds that GAO "did not understand the statutory and regulatory requirements," GAO said.

The site in the Nevada desert would store 70,000 tons of radioactive materials from nuclear power plants for an estimated 10,000 years.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main lobbying arm, has pressed DOE to make its recommendation to the administration before year end.

If Bush approves the project, it still faces a long path to fruition. That includes multiple comment periods for Nevada and other states to air objections, a congressional vote and a four-year NRC review before construction on Yucca could proceed.


-------- MILITARY

-------- africa

Obasanjo to deploy troops after minister's murder

Tuesday December 24,
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/011224/1/26wkv.html

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo decided at an emergency security meeting to deploy forces to the crisis-ridden Osun State following the weekend murder of his justice minister, Bola Ige.

"The meeting reviewed security measures designed to return the situation in Osun State to normalcy, including the deployment of forces and close collaboration with the Osun State government," a presidential statement said after the meeting.

"The culture of violence in politics must be brought to an end throughout the country, and particularly now in the southwest," added the statement signed by presidential spokesman Tunji Oseni. Besides the deployment of forces, "further measures are under consideration at both the state and federal levels to reduce anxiety of the people of Osun State and concerned citizens generally," said the statement, which did not state possible additional measures.

Osun State Governor Bisi Akande and his deputy, Iyiola Omisore, who have been engaged in a political feud the past two years, have been summoned to Abuja to a meeting with Obasanjo, the statement said.

Political analysts said that the feud between the two politicians may have been a factor in the murder of Ige and a legislator close to Omisore.

Ige was believed to be Akande's political "godfather".

Akande had served as Ige's deputy when the latter served as governor of old Oyo State 20 years ago.

Vice President Atiku Abubakar, deputy Senate president Ibrahim Mantu, deputy justice minister Musa Elayo Abdullahi, Police Inspector General Musiliu Smith and the armed forces chiefs were present at the emergency meeting, the statement said.

"No effort will be spared to bring the situation in Osun State under control. Citizens of the state are advised to preserve the harmonious relationship that had existed between communities in the state," the statement added.

Ige, a close confidant of Obasanjo's, was murdered late Sunday at the age of 71 at his residence in Ibadan, capital of southwest Oyo State.

State-run NTA television reported Monday that Ige's security aides were unavailable when the assassins struck, having obtained permission from the late minister to go and have their supper.

Obasanjo had to cancel a planned trip to Zimbabwe after he was informed of the murder.

The president had been due to hold talks with his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe, who has been coming under increasing international fire for political violence ahead of a presidential election due in March.

-------- biological weapons

Scientists cite lax security at Detrick

By David Dishneau
ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 24, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20011224-4259936.htm

FREDERICK, Md. - Accounting for deadly microbes in the Army's germ-warfare defense laboratory at Fort Detrick was lax during much of the 1990s, said some former scientists at the post.

Supervisors often did not check whether researchers were keeping track of lab materials as required. When they did, some researchers gave them photocopies of old reports, said Richard Crosland, who was laid off in 1997 from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick.

Others said that while it would have been nearly impossible for an unauthorized person to enter a restricted area, nothing would have prevented approved workers from removing deadly germs from the labs.

"As far as carrying anything out, microorganisms are small," said Luann Battersby, a biologist who left the research institute voluntarily in 1998 after eight years. "The problem would be getting in, not getting out."

Fort Detrick spokesman Charles Dasey said inventory control had been re-emphasized since the recent anthrax mailings, which focused attention on the institute as a potential source of the bacteria.

Mr. Dasey also said Fort Detrick's security staff conducts random exit searches and has video cameras trained on important laboratory areas. Miss Battersby said those measures did not exist when she worked there.

The Army said it had accounted for all the Ames anthrax - the strain found in letters mailed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat - that the research institute produced.

Yet the scientists, none of whom worked with anthrax, said it would have been easy to walk out with a few cells in a petri dish or smeared on their clothing that then could be grown and processed.

"No matter what you do, there is not any way you can prevent a determined, skillful microbiologist from stealing traces of a microbial culture that he is working with, because it takes so few microbes to start a culture," said Mark Wheelis, a microbiologist at the University of California in Davis who serves on a biological-weapons committee of the Federation of American Scientists.

Mr. Wheelis said labs that work with toxic microbes historically have limited access to those with security clearance, but have paid scant attention to what goes out the door.

"Bioterrorism wasn't a major issue until a few years ago," Mr. Wheelis said. "Nobody was thinking that one of these respected, trusted scientists might actually steal one of the cultures with malevolent intent."

Mr. Crosland, 55, who was suing the Army for age discrimination stemming from his 1997 layoff, said the Army's disinterest in tracking the botulinum toxin with which he worked was typical of what he observed during more than a decade at the research institute.

"There was never an audit in the 11 years I was there as to what was in my laboratory and what was supposed to be there," Mr. Crosland said. "They never tried to balance what was brought into the institution against what was actually in the institution."

-------- business

Once Again, War Is Good for Business

By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 24, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19095-2001Dec23?language=printer

Once the uncool cousin to high-flying dot-coms, government contractors adopted a new swagger in 2001.

The industry continued a trend toward consolidation that strengthened already large companies going after ever-larger federal contracts. Nearly across the board, stock in such companies surged after Sept. 11.

An extreme example was CACI International Inc. of Arlington, the stock price of which nearly doubled before a 2-for-1 split in November.

Expectations for the sector are high. Before the terrorist attacks, the federal government was expected to spend $46.3 billion on information technology this fiscal year, which ends next September. Now, the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association predicts that federal spending on information technology will jump to $49 billion this fiscal year and reach $65 billion in fiscal 2007.

As the government focuses on homeland security, federal agencies are considering how to secure their computer networks and continue to offer more services to the public on the Internet.

Contractors in the intelligence field in particular should benefit over the next few years, analysts said.

"Even before the terrorist attacks . . . federal government outsourcing was on the rise, and defense spending, after 15 years of decline, was poised for growth," Legg Mason analyst Bill Loomis said. "Now the outlook is even more favorable for federal government contractors."

The government technology was already revitalizing. Even before Sept. 11, companies that usually deal in the private sector market had their eyes on government business.

"Until there is a drastic change, we will see more and more companies trying to get into government," said Thomas Meagher, an analyst for BB&T Capital Markets.

Others, such as Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp. and SRA International Corp. continued to grow through acquisition. In October, Lockheed Martin agreed to buy OAO Corp., a Greenbelt-based federal information technology firm.

SRA International, a Fairfax government information technology contractor, purchased Marasco Newton Group, another privately owned information technology firm.

Computer Science Corp. of California won a 10-year $2.5 billion contract to take over technology services for the National Security Agency. One thousand NSA employees will become Computer Science employees in the biggest outsourcing arrangement ever for a federal agency. New York-based International Business Machines Corp. New York-based IBM Corp. won a $1.3 billion contract to overhaul the U.S. Customs Service's computer system.

If the sector's positive outlook was not already evident, ManTech International Corp., a Fairfax technology services company, said in November that it would raise as much as $92 million in an initial stock offering, one of only a few IPOs this year in any industry.

More IPOs by government-technology firms could be on the horizon.

"An initial public offering has often been, and in the current favorable market conditions remains today, one way to finance growth," said Ernst Volgenau, SRA's president and chief executive. He did not comment on his company's plans.

More stories in GOVERNMENT IT online at Washtech.com

----

[Would you send similar listings for your geographic area? This is for DC, Maryland and Virginia. Thanks - et - prop1@prop1.org (NucNews)]

FEDERAL CONTRACTS

By States News Service
Monday, December 24, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19401-2001Dec23?language=printer

Management Technologies Inc. of Clinton, Md., won a share of a contract worth up to $300 million from the Air Force for contract advisory and assistance services for the Air Combat Command and the Command & Control Training & Innovation Group.

Science Applications International Corp. of Hampton, Va., won a share of a contract worth up to $300 million from the Air Force for contract advisory and assistance services for the Air Combat Command and the Command & Control Training & Innovation Group.

TRW Inc. of Fairfax won a share of a contract worth up to $300 million from the Air Force for contract advisory and assistance services.

KPMG Consulting Inc. of McLean won a contract worth up to $92.4 million from the Department of Health & Human Services to plan and design a unified financial management system.

Bell-Boeing Joint Program Office of Patuxent River, Md., won a $56.28 million contract from the Navy for manufacturing aircraft as part of the Lot VI MV-22 effort.

Condor Technology Solutions Inc. of Baltimore won a $50 million contract from the Army for advertising in local and national print, video, audio, Internet and outdoor media.

Litton Industries Inc. of McLean won a $48.95 million contract from the Air Force for development of information, intelligence and information warfare databases.

Resource Consultants Inc. of Vienna won a $23.43 million contract from the Navy for program support services for the naval supply systems to command hazard materials.

ManTech Telecommunications & Information Systems Corp. of Chantilly won an $18.88 million contract from the Army for information systems support services.

Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. of Linthicum Heights won a $17.93 million contract from the Space and Missile Systems Center for upgrading, preparing, sustaining, integrating and operating sensors for the defense meteorologic satellite program for weather-tracking and prediction products.

Exxon Mobil Fuels Marketing Co. of Fairfax won an $11.26 million contract from the Defense Energy Support Center for 15.12 million gallons of jet fuel.

ICF Inc. of Fairfax won a $10.77 million contract from the Environmental Protection Agency for technical and regulatory support for development of criteria for water media emphasizing human health.

Acton Burnell Inc. of Alexandria won a $9.01 million contract from the Navy for technical support services for the Office of Chief of Naval Operations and the Naval Air Systems Command.

GTSI of Chantilly won an $8.44 million contract from the Army for licenses for software upgrades.

Information Management Services Inc. of Silver Spring won an $8 million contract from the National Cancer Institute for biomedical computing support for the division of cancer epidemiology and genetics.

Science Applications International Corp. of Beltsville won a $6.05 million contract from the Environmental Protection Agency for modeling support for exposure assessment.

Autometric Inc. of Springfield won a $6.04 million contract from the National Imagery & Mapping Agency for multi-sensor imagery and geospatial expertise support.

Bell-Boeing Joint Program Office of Patuxent River, Md., won a $5.87 million contract from the Navy for modifying operational test program sets to function on the remotely transportable consolidated automated support system.

Atlantico Inc. of Yorktown, Va., won a contract worth up to $5 million from the Navy for construction, renovation, alteration and repairs for projects throughout Virginia.

Sun Bay Contracting Inc. of Virginia Beach won a contract worth up to $5 million from the Navy for construction, renovation, alteration and repairs for projects throughout Virginia.

Tesoro Corp. of Virginia Beach won a contract worth up to $5 million from the Navy for construction, renovation, alteration and repairs for projects throughout Virginia.

THR Enterprises Inc. of Norfolk won a contract worth up to $5 million from the Navy for construction, renovation, alteration and repairs for projects throughout Virginia.

TMS Envirocon Inc. of Virginia Beach won a contract worth up to $5 million from the Navy for construction, renovation, alteration and repairs for projects throughout Virginia.

Veridian Systems Inc. of Chantilly won a $4.04 million contract from the National Imagery and Mapping Agency for collection management support.

ICF Services Co. of Fairfax won a $3.82 million contract from the Environmental Protection Agency for hazardous waste identification, characterization and listing support.

International Resources Group of Washington won a $3.5 million contract from the General Services Administration for management, organizational and business improvement services.

Bell-Boeing Joint Program Office of Patuxent River, Md., won a $3 million contract from the Navy for continuing craft support.

Information Systems Laboratories Inc. of Rockville won a $2.81 million contract from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for maintenance, applications, assessment and development of NRC computer codes.

Anteon Corp. of Fairfax won a $2.8 million contract from the Army for staff augmentation support and commercial expertise for modernization.

Science Applications International Corp. of Arlington won a $2.06 million contract from the National Imagery & Mapping Agency for collection management support.

Signal Corp. of Fairfax won a $1.9 million contract from the Army for systems engineering and technical assistance.

AT&T Corp. of Washington won a $1.78 million contract from the Army for local telecommunications services.

ROMTEC Inc. of Winchester won a $1 million contract from the General Services Administration for recreational, hospitality, law enforcement, facilities, industrial and environmental services and products.

Jo-Kell Inc. of Chesapeake won a $497,893 contract from the Navy for overcurrent devices.

Infinite Computer Technologies Inc. of Alexandria won a $292,968 contract from the Coast Guard for air traffic control services.

Jo-Kell Inc. of Chesapeake won a $291,538 contract from the Navy for undervoltage devices.

URS Group Inc. of Hunt Valley won a $285,504 contract from the Federal Highway Administration for architect and engineering services at the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park.

Jo-Kell Inc. of Chesapeake won a $277,886 contract from the Navy for shunt trips.

Jo-Kell Inc. of Chesapeake won a $248,545 contract from the Navy for electrical relays.

Jo-Kell Inc. of Chesapeake won a $218,904 contract from the Navy for tripping coils.

Jo-Kell Inc. of Chesapeake won a $216,732 contract from the Navy for undervolt trippers.

Rajan Mahima Associates of Falls Church won a $206,333 contract from the Federal Highway Administration for reconstruction of Q Street in Washington.

Jo-Kell Inc. of Chesapeake won a $196,547 contract from the Navy for lockout devices.

Technical Products Group Inc. of Marion won a $158,600 contract from the Defense Industrial Supply Center for sound controlling blankets.

The contracts listed were awarded by the federal government to companies and other vendors in Virginia, Maryland and the District. For more information, contact states2001@aol.com or call Myron Struck, managing editor, at 202-628-3100, ext. 266.

-------- india

PAKISTAN
Kashmir's Islamic Guerrillas See Little to Fear From U.S.

New York Times
December 24, 2001
By JOHN F. BURNS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/24/international/asia/24STAN.html

MURIDKE, Pakistan - The signboard has disappeared now, gone from the clutter of brightly painted ads for American soft drinks and tire vulcanizers and the merchants who live off the traffic that thunders down the Grand Trunk Road, which starts on the Afghan border 400 miles from here and ends 1,000 miles away, in Calcutta.

The town of Muridke was never much more than a dusty way-station on the strategic highway built when Pakistan and India were part of British-ruled India. If the town has had a claim on the consciousness of 140 million Pakistanis, it lay in the missing sign, for an Islamic militant organization known in English as the Army of the Pure, in Urdu as Lashkar-e-Taiba, whose spiritual headquarters lies a mile or so off among the green rice paddies and grazing buffalo that flank the highway.

The sign came down some time last week, just before President Bush announced that he was adding Lashkar-e-Taiba to the United States' official list of terrorist organizations, and asking Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to arrest Lashkar's leaders and disband it.

Mr. Bush cited India's accusations that the group was behind an attack on Dec. 13 on the Indian Parliament in which 14 people died, including all 5 attackers. Lashkar has denied any involvement, and Pakistan, implying Indian mischief, has demanded that India produce its evidence.

Down the dirt road leading to the compound of Lashkar's parent organization, the Center for the Call to Righteousness, Mr. Bush's action, and the possibility that General Musharraf will begin his own crackdown when he returns from an official visit to China on Monday, is greeted with studied indifference.

"That's Bush's headache, and Musharraf's, not ours," said Rashid Minhas, a 28-year-old Pakistani who is rector of the 200-acre educational complex where 1,200 students are steeped in the tenets of militant Islam - and, according to Western and Indian intelligence reports, in the basics of "jihad," or holy war.

"Let Bush do what he will; our duty as Muslims is to follow the teachings of the holy prophet," Mr. Minhas said during an hour-long tour of the campus in which he waved away any questions relating to the activities of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the attacks of Sept. 11, Osama bin Laden or the disputed territory of Kashmir, where Lashkar's Islamic fighters have been challenging Indian rule for much of the past decade. "We are not frightened of Bush, we are only fearful of God."

Even if it was carefully rendered for the benefit of a Western visitor, the indifference reflected something common among Islamic militants. It is a sense that God's will, and certainly not American power, is the ultimate driving force of mankind's affairs. It also seemed to echo something of the turbulent history of the region, and the fatalism it has engendered in succeeding generations.

When Britain divided its Indian Empire into two independent states in 1947, at least a million people died in rioting that followed, many of them only a short distance from here along the Grand Trunk Road and the rail line across the Punjab that carried fleeing Hindus east to India and fleeing Muslims west to Pakistan. Since 1947, the two countries have fought three wars, adding tens of thousands more victims.

The wounds are kept fresh, more than 50 years later, by frequent killings in Kashmir, the one territory that remains disputed between the two countries today.

For the Bush administration, naming Lashkar to a list that also contains Mr. bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist group was, in a sense, a natural step after Sept. 11. Since it first appeared in Kashmir in the early 1990's, Lashkar has been known for ambushes, bombings and assassinations that have concentrated on the Indian army and police, but also killed large numbers of civilians. With a smaller Islamic militant group, Jaish-e-Muhammad, previously named to the American terrorist list, Lashkar has been cited, over the last three years, for about three- quarters of all Pakistan-backed attacks in Indian-ruled Kashmir.

For India, getting the groups declared terrorist organizations by the United States, and persuading Mr. Bush to press General Musharraf to disband them, was a strategic goal from the moment of the Sept. 11 attacks. In New Delhi, Mr. Bush's war on terrorism was greeted as a rare opportunity to accomplish what perhaps half a million Indian troops and police have been unable to achieve - to suppress, at their source in Pakistan, the groups that have kept India's rule in Kashmir violent, costly and fragile.

In Pakistan, too, there were few who did not see Sept. 11 as a watershed for what are known here as "Kashmiri freedom fighters." For years, it has been an open secret among Pakistani intelligence officers that Lashkar has had links with Al Qaeda, and that Lashkar's installations were ports of call for Arab "holy warriors" heading west to Afghanistan or northeast to Indian- ruled Kashmir. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who founded Lashkar after teaching Islamic theology in Lahore, has praised Mr. bin Laden in his speeches and on the group's Web site.

But for many Pakistanis, branding Lashkar a terrorist organization is nowhere near as obvious a sequel to the events of Sept. 11 as it must have seemed to Mr. Bush. In Pakistan, the struggle for Kashmir is an epic that no Pakistani leader could abandon without risk of immediate ouster, by fellow politicians or the army.

The bottom line on Kashmir, in Pakistan, is that more than 80 percent of Kashmiris, in India and Pakistan, are Muslims - and that those living in the Indian-ruled part, known as Jammu and Kashmir, were never given the right to vote on whether to join India or Pakistan that India guaranteed them in United Nations Security Council resolutions 50 years ago.

Once Lashkar has been suppressed, many Pakistanis say, India will demand the proscription in Pakistan of any group that tries to join the "freedom struggle" in Kashmir - and, relieved of armed confrontation, will persist in refusing any move toward self-determination.

The point is one that has been widely debated around the world: In a global war on terrorism, where is the line to be drawn between "terrorism" and legitimate armed struggle? It is a distinction that has been frequently made by General Musharraf, who has insisted that the United States draw a line between "freedom struggles" like the one in Kashmir and terrorism of the kind that occurred on Sept. 11, when the sole purpose of the attacks, the general says, was to kill innocent civilians.

Mr. Saeed, the Lashkar leader, in statements on the group's Web site, has sought to differentiate the group's military activities from those of Al Qaeda. Just before Mr. Bush's announcement last week, Mr. Saeed said that "all operations by Kashmiris under Lashkar-e-Taiba's command have been carried out against the Indian Army with the sole purpose of protecting the local population from repression," and that any civilian casualties were "a regretful exception."

"We may differ with U.S. policy, and that is our right, but we do not mean any harm to any U.S. citizen or property," he said.

For General Musharraf, deciding what actions to take against Lashkar will be a tricky matter. On Saturday, the general's aides instructed the State Bank of Pakistan to freeze Lashkar bank accounts. Mr. Saeed, the Lashkar leader, described that action on his Web site as meaningless, since Lashkar owns no bank accounts or buildings and counts as its "only assets" the holy warriors in Kashmir. In practice, Pakistani officials say, all of the money in Mr. Saeed's Islamic empire has been vested in Lashkar's parent organization. .

In the face of popular feelings and his own hard-line record, General Musharraf seems unlikely to go as far as President Bush has urged, arresting Mr. Saeed and uprooting Lashkar and its fighters.

But even if he does order Lashkar closed down, senior Pakistani officials say, it is likely to be prelude to a shell game that has occurred before, in which groups that have become too contentious for Pakistan to continue supporting have "re-badged" themselves under new names, and resumed their attacks in Kashmir.

"If what Bush wants is that we simply give India what it wants, he's dreaming," one official said. "Whatever we do, you can be sure that it won't be an end to the struggle for Kashmir."

--------

India Says It Destroys Pakistani Bunkers in Kashmir

December 24, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-kashmir-firing.html

JAMMU, India (Reuters) - An Indian defense official said on Monday troops destroyed a dozen Pakistani bunkers in an exchange of fire between the neighbors after they strengthened their positions on either side of their border in Kashmir.

Tensions between the two nuclear rivals have been running high since a December 13 suicide attack on the Indian parliament which killed 14 people, including the five assailants.

India has blamed the attack on two Pakistan-based militant groups. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said he will act against the groups if he has evidence of their involvement.

``Between eight and 10 enemy bunkers were destroyed in retaliatory fire by our troops across the Line of Control in Poonch sector while two other bunkers were smashed in Samba sub sector late on Sunday,'' the senior defense official told Reuters.

Three people were killed in weekend exchanges of fire across the border in disputed Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state and the trigger for two wars between the traditional foes.

Both sides say they are responding to a build-up of forces by the other side after the parliament raid.

Indian Border Security Force (BSF) officials said India had also stepped up security on its eastern border with Bangladesh to prevent Pakistan sending militants through the porous frontier.

``We have increased patrolling and vigil on the West Bengal border with Bangladesh after the attack on parliament to prevent the possibility of Pakistan sending in saboteurs, subversives and communal troublemakers into West Bengal,'' S.B. Kakati, inspector-general with the Border Security Force (BSF), said.

Another BSF official in the northeastern Indian state of Assam also said security forces had increased their vigil to ''stop the possible entry of militants, backed by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.''

``Our security personnel have been put on maximum alert,'' he said.

APPEAL FOR RESTRAINT

India has blamed two groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, for the parliament attack and demanded Pakistan close them down and arrest their leaders. Pakistan has denied involvement and condemned the attack.

New Delhi, which accuses Pakistan of fomenting a decade-old revolt in Kashmir, recalled its envoy from Islamabad on Friday, accusing Pakistan of failing to act against terrorism.

Kashmir's main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, asked India and Pakistan to exercise restraint.

``We urge the international community to impress upon the governments of India and Pakistan to exercise utmost restraint,'' Hurriyat spokesman Sheikh Abdul Rashid told Reuters.

The Hurriyat -- which bands over two dozen social, political and religious groups in Kashmir -- is seeking the implementation of a 1948 U.N. resolution calling for a plebiscite to decide whether Kashmir should be folded into India or Pakistan.

``Hurriyat Conference has said war cannot solve the Kashmir dispute or any other problem between the two countries. It will only bring destruction,'' the spokesman said.

While Islamabad denies providing bases for Muslim militants in Kashmir and says it offers them only moral support, some Indian politicians have been demanding troops pursue guerrillas across the frontier into Pakistan.

Indian Home (interior) Minister Lal Krishna Advani said on Sunday that strikes on guerrilla camps in Pakistan in response to the suicide attack on parliament would be legitimate.

-------- iraq

BRITS WARN U.S. ON STRIKING IRAQ

By WILLIAM J. GORTA,
December 24, 2001
http://www.nypost.com/cgi-bin/printfriendly.pl

Taliban prisoners of war peer through the bars of their jail yesterday in northern Afghanistan, where 3,000 are packed into a facility meant for 200.- Associated Press http://www.nypost.com/photos/web12240105.jpg

While the Bush administration is drawing up plans for a possible invasion of Iraq, the British government said the United Nations should deal with Saddam Hussein, adding that any unilateral action against Baghdad would probably be useless.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff are studying a plan to send 50,000 U.S. troops into Iraq from the south and another 50,000 soldiers from the north, with the two forces eventually converging at Baghdad, according to a Newsweek report.

But a senior British diplomat counseled America not to go it alone.

"Any unilateral action would not take us very far," said Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain. "It would need to be done in terms of the United Nations framework."

With Post Wire Services

-------- israel / palestine

Israel pressures Arafat to arrest assassins

The Associated Press
12/24/2001
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001/12/24/arafat.htm

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) - Despite European and U.S. intervention, Israel said Monday it would not let Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat attend Christmas Mass in Bethlehem unless he arrests the assassins of an Israeli Cabinet minister.

An Israeli settler was shot and seriously injured near the West Bank town of Nablus, officials said - the first such victim in about a week.

A telephone caller to The Associated Press claiming to be from the al-Aqsa Brigades said the militia - which is associated with Arafat's Fatah faction - conducted the attack in response to Israel's preventing Arafat from going to Bethlehem

The caller said three gunmen from the militia opened fire on the Israeli as he left the settlement of Einav. The settler returned fire and killed one militant, the caller said. The caller said the attackers took the settler's gun after the shootout, assuming he was dead.

Israel Radio also reported one of the gunmen was slain. The settler was seriously injured in the chest, army and rescue officials said.

Arafat has said he is determined to make his annual pilgrimage to Bethlehem, but it was unclear if we would try to defy the ban and make it to the town for Mass at midnight (5 p.m. EST). He has been confined to his West Bank headquarters in the town of Ramallah, 12 miles north of Bethlehem, for weeks by an Israeli blockade. Israeli troops tightened the closure Monday to prevent Arafat from getting out.

In Bethlehem, Christmas festivities got under way in the afternoon without Arafat for the first time since 1995. Scouts playing drums and bagpipes marched in a Manger Square procession led by Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, the top Roman Catholic clergyman in the Holy Land.

The mood was somber, with only local Christians attending the march. Manger Square, by the spot where tradition says Jesus was born, was almost devoid of holiday decorations, hung with Palestinian flags, an Arafat poster and a large banner reading: "Sharon assassinates the joy of Christmas," in a reference to the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon.

A Christmas tree in the square was decorated with one colored light and a few colored balls.

The Israeli ban is a new blow to Arafat's symbols of authority - preventing him from moving between areas under his control and from performing a visit that has become an annual gesture of unity with Palestinian Christians.

"No one can humiliate the Palestinians or make them lose their determination," Arafat said Monday of the Israeli ultimatum. When reporters asked Arafat whether he intended to defy the Israeli ban, Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo answered for him, saying: "Yes, yes, of course, see you tonight in Bethlehem."

"The dignity of President Arafat is the dignity of all of us," said Sabbah, a Palestinian, after meeting Arafat earlier Monday. "The occupation situation is unfair to the Palestinians and they have to have their freedom. This is the message of Christmas."

Senior European Union diplomats said Monday they were trying to persuade Israel to rescind the travel ban. "We believe that this decision spoils a lot of positive points that Israel has gained in European opinion in the past few weeks," said the Belgian ambassador to Israel, Wilfred Geens, speaking for the EU.

Geens said Arafat is the only Muslim leader who makes a point of attending Christmas Mass in a show of religious tolerance. "It would look very bad if Arafat were prevented from attending the Mass," Geens told The Associated Press.

American officials spoke by telephone from Washington on Sunday with the Israeli Foreign Ministry to try to get the ban rescinded, an Israeli official said on condition of anonymity.

The Vatican was also putting pressure. Spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said that "a diplomatic step has been made to avoid this arbitrarily imposed ban," without elaborating.

However, Raanan Gissin, a Sharon adviser, said Israel would not to allow Arafat passage to Bethlehem unless he arrests the assassins of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, activists in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical PLO faction. Gissin said Israel also wants Arafat to arrest the two leaders of the group, Ahmed Saadat and Jihad Ghoulmi.

Otherwise, "he will not be allowed freedom of movement," Gissin said. "Arafat knows exactly where they are. Yet he has not arrested them."

Gissin said Saadat and Ghoulmi were behind plans for a new suicide attack in the Israeli port city of Haifa. On Sunday, Israeli police arrested two Palestinian suspects in Haifa, and said explosives were found in their hotel rooms.

The Mideast fighting has dealt a crushing blow to Bethlehem, a city of 30,000 Palestinians. The town is dependent on Christian tourists, and in 1999, before the outbreak of the fighting, thousands of visitors joined the Christmas festivities.

"I try to enjoy Christmas. Despite this, the Christmas spirit does not exist. Bethlehem is a big prison. We can't move freely," said Richard Elias, 28, who carried his 4-year-old son, George, dressed in a Santa costume.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer announced the easing of security restrictions in Bethlehem over the next few days to allow Christians access to the Bethlehem shrines.

During 15 months of fighting, Israel has enforced stringent travel restrictions, barring most Palestinians from leaving their communities. The restrictions were tightened earlier this month, after attacks by Palestinian militants killed 37 Israelis.

A week ago, Arafat ordered a halt to all violence against Israel, and the number of attacks has since dropped sharply.

-------- landmines

Greek landmine explosion kills four, injures three

GREECE: December 24, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13817/story.htm

ATHENS - Four Iraqi illegal immigrants were killed and three injured on Sunday when one of them stepped on a landmine near the northeastern Greek border with Turkey, local police said.

"We have four people dead and three injured, one of them in very critical condition," a police official at the border town of Ferres said.

The explosion occurred when the immigrants, all men who had just entered the country on foot, stepped inside one of the many fenced-off and marked minefields separating traditional foes Greece and Turkey.

Police believe recent heavy snow and freezing temperatures made it difficult for the Iraqis to see the minefield's warning signs and fences.

All seven victims were taken to hospital in the nearby city of Alexandroupolis.

In a separate incident, police on the eastern Aegean island of Symi arrested 18 illegal immigrants - 16 Afghans and two Iranians - who had disembarked from a Turkish-flagged vessel early on Sunday.

Thousands of illegal immigrants try to cross into Greece every year, either through its land borders or by crossing the Aegean sea from western Turkey.

-------- pakistan / india

Pakistan freezes assets of two terror-linked groups

Monday December 24, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/011224/1/26vav.html

Pakistan froze the bank accounts of two groups linked with terrorism, including Umma Tameer-e-Nau (UTN) which the United States has accused of passing nuclear arms data to Osama bin Laden.

The assets of Kashmiri militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), which India has blamed for the deadly December 13 attack on its parliament, were also targeted in the order issued by the State Bank of Pakistan.

"We have advised all the banks to freeze the accounts of these organisations," bank spokesman Sayed Wasimuddin said in a statement.

"The decision has been taken in view of the decision of the United States government," he said, referring to President George W. Bush's announcement last week that the US would freeze assets belonging to the two groups.

In a sign that the LET is coming under pressure from Pakistan, which the United States has urged to act against militant groups, its chief, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, announced his resignation shortly after the bank announcement.

"I have decided to step down to save Pakistan from the malicious Indian propaganda and confine my activities to the preaching of religion," he said in a news conference in the eastern border city of Lahore.

"Lashkar's activities will now be totally confined to Kashmir and we have already shifted all our offices to Kashmir last month," he said.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf earlier Monday vowed to crackdown on LET and another Kashmiri militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, provided there was evidence of their involvement in the Indian parliament raid in which 14 people, including six gunmen were killed.

"Yes, if we find evidence of it, we would like to move against them," he said during an official visit to the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.

"We are already taking measures to move against all groups that are involved in any form of terrorism everywhere in the world."

On Friday, India announced the recall of its ambassador to Pakistan and terminated cross border rail and bus links, citing Islambad's inadequate response to demands that it crack down on the two militant groups.

India accused Pakistani intelligence of backing the attack, and threatened retaliation.

Both Pakistan and Indian militaries were placed on high alert as the tensions between the two nuclear powers grew in the Kashmiri region, with sporadic clashes reported over the past several days.

Pakistan signalled last week that it would act against UTN, which Bush said had provided nuclear arms data to bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Bush said UTN was founded by a former official of Pakistan's atomic energy commission and, in "the disguise of charity", had abetted bin Laden's quest for weapons of mass destruction.

----

Spying, torture charges added to volatile Indo-Pakistan mix

Monday December 24,
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/011224/1/26w2s.html

Allegations of spying, kidnapping and torture added more heat to simmering India-Pakistan ties, even as Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf vowed to crack down on two militant groups accused of attacking the Indian parliament.

Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes was in Kashmir on Monday, reviewing military preparedness on the region's disputed border where Indian and Pakistani troops have been on a state of high alert since tensions soared in the wake of the December 13 attack.

India has blamed the Pakistan-based militant outfits Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad for carrying out the assault at the behest of Pakistani military intelligence.

Fernandes, who has played down the threat of a full-scale war, refused to speculate on the probability of military action.

"What action will be taken and when, cannot be decided beforehand," he told the Aaj Tak television channel.

"When the situation arises, we will give a fitting reply," he added.

Last week, India announced the recall of its ambassador to Pakistan and terminated cross border rail and bus links, citing Islambad's inadequate response to demands that it crack down on the activities of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.

During his visit to China, President Musharraf said his government would take steps against the two groups if evidence proving their complicity was uncovered. "Yes, if we find evidence of it, we would like to move against them," Musharraf said in response to journalists' questions in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.

"We are already taking measures to move against all groups that are involved in any form of terrorism everywhere in the world," he said.

India says it has "cast-iron" proof of Lashkar and Jaish's involvement, but has so far refused to make it available to Islamabad.

Pakistan's State Bank said Monday that it had frozen the assets of Lashkar and another Pakistan-based group named by the United States as being involved in terrorism.

"That is not enough, much more needs to be done," Indian foreign ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao said.

"Instead of focusing on tackling the terrorist groups on their soil as we have asked, (Pakistan) is diverting attention to other issues."

The border build up in Kashmir reached flash point on Sunday as troops on both sides exchanged fire. Two members of India's Border Security Force were killed in one incident, while both sides claimed to have destroyed a number of enemy bunkers.

Officials said there were further cross-border exchanges of mortar and small-arms fire on Monday.

Indian police, meanwhile, said they had arrested a parliament official for allegedly passing "sensitive" information to a Pakistan High Commission (embassy) staffer.

--------

Pakistan Fears Uncontrollable Flareup with India

December 24, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-pakistan-india-military.html

CHAKOTHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - A senior Pakistani army officer said on Monday continued border clashes with India could spark an uncontrollable flareup involving nuclear weapons.

The two neighbors have reinforced positions on either side of their disputed border in Kashmir since a December 13 suicide attack on the Indian parliament which killed 14 people. New Delhi blamed two militant groups based in Muslim Pakistan.

Local sources said on Monday that Pakistan's army had deployed anti-aircraft guns and moved most troops from the eastern garrison town of Sialkot to the border with India.

Pakistani and Indian troops only watched each other with distrust from bunkers on either side of a broken bridge at Chakothi in the west of disputed Kashmir when a group of journalists visited the Pakistani side of the front line.

But both sides reported exchanges of fresh mortar and heavy machinegun fire elsewhere in Kashmir and New Delhi expelled a Pakistani diplomat, raising tensions between the nuclear-armed adversaries ever higher.

Pakistani Brigadier Mohammad Yaqub said the situation was ''highly explosive.''

``Because in that situation, that tension, even a small little incident can result in a chain reaction which nobody will be able to control,'' he told Reuters Television at Muzaffarabad, capital of the Pakistani-held part of Kashmir.

He said an all-out war between the two nations could ''become really horrific for the entire world.''

Asked if nuclear weapons could be used, Yaqub, giving what he called his personal view, said:

``But if there is a war between the two countries and if any country feels that it comes to its own survival, probably there won't be any hesitation to use nuclear weapons.''

A brief statement from the military's public relations department said the top-brass of Pakistan's armed forces met in the garrison town of Rawalpindi and ``discussed matters relating to defense, national security and professional aspects.''

A source in Sialkot, just a few miles from the border in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province, said most of the troops had left the cantonment.

``The movement of troops to and from the border has increased. It is more than in routine times,'' he said.

Artillery exchanges have increased recently in the Sharkargarh-Zafarwal sector of the working boundary, a 136-mile stretch of border between the line of control dividing mountainous Kashmir, and the frontier that runs down the plains in an eastward direction up to the Arabian Sea.

A senior local official in Sialkot said the army movements to and from the border had ``not been very obvious,'' but declined to go into detail.

New Delhi accuses Pakistan of fomenting a decade-old revolt in Muslim-majority Kashmir. Pakistan denies sponsoring the rebellion, saying it only provides moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination.

Kashmir's main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, asked the two nations to exercise restraint in the region, which has triggered two of the three wars they have fought since independence from Britain in 1947.

-------- propaganda wars

Ali to become pitchman to Muslims on war

Around the Nation
December 24, 2001
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011224-85041173.htm

LOS ANGELES - Boxing legend Muhammad Ali has agreed to star in a Hollywood-produced advertising campaign designed to explain America and the war in Afghanistan to the Muslim world.

Jack Valenti, who is overseeing the "Hollywood 9/11" public relations effort, said Mr. Ali has tentatively agreed to do a one-minute public service announcement designed for broadcast in several translations over such prominent Middle East networks as Al Jazeera and the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation.

Entertainment industry executives say they hope Mr. Ali has special credibility with the audience because of his conversion to Islam in the 1960s and his refusal to serve in Vietnam when drafted.

-------- un

U.N. Report - Budget chief may go

December 24, 2001
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011224-16634646.htm

Secretary-General Kofi Annan begins his second term next week, but it looks like he'll be running the ship without Joseph Connor, the distinguished head of U.N. management and budget.

Mr. Connor's departure, after nearly eight years of sorting through the excruciatingly detailed and politically sensitive U.N. budgets, could throw both the United Nations and the United States into some real-time decision making.

An American has occupied the 27th floor office - with the distracting Empire State Building views - for as long as anyone here can remember. Washington shows no sign of giving up the position.

"Oh, we are interested in that post," said a U.S. Mission official who was not pleased to hear that Mr. Connor is thinking of leaving. "We are very, very, very interested in that office."

The official said that if, in fact, Mr. Connor were to step down, Washington would quickly offer potential successors for Mr. Annan to chose from. "We have several candidates for the job," he said.

It's not yet clear that Mr. Annan will keep an American for that job.

The U.N. Charter says that all posts are subject to geographic rotation, a fact that the General Assembly reaffirmed with a resolution late last session.

Indeed, Mr. Connor, 70, is at least the fourth American to run the management office, which not only drafts and explains the budget but oversees such diverse departments as the comptroller, human resources, the peacekeeping purse strings and support services. It also sounds out the annual bills to member states.

In the last eight years - for what was originally to be a three-year appointment under former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali - Mr. Connor has overseen or advised key players during the epic battles involving the repaying of a multibillion-dollar U.S. debt to the world body, an overhaul of the peacekeeping and regular budget assessments, and the groundwork of a proposed $1 billion remodeling job for the aging U.N. Headquarters building.

Before joining the international organization, Mr. Connor was president of the accounting and consulting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Although senior U.N. officials expect little turnover, at least one other pivotal post will also become vacant during Mr. Annan's second term. Hans Corell, the Swedish jurist who has headed the U.N. Office of Legal Affairs for nearly eight years, said last week that he does not expect to finish out another term because he is inching up on the retirement age set by his country and the organization's 10-year limit in one job.

Syria joining Council

When the diplomats return from the holidays - spent in their own capitals or someone else's - they will find a new Security Council waiting for them.

Among the new members starting two-year terms on Jan. 1 is Syria.

What is intriguing here is that Syria is a party in at least three separate Security Council matters, and its behavior - as a hostile neighbor of Israel, friendly neighbor to Iraq and accused sponsor of terrorism - will be closely monitored.

A number of Jewish groups in the United States pressured the Bush administration to oppose Syria's candidacy and have been vocal in their disappointment that a countereffort, similar to last year's successful campaign against Sudan, wasn't undertaken.

U.S. diplomats said they could not pull a 2000 Sudan-style coup against Syria by encouraging support for a challenger because there was none - the Asian group was unanimously behind Damascus.

Diplomats say they will be watching the Syrian government's compliance with council resolutions closely, particularly where it is involved. As the de factor power in Lebanon and the political benefactor of the Hezbollah militias, Syria has a special interest in the fate of UNIFIL, the 23-year-old, 4,500-soldier peacekeeping mission on the Lebanese border with Israel. Washington has branded Hezbollah a foreign terrorist organization.

•Betsy Pisik can be reached by e-mail at UNear@aol.com.

-------- us

Air Force Grounds C-141s After Mishap

Associated Press
Monday, December 24, 2001; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19494-2001Dec23?language=printer

MEMPHIS -- The Air Force grounded all C-141s Saturday after a wing on one of the transport planes collapsed as it refueled at Memphis International Airport, spilling 9,000 gallons of jet fuel.

The order from Air Mobility Command at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., affects 99 C-141s in service worldwide, said Lt. Col. Tom LaRock, an Air Force spokesman.

The order was given as a precautionary measure until engineers could determine whether the wing failure reflected a problem involving the entire fleet or whether it affected the single plane. It came as a team of engineers from Warner Robins Air Logistics Center in Georgia was headed to Memphis to examine the damaged transport.

It was not known when the Air Force would return its fleet of C-141s to the air.

The Air Force has not used the C-141 in Afghanistan, relying instead on the roomier and more responsive C-17, but the grounding was expected to put a strain on domestic operations as the nation continues its war on terrorism.

The wing collapsed Friday night as the plane was undergoing routine refueling. The cause was not known. The plane was headed for Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Details on its mission were not immediately available.

One airman suffered a fractured leg, and another was treated for a strained shoulder, the Commercial Appeal reported. The spilled fuel flowed into a storm drain, but crews sealed it off before the fuel could reach Nonconnah Creek.

Lt. Col. Lamar Spencer, executive officer of the 164th Airlift Wing of the Tennessee Air National Guard, estimated the damaged C-141 to be 28 to 30 years old.

The Air Force relies on its fleet of C-141s to transport troops and equipment domestically and overseas. It began using the aircraft in the 1960s and once had as many as 270 in its fleet, but it plans to phase out the aircraft by 2006 and replace it with the C-17.

--------

THE AIR CAMPAIGN
Use of Pinpoint Air Power Comes of Age in New War

New York Times
December 24, 2001
By ERIC SCHMITT and JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/24/international/24WEAP.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - At a pivotal moment in the siege of Kunduz late last month, a Northern Alliance commander urgently requested American airstrikes against several hundred Taliban soldiers and tanks massing on a ridge more than a mile from the city. He pleaded that the attack be launched within 24 hours.

A Special Operations ground spotter immediately radioed an American command center in Saudi Arabia, which ordered a nearby B-52 to rain 16 cluster bombs on the enemy forces. Flying at 30,000 feet, the bomber never saw its prey. But the spotter used a laser pointer to guide the bombs, which carried new devices that kept them on course through buffeting winds, enabling them to spew antiarmor bomblets with deadly precision.

The Taliban force was hit not in 24 hours, but in 19 minutes.

"That really was another turning point," said a senior Air Force official deeply involved in the air campaign in Afghanistan. "All these things gave confidence to the Northern Alliance, and it really was a shock to the Taliban."

The swiftness and accuracy of that attack illustrated a new kind of American air power, where high-technology precision weapons, guided by aircraft and ground commandos, enabled a ragtag opposition to rout the Taliban army. Just as World War II opened the atomic age and the 1991 Persian Gulf war introduced stealth technology to combat, Afghanistan will be remembered as the smart-bomb war.

New guidance systems have been strapped onto older weapons, like the cluster bombs dropped near Kunduz, making them devastatingly accurate. Pilotless Predator drones for the first time fired Hellfire antitank missiles and fed live battlefield video to nearby AC-130 gunships, which even now are prowling the Pakistan border for fleeing Al Qaeda fighters. Satellites, electronic-eavesdropping planes and human ground spotters worked together more reliably than ever, enabling distant commanders to direct warplanes to targets with stunning speed and accuracy.

One result was a relentlessly accurate bombardment conducted day and night, under clear and cloudy skies alike, that led to the collapse of Taliban and Al Qaeda forces, air power experts say. Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners have confirmed that the precise bombing from planes they often could not hear or see broke the will of battle-hardened troops. And when precision was no longer needed, the Air Force dropped three 15,000-pound Daisy Cutter bombs, largely for the terrifying psychological impact they have as they explode just above ground, wiping out everything for hundreds of yards.

The relatively small number of civilian casualties made possible by the pinpoint bombing helped the United States maintain the support of friendly Islamic nations. And the air campaign's deadly effectiveness helped embolden opposition commanders.

"This is a new pattern of warfare that is focused and directed against individuals we're trying to defeat," said Richard P. Hallion, the historian of the United States Air Force and an authority on air power. "There's not that image of uncaring, rampant destruction."

The implications of this kind of air campaign loom large not only for the next phase of the war on terrorism, but also for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's vision of overhauling the armed forces to respond more quickly to emerging threats. Only the United States can marshal this kind of air power and wield it anywhere in the world.

It was Mr. Rumsfeld and top military aides, along with Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of allied forces in Afghanistan, and Lt. Gen. Charles F. Wald, the former air commander, who largely developed the war plan and managed it from the Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Central Command in Tampa, Fla., and a brand-new air operations center at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

The ability to bomb targets with precision could be a potent weapon against terrorist safe houses and command centers hidden among schools, hospitals and homes in crowded urban areas, Pentagon planners said. Indeed, satellite images from Afghanistan show bomb craters circling mosques and homes - showing the Pentagon's confidence about striking near civilians.

"We didn't just drop bombs," said Capt. Dave Mercer, commander of the Enterprise-based Carrier Air Wing 8, which dropped the first bombs of the war. "We always had a precise aim point."

Precision bombing could in the future also enable carrier-based fighters or long-range bombers operating from the United States to strike terrorist training camps in far- flung regions where American bases and troops are not wanted. And it could do those things without endangering, or even moving, large numbers of American forces.

"The enemy's sanctuary is being decreased more and more all the time," a senior Air Force official said.

Still, administration officials warn against assuming the exact formula used to such great effect in Afghanistan would work against other potential foes, especially Iraq. The Taliban military is a shadow of the Iraqi army, they said. Baghdad's air defenses, while battered and jury-rigged, would still pose a threat to lumbering B-52's and AC-130's. And there is no organized Iraqi opposition army comparable to the Northern Alliance.

"They're two different countries with two different regimes, two different military capabilities," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said last week. "They are so significantly different that you can't take the Afghan model and immediately apply it to Iraq." More broadly, air power experts said, the Afghan campaign underscores that air power, to be effective, still requires ground forces to either flush an enemy into the open or force the opposition to congregate in a mass, where it can be attacked more easily. And without spotters on the ground, American bombs damaged residential areas, especially early in the war, killing and wounding an unknown number of civilians.

Late last week, in an incident that showed the importance of intelligence from the ground, local Afghan officials and villagers asserted that American planes had mistakenly attacked a convoy carrying tribal leaders to inaugural ceremonies in Kabul. A spokesman for the Central Command today repeated the military's contention that a convoy carrying Al Qaeda or Taliban forces fired first at American warplanes.

"Air and ground forces work like hammer and anvil to put the enemy in a pincer," said Robert A. Pape, a political science professor at the University of Chicago who has written extensively on air power. "But there's a danger in thinking that it's all hammer and no anvil, that air power alone with maybe only a few Special Forces, is the key. You need the ground element."

Also, the current stock of bombs still cannot destroy the deepest, most sophisticated caves and bunkers - a problem that would haunt operations in places like Iraq or North Korea, which have many underground command centers.

The Pentagon acknowledged the limits of its current "bunker-busting" bombs when it announced plans last week to ship to Afghanistan a new kind of laser-guided "fuel- air" bomb, which creates an enormous blast capable of sucking oxygen out of caves by detonating a billowing cloud of fuel.

Still, the advances in American air power since the Persian Gulf war, and even since Kosovo, have been dramatic. Less than 10 percent of the bombs dropped in the gulf war were precision-guided. In Afghanistan, nearly 60 percent of the 14,000 missiles, bombs and other ordnance were steered to their targets by lasers or satellites.

Precision Bombing New Guidance for Old Bombs

Few weapons systems better show the evolution of precision-guided weapons than the Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM.

The idea for the JDAM was born during the gulf war, where the most advanced precision munitions of the day, laser-guided bombs, could be thrown off target by clouds or dust storms that deflect the laser beams.

The Pentagon ordered the creation of a new, all-day, all-weather pinpoint munition that could be guided by a satellite-based Global Positioning System. It also insisted that the new system be created out of old fashioned gravity bombs to save money.

The result was the JDAM: a $20,000 kit that, when attached to the tail of a free-fall bomb, typically a 2,000-pounder, can maneuver it to a target by adjusting its fins to correct its course, using constant position updates from orbiting satellites. Even if the G.P.S. fails or is jammed, the kit has an inertial navigation system - a kind of electronic gyroscope - that can be programmed with target coordinates from the launching aircraft.

Testing has shown that with the G.P.S.- guided system, the JDAM usually falls within 13 yards of its target; with just an internal navigation system, it typically lands within 30 yards, still inside the bomb's blast zone. But the JDAM remains less accurate than laser-guided weapons and is not as effective against moving targets.

The JDAM's first combat use was in the 1999 Kosovo campaign, where its utility was limited because only the B-2 stealth bomber was outfitted to drop it. But today most fighters and bombers can drop JDAM's. As a result, it has been the weapon of choice in Afghanistan, where more than 4,200 have been dropped, about one-third of all the munitions used in the war.

According to the Air Force, fewer than five have gone astray, all because of human error. The best-known mistake, where a 2,000-pound bomb killed three American Special Forces soldiers near Kandahar earlier this month, occurred when the ground spotter gave his own coordinates to the bombardier aboard a B-52, officials said.

The Navy launched so many JDAM's early in the conflict that it had to ask the Air Force to replenish its supply. And since Sept. 11, Boeing has twice been ordered to increase production.

Spotting the Enemy Keeping Sharp Eyes Above the Battlefield

The evolution in bomb technology has paralleled improvements in the airborne surveillance sensors used to spot and track targets. Those sensors have operated unmolested in American-controlled Afghan skies, allowing slow-moving planes to cast a 24- hour reconnaissance blanket across the country.

Since Kosovo, the Pentagon has learned how to link its aircraft together, allowing Predator drones, RC-135 Rivet Joint and U-2 reconnaissance planes, and E-8C Joint Stars ground-radar planes to share information, guide each other to uncovered areas, focus on specific targets and watch the battlefield around the clock.

The greatest leap has been in surveillance drones, the Pentagon says. The remotely controlled Predator, which in recent years had seen limited use in the Balkans and Iraq, carries radar that can see through cloud cover and infrared lenses that work in low light. Its video camera can transmit live images to the command center in Saudi Arabia or directly to the cockpit of an AC-130 gunship. Soon, it will be able to do the same for other aircraft, the Pentagon says.

Most important, Pentagon officials said, the Predator can stay aloft for nearly 24 hours, allowing it to fly from bases in Pakistan or Uzbekistan, hang over Afghan target areas for about 14 hours and then return to base.

But the Predator has problems. It is slow- moving and operates at relatively low altitudes, making it easy prey for antiaircraft fire. At least two Predators have crashed in Iraq this year, presumably shot down, officials said. They are also extremely vulnerable to icing, and it is not clear whether they can operate in the brutal Afghan winter.

The Global Hawk, an experimental unmanned spy plane, is intended to address some of those problems: it can fly above 60,000 feet, well above anti-aircraft fire, and its longer range and greater speed enable it to watch a much broader swath of country.

But the Global Hawk also has its limitations. Video cameras are not effective at high altitudes, so the Global Hawk produces only still images, albeit very high resolution images, Air Force officials said. Its digital images also cannot be downloaded directly to other aircraft yet, so they must first be analyzed by commanders far from the battlefield. That has reduced the aircraft's utility in providing intelligence on moving or changing targets.

For all the advances in unmanned technology, however, the air campaign was most effective when human ground spotters were present, senior Pentagon officials said.

Since biplanes first dropped crude bombs in World War I, the military has been using ground spotters to direct pilots to targets. But recent technological improvements - smaller G.P.S. units, better lasers, hand-held range finders that calculate coordinates, and radios that allow soldiers to talk or send maps and close-up photographs to pilots - have made the spotters far more effective.

Moreover, the Pentagon has greatly expanded and standardized training for spotters, known as forward air controllers, so they can work with pilots from other services. In Afghanistan, Air Force air controllers traveling on horseback with Army Special Forces and Northern Alliance troops called in strikes from Navy pilots flying off aircraft carriers hundreds of miles away.

"The more people we get on the ground, the better the targeting information is," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

In Saudi Arabia, American commanders could watch all these moving parts on a big screen, directing aircraft like pieces on a chess board. And in the air, pilots were constantly receiving new intelligence on targets, enabling them to redraw plans in midflight and strike fleeing soldiers, tanks, truck convoys and other targets.

"We could change targets at any point," Captain Mercer said. "That used to be something we did by exception. In Afghanistan, we did it all the time."

The Warplanes High Technology for Big Bombers

The most stark example of the new flexibility was the B-52. First built in the 1950's to drop nuclear bombs on the Soviet Union, the huge jet became best known for carpeting North Vietnam with inaccurate free-fall bombs. Now B-52's carry precision munitions, and their mission has drastically changed, as the cluster-bomb strikes on Kunduz illustrated.

Flying 15-hour roundtrip missions from the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, aging B-52 and B-1 bombers refitted with advanced electronics and communications gear could loiter over the battlefield waiting for Special Operations forces on the ground to call in strikes.

Some missions had pre-planned targets, ranging from troops to tanks to command posts. Other times, the bomber crews received fresh intelligence en route, requiring them to throw out their original attack plan and start over from scratch.

"We'd pick a spot we thought safe, and wait for a tasking," a female B-1 pilot, who spoke on condition she be identified by her call sign, Hogg, said in a telephone interview from Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., after returning home recently.

Just as the JDAM enhanced the precision of gravity bombs, a similar device called the Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser has improved the accuracy of cluster bombs.

Until now, munitions containing cluster bombs could be easily blown off course when dropped at high altitudes, increasing the risk of spewing bomblets on civilians.

Each munition dispenser costs $8,900, and when fitted to the tail of a CBU-87 cluster bomb, the unit's inertial guidance system keeps the bomb on course through high winds until it is ready to disgorge its 200 bomblets. The CBU-87's bomblets cover an area approximately 200 yards by 400 yards. The refitted cluster bombs hit within 10 yards of their target, analysts say. Without the device, the bomb's accuracy decreases sharply unless the bomber flies lower, risking groundfire.

The B-52's improved weaponry and enhanced data links have allowed commanders greater flexibility in deploying the bomber.

"The B-52's take off, and they don't know what their targets are going to be until they arrive," said Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff. "We are inventing these tactics more or less in the course of battle so we get this job done."

---------

U.S. Resumes Bombing in Afghanistan

December 24, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-attack-military.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has resumed bombing in Afghanistan after a lull following a deadly raid on a convoy that Afghan survivors said was a mistaken target, the Pentagon said on Monday.

Airstrikes resumed on Sunday with a B-52 heavy bomber attack on caves and ammunition dumps north of Kandahar, using precision-guided munitions in the drive against Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, defense officials said.

``They did multiple strikes,'' said Air Force Lt. Col. Ken McClellan, a Pentagon spokesman. ``Apparently they hit an ammo dump. So there were a lot of secondaries,'' or follow-on explosions.

In Afghanistan, the new interim leader, Hamid Karzai, met a survivor of the convoy from which about 60 people were killed in the eastern province of Paktia during bombing late Thursday into Friday.

Survivors have said they were hit while en route to Karzai's swearing-in ceremony in the capital of Kabul, possibly because they were deliberately misidentified to U.S. forces by foes of various ethnic Pashtun elders in the motorcade.

Karzai's spokesman added his voice to speculation that the convoy might have been deliberately misidentified to the Americans.

``Rivalries among the various tribes may have led to the incident,'' said Ustad Stanikzai.

But U.S. defense officials say they struck a valid target -- presumed to be Taliban militia -- after members of the convoy fired shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles at U.S. warplanes.

``I will tell you, having been in touch with my headquarters, that at this point we believe it was a good target,'' Army Gen. Tommy Franks said Saturday in Kabul after the swearing-in ceremony for Karzai. A defense official said U.S. and allied forces will soon make a new push into caves and tunnels in eastern Afghanistan as the hunt continues for bin Laden, blamed by the United States for Sept. 11 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people.

``Operations are imminent'' in the Tora Bora complex of the White Mountains, the last al Qaeda bastion to fall to U.S.-backed anti-Taliban forces, the official said.

NEW BOMBS

The Pentagon said on Friday that it was sending 10 experimental ``thermobaric'' bombs to Afghanistan to blast the air out of caves and underground facilities.

U.S. air strikes on the caves and tunnels of Tora Bora and a ground offensive by anti-Taliban forces have driven out hundreds of al Qaeda fighters, leaving a potential treasure trove of intelligence behind.

Army Sgt. Major Rich Czizik, a spokesman for the Tampa, Florida-based U.S. Central Command, the military unit running the campaign in Afghanistan, said the thermobaric bombs had not yet arrived in Afghanistan as far as he knew.

U.S. and allied forces are still seeking remnants of Afghanistan's Taliban militia, al Qaeda and bin Laden himself. But U.S. officials admit they have no idea whether bin Laden is still in Afghanistan or whether he is still alive.

In Islamabad, Kenton Keith, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said ``it's quite possible'' the Saudi-born militant was killed in recent bombing. But the defense official in Washington said: ``The hunt continues.''

The Central Command discounted published reports that radiological material had been found in the region of the southern city of Kandahar, the last major Taliban bastion to fall in the war that began with U.S. and British airstrikes on Oct. 7.

A spokesman in Tampa, Navy Commander Dan Keesee, said evidence -- which he declined to discuss further -- had been found indicating al Qaeda forces had an interest in developing weapons of mass destruction.

``(But) we have no reports ... that confirm the finding of any radiological material. So far, we have only detected natural background radiation at those sites we've surveyed,'' Keesee said.

Defense officials told Reuters on Thursday that about 500 U.S. Marines had been put on stand-by in Afghanistan for possible orders to help search the caves.

Dozens of U.S. Special Operations forces have been in the Tora Bora region for weeks, coaching anti-Taliban Afghan forces and directing airstrikes against the caves and tunnels.

On the humanitarian front, elements of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division and other U.S. forces are upgrading airfields and infrastructure at Mazar-e-Sharif and Bagram so they can be used for large-scale aid distribution in Afghanistan, McClellan, the Pentagon spokesman, said.


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS

Some mentally ill held years for misdemeanors

December 24, 2001
By Larry O´Dell
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20011224-22323432.htm

RICHMOND - Some mentally ill Virginians have spent years locked up in state psychiatric hospitals after entering insanity pleas to petty crimes otherwise punishable by no more than a year in jail, a state study has found.

The misdemeanors include such offenses as being publicly drunk, cursing a police officer and spitting in public. One man accused of breaking a window has been confined for 13 years.

The Virginia State Crime Commission studied the problem at the behest of the General Assembly. A draft report was presented to the bipartisan legislative commission this week.

State Sen. Janet Howell, a commission member who requested the study, said she was appalled to learn that state law allowed indefinite confinement of nonviolent offenders who pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

"You have people serving much longer times than they would have to serve if they had just entered a guilty plea," said Mrs. Howell, Fairfax County Democrat.

She said defense attorneys have begun to note the disparity and advice against insanity pleas. Mentally ill defendants can plead guilty and serve short jail terms, but they are more likely to commit other crimes after being released, having not received treatment, Miss Howell said.

"Public safety is lessened by the policy, which is the opposite of what you might think," she said.

Data prepared for presentation to the commission showed that of more than 250 people placed in Virginia state mental institutions for crimes, 63 committed misdemeanors. The average confinement for those 63 persons is three years.

"It's troubling to me that someone could be locked up in a mental health facility far beyond the time they would have spent in jail if convicted," said state Delegate Robert F. McDonnell, Virginia Beach Republican and the commission's vice chairman.

Mrs. Howell said she will introduce legislation that would limit to one year the state's confinement of misdemeanor defendants who plead not guilty by reason of insanity.

If authorities believe a patient should not be released, they would have to prove their case in court in a civil commitment proceeding.

Under the current system, patients can petition a forensics review board annually for release over five years - and every other year after that - but the burden is on patients to prove they would not endanger others or themselves.

Valerie Marsh, state executive director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, supports Mrs. Howell's proposal. Mrs. Howell said she hopes the commission also will endorse the proposal.

"The situation now is a waste of tax dollars, a waste of space," Miss Marsh said. "It's very unfair. There are people who need those beds."

It costs about $160,000 a year to maintain a patient in a state mental health facility, according to the commission's data.

The commission's draft report says mental heath officials, concerned about protecting the public, in some cases have been too reluctant to release patients who have committed crimes while mentally ill.

"For those charged with misdemeanors, particularly nonviolent misdemeanors, there may be little or no justification at all for extended confinement," according to the draft report.

Richard Kellogg, the state's mental health commissioner, said changes are needed.

"It's no benefit to the state, and inappropriate for the state, to keep people beyond their legal responsibility under a 'not guilty by reason of insanity' plea," he said.

However, he said the mental health system should not lose sight of its public safety responsibility.

----

Dog patrols, shoe checks set up at Paris airport after security breach

Monday December 24, 2001
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/011224/1/26vdk.html

Extra security teams with sniffer dogs patrolled Paris' main airport of Charles de Gaulle and inspected shoes after a weekend security breach involving a passenger who boarded a flight with explosives hidden in his shoes.

Passengers were being asked to remove their shoes for inspection and army troops brought in under an emergency plan following the September 11 attacks in the United States were to begin using dogs, French police said.

The security gates which passengers have to go through before boarding can detect only metal objects, and officials said dogs were the best way of checking for concealed explosives.

A man carrying a passport issued to Richard Colvin Reid but who identifed himself as Tariq Raja, from Sri Lanka, got on board a Miami-bound American Airlines flight on Saturday with explosives hidden in his sports shoes.

Raja, who French police have identified as Abdel Rahim, a name reflecting his conversion to Islam, was only prevented from igniting the explosives after a flight attendant smelled sulfur when passing the man's seat and saw him trying to ignite a wire protruding from the heel of the running shoes.

He was overpowered by passengers and crew before he could detonate the explosives, investigators said. In addition to six already-existing border police dog-handling teams that patrol the airport from 5:30 am to 10 pm each day, special teams of customs and police officials were being drafted in, police said.

Meanwhile top French ministerial officials were meeting to discuss Saturday's incident, and at least two official inquiries were under way on airport security in France.

Officials from the Transport, Finance, Defence, Justice and Interior Ministries were holding a special session of a committee on sensitive airline flights. The Transport Ministry said it was unlikely that a statement would be issued after the meeting.

French officials said earlier that a special anti-terrorist prosecution service had initiated an inquiry into the incident, which occurred on a Boeing 767 plane operated by American Airlines.

The Interior Ministry also ordered the border police to launch an inquiry into how the passenger involved in the incident was able to get aboard the flight.

French police confirmed that the passenger, who was carrying a recently-issued British passport, had boarded Saturday's flight using a round-trip ticket to the Caribbean island of Antigua, going via Miami.

The same man had been refused entry to the same flight the previous day, when American Airlines staff found his behaviour strange.

Police said the suspicions of staff were aroused by the fact that the man had no hold luggage for such a long flight, and that he was "behaving bizarrely, was agitated and had a worrying look."

-------- terrorism

Fake British passports are on sale for £7,000

By Sean O'Neill
24/12/2001
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$5UBLXGYAACYDJQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2001/12/24/wreid224.xml

THE standard 10-year British passport is obtained by supplying documents confirming the applicant's identity, two signed photographs and a fee of £28. The bogus British passport can cost as much as £7,000.

There is a widespread false identity trade and it is not yet known if the man arrested on the Boston-bound flight was travelling under his own name or had illegally obtained a British passport in the name of Richard Colvin Reid.

An estimated 20 million false identities are in circulation in Britain, mostly created by obtaining National Insurance numbers.

But dealing in forged passports and passports obtained by falsified application is also on the increase and British documents have been used by terrorist suspects and criminals around the world.

In August this year, Eric Franklin Rosser - one of the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives - was arrested in Bangkok travelling on a British passport in the name of Peter Alexander Hill.

Rosser, 49, a dangerous paedophile, had used the passport to make frequent trips between Europe and Thailand.

The Spanish authorities investigating an al-Qa'eda cell in Madrid are trying to trace Abu Muhgen, an alleged operative, who is reported to have been arrested in Turkey, en route to Chechnya, in possession of a British passport.

The three IRA suspects arrested in Colombia and accused of training communist guerrillas in the use of explosives had false British passports. However, not everyone seeking false passports is involved in serious, organised crime.

Illegal immigrants seeking access to Britain or work while they are here may also try to obtain passport identification. Two Iranians arrested in Cyprus in October with false British passports were en route to Britain.

One claimed to have paid £2,800 in Teheran for a forged passport as part of a deal by which he was to be smuggled to Britain via Turkey and northern Cyprus.

Dealers in false British passports have also claimed that they sell documents to overseas students who are seeking to reduce university tuition fees by posing as British citizens.

Bogus British passports are usually obtained in three ways: theft, forgery and applications using other false documents.

Stolen passports can be altered to provide someone who is not a British citizen with a genuine document. Passports are sometimes stolen by design but opportunist thieves can also find outlets for documents.

A passport stolen in a handbag snatch in London last year was obtained by a Nigerian fraud ring which altered it, affixed a new photograph and used it to open bank accounts through which large sums of money were laundered.

Forgery of passports has been made easier by the ready availability of computers, digital photography, scanners and colour laser printing.

A passport racketeer based in north London boasted to undercover reporters how she charged £7,000 to obtain a legitimate British passport using false documents to support the application.

----

Odor of Burning Was First Sign of Trouble
Safely in Miami, Passengers Tell of Ordeal

By Catharine Skipp and Pamela Ferdinand
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, December 24, 2001; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19211-2001Dec23?language=printer

MIAMI, Dec. 23 -- Two days before Christmas, passengers of American Airlines Flight 63 today described their ordeal in the skies above the Atlantic and rejoiced that they survived what could have been another chapter in the recent annals of terrorism.

Their flight, which was diverted to Boston Saturday, touched down at Miami International Airport shortly after 6 a.m. today -- 15 hours late, one passenger short and more than 24 hours after their journey began. Weary and grateful travelers fell into the arms of friends and family members, who had expected them Saturday on a direct flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

"This will be the best Christmas ever," said passenger Peter Ensink, a Swiss salesman.

Ensink and the rest of the flight's 185 passengers and 12 crew members spent 10 hours at Boston's Logan International Airport Saturday being searched and questioned by federal investigators. Their encounter with the suspect, who was identified by his British passport as Richard Colvin Reid, has raised new questions about airport security and heightened travel anxieties during this holiday week.

Some passengers said they noticed the suspect immediately upon boarding. They described him as a large man with a beard and long, curly hair tied in a ponytail. He wore baggy pants, a dark jacket and black high-top basketball sneakers, and had a noticeably blank expression, they said.

He reportedly was overheard conversing with a crew member in Arabic, but also appeared to speak perfect English, passengers said. The suspect took his seat in Row 29 near the middle of the plane.

"He looked like he was on something," said Monique Danison, 20, heading home to California after a study program in France. "I remember thinking, if he's a terrorist, he's a moron because he stood out when I saw him."

After the flight attendants served lunch -- a choice of salmon or a turkey sandwich, both of which Reid declined -- passengers said Reid was briefly reprimanded for trying to light a match in violation of a prohibition against smoking.

Then some passengers noticed an odd smell in the cabin, akin to burning sulfur.

A flight attendant called to investigate the odor caught Reid trying to set fire to the tongue of one of his suede sneakers.

She tried to stop him and called for help.

"She was shouting, 'Stop it, put it out! Someone help me!' " said Maija Karhusaari, 29, of Helsinki, who sat two rows ahead.

Another attendant rushed to aid her but was bitten on the thumb by the suspect. The first flight attendant continued to cry for help, and a crew member told passengers, "We need some big guys back there, real quick."

One passenger said he reached over the seat and pulled Reid's arm back. Two others grabbed his legs while burning material was wrested from his hand. Others jumped over fellow passengers and raced to help. Several passengers reportedly poured water on the suspect, who warned at one point that he was "wired," while someone threatened him with a fire extinguisher.

One French passenger, Thierry Dugeon, sprinted 10 rows up the narrow aisle from his seat at the back of the plane.

"It's three months after Sept. 11. Of course, the first thing you think is something like terrorism," he said. "It's pure instinct, it goes so fast."

Kwame James, a 6-foot-8 professional basketball player, said on ABC's "This Week" that he and two other men held Reid down for 10 minutes while other passengers and crew members used anything at hand -- leather belts, straps, seat belts and earphone cords -- to restrain him.

The three men spent the rest of the flight keeping the suspect subdued in his seat. It wasn't easy.

"He was unbelievably strong," James said. "We just pretty much held him from his shoulders and his upper body so he couldn't make any rapid movements."

Two French doctors, meanwhile, injected Reid with sedatives from the plane's medical kit. Crew members cleared the nearby aisles, and a flight attendant tried to question him about his nationality.

The suspect responded that he was Jamaican. His shoes, which reportedly had protruding wires, were taken off, and a British passport was seized. One passenger said two audiotapes were found in his possession and turned over to the pilot.

James said he and other passengers asked the man what he had been trying to do.

"He said, 'We'll see,' or 'You'll see,' or something to that extent," James said.

Today, Reid was being held under constant watch in a jail in Plymouth, Mass.

But during the remainder of the flight, crew members asked passengers to remain seated and not worry, although the plane was being diverted to Boston and would be escorted by F-15 fighter jets.

A few people managed to relieve their tension with laughter during the in-flight movie, "Legally Blonde."

But most sat in silence, left to wonder whether a bomb had been stashed in the cargo hold or if any other passengers could be accomplices.

Geoffrey Bessin, a New York-born software designer who lives in France, said, "After it happened, the pilot came over the announcement to tell us to get to know our neighbors."

Ferdinand reported from Boston.


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Vestas bullish on sales if US tax credit extended

DENMARK: December 24, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13821/story.htm

COPENHAGEN - Leading wind power turbine maker Vestas has been so cautious in its 2002 sales forecast that a sales forecast upgrade might well lie ahead for the Danish firm if the U.S. extends its favourable tax credit for wind energy, its Chief Executive Officer said last week.

The U.S. stimulus package, including a two-year extension of the PTC (production tax credit), is still in jeopardy, needing approval in the Democrat-led Senate.

The package, aimed at reviving the U.S. economy, died in the Senate on Thursday after a pre-dawn passage through the Republican-led House of Representatives on disagreement over taxes and help to the unemployed as Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle refused to bring the bill to the vote.

Congress goes on Christmas holiday at the end of the week.

"We had expected the U.S. to extend the PTC before the new year, and we still have a fragile hope that it will pass it before year-end," Vestas Chief Executive Johannes Poulsen told Reuters.

Vestas foresees 55 percent growth in sales to 10 billion crowns ($1.2 billion) this year, but only edging up to 10.5 billion crowns in 2002 due to a slowdown in the U.S. market.

VESTAS CAUTIOUS ON 2002 TURNOVER

"Right now it looks as if we have been so cautious that if the U.S. extends the PTC sometime soon, we will become more optimistic about our 2002 forecast. Our impression is that a lot of projects have come far in their development," Poulsen said.

The United States is among 2001's top three windpower markets along with Germany and Spain. Vestas expected sales to rise to 14 billion crowns by 2003 as the United States was seen regaining momentum.

The PTC runs until the new year and provides a 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour tax credit for electricity produced by wind energy installed before December 31.

Last week at 1430 GMT shares in Vestas dropped 3.4 percent or eight crowns to 229 crowns as the most traded stock on the Copenhagen bourse. Shares have risen 11 percent over the past two days in anticipation of a pre-Christmas approval of the stimulus package.

"Insecurity is again growing. A lot of people expected the PTC to be extended before Christmas. Nothing is going to happen in the U.S. windpower market until the politicians decide on something, PTC or no PTC," one analyst said.

Vestas is ready to install production capacity in the U.S. if the PTC is extended by at least two years, Poulsen said.

-------- environment

US EPA says it won't regulate dioxin in landfills

USA: December 24, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13826/story.htm

WASHINGTON - The federal government will not regulate levels of dioxin in sewage sludge that is incinerated or placed in sludge landfills or containment ponds, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced last week.

Dioxins are a group of highly toxic compounds that are a byproduct of some combustion and chemical manufacturing processes.

EPA said in a statement that existing regulations for incinerators, landfills and containment ponds "adequately protect human health and the environment by limiting exposure to pollutants, including dioxins."

But the agency said it will continue considering whether to regulate dioxin in sewage sludge that is applied on land.

----

Congress passes bill to clean up, redevelop toxic waste sites

Monday, December 24, 2001
By Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/12/12242001/ap_green_45964.asp

WASHINGTON--Congress has passed the biggest environmental bill of the year, a 5-year venture giving states up to dlrs 200 million a year to clean up more than 500,000 polluted industrial sites.

The House of Representatives approved on Thursday the so-called "brownfields" legislation on a voice vote after an all-night session in which lawmakers agreed a federal prevailing wage law should apply to the new state grants program for cleanups.

Senate passage by voice vote followed, despite earlier objections by some Republicans to language that would require cleanup contractors to pay prevailing union wages.

The provisions sought by President George W. Bush's administration are intended to exempt innocent developers from having to pay decontamination costs if toxic waste is found on a site after it is purchased.

But so-called federal Superfund law still would apply, putting responsibility on those who caused the spill or leakage.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman said the legislation would cut down on legal wrangling by distinguishing between large-scale polluters and smaller developers who don't deserve to be penalized. The bill also contains a brownfields-to-parks funding provision intended to encourage communities to reclaim land for public use.

Environmental groups described the bill as a win-win measure.

"We consider that liability protection a blessing, because it specifically shields innocent purchasers who are trying to do something right with properties that someone else used badly," said Alan Front, a senior vice president for Trust for Public Land.

-------- health

Myrrh may have potent anticancer effects

12/24/2001
UPI
http://www.upi.com/print.cfm?StoryID=19122001-023353-3556r

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. -- A recently discovered compound in the golden herb myrrh -- one of the legendary gifts of the magi presented to Jesus by the Three Wise Men -- may prove to have potent anti-cancer effects against tumors resistant to other drugs.

"It's a very exciting discovery," said researcher Mohamed Rafi, a food scientist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. "I'm optimistic that this compound can be developed into an anti-cancer drug."

Rafi cautioned, however, that the myrrh compound has not been tested in animals or humans yet.

Myrrh is a yellow, bitter-tasting resin used for thousands of years to kill pain and treat stomach ailments and diarrhea. The fragrant gum has also been used in perfumes, embalming fluid and even bad breath remedies.

As part of a larger search for anti-cancer agents in plants, the researchers tested a colorless oil extracted from a species of myrrh from China against human breast tumor cells resistant to other anti-cancer drugs. They found the oil killed all of the cells in laboratory dishes.

The active component of the extract is a unique and previously unknown compound belonging to a class of chemicals known as sesquiterpenoids that are typically found in natural products. It appears to kill cancer cells by inactivating a key protein overproduced by tumors, particularly those of the breast and prostate. Too much of this protein, called Bcl-2, is believed to promote cancer cell growth and increase their resistance to chemotherapy.

The compound appears to fall within the moderate strength range of other recently discovered anti-cancer chemicals from plants, such as grapes, soy, tomatoes and tea. The myrrh agent does not appear as strong as conventional chemotherapy drugs which are highly toxic to healthy cells. Rafi said these particular plant chemicals are unlikely to be toxic to healthy cells because they all come from food, which could mean fewer side effects for cancer patients.

"You can eat this and not have any side-effects, and that is not something you can do with any other chemotherapy drug," Rafi said in an interview with United Press International. "Myrrh is widely used as a food additive in the Middle East, India and China. It's in the food chain."

Animal studies are currently planned for the myrrh compound. Developing any anticancer drug from myrrh may take five to ten years, Rafi said.

Once the compound is better understood, it is possible that its potency could be increased. The investigators are in the process of trying to determine whether the compound has other inhibitory mechanisms against cancer cells. In addition, Rafi predicted that there may be other compounds in myrrh more potent than the anti-cancer agent found so far.

"It's interesting that myrrh has come up... you have similar traits in rosemary and cherry powder," commented Ann Marie Hill, executive director of the New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research in Trenton. "We're finding that many botanical materials have anticancer capabilities. Now it's time to gather the evidence and make sure what does work and what doesn't work, so that people interested in complementary medicines can make informed decisions. Over 80 percent of cancer patients use some type of natural product in their treatment, which tells you why getting some information about these natural products is so important."

The researchers reported their findings in the Journal of Natural Products.

(Reported by Charles Choi in New York)

-------- imf / world bank / wto

Argentina makes biggest debt default in history

By Sophie Arie in Buenos Aires and Andrew Cave
24/12/2001
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$5WNOS1IAACZ3NQFIQMGCFF4AVCBQUIV0?xml=%2Fnews%2F2001%2F12%2F24%2Fwarg24.xml

ARGENTINA inaugurated its third president in four days yesterday and he immediately declared the biggest debt default in history, halting payments on the £94 billion the country owes.

Adolfo Rodriguez Saa said the suspension - a repayment of £4.2 billion is due next year - was aimed at freeing up funds to create a million jobs and finance social development programmes.

Mr Saa, a 54-year-old lawyer nicknamed El Adolfo, ruled out devaluing the peso or converting to US dollars. Instead, he will introduce a new currency to operate alongside the peso, which has been pegged at one to the dollar for a decade.

He promised to negotiate with international banks and said the suspension would not be permanent.

"Argentines demand a change . . . today we accept that challenge," Mr Saa said. Legislators cheered and chanted "Argentina! Argentina!" as he outlined the plan.

Under it, all state salaries including his own will be capped at a maximum $3,000 a month. The presidential aircraft and all cars used by public servants will be sold off.

He said: "We cannot conceive that in this country, with all its possibilities of production of food, its people are submitted to hunger, marginalisation and poverty."

Last week widespread rioting in which 26 people were killed brought down the government of the radical Fernando de la Rua. The country then drifted for two days with only a caretaker president.

Yesterday, Mr de la Rua was barred from leaving the country pending an investigation into the riots.

Mr Saa, a jovial but hard-talking millionaire businessman, has been governor of the small desert province of San Luis for 18 years, modernising it and turning it into the "cyber-centre" of Argentina, while the rest of the country scrambled to fill gaping budget holes.

The colourful populist from a well-known Argentine political family has built thousands of homes for the poor and improved schools in his province.

In 1993, he was hit by scandal when he was kidnapped and filmed having sex with one of his aides, Esther Sesin. She was later jailed for 12 years for various crimes including incitement to kidnap.

Mr Saa was badly beaten during the kidnapping and spent two days in hospital. He claimed he had been forced to have sex.

He will be interim president until March when a definitive president will be elected to complete the final two years of Mr de la Rua's term.


-------- activists

Why I Resisted Being Drafted into the Israeli Army

By Yair Khilou
December 24, 2001
Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/khilou.html

[Yair Khilou is a young activist in several radical left-wing groups, and one of the organisers behind the "letter of the twelfth-graders" (a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, signed by 62 youths, announcing their refusal to cooperate with the Israeli army's actions. Yair announced his conscientious objection to military service at the age of 16 and has refused to go through preliminary military medical and psychometric examinations (which most Israelis are obliged to go through at the age of 16 or 17). As a result, the military Conscience Committee refused to examine his case (they insisted that they need to have the results of his medical tests before they can decide on his case!) Two and a half weeks ago he reported at the Tel-Hashomer military compound, where he expected to be arrested for refusing to be enlisted. However, for bureaucratic reasons, he was only arrested yesterday.]

My name is Yair Khilou and I am 18 years old. I have refused to enlist in the army, and will soon be sent to military prison for that. I decided to write this statement before I am imprisoned because I believe that the reasons motivating me in my refusal to enlist in the army are shared by many people.

When I am asked to become part of a large and violent body such as the Israeli army, I should ask in what activities this body is engaged and whom does it serve. My parents, teachers and peers might answer that the army of the state is necessary to preserve my own security and the security of the citizens of the State of Israel. I desire very much that there will be security for the citizens of Israel and for me.

And still, I find this answer to be unsatisfactory. I fail to understand how does that pure Jewish space, which the State of Israel persistently tries to create by force since its establishment increases our security. I fail to understand how the repression of the Palestinian resistance to Israel by means of state terror--more cruel and of wider scale even than the counter terror which it provokes--serves the society that I am part of. How does the activity of the state, implemented through the army, can benefit me and those I care for?

The 'sterile' Jewish space created by the State of Israel is a ghetto for its Jewish residents as well. It prevents them from integrating into the Middle East. Nobody is safe in this space--neither Jews nor Arabs. Still, my opponents might claim, the State of Israel is a democracy and its army is the people's army. I wonder where these people live. I have no ability to affect the actions of the army, although my friends and I definitely try. I am unable to stop war, unemployment, inequalities.

The vast majority of Israeli citizens wish to change this state of affairs. And still, the state does everything to block peace, welfare and equality. Mysteriously, everything ends up serving the interests of capitalists and generals.

The Israeli military men and capitalists, together with their Palestinian peers, do everything they can to remain in power. Their mass media and educational system spread vicious nationalistic propaganda, hatred and fear. Thus they divide and rule us. They incite against each other Arabs and Jews, East and West, while they continue to reign. These are our real enemies, preventing us from attaining physical and economical security. Against them Arabs and Jews should stand together.

I am not willing to accept such a reality. I am all the more unwilling to contribute to its continuation and fortification by serving in the Israeli army or in any other terrorist organisation.

----

FBI eyes Muslim student groups

December 24, 2001
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011224-949619.htm

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Muslim student organizations on college campuses around the country have openly raised money for groups whose assets have been frozen by the U.S. government because of terrorism ties.

While authorities have identified no direct connection between the campus groups and terrorism, some security analysts and officials are calling for closer scrutiny.

The FBI refused to comment on the student organizations. But federal investigators following the money trail are looking at such groups, said George Vinson, California's homeland security adviser and a 23-year FBI veteran.

In light of the September 11 terrorist attacks, he said, "shame on law enforcement if we didn't do this."

He would not give details of what is being done.

Anti-terrorism consultant Larry Johnson, who once directed the State Department counterterrorism office, said he is advising his clients in the federal government to monitor the campus groups' phone calls, bank accounts and fund raising.

One organization that has raised money for groups targeted by the U.S. government is the Muslim Student Association, which has more than 100 campus chapters around the country and raises funds by way of rallies, meetings and Web sites.

The MSA urges donations to such groups as the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, and the Benevolence International and Global Relief foundations.

All three groups have had their assets frozen by the Bush administration because of reported connections to the al Qaeda terrorist network or the militant Hamas.

All three have denied they are terrorist-front organizations, insisting they raise money for food, schools and other social services.

The MSA's Ohio State University chapter produces a Web newsletter called MSA News, which has included press releases from the Algerian Armed Islamic Group, which is on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations that Americans are forbidden to support or finance, and the Islamic Salvation Front, a militant party banned in Algeria.

Altaf Husain, national president of the MSA, said his organization has no plans to stop raising money for various groups unless federal authorities crack down. He called suspicions about terrorist links post-attack "hype," and said it was up to the government to trace the money.

"We are as American as anyone else. Why should we be the ones looking for all these so-called 'sleeper cells' or whatever?" he said.

Mr. Husain said federal investigations after September 11 stem from the belief "that any group raising money for Muslims is funneling money to terrorists."

The president of the Islamic Association for Palestine often gives speeches sponsored by university groups. Israel has said the Texas-based group is a front for Palestinian militants, and federal authorities have subpoenaed the group's records for a look into Hamas connections to U.S. organizations.

The association's president, Rafeeq Jaber, said his aim is "to let people know the truth" about Israel and the occupied territories.

At the University of California at Los Angeles, the latest issue of the MSA's magazine, Al-Talib, features three full-page color ads soliciting donations for the Holy Land, and the Global Relief and Benevolence International foundations.

If the money raised on campus "goes to families of those who have died in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I don't see anything wrong with that," said the magazine's publisher, Mohammad Mertaban, 20, a junior from suburban Chino Hills, Calif. "I don't understand how people can label Palestinians terrorists."

----

A Christmas wreath for Satchmo

Nat Hentoff,
December 24, 2001
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20011224-908077.htm

Louis Armstrong, born 100 years ago, became known throughout the world as the very embodiment of timeless, exhilarating jazz. This month, hearing him read "A Visit from St. Nicholas" on HBO's Christmas special for young children recalled how his life, on and off the stage, dramatized what it is to be an American.

In the early 1950s, some of the younger black jazz musicians called Armstrong a "handkerchief head." Dizzy Gillespie, a rising star of modern jazz, spoke of Armstrong's "plantation image." Louis, the entertainer famous for his big grin, didn't seem in step with the civil rights movement.

By 1970, however, Dizzy Gillespie, at the Newport Jazz Festival said: "If it hadn't been for Louis, there wouldn't have been none of us. I want to thank Louis Armstrong for my livelihood." He, and everyone in jazz, realized that Armstrong was the most continually creative and influential soloist of the music.

Dizzy and other, younger musicians - black and white - had also discovered the fire for justice in Armstrong. In 1957, when Gov. Orville Faubus of Arkansas defied the Supreme Court and sent state troops to prevent black students from enrolling in a Little Rock public school, Armstrong said of Faubus and other white supremacists to the press: "The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell."

Later, when police brutally beat whites and blacks during Martin Luther King's march on Selma, Ala., Louis, playing in Copenhagen, said: "They would beat Jesus if he was black and marched."

But Louis never let his anger at Jim Crow turn him into what used to be called a reverse racist. When he was very young and poor in New Orleans he worked for a Jewish family, the Karmofskys. He had been blowing a tin horn, but saw a cornet in a pawn shop window for five dollars one day. Through the Karmofskys, Louis bought his first real trumpet.

Mrs. Karmofsky insisted that he eat dinner regularly with the family, and she taught him to sing "Russian Lullaby." He never forgot how "soft and sweet" it was, and how gently they said goodnight to each other. As Gary Giddins quotes him in "Satchmo" (Da Capo Press, 2001): "They were always warm and kind to me. When I reached the age of 11, I began to realize it was the Jewish family who instilled in me singing from the heart."

On the road, even after he had gone on overseas tours for the State Department and had become world famous, Armstrong remained familiar with Jim Crow. In 1960, when his band's bus was in Connecticut and Louis needed to use the bathroom, a restaurant owner refused him the use of the facilities.

Yet, as Dizzy Gillespie said, that grin - that delight in sharing his music with anyone who wanted to hear it - "showed his absolute refusal to let anything, even anger over racism, steal the joy from his life."

And he knew that changes in the country were taking place. In a letter to jazz writer Leonard Feather, Louis spoke of "one of my most inspiring moments. I was playing a concert date in a Miami auditorium. I saw thousands of people, colored and white, on the main floor, just all together - naturally. When you see things like that, you know you're going forward."

Louis had considerable impact on that forward motion. The late Charles Black, a longtime law professor at Yale University, was a key member of Thurgood Marshall's legal team, which won a historic series of victories against segregated public schools - reaching a climax in the unanimous 1954 Supreme Court Brown vs. Board of Education decision, declaring segregated public schools inherently unconstitutional.

Charles Black used to tell how, when he was 16-years-old, in Texas, growing up as a racist, he heard Louis Armstrong in a hotel in Austin. "He was the first genius I had ever seen," Black wrote. "It is impossible to overstate the significance of a 16-year-old Southern boy's seeing genius, for the first time, in a black. We literally never saw a black then in any but a servant's capacity. It was just then that I started walking to the Brown case where I belonged."

And so, Louis Armstrong became part of American constitutional history. To hear what Charles Black heard, I recommend the Columbia/Legacy series, which includes, "The Complete Louis Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings" and "Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy." And you will also enjoy "Louis Armstrong: The Complete RCA Victor Recordings" (Bluebird). On the Verve label, there is "Louis Armstrong/Satchmo: A Musical Autobiography," with narration by Louis.

If it were up to me, Louis Armstrong would be on Mount Rushmore with other American icons. Louis, and jazz, are part of the spirit of freedom.

Nat Hentoff is a columnist for The Washington Times. His column runs on Mondays.

[Nat Hentoff is among the few columnists who have stood up for First Amendment rights outside the White House. See http://prop1.org/history/1984/840320wp.ccnv.htm/]


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