------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
NY Indian Point 2 nuclear plant has small leak
US offers sites for first nuke plants in 20 years
Fast feud: World weighs U.S. power
Iraq sees 12 fold increase in cancer, depleted uranium cited
Nuclear safety should be key to EU entry - Palacio
Czech Temelin plant going on line after shutdown
Joint Chiefs Chair Opens India Trip
Bush to Visit South Korea Tuesday
Bush Visit Draws 'Evil' Epithets in South Korea
South Koreans Wary of Bush's Words
Anti-US rallies sweep S. Korea
Russian Official Named to New Post
Torpedo Eyed in Kursk Disaster
NRC ISSUES REPORTS ON SAFETY, ENFORCEMENT
USEC to Modify Ky. Plant
Nevada Governor Defends Nuclear Waste Site Lawsuit
Yucca Mountain FEIS
Nevada GOP Even Further in Debt
Wis. Rescue Workers Defend Funding of Windsled Purchase
'Axis of evil' dominates Tokyo
UPI Hears...

MILITARY
WRAPUP - US tightens nuclear security, Pearl's fate unknown
Air strikes hit Afghan targets
U.S. Backing Helps Warlord Solidify Power
FOR THE RECORD
Uganda Bolsters Congo Force as Clashes Kill 200
U.N. Evacuates Some Staff as Somali Clans Fight
Counterterrorism moves to Southeast Asia
Defense Official Praises Japan
Nepal Uses Rebel Attacks to Press Emergency Case
Bush Pledges U.S. Military Presence in Asia
Fair Trial for Milosevic Questioned
Dilution could extend smallpox vaccine supply
Bioterror funds a boon for public health
British Marines lose bearings and "invade" Spain
W uses fear to fatten military budget
Schooling for the future
Britain Tests Drugs Based on Marijuana
Italy drafts new law to oust illegal immigrants
Brits Storm Spanish Beach by Mistake
Lebanese daily: U.S. has already decided to attack Iraq
Iraqi Papers: U.S. Preparing to Attack Iraq
U.S. rejects assurances by Saddam on weapons
Why Europe Is Wary of War in Iraq
Palestinians Welcome Saudi Prince's Peace Proposal
Car Bomb Kills Israeli Policeman, Bomber
Palestinian Militants Stage Series of Deadly Attacks
Netanyahu Says Arafat Must Go
Police Seize Four Rockets Near Pakistani Airport
Pearl Abduction Was a Warning, Suspect Says
Rockets Defused in Pakistan
US Forces Approach Philippine Rebels
United States "forgets its friends": Mikhail Gorbachev
CIA misdeeds fit profile of terrorist operations
Chinese official denies bugging Jiang's plane
Saudi crown prince meets CIA chief
UN seeks crackdown on hazardous chemicals
Ex-police chief urged for U.N. drug post

POLICE / PRISONERS
The Great Unwatched
[Virginia] Bill seeks to limit cameras that spy
District's red-light camera conflict of interest
Fiji Court Sentences Coup Leader to Death
Fiji Rebel Speight Escapes Death Penalty

ENERGY AND OTHER
Wind farms offered hedge against windless days
Fate of hydrogen cars seen helped by Bush plan
Army Secretary's Enron Role Probed
FACTBOX - Bush climate change, pollution reduction plan
Theodore Roosevelt wouldn't bear ANWR drilling
Shipments of Scrap and Stress
Britain could approve prescription cannabis drugs
What U.S. newspapers are saying

ACTIVISTS
Israeli soldiers' revolt revives public debate
Protesters seek cardinal's resignation
New Yorker's Prison Sentence Upheld by Peruvian Court



-------- NUCLEAR

NY Indian Point 2 nuclear plant has small leak

REUTERS USA:
February 18, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14595/story.htm

NEW YORK - A day before the second anniversary of a major tube failure at the Indian Point 2 nuclear unit in New York, the plant is once again leaking a small amount of radioactive water, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said.

"This is a starkly different situation than two years ago when they had old steam generators that were leaking," said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan, noting the plant is not leaking enough radiation to harm anyone.

"This is very low leakage that is barely detectable and is being monitored very closely," Sheehan said.

The Indian Point station is located about 35 miles north of New York City on the Hudson River.

On Feb. 15, 2000, a tube in one of the steam generators at the 951 megawatt (MW) plant cracked, releasing radioactive steam into the atmosphere. That accident forced Consolidated Edison Inc. , which then owned the plant, to shut the unit for the rest of the year and replace its four steam generators.

Steam generators transfer heat from the reactor systems to the power-generating portion of a nuclear plant.

"Many steam generators leak," said Sheehan, noting that Entergy Nuclear, the new owner of Indian Point 2, has been monitoring for leaks.

Recently, Entergy Nuclear told the NRC it found some "extremely small" leakage.

Officials at Entergy Nuclear were not immediately available for comment.

Technical specifications allow Indian Point 2's steam generators to leak 432 gallons per day, most of which would be contained and recycled.

Entergy Nuclear has determined the present leakage of all four steam generators at the plant is 0.04 gallons per day.

"For all practical purposes ... any radiation release to the environment is practically zero. You certainly wouldn't pick up anything at the plant boundary because of this," Sheehan explained.

Entergy Nuclear, a unit of Entergy Corp. of New Orleans, purchased Indian Point 2 in 2001.

Entergy Nuclear, the biggest nuclear power plant operator in the U.S. Northeast, owns Indian Point 2, the adjacent 965 MW Unit 3, the 762 MW FitzPatrick station in New York and the 670 MW Pilgrim station in Massachusetts.

The company is also in the process of purchasing the 510 MW Vermont Yankee station in Vermont.

----

US offers sites for first nuke plants in 20 years

REUTERS USA:
February 18, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14569/story.htm

WASHINGTON - Utilities Exelon Corp. and Dominion Resources Inc. are studying sites to build the first new nuclear power plants in the United States in two decades, the Bush administration said.

The administration, which wants the nuclear industry to build several new power plants by 2010 to boost electricity production, said it was offering three federally-owned sites for the companies to consider.

The government's push for more plants has been criticized by some activist groups, who cite safety concerns and the growing volume of dangerous radioactive waste generated by 103 existing plants.

About 20 percent of the nation's electricity now comes from nuclear power plants.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the government would help fund the initial studies of private and federal sites for potential new plants that are being considered by Exelon and Dominion.

Locations under consideration include the Energy Department's engineering laboratory in Idaho, a nuclear weapons plant in South Carolina and a uranium recycling facility in Ohio are among

"Each of these sites has the right physical characteristics, experienced workforces and supportive local communities to make a nuclear plant project a success," Abraham said in a statement.

The utilities will pay most of the cost of the studies, he said.

No commercial nuclear power plants have been built in the United States since Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979.

The failure of Three Mile Island's water cooling system led to the partial melting of a reactor's uranium core and the $1 billion accident effectively halted the U.S. nuclear industry in its tracks.

Earlier Friday, President George W. Bush formally endorsed an Energy Department plan to build a storage site in Nevada for some 70,000 tons of nuclear waste. The site is opposed by Nevada's governor, who has threatened to sue to block the plan because he says dangerous material could leak into the ground.

An advisory panel to the Energy Department issued a "roadmap" several weeks ago spelling out steps needed for private industry to build new nuclear plants by 2010. It urged the administration to speed up the government licensing process for plants and to offer cost-sharing arrangements.

The report also said that to have new plants operating by 2010, utility owners would have to order them by the end of 2003.

Exelon is the largest U.S. nuclear plant owner with 17 reactors at 10 plants across the country, including Three Mile Island. Dominion Resources owns nuclear plants in Virginia and Connecticut.

----

Fast feud: World weighs U.S. power

By Don Melvin
COX NEWS AGENCY
February 18, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020218-71622792.htm

PARIS - The building across from the Gare du Nord train station is a massive stone structure that fills an entire city block. The windows have shutters on the sides, iron railings below, gargoyles above. The building conveys solidity, history, stateliness. It says, somehow, France.

But from one corner of the ground floor a red awning protrudes. And it bears a distinctly American emblem: the golden arches that denote McDonald's.

Inside, as he noshed on a Big Mac, fries and a shake, Jean-Philippe Bourgot, a 22-year-old mechanical engineering student, had some complaints about Americans.

"I feel like sometimes they are a bit arrogant," he said. Americans consume a disproportionate share of the world's natural resources but refuse to do anything about it. The United States tends to act solely out of self-interest and then uses its economic might to pressure other countries to go along, he added.

Similar conversations in similar settings can be heard around the world. McDonald's is, if not a symbol of global domination, evidence at least of American infiltration in almost every sphere of economic life.

From Tokyo to Moscow, the Middle East, Europe and Mexico, people gobble fries and complain about the selfish way Americans behave in international affairs.

"I feel they are very self-centered," said Hirokazu Okada, a 31-year-old free-lance proofreader, as he ate in a McDonald's in Tokyo. "I feel a sense of arrogance in their attitude."

"They don't go into a country and try to understand the culture," said another patron, Chisako Hara, 55, a part-time clerk. "Rather they go in and try to impose their own way and make it into the way they want it. Once it's done, they just leave."

These critics do not hate the United States. They do not consider it evil or a country that wreaks only havoc. They are a far cry from the French sheep farmer Jose Bove, who became a hero of the anti-globalism movement for vandalizing a French McDonald's to protest a U.S. levy on Roquefort cheese.

"The United States takes care of its own interests," said Gili Amoyall, an 18-year-old Israeli drama student eating lunch at a McDonald's in Jaffa, a neighborhood of Tel Aviv. "It does help the world, but for its own purposes."

Not everyone thinks that's a terrible thing.

"The United States is like a company, where the greatest shareholder has more right to intervene than others and make the rules," said Daniel Barrientos, 22, a plumbing parts salesman in Mexico City. "This is more true than ever today because of globalization."

While many people see the United States as overly focused on itself, they don't spend too much time thinking about the world's last superpower. Their focus often is elsewhere.

People worry about environmental degradation, the preservation of natural resources and the storage of nuclear waste. They worry about their children's chances to become educated and prosperous.

If she could change anything in the world, said Cecile Forrier, 21, a teacher's assistant in France, "I would try to make sure that everyone has access to an education. Because I myself am from a working-class family."

Some people worry about terrorism, saying that after the attacks of September 11 they no longer feel secure. But that fear is easing. A recent poll in Britain found that terrorism - mentioned as a primary concern by 40 percent of those surveyed two months ago - is now a major worry of only 13 percent.

The big concern in Europe, as expressed by Christophe Goulven, 23, a computer science student eating a Big Mac in Paris, is "European consolidation, first and foremost, so that we can strike a better balance with the United States, a better balance in economic ways, in political terms, in all respects."

In Moscow, many of the concerns are local.

People are worried about war in Chechnya, the Muslim republic in southern Russia where rebels have been fighting for independence. And they are worried about the government closure of TV-6, the last independent television station in the country.

"We are terribly, terribly disappointed at the closure," said Tatiana Malkova, 69, who met an old friend at McDonald's for a chat. "It is undoubtedly a political issue, one that can determine our lives in the next several years. We are feeling sad about the future for press freedom and for our own lives. Without freedom of speech there will be no prosperity, no money in our purses."

In Beijing, where the hundreds of McDonald's are festooned with paper horses, red lanterns and other decorations for the Chinese New Year, two themes are repeated: economic development and people's declining "suzhi." The term translates as "quality," but when used to describe people, it encompasses their morals, values and manners.

"Although people's standard of living has gone up and up, people's suzhi has not gone up," said Zhang Jie, a 26-year-old woman. "You can see it in their values and the way people treat each other. For example, on the bus, in the past a lot of people would give their seats to old people or pregnant women. Now no ones gives up their seat."

Two decades of explosive economic growth in China have raised living standards and given people more personal freedoms. But the byproducts include crime, prostitution and corruption.

In Japan, the biggest worry is the economy. A decade of recession and the highest unemployment rate in its postwar history have contributed to another postwar record: more than 33,000 suicides a year. And a dramatic fall in birth rates is creating a disproportionately elderly population.

"The whole pension system is crumbling," said Kayoko Tomita, 62, a housewife taking a coffee break. "We've seen the good times in Japan and contributed to it, and now we find ourselves in a position to enjoy it, but we can't."

Another issue facing Japan is what role it should play around the world. The country's postwar constitution is strongly pacifist and its troops are not allowed to take part in combat. But its parliament recently passed a law permitting Japan's ships to support the U.S. Navy in the war in Afghanistan.

"I'm against the idea of contributing military forces in such wars," said Mr. Okada, the proofreader. "But looking at the trend, it seems more and more likely that will happen."

In Colombia, from where American consumers obtain most of their cocaine - and the country in which the United States has invested more than $1 billion in mostly military aid - the problems are painfully obvious, said Jorge Forero, 44, a photographer.

"The guerrillas and the bad government, not necessarily in that order," he said as he munched burgers and fries with his wife and daughter in Bogota.

He fears the U.S. aid will be used not to solve problems but to kill people. The United States, he said, has done little at home to stem the demand for cocaine.

But from Mexico City comes the view that many of Latin America's problems are of its own making.

"Since we've all become more globalized," said Mario Bailon, 29, the owner of a print shop, "whatever happens in the United States affects us and every other country. I think this is just the price you pay for living in the same world. The difference is the United States has a more stable system than the Latin American countries. You can't blame the United States for everything that happens."

In the Middle East it is no surprise that, even in McDonald's, the conversation is dominated by war and peace.

For Moustafa Badr, 27, an architect in Cairo, the biggest issue is a Palestinian state.

"America could solve the problem in one day if they just pushed Israel to evacuate those crazy settlers and give the Palestinians the land they lost in 1967," he said, referring to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. "The fact that America doesn't do this is the reason why Arabs are angry right now."

Mr. Badr wishes Egypt were less dependent on the $2 billion a year it receives from the United States, so that it could "pursue an independent foreign policy with regards to Israel."

In Israel, too, the issue uppermost on the minds of many people is the fighting in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the last 16 months, more than 1,100 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed.

"I think this is going to be a war here," said Maya Mano, 18, who works behind the McDonald's counter in Jaffa. "It's going to be something big. I don't know, but I think it is going to involve the whole world."

It is fitting perhaps that humanity's most universal hope should be best expressed in this land of fighting and hatred - and by a child.

Michael Rosado is 10 years old, a Christian of Portuguese and Ecuadorian descent, and a member of Israel's underclass.

He came to McDonald's to pick up a carry-out order. Asked what he thinks the world needs most, he laughed a little, as if the answer was obvious.

"That there should be peace," he said. "People should talk to their enemies and become friends."

•Cox News Agency reporters Larry Kaplow in Egypt and Israel, Julie Chao in China and Japan, Susan Ferriss in Colombia and Mexico, and Irina Yermolenko in Russia also contributed to this article.


-------- depleted uranium

Iraq sees 12 fold increase in cancer, depleted uranium cited

Iraq, Health,
2/18/2002
Arabic News
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/020218/2002021812.html

Number of cancer cases (Leukemia and kidney, liver and lung cancer) reported has increased in Iraq especially in the southern Iraqi cities.

Doctors from the environment and pollution control centers at al-Mousel university unveiled that types of cancers resulting from environmental pollution witnesses a notable increase following the second Gulf war, adding that the use of depleted uranium and other traces of war and the pollution of air and soil are among the first reasons for cancer.

The surgeon at al-Nasareyah hospital Kamal Naeem al-Khafaji attributed the spread of kidney diseases among children, youths and elderly to the pollution of drinking waters and of containing the depleted uranium, while the two researchers at al-Basra university Amal Saleh and Mustafa Abdullah said that the grave environmental deterioration resulted in the increase in the number of cancer cases, especially in Basra as number of reported cancer cases increased to more than 12 folds over the figures of 1991.

A specialized European delegation visited Iraq in April 1998 from the south to the north and was briefed on the negative health conditions resulting from the American attacks and the use of internationally banned weapons.

-------- europe

Nuclear safety should be key to EU entry - Palacio

REUTERS ITALY:
February 18, 2002
Story by Raffaella Malaguti
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14588/story.htm

ROME - The security of nuclear energy plants should be a pre-requisite for countries who wish to join the European Union, European Energy Commissioner Loyola De Palacio said last week.

"Some countries like the Czech Republic have made great efforts to put their plants in line with EU standards but other countries have not. I believe that security should be one of the pre-conditions for EU entry," De Palacio said during a visit to the Italian parliament.

The EU is promoting nuclear energy in an effort to diminish its growing dependency on imported oil and gas, and to meet the terms of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty on greenhouse gases.

The commissioner conceded there were concerns on the risks linked to nuclear waste storage and processing but said researchers were finding ways to reduce the problem, which has been at the centre of environmentalist protests worldwide.

"EU plants are not risky...but the problem for us at the moment is represented by EU candidate states...We are negotiating with those countries how to guarantee security," De Palacio said.

The EU has said it wants to conclude entry negotiations with up to 10 mainly central and eastern European countries by the end of this year, so that the first could join the bloc in 2004.

Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Slovenia, Estonia, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania and Malta could wrap up entry talks by the end of 2002 in time to join the bloc in 2004. Romania and Bulgaria are expected to join later.

The commissioner said the EU was preparing a programme to re-launch nuclear energy in the 15-nation bloc in an effort to defuse a dependency on oil imports.

"Unless we intervene quickly, the bloc will import 70 percent of its energy needs in 2020 and 90 percent of the supply will be composed of petroleum," she said.

De Palacio said that she respected the decision of some European countries, such as Italy, to ban nuclear energy from their territory.

Italian Industry Minister Antonio Marzano said the government had no intention to move against a 1987 referendum that banished nuclear energy but continued to finance research on the subject.

----

Czech Temelin plant going on line after shutdown

REUTERS CZECH REPUBLIC:
February 18, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14573/story.htm

PRAGUE - The Czech nuclear power plant Temelin, a source of friction between the Czech Republic and neighbouring Austria, is going back on line after an emergency shutdown last week, the station's spokesman said last week.

The controversial plant, 60 km (38 miles) from the border of the fiercely anti-nuclear Austria, began restarting earlier last week and nuclear reaction will be renewed later in the day, spokesman Milan Nebesar said in a statement.

The $2.75 billion plant, a key asset of the dominant Czech power utility CEZ , experienced a series of glitches last Thursday which prompted safety systems to shut the plant's reactor down. Temelin officials have said the station will now be tested for about five days while running at full output, before shutting down again for a one-month revision of all its systems.

The Soviet-designed station equipped with a U.S. control system has sparked a sharp diplomatic row between the Czechs and Austrians who say it is unsafe and should be closed.

It had been briefly shut down a number of times after failing since testing operations started in late 2000, but officials said last week's glitches, though posing no threat to nuclear safety, were more serious by nuclear safety regulators and required a detailed inspection.

-------- india / pakistan

Joint Chiefs Chair Opens India Trip

By Neelesh Misra
Associated Press Writer
Sunday, February 17, 2002; 5:30 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25212-2002Feb17?language=printer

NEW DELHI, India -- Military cooperation between the United States and India has reached new levels and is crucial to stop terrorism, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said Sunday.

Officials of the two countries' armies and navies met earlier this month. Another meeting between air force officials from both sides is scheduled to begin Monday in Hawaii.

"A solid military relationship is important for our nations' common goal of defeating terrorism," Gen. Richard Myers said in a news release after arriving in New Delhi to start a visit.

Myers is scheduled to meet senior officials in the Indian government and armed forces, the news release said.

After decades of estrangement, India is developing close diplomatic and military ties with the United States. The two nations have agreed to share military intelligence to help tackle terror networks.

"The current level of military to military cooperation between our nations is unprecedented in the history of U.S.-India relations," Myers said.

During the Cold War years, India professed to be nonaligned but depended politically and militarily on the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the U.S. tilt toward Pakistan, India's traditional rival, led New Delhi to view Washington with suspicion.

India has traditionally bought most of its defense hardware and weaponry from Moscow. New Delhi is now considering weapons purchases from Washington as well.

India-U.S. relations went through their roughest phase after New Delhi conducted nuclear tests in 1998, followed by matching tests by Pakistan. The United States and other Western countries slapped economic sanctions on both nations.

Although most of the U.S. sanctions have been lifted, there are still restrictions on some defense imports that could be used in India's nuclear program.

Myers visited Pakistan in December.

-------- korea

Bush to Visit South Korea Tuesday

By Paul Shin
Associated Press Writer
Monday, February 18, 2002; 10:59 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28096-2002Feb18?language=printer

SEOUL, South Korea -- On the eve of President Bush's visit, South Korea again appealed to North Korea to revive the stalled reconciliation process on their peninsula.

Bush, who was in Tokyo on Monday, was scheduled to fly to Seoul on Tuesday to meet with President Kim Dae-jung and visit the inter-Korean border. He will travel to China on Thursday.

"We expect that North Korea will respond to our offer of dialogue at an early date so that mountains of pending issues between the two sides can be discussed and resolved," South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles North Korea policy, said in a statement Monday.

North Korea did not respond, instead saying that its missile program - a major source of tension with the United States and South Korea - was defensive and therefore should not face U.S. criticism.

North Korea's "development of missiles is to cope with the U.S. pronounced maneuvers to ignite a new war of aggression on Korea and defend the sovereignty of the country," said KCNA, the North's official news agency.

Last month Bush condemned North Korea as part of "an axis of evil" along with Iran and Iran and warned that he will not allow them to threaten world peace with weapons of mass destruction.

South Korea's appeal came ahead of Tuesday's 10th anniversary of the Basic Agreement, part of a 1992 deal in which the Koreas pledged to renounce hostilities and ban the development and deployment of nuclear weapons on the peninsula.

The agreement, once hailed as a major breakthrough in inter-Korean relations, never was implemented fully because of political and military tensions.

Two years later, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, touching off a crisis on the peninsula. North Korea later retracted its decision after striking a deal with Washington to freeze its suspected nuclear weapons program in return for the construction of two nuclear reactors by a U.S.-led consortium.

Bush has said he supports South Korea's efforts to reconcile with its communist neighbor. But he said he will remind the world during his South Korea visit that North Korea poses a threat to peace.

In addition to developing such weapons and missiles to deliver them, U.S. officials accuse North Korea of selling its missile technology to other countries including Iran.

The president has offered to negotiate with North Korea, but the government has not accepted, saying the United States is intent on war. Inter-Korean dialogue, spurred by a historic summit in 2000, has been virtually frozen amid U.S.-North Korea tension.

About 50 anti-U.S. activists demonstrated near the U.S. Embassy on Monday, and some scuffled with police. The protesters said Bush's "axis of evil" remark was heightening tensions on the peninsula.

About 20 other anti-U.S. activists were detained after occupying an office of the American Chamber of Commerce to protest Bush's scheduled visit. The students were unarmed and there were no immediate reports of injuries.

North Korea's state-run Radio Pyongyang reiterated criticism of Bush's remark Monday, saying he was "a politician who is ignorant and poor in theoretical ability." The broadcast was monitored in Tokyo by Radiopress.

On Monday, North Korea agreed to reschedule joint pro-unification rallies at North Korea's Diamond Mountain resort from Feb. 19-21 to Feb. 26-28. South Korean organizers asked to postpone the rallies until after Bush's visit to Seoul.

The Koreas were divided in 1945. The United States keeps 37,000 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.

----

Bush Visit Draws 'Evil' Epithets in South Korea

By REUTERS
February 18, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-bush-korea-protests.html

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea braced for President Bush's visit on Monday, with a ruling party parliamentarian under fire for calling him ``evil incarnate'' and students occupying an American Chamber of Commerce office.

Bush is scheduled to arrive in South Korea late on Tuesday from Japan and hold talks with President Kim Dae-jung the following day before flying on to China on Thursday.

South Koreans have held small but noisy protests since last week against Bush's tough stand toward communist North Korea. Security, already visible, will be exceptionally tight in the city center while Bush is in town.

Ruling party lawmaker Song Sok-chan sparked a scuffle in parliament on Monday when he called Bush ``evil incarnate who wants to make the division of Korea permanent by branding North Korea part of the 'axis of evil.'''

Later, local media quoted a presidential official as saying a furious Kim rebuked Song for criticizing South Korea's ally.

A Reuters photographer witnessed 30 members of the leftist Hanchongryon group's five-hour sit-in at the American Chamber of Commerce in southern Seoul. Police arrested them at the office, which was closed on Monday for the U.S. Presidents' Day holiday.

``CORE OF EVIL''

The South Korean left, many of whom protested against the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, were galvanized by Bush's speech last month branding North Korea, Iran and Iraq an ``axis of evil'' for seeking weapons of mass destruction.

The conservative Free Citizen's League said they would hold three days of rallies at the main U.S. army base in Seoul from Tuesday to welcome Bush and support his stance on North Korea.

The United States keeps 37,000 troops in the South to deter aggression by the North. The two Koreas are still in a technical state of war since their 1950-53 war ended in an armed truce.

At a protest in Seoul, activists who called themselves the Democratic Labour Party said Bush was seeking war with the North.

``The United States is no longer the guarantor of world peace, it is the 'core of evil' threatening world peace,'' they said.

Other leftist groups which rallied in Seoul said in a joint statement they opposed a visit by Bush, ``a death merchant who forcibly sells weapons and missile defense.''

In a warning to Bush on Monday, North Korea's Rodong Sinmun newspaper said: ``The U.S. bellicose forces should know that it would be a big mistake if they regard the option to strike as their patent.''

DIPLOMACY URGED

More moderate groups in the South demanded Bush hold talks with North Korea to avoid war and clear up suspicions about Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

``We strongly demand that the Bush administration shift its Korean peninsula policy in a peaceful direction and seek real dialogue with North Korea,'' said a statement read out at a gathering of religious and citizens' groups in Seoul.

Washington has called for talks without preconditions since June, but North Korea has not taken up the offer.

In weekend interviews with South Korean media, Bush reiterated a U.S. call for talks and said the United States would pursue economic exchanges if North Korea stops proliferating weapons of mass destruction.

Yonhap news agency quoted a senior South Korean official as saying Bush's statement was ``an important, expansive suggestion'' that could help defuse the North's weapons programs, about which Seoul shared Washington's concerns.

South Korea's Unification Ministry marked the 10th anniversary on Tuesday of a North-South non-aggression pact by urging North Korea to ``promptly return to North-South dialogue to solve accumulated pending issues.''

In Tokyo, Bush said he told Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that ``all options are on the table, and that I will keep all options on the table'' in dealing with threats to the United States, its friends and allies.

Among the summit events designed to underscore common cause in engaging North Korea, Kim and Bush will appear at Dorasan station, the last South Korean stop on a railway line severed since the 1950-53 Korean War cemented the division of Korea.

Kim will ride a special train on Wednesday to Dorasan, near the heavily mined frontier. Seoul opened the rail line last week and urged the North to follow suit to keep pledges made at Kim's landmark summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000.

----

South Koreans Wary of Bush's Words

By Paul Shin
Associated Press Writer
Monday, February 18, 2002; 12:22 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28391-2002Feb18?language=printer

SEOUL, South Korea -- At their first meeting a year ago, President Bush embarrassed South Korean President Kim Dae-jung when he told reporters he was skeptical about North Korea.

Many people here interpreted the remarks in Washington as criticism of the pace and scope of Kim's "sunshine" policy of trying to engage his communist neighbor with food aid and other incentives.

Now many South Koreans wonder whether more awkwardness awaits Bush's arrival Tuesday after his painting of North Korea as part of an "axis of evil."

"We should not put the safety of 70 million Koreans at risk of war," Kim said last week. "Efforts should be made to avoid the creation of a war atmosphere by promoting reconciliation with North Korea."

While Bush has defined North Korea, along with Iran and Iraq, as adversaries in the global war on terrorism, South Korea is eager for Washington to use conciliatory language that will draw the regime in Pyongyang back to the negotiating table. Both countries have been technically at war under an armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

Dialogue anytime soon seems unlikely, however. North Korea called Bush's statement a virtual declaration of war.

U.S.-North Korean tension in the past year helped bring official inter-Korean contacts to a standstill. The freeze followed a summit in June 2000 at which Kim and North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, had agreed to seek reconciliation.

South Korea's "sunshine" approach helped win Kim Dae-jung the Nobel Peace Prize, but the policy has faced intensifying criticism that it is too soft on North Korea. Washington supports it, but South Korean officials acknowledge the two allies differ over how generous the policy should be.

South Korea's presidential national security adviser, Yim Sung-joon, said the Bush-Kim meeting will reaffirm the allies' tight security alliance and the importance of dialogue with North Korea to resolve problems.

Despite Bush's tough words, Secretary of State Colin Powell says the United States is ready to negotiate with North Korea at the time and place of its choosing.

Washington wants to curb North Korea's development of missiles and weapons of mass destruction and cut the number of its troops near the border with South Korea. Those goals became all the more pressing after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The United States keeps 37,000 military personnel in South Korea as a deterrent against attack from the North.

North Korea is on a U.S. list of countries that sponsor terrorism. It is believed to harbor four Japanese Red Army terrorists who hijacked a Japan Airlines plane and flew it to the North in 1970, but North Korea itself has not been implicated in any terrorist act since the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner near Myanmar that killed all 115 people on board.

Without elaborating, Kim Dae-jung said at a New Year's news conference that he thought the United States should make a gesture that would allow North Korea to engage in "face-saving" as a prelude to talks.

But U.S. Ambassador Thomas C. Hubbard said later that Americans "don't have the concept of face. We're much more pragmatic."

Kim Sung-han, a researcher at South Korea's state-financed Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, said the United States had backed North Korea into a corner, allowing it little option but to escalate its belligerent rhetoric.

"It wants dialogue with the U.S., but it has few cards to play with except hard-line," he said.

But Nicholas Eberstadt, a senior researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, an independent think tank in Washington, said the North had failed to respond to South Korea's aid shipments and other acts of generosity.

"Historically, peace has never been achieved through dealing with a regime like North Korea," Eberstadt said.

Many analysts think North Korea also may be reluctant to deal with a South Korean president whose popularity is waning with just one year left in his term.

The North's media have denounced Lee Hoi-chang, a South Korean opposition leader who is expected to be a front-runner in the presidential election later this year. Lee has criticized the "sunshine" policy as too lenient toward North Korea, saying it has done little in return.

----

Anti-US rallies sweep S. Korea

By Jong-Heon Lee
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
February 18, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/18022002-062935-5443r.htm

SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- On the eve of President George Bush's arrival, South Korea's civic groups Monday staged anti-American rallies across the country even though government officials hoped the trip would break the deadlock in the peace process with North Korea.

Bush is scheduled to arrive in South Korea Tuesday for talks with President Kim Dae-jung that are expected to focus on North Korea. Bush is in Japan Monday for talks with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Some 30 students occupied the office of the American Chamber of Commerce in downtown Seoul to protest. "We oppose Bush's visit to South Korea," read a placard hung through a broken window on the 45th floor of the building.

The protesters barricaded themselves in the building, shouted anti-U.S. slogans and dropped leaflets that described Bush as a "war freak." They blamed Bush's hard-line stance against North Korea for hurting inter-Korean reconciliation efforts and heightening tensions on the peninsula.

The three-hour occupation ended as police with axes and hammers broke down the barricades and removed the protesters. No serious injuries were reported.

At another rally, dozens of anti-U.S. activists scuffled with police as they tried to march into the U.S. Embassy. The protesters said they wanted to deliver a letter of protest to U.S. diplomats.

Activists from the progressive Democratic Labor Party issued a statement calling the United States the "core of evil" threatening global stability and Bush "a death merchant" who forcibly sells weapons.

Some 700 leaders of religious, academic and civic groups gathered for a news conference during which they announced a "peace declaration."

"We strongly urge the United States to scrap its hard-line policy on North Korea and cooperate for inter-Korean efforts for peace and reconciliation," the statement said.

Schoolteachers across the country also joined the protests, saying: "As teachers of the nation's future leaders, we cannot just stand by and let our country be sacrificed for the pursuit of world domination and military power by the United States."

Police tightened security around U.S. facilities while the military enforced emergency measures and beefed up surveillance on the border area where Bush will visit.

South Korean officials have moved to ease anti-U.S. sentiment, saying the Bush-Kim summit would underscore their security alliance. They expressed hopes Bush's visit would produce a breakthrough in stalled ties between South and North Korea.

The South Korean government issued a new appeal for North Korea to revive the stalled reconciliation process.

"We expect that North Korea will respond to our offer of dialogue at an early date so that mountains of pending issues between the two sides can be discussed and resolved," South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles North Korea policy, said in a statement.

But North Korea has encouraged South Koreans to demonstrate during Bush's visit, calling for the withdrawal of the U.S. forces in South Korea.

-------- russia

Russian Official Named to New Post

The Associated Press
Monday, February 18, 2002; 9:24 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27795-2002Feb18?language=printer

MOSCOW -- Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who was one of the most visible government officials during the Kursk nuclear submarine tragedy and its aftermath, was named minister of industry, science and technology on Monday in a move that appeared to be a demotion.

The order relieving Klebanov of the deputy prime ministership was signed by President Vladimir Putin on the same day that the commission investigating the Kursk disaster completed its work.

Although officials said they had cleared up questions about the explosion that sank the submarine in August, 2000, killing all 118 men aboard, no cause for the blast was absolutely stated at the conclusion of the investigation.

During the early weeks after the sinking, Klebanov frequently appeared on television and at public meetings to discuss the disaster that shocked Russians and left them angry over what appeared to be a slow and less than forthcoming government response.

Klebanov was among the officials strongly suggesting that that sinking was caused by a collision of the submarine with another object while it was on maneuvers in the Barents Sea.

Those suggestions included the theory that the Kursk could have been struck by a U.S. vessel in the region, but Washington flatly denied the possibility.

Officials since then have said the blast was caused by one of the submarine's torpedoes, but what triggered the explosion is unexplained.

----

Torpedo Eyed in Kursk Disaster

February 18, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Nuclear-Submarine.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- A practice torpedo powered by an unstable fuel may have sent the nuclear submarine Kursk to the bottom of the Barents Sea, the Russian navy chief said Monday, adding that he had ordered the weapon taken out of service.

Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov stopped short of saying that sinking of the Kursk in August 2000 was caused by a flaw in the torpedo. He said investigators still were considering a collision with another vessel or a World War II mine as possible reasons for the disaster, which killed all 118 men aboard the submarine.

Yet Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, who flanked Kuroyedov at a news conference in the northern port of Murmansk to announce results of months of examination of the wrecked submarine, said investigators had found no evidence of another vessel's presence near the Kursk at the time it sank, the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies reported.

Russian officials have long said the explosion of a practice torpedo triggered a larger blast that roared through the Kursk. But they have yet to determine what prompted the initial explosion, despite an extensive inquiry since the Kursk was raised to the surface last fall.

Immediately after the disaster, Russian admirals claimed the explosions could have been triggered by a collision with a Western submarine shadowing the Kursk.

Both the United States and Britain, which had submarines in the Barents Sea at the time, have denied involvement, and most independent specialists dismissed the collision theory and pointed at a torpedo malfunction as the most plausible cause of the disaster.

Kuroyedov admitted the navy had ``placed unfounded trust'' in the weapon propelled by highly volatile hydrogen peroxide, which in case of a leak could have caused a powerful explosion.

``It's highly unstable and its contact with certain metals may cause unpredictable consequences,'' Kuroyedov said. ``The torpedoes have already been removed from submarines. We are now considering a replacement.''

He mentioned a leak of hydrogen peroxide that caused the 1955 sinking of the British submarine HMS Sidon, in which 13 men died. The accident prompted Britain and other nations to stop using the chemical, but the Soviet and later Russian navy has used such torpedoes since 1957.

Russian officials said the Kursk's practice torpedo had an experimental battery, but was otherwise standard. They denied the claim by some Kursk sailors' relatives and Russian media that the submarine crew had previously reported trouble with the torpedo to their superiors.

Ustinov told President Vladimir Putin last fall that the investigation had revealed that the naval maneuvers during which the Kursk sank were poorly organized. In December, Putin fired Northern Fleet chief Adm. Vyacheslav Popov and demoted other admirals, though naval officials insisted then that the changes weren't linked to the Kursk.

Ustinov said Monday that the probe had revealed ``serious violations by both Northern Fleet chiefs and the Kursk crew.'' The Kursk had gone to sea with both its emergency antenna and buoy incapacitated.

On Monday, Putin demoted Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who was in charge of the Kursk's rescue operation and probe, to industry and technology minister. Klebanov oversaw industry in his previous capacity, and the Kremlin said the move was intended to help him concentrate on this sector.

The Kursk's fore section, which is thought to contain additional clues to the disaster, was sawed off and left on the sea bottom when the rest was lifted. The navy is planning to raise parts of the bow in May.

Investigators have retrieved the remains of 94 of the Kursk's 118 crewmen, 91 of which have been identified.

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

NRC ISSUES REPORTS ON SAFETY, ENFORCEMENT

February 18, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-18-09.html

WASHINGTON, DC, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued two reports regarding safety regulations and their enforcement at U.S. nuclear power plants.

The first report, "United States of America National Report for the Convention on Nuclear Safety," describes the U.S. government's fulfillment of its obligations under the international Convention, and demonstrates how the U.S. strives to achieve a high level of safety for its nuclear plants.

Two regulatory initiatives highlighted in the report are NRC's revision of its reactor oversight process and the agency's focusing the attention of the nuclear industry on programs and activities most important to safety. The report will be peer reviewed by parties to the Convention at the Second Review Meeting, taking place in April in Vienna.

The Convention emphasizes that nuclear safety is a sovereign responsibility, and obliges participants to report on how nuclear power safety is achieved. Every three years the 53 participating countries must submit reports on their programs for peer review as an incentive to achieve the highest possible levels of safety.

"The NRC uses a number of national programs and processes to ensure that plant safety is maintained and to meet the obligations of the Convention on Nuclear Safety," the report states. "These are a well established licensing process; the newly revised process for reactor oversight; the Accident Sequence Precursor program; the Program for Resolving Generic Safety Issues; programs for rulemaking; for decommissioning; for regulatory research; for public participation; and for handling petitions; allegations, and differing professional views and opinions."

The report is available at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1650/

The second report is the NRC Office of Enforcement's annual report. The report describes enforcement activities that occurred during fiscal year 2001, addressing policy changes, new initiatives, staff guidance and implementation issues for the agency's enforcement program.

The report also includes summaries of enforcement cases and actions taken by the NRC against licensed nuclear facility owners and users of nuclear materials. It includes two policy revisions, 89 escalated Notices of Violation without civil penalties, 20 proposed civil penalties, and 18 orders, five of which imposed civil penalties.

The enforcement program annual report is available through the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at: http://www.nrc.gov

-------- kentucky

USEC to Modify Ky. Plant

Monday, February 18, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23371-2002Feb17?language=printer

USEC, which makes enriched uranium used in nuclear power plants, will consolidate its transfer and ship operations at its Paducah, Ky., plant this summer.

Bethesda-based USEC said the move would save about $40 million annually beginning in 2003. The consolidation includes eliminating about 440 jobs -- from 1,350 -- at its Portsmouth, Ohio, plant and would create 30 to 50 positions at the Paducah plant.

The Portsmouth job cuts are expected to begin in June and take place over six months. The Paducah plant is still shipping its enriched uranium product to the Portsmouth plant, although USEC ceased enrichment there in May.

The Paducah plant is being modified so it can shipping directly to fuel fabricators, which would provide significant savings, the company said.

USEC said it will cost $29 million for capital improvements and training at Paducah, and severance and other benefits for Portsmouth employees.

-------- nevada

Nevada Governor Defends Nuclear Waste Site Lawsuit

February 18, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-utilities-yucca.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn Said on Sunday he was moving ahead with a legal challenge of the president's decision to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain because the administration had not shown proof the site was geologically safe.

``The Department of Energy and the secretary of energy have not completed their scientific data collection and therefore, they have not found it sound science to make a recommendation,'' Guinn said in an interview on CNN.

Guinn, a Republican, filed a lawsuit late on Friday in U.S. District Court against the Bush administration after President

George W. Bush announced that Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, would be the permanent storage site for radioactive waste material from the 103 U.S. nuclear power plants.

The lawsuit named Bush, the U.S. Department of Energy and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. The plaintiffs were the state of Nevada, Las Vegas and Clark County.

``We are going to certainly move forward with a suit with the Department of Energy, Secretary Abraham, the president of the United States because they have made their decision based on a false premise that the science is sound and it is not,'' Guinn told CNN. ``The preponderance of evidence shows that it is not safe.''

Guinn said the state had already filed two lawsuits in the Yucca Mountain dispute and would soon file a third lawsuit ''because of the lack of the completed staff work that President Bush made his decision on.''

Guinn and other critics of the Yucca Mountain plan worry that radioactive material might seep into the ground, posing health risks for residents. They also warn about the risks of transporting nuclear waste over great distances.

The lawsuit alleges that the Energy Department violated the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act when it announced in December that Yucca Mountain would require man-made barriers as well as the mountain's natural geology to contain the waste.

The lawsuit also accuses the Energy Department of breaking rules by not allowing the state to review environmental studies 30 days before approving the site.

``Not even to have an environmental impact statement for a $70 million project that's supposed to last for 10,000 years in your backyard,'' Guinn said. ``Every state and every city in America has to have one of those just to build a single-family subdivision.''Bush's decision to Congress. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission must also approve a license for the site, which the Energy Department hopes to activate by 2010.

-------- us politics

Yucca Mountain FEIS

From: "L.V. Citizen Alert" <kalynda@citizenalert.org>

DOE has the final Yucca Mountain EIS up on the OCRWM web page.
Here's the address: http://www.ymp.gov/documents/feis_a/index.htm

DOE is NOT going to make hard copies available. They say it's an electronic distribution only. Also, there does not appear to be a record of decision.

Kalynda Tilges Nuclear Issues Coordinator Citizen Alert - Las Vegas P.O.Box 17173 Las Vegas, NV 89114 702-796-5662 Voice 702-796-4886 Fax "mailto:kalynda@citizenalert.org" http://www.citizenalert.org

----

[Representative Berkley and Nevada's two (Republican) Senators spoke eloquently on Valentine's Day, February 14th, outside the US Capitol building as part of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service's rally against transporting and dumping the nation's nuclear waste into Yucca Mountain. The scheme was called "bad science and bad politics." They called for citizen and congressional action to reverse Bush's decision. You can find out how to write your Congressional leaders by going to http://prop1.org/prop1/letter.htm - click on the first line. et]

---

Nevada GOP Even Further in Debt

Washington Post,
February 18, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26164-2002Feb17?language=printer

The Nevada Republican Party, perhaps anticipating the need to broaden the base after Bush's decision to create a nuclear dump in the state, has bestowed the title of "Hero" on Rep. Shelley Berkley, who happens to be a Democrat.

"Since Sept. 11, we have been given a new vision of an American hero," state GOP chairman Bob Seale wrote in a recent fundraising letter sent to Berkley's Las Vegas office. "The heroes of today are the men and women of America who go to work every day and do their jobs! . . . who do the right thing! who believe in America! Well, Shelly [sic] Berkley I consider you a hero," and "the Nevada Republican Party owes you a deep debt of gratitude."

---

Wis. Rescue Workers Defend Funding of Windsled Purchase
Item Singled Out as 'Earmark' in Bush Budget Documents

By John Lancaster
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 18, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26166-2002Feb17?language=printer

The Bush administration has made no secret of its disdain for congressional "earmarks" -- often derided as pork -- tacked on to federal spending bills at the request of constituents. In the recently released budget, the administration argued that money should be allocated on the basis of "merit-based" reviews, singling out items in the spending bills passed by Congress last fall as evidence of earmarking run amok.

Tell it to the Ashland County, Wis., Sheriff's Department.

As mentioned recently on this page, the budget book noted that lawmakers tagged $70,000 of community development block grant money -- included in the 2002 appropriations bill for housing and veterans' programs -- to fund the department's purchase of an Ice Angel windsled, a propeller-driven craft used for rescue work on frozen lakes. The book even included a photograph of a windsled -- though not the same kind.

But the budget document only told part of the story.

According to Ashland County Sheriff John Kovach, who answered his own phone the other day, local authorities have been yearning for a windsled since the day 11 years ago when 16-year-old Daniel Bochler fell through the ice while snowmobiling on Lake Superior. Rescue workers from the police, fire and sheriff's departments responded quickly to the call, but could only stand helplessly near the shore because they had no way to reach the struggling teenager.

Bochler's father also arrived on the scene. He shouted to his son, urging him to keep his spirits up, while the boy froze to death.

"We didn't have the equipment at the time, so as a result the boy perished," Kovach said.

After the teenager's death, Kovach said, the fire department in the county seat of Ashland tried for several years to secure funds for a windsled through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, without any luck. So last year, Kovach called his congressman, Rep. David R. Obey (D), who happens to be the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.

"I don't feel we're out of line," Kovach said. "I feel this falls under the public safety umbrella, and I don't think it's wrong of me -- in fact I believe it's expected -- to try to do something."

"All we're trying to do is prevent this from happening again," Kovach said, noting that the frozen lake is popular with ice fishermen as well as snowmobilers, cross-country skiers and even stock-car drivers, who hold races on it.

Kovach's territory includes Lake Superior's Apostle Islands -- the northernmost part of Wisconsin -- and covers about 1,000 square miles of water, all of which is frozen in winter.

For the last few years, local authorities have been relying on a hovercraft for ice rescues, but Kovach said the machine is on its last legs. After pulling another young man out of Lake Superior recently, rescuers had to leave one of their team on the ice because the hovercraft was too small. When they went back to get him, the engine quit. (They got it started again.)

Obey has taken a dim view of earmarks in the past, and his staff was noncommittal at first.

"I didn't think it would happen," Kovach recalled. "Then, a couple of months back, I was at home and Dave Obey called me from Washington, D.C. He said, 'John, you got your Ice Angel.' I almost fell over."

Obey and his staff were infuriated by the Bush administration's attack on the windsled. Not only does the Constitution empower Congress to make spending decisions, they say, but members are often better positioned to understand the needs of their constituents than federal bureaucrats reviewing grant requests in Washington.

Amy Call, a spokeswoman for the White House budget office, said that in singling out the windsled and other earmarks, the administration was not passing judgment on their merits but merely the process by which they were added to the budget.

"It's not a question of whether the windsled is a good program," she said. "The question is whether it's a national priority."

---

'Axis of evil' dominates Tokyo

By NICHOLAS M. HORROCK
UPI Chief White House Correspondent
February 18, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/18022002-073032-7871r.htm

TOKYO, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- President Bush mounted a vigorous defense Monday of his "axis of evil" charge last month, claiming that "history has given us a unique opportunity to defend freedom" and halt nations with weapons of mass destruction from linking up with terrorists "and we are going to seize the moment to do it."

In the clearest language yet, Bush and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the United States is forming what Powell called a "great coalition" to "take political, diplomatic and other actions to stop them."

The issue arose at a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi after Bush completed a three-hour state meeting with the Japanese leader.

Though the news conference was devoted in part to U.S.-Japanese issues, Koizumi gave the president's accusation against Iraq, Iran and North Korea clear support claiming he thought it "reflects the firm resolve of President Bush and the United States against terrorism."

He said Bush had been "very calm and cautious vis-à-vis Iraq, Iran and North Korea," and he "will resort to all possible means to fight against terrorism." Japan will be with the United States, Koizumi said.

Later, a senior administration official said that the United States wants the Japanese to pass along Bush's concerns about Iranian weapons of mass destruction and "see if" the Iranian moderates can get other elements of the Tehran government "under control." He said Japan still has diplomatic relations with Iran and can help Washington sort out what is going on there.

This official said in a background briefing that the United States has "passed along that message to other friends of ours who have good relations with Iran, that what we see in Iran leaves us confused.

"We don't know whether we're seeing a struggle between good cops and bad cops ... or whether we see an Iran that's undergoing a genuine transformation." The official would not name other U.S. allies that are carrying this message, but several countries including Switzerland and Turkey have embassies there.

Later in the news conference, President Bush responded sharply to a question about whether his "axis of evil" remark was not being supported by European leaders. "I don't accept the hypothesis of your question," Bush said.

"People who love freedom understand that we cannot allow nations that are not transparent, nations with a terrible history, nations that are so dictatorial ... we can't allow them to mate up with terrorist organizations," the president said.

"In the war against terror one of the worst things that can possibly happen is that al Qaida-like organizations becoming allied and operationally attune to nations with a weapon of mass destruction," the president said.

"I understand that in the international arena people say things. But the leaders I talk to fully understand exactly what needs to happen. They understand the resolve of the United States of America. They understand that our commitment is not just in Afghanistan; that history has given us a unique opportunity to defend freedom and we are going to seize the moment and do it. And I'm confident that nations will come with us."

As Bush left the stage with Koizumi at the end of the conference, he suggested reporters talk to Powell about a remark Powell had made claming some European leaders who criticized Bush were "having the vapors." Powell was with the president in Monday's meetings.

Powell said several statements he read attributed to European leaders seemed to suggest to him that the leaders were "having the vapors," by which Powell said he "meant to say let's not swoon. We'll be in contact with you. We'll be in discussion with you, assure you of our ideas, our visions before they start to twist us in a state of war."

The secretary of state said he thought "over time they'll (European leaders) understand the president's thinking. It is the best interest of all us to come together once again in this great coalition to take the political, diplomatic and other actions to stop them."

As President Bush completed a Monday of high-level meetings here, his "axis of evil" challenge to North Korea last month has come to take center stage in his three-country swing through Asia, perhaps overshadowing other issues.

A senior administration official told reporters Monday that explaining Bush's inclusion of North Korea in the axis of evil would be the central topic in discussions between Bush and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

"This is what really the trip is all about, on to South Korea, it's to communicate directly between President Kim Dae-jung and President Bush."

Japanese papers gave prominence Monday to Saudi Arabia's warning that the desert kingdom opposes any war against Iraq, another country labeled as "axis of evil," according to Bush. Saudi Arabian Interior Minister Nayef bin Abel Aziz was quoted in a front-page story in the Japanese Times, an English language paper, saying the kingdom would be opposed to war against Iraq. Prince Nayef said such an action would cost the United States support in its war against terrorism.

The Japanese language service of the BBC carried an extensive report Sunday about Iran reform party members who felt the president's attack undermined their efforts to keep the government on a moderate tack.

The report said that the Teheran government had detained some 150 suspected al Qaida and Taliban members who had crossed the border and said Tehran opposed any effort to destabilize the new government in Kabul.

Bush touched off the furor in his State of the Union address on Jan 29 when he accused North Korea, Iraq and Iran being an "axis of evil." The president said the link between the countries is their aggressive development of weapons of mass destruction.

When he was preparing to leave for Asia last week, Bush was asked by Asian reporters about U.S. intentions for North Korea.

In a transcript of the session provided by the White House, Bush said he was still open to a dialogue with North Korea, but he wants North Korea to remove the "guns pointed at Seoul" and open its military development to verification that it is not building an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

"If they were to abandon their proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, ... in a transparent way, so we would know" there were no arms, "we would welcome trade," said Bush.

The president has stressed in media interviews that the United States is sending food aid to North Korea even as his administration admonishes it.

"I can't tell you how sorry I feel for the North Korean people," Bush said. "My heart breaks for people who live in a society that is not free, and where there is tremendous starvation." Bush maintains that if the government of North Korean strongman Kim Jong II was not pouring his country's resources into weapons, it could feed its people.

----

UPI Hears...

Published 2/18/2002 12:15 PM
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=18022002-115043-2827r

Insider notes from United Press International for Feb. 18...

When Uzbekistan's President Karimov visits Washington next month, the failed energy giant Enron will not be on the agenda. Maybe it should be. In 1996 Enron signed an initial $1.3 billion contract (later to expand to $2 billion) to explore 11 gas fields in Uzbekistan, sufficiently attracted by the prospect that it opened an office in the capital Tashkent. And to set up the pipeline and marketing networks it would need to carry out the plan to market Uzbek gas to Europe and Turkey, Enron broadened the deal to include Gazprom of Russia and Uzbekistan's Neftgas. In a "Dear George" letter written on April 3, 1997, Enron boss Ken Lay introduced Uzbek Ambassador Sodyk Safaev to then Texas Gov. George W. Bush, adding cheerily, "I know you and Ambassador Safaev will have a productive meeting which will result in a friendship between Texas and Uzbekistan." (UPI Hears has a copy). Unfortunately for Enron, strict Uzbek fiscal policy included the inconvertibility of the national currency. This frustrated Enron, which insisted on taking cash, rather than gas, as its share of the deal. Ken Lay's letter to his friend George was part of Enron's strategy to use its political contacts to persuade the Uzbeks to get with the program and boost Enron's cash flow. The Uzbeks refused, and in 1998 Enron dropped the project. Maybe they should have waited; the Uzbek government has indicated that it will make the currency convertible next summer.

Talking of gas deals, here comes another row between the Bush administration and the 15-nation European Union, which has agreed to bankroll a $120 million pipeline to take Iran's natural gas to Armenia. The deal was reached in Yerevan on Valentine's Day, when the European press and politicians were still frothing at the mouth over Bush's inclusion of Iran in the "axis of evil." Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Armen Martirosian says the EU contribution will expedite closure of the controversial Medzamor nuclear power plant, built in a known earthquake zone in the Soviet era, which currently provides 40 percent of Armenia's electricity.


-------- MILITARY

WRAPUP - US tightens nuclear security, Pearl's fate unknown

USA: February 18, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14574/story.htm

WASHINGTON/KARACHI - The Bush administration last week ordered all 103 U.S. nuclear power plants to tighten up anti-terrorism measures as report said investigators were convinced a new al Qaeda chief of operations was planning a fresh attack on the United States.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf cast doubt on a statement made by the prime suspect in the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl that he thought the reporter was dead, saying British-born Islamic militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was untrustworthy.

The U.S. military said two soldiers were lightly wounded in a firefight at their base in Kandahar on Wednesday but - Iraq should not be the next target in the war on terrorism.

Iran's IRNA news agency, quoting an informed source, said that 150 people with suspected ties to al Qaeda or the Taliban were arrested near the border with Pakistan.

U.S. planes dropped envelopes containing two $100 bills and bearing a picture of President George W. Bush to win hearts and minds in southern Afghanistan, while tribal elders in the province of Khost warned of bloodshed if a governor appointed by the interim administration of Hamid Karzai was not removed.

In a report which could not be immediately confirmed officially, the Arabic television channel al-Jazeera said Afghan Muslim pilgrims, angry over flight delays, attacked and killed the Afghan interim transport minister at Kabul airport.

With unrest threatening to spread in Afghanistan, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his envoys stepped up lobbying of the United States and others on expanding the presence of foreign troops in the shattered central Asian nation.

NEW AL QAEDA MASTERMIND, TIMES SAYS

The New York Times said Abu Zubaydah, a 30-year-old Palestinian, had become Al Qaeda's new chief of operations replacing Mohammed Atef, who was believed to have been killed in a U.S. bombing raid in Afghanistan.

Zubaydah has been linked directly to planning the Sept. 11 strikes, which killed more than 3,000 people, and tied to plans for a wave of attacks in Europe that were to occur last year, including plots to blow up the American embassies in Paris and Sarajevo, the Times said, citing U.S. officials. They were apparently thwarted by the authorities.

American investigators said they were convinced that Zubaydah, one of the few al Qaeda leaders to know the identities of those who passed through camps in Afghanistan, was now trying to activate sleeper cells for new strikes on the United States and its allies, the Times reported.

American intelligence agencies believe he was at Osama bin Laden's side in Afghanistan in the first weeks after Sept. 11, and Bush administration officials say there is fragmentary evidence that he escaped to Pakistan, the Times reported.

With the FBI warning of more possible attacks, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ordered tighter security including more rigorous employee screening and guard training and stopping of cars and trucks on approach roads to plants.

"The commission has decided to issue orders to require prudent interim compensatory measures because the generalized high-level-threat environment has persisted longer than expected," the NRC said in a statement.

Nuclear safety activists and some Democratic lawmakers say the plants, even with fortified walls, would be vulnerable to strikes like those made by hijacked fully fueled jets on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Federal Aviation Administration has already banned flights within 12 miles (19 km) of most U.S. nuclear plants.

DOUBTS OVER MILITANT CONFESSION

Pearl's abduction has been an embarrassment to Musharraf during his visit to Washington this week, but police say they are closing in on the kidnappers after making four arrests.

Pearl's wife Mariane, who is expecting their first child, urged his captors to release him or at least release details of his condition.

Prime suspect Sheikh Omar, as he is known, appeared in an anti-terrorism court in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi and calmly confessed to the abduction of Pearl three weeks ago, in an apparent protest at the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

"As far as I understand, he is dead," the bespectacled and clean-shaven Sheikh Omar said. In response to a question from the judge, Sheikh Omar said, "Yes, I kidnapped him."

But investigators said Omar's statement could have been a publicity stunt, pointing out he had initially told them Pearl was alive. Pearl's Wall Street Journal employers said they were confident he was still alive.

While Musharraf pledged in Washington to support Karzai's government, Pakistani officials said they hoped verbal attacks by Afghanistan's interim ministers would cease as a result of a pledge by the two neighbors to bury Taliban-era bitterness.

But a foreign ministry spokesman called "unfortunate" an allegation by Afghan Interior Minister Yunus Qanuni that elements in Pakistan's intelligence service were helping bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar evade the global U.S. manhunt.

MUSHARRAF - FROM OUTCAST TO ALLY

Musharraf completed his public transformation from political outcast to U.S. ally last week when he was hailed in Congress as the leader of a "new Pakistan."

But although he wound up his visit to Washington with plaudits and promises and some aid, analysts said full economic and military cooperation would await further steps back towards democracy and continued cooperation with the war on terrorism.

Musharraf was condemned in the United States after his 1999 military takeover but is now embraced for his support of the U.S. operation in Afghanistan.

He stressed the impact his meetings with Bush and other leaders would have at home, directly linking U.S. backing to a cut in "extremism" in Pakistan. "The more support they see from the United States to me and my government the more extremism goes down and my support increases." he said.

Musharraf has cracked down on groups seen by the United States and India as engaging in terrorism, braving a potential, but so far limited, backlash from his Muslim nation.

As the war on terrorism widened, the commander in chief of U.S. special forces met his troops in the southern Philippines last week, 72 hours before the United States opens a new front in its global war on terror.

About 160 U.S. special forces soldiers are to be deployed on the largely Muslim Basilan island to train Filipino troops in fighting Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, who are holding hostage a U.S. missionary couple and a Filipina nurse and who have been linked by the United States to al Qaeda.

Security officials in Sanaa said that a Yemeni man who blew himself up with a hand grenade during a police raid on Wednesday was linked to the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden which killed 19 U.S. soldiers.

At a meeting in Nairobi, Sudan urged the U.S.-led coalition not to attack Somalia over fears it might be harboring Islamic extremists, saying this would only cause civilian suffering.

In Afghanistan, Karzai made a sad pilgrimage to the eastern town of Jalalabad to pay his respects at the grave of Abdul Haq who was captured and executed by the Taliban last October.

-------- afghanistan

Air strikes hit Afghan targets

Around the Nation
February 18, 2002
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020218-20679280.htm

Land- and sea-based planes launched air strikes against enemy forces in eastern Afghanistan over the weekend, U.S. Central Command said yesterday at the Pentagon.

Navy Cmdr. Dave Culler said the strikes were launched after coalition forces were attacked while trying to pass a roadblock Saturday. One friendly Afghan was killed and three were wounded in the attack, he said.

U.S. strike planes launched precision guided weapons at the target on Saturday and returned for a second strike yesterday.

----

U.S. Backing Helps Warlord Solidify Power

By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 18, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25851-2002Feb17?language=printer

JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- Hazrat Ali sat cross-legged on the floor late one night, engrossed in political intrigue over three constantly ringing U.S.-issued satellite phones. The U.S.-backed warlord of Jalalabad is restless these days, and he is never without bright blue beads he fingers obsessively.

When a call came from Afghanistan's interior minister, Yonus Qanooni, Ali took the offensive. A rival of Ali's was in Kabul, lobbying for the job of regional defense chief. Under no circumstances, Ali told Qanooni. "I don't need him in Jalalabad," he said. "I am not happy with him in Jalalabad. He has to leave Jalalabad."

A minute later, it was Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim on the line. He had sent weapons to Ali to fight al Qaeda in the Tora Bora mountains, and was pleading for their return. Ali rebuffed him. "Security is still a concern here," he said. "Give me some time, and I will get these weapons back from my commanders, and I will send them back."

Such bullying comes easily to Ali, who as America's local warlord is the only power that really matters in Jalalabad. Supported by U.S. military might and dollars, Ali represents a potent new force in post-Taliban Afghanistan, challenging a weak central government that has no choice but to do business with him.

Ali owes his rise largely to the Pentagon, which enlisted him to lead the ground battle against Osama bin Laden's fighters in nearby Tora Bora last fall. Today, his fighters are a constant shadow to the U.S. Special Forces based in Jalalabad. He commands a fleet of plush new Land Cruisers, apparently bought with U.S. money. Ali's rivals say his gunmen routinely warn anyone who disagrees with them that they have the power to call down B-52 airstrikes from the Americans.

"The Americans have contacts only with me," Ali said. "They're always with me."

In hours of conversation over two days, Ali claimed to command 18,000 fighters, which would make his the biggest force in eastern Afghanistan. He boasted of his ability to commandeer U.S. helicopters for his own use, and freely acknowledged a variety of intrigues that a more polished politician might hesitate to admit.

Physically imposing, with a tight, curly beard and gentle eyes, Ali comes across as a mix of warrior and schemer. He shows little interest in rebuilding his war-torn domain, and describes no real agenda beyond consolidating his power. That mission appears to square with the war aims of his U.S. patrons. "The Americans want to spend all their money on al Qaeda and getting Osama bin Laden," Ali said.

While boasting of the influence his American access gives him, Ali also talks knowingly about the failings of the warlord system. "The Afghan nation," he said, "is facing big trouble" because of the every-commander-for-himself ethic.

Here in Jalalabad, a chaotic but still graceful trading city close to Pakistan, Ali's rise has come at the expense of two more politically experienced men, veteran guerrilla leader Mohammed Zaman Ghun Shareef and regional governor Abdul Qadir. At least for now, Ali, from the minority-dominated Northern Alliance and a member of the small Pashai tribe, has trumped these two ethnic Pashtun rivals in the center of Afghanistan's Pashtun belt.

"There is only one way to rule Afghanistan now: Follow whatever the Northern Alliance is saying, follow whatever the Americans are saying. That's why Hazrat Ali is getting the benefit," said Jehangir Khan, an adviser to Zaman. "The Pashtuns are getting divided because of the money and influence that are coming from the Americans."

Roots in an Isolated Village

There is a word that inevitably comes up in Jalalabad to describe Ali and his fellow Pashai. Shurrhi is a Pashtun insult that translates roughly as "ignorant mountain man." Referring to Ali, it is invariably linked to the idea that he has brought the primitive code of the mountains to the more civilized city on the plains. More than one person said that for Ali and his fighters, Jalalabad is like New York City.

Growing up in the isolated mountain village of Kushmoon, "we played with stones, with trees," said Ali's top deputy, Musa, who is Ali's cousin as well as his brother-in-law. "We didn't even think to come down to the city."

A fighter since he was a teenager, Ali has known war against the Soviets, the Taliban and his rival commanders. His father was a farmer who grew "wheat, corn -- no poppies," he said. A brother died fighting the Soviets. Ali became a small-time commander during the Soviet war, first kicking the Soviets out of his village and later becoming leader of the fractious Pashai. He says he is 38.

Ali has three wives, all living in the Iranian city of Meshed, three sons and nine daughters. One son died; he doesn't say how. Another, 16, is studying in London. The third, 22-year-old Samiullah, is with him in Jalalabad, a quiet part of his father's entourage, dressed in Western clothes. Before Iran, his family lived in exile in Dubai; before that, in Pakistan. They haven't seen much of their father.

Virtually uneducated, Ali said he knows the alphabet and basic math. Even writing his satellite phone number is a painstaking process. But he speaks several languages: his native Pashai; Pashto, the local lingua franca; Dari, the dialect of Persian that is prevalent in Afghanistan's north; and Urdu, the language of Pakistan. He is also testing out some English learned from his new American friends.

He has quickly picked up some accoutrements of the warlord high life, like the fleet of six gleaming new Toyota Land Cruisers for his personal use. Even there, however, the transition from guerrilla to foot soldier is incomplete.

Take his favorite Land Cruiser, a luxury model with a computer console that offers satellite TV and a Global Positioning System receiver in addition to the CD player and radio. Ali, who loves this car so much he insists that the plastic covers be kept on the creamy tan leather seats, can't operate the console, and neither can his driver. They bought the car in Dubai without checking out the computer, which is programmed in Japanese.

Even so, the SUV is one of the only visible perks of his new power. Unlike his more worldly rival, Zaman, who holds court in a beautiful Jalalabad garden, surrounded by orange trees and speaking fluent French and English, Ali is most comfortable flanked by the pickup trucks of gunmen who accompany him everywhere. The house where he stays in Jalalabad has the feel of a soldiers' barracks, which it is.

Northern Alliance, Not Pashtun

Ali was up north, in the Panjshir Valley, mourning the death of the Northern Alliance's charismatic leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, when a new war in Afghanistan became inevitable on Sept. 11. All around Jalalabad, Ali has made his allegiance to the Northern Alliance an inescapable political fact, hanging posters of Massoud on his military command posts and his men's pickup trucks. He keeps a picture of Massoud's son on the dashboard of his Land Cruiser.

A few weeks after Sept. 11, he said, the Americans came to him in the Northern Alliance's Panjshir headquarters, planning the military campaign against the Taliban. While Jalalabad's other would-be leaders plotted their return from exile, Ali had never left the country, fighting inside Afghanistan throughout the Taliban's five-year rule.

Asked why Ali won the favor of the Americans over Jalalabad's two other major figures, a Western diplomat who has followed the relationship closely cited Ali's twin credentials: He is Northern Alliance, and he is not Pashtun. "Our side decided he might be more reliable," the diplomat said. "While people like Zaman were sitting in Dijon, Ali was in the country fighting -- a fairly effective military guy."

But the Americans, at least back then, hedged their bets. Ali received money and satellite phones, but so did Zaman, according to several sources. It's not clear how much either received. Ali is less known than other warlords who have seized control of large parts of Afghanistan, such as Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum in Mazar-e Sharif or Ismail Khan in Herat. Before the Taliban's collapse, it was far from guaranteed that Ali would emerge as Jalalabad's leading figure.

When the Taliban fled Jalalabad on Nov. 14, Ali's men were the first ones here, and by all accounts they went on a days-long looting spree. But as Ali started taking charge of the city, Qadir and Zaman at least temporarily teamed up, rushing back to Jalalabad on Nov. 16 to ensure that Ali did not gain unchallenged control.

All three leaders aspired to rule. "I should be governor," Ali told reporters in November. "I liberated the town." Instead, he was appointed regional security chief, the post he held before the Taliban took over. Zaman was nominally in charge of the military as regional corps commander. Qadir returned to the governorship.

But Ali always had more power in the way that counted: He had thousands of fighters at his command. When the Americans pushed the Afghans into mounting an assault on al Qaeda forces at Tora Bora, it was Ali who took charge.

Today, Ali's men are installed in key positions in the city. A top lieutenant is the police chief. Another runs the beleaguered telephone exchange, which neither receives calls from elsewhere in the country nor can send them out of Afghanistan. His commanders control the airport, the military headquarters and the city checkpoints. Like Ali, many are Pashai outsiders, and are loyal to him.

Asked how many fighters are under his command, he demurred at first. "If I tell you, you will think it is an exaggeration," he said. Later, he said, "I have 18,000 soldiers with guns," spread throughout several provinces of eastern Afghanistan. Six thousand of his soldiers are in Jalalabad and surrounding Nangahar province, he said. "I am giving to all these money and food and everything."

Faulting Rival on Tora Bora

Ali's main project these days is not military, but political -- securing the permanent ouster of his rival Zaman.

In the eight weeks since the end of his inconclusive campaign in Tora Bora, Ali has used his clout to blame Zaman for the apparent escape of bin Laden and his fighters.

He also accuses Zaman of "playing a double game," receiving support from Pakistan as well as from the British special forces who are headquartered at Zaman's house in Jalalabad. "Because of that, the Kabul government doesn't have trust in him," Ali said.

In mid-January, Ali appeared to win when the Kabul government ousted Zaman from his post as corps commander. "We told the Americans, so they kicked Zaman out, they took his job from him," said Musa, Ali's deputy. Now, Ali is lobbying the Kabul government to give Zaman a different job, anywhere but here.

But Zaman has been fighting back. In a meeting with Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai, and defense chief Fahim, he was offered the post of head of security for Karzai, commanding a force of 6,000 soldiers. He refused. "He told Karzai and Fahim angrily, 'I don't want to quit Nangahar,' " said an aide who was present.

Qadir, too, has become bitter at Ali's ascendancy, according to advisers. "Everybody knows Hazrat Ali isn't a military professional, he isn't a real leader," said Buryali, Qadir's brother, who uses a single name. "But he has influence, he has people, he has money. He is supported by the Northern Alliance and the Americans."

To Buryali, Ali's power is a bad sign of the long-term effects of the U.S.-led war. "The Americans have created this warlord," he said. "And unfortunately, the structure of warlordism in Afghanistan will last as long as power depends on how many guns you have."

A Sermon on Change

Ali's convoy arrived one recent afternoon in neighboring Laghman province, on a mission to make peace between rival factions.

Aware of his limitations as a negotiator, Ali asked the silver-tongued mayor of Jalalabad, Engineer Ghafar, to speak first. He offered a sermon on the evils of warlordism.

"In Europe and the world everywhere, they are talking about the warlord culture in our country," the mayor said, "where everything is for money, for bad things. So now we have to make clear to the mind of the West that we will change these things. It's your duty to unite all these warlords and commanders. We have to join ourselves together, and that's the reason for our visit."

No one seemed to sense any irony.

Later, in a meeting in the barren concrete building that serves as the governor's house, Ali offered a homily that described his own evolving sense of what it means to be a warlord in a country where war is over, but peace is not yet established.

"Don't go for war because you know war is disaster," he lectured. "Holding an official job means being like the servant of the people -- so now you have to behave like that."

Outside, his heavily armed retinue waited. He had told the guards to watch especially carefully over his beloved Land Cruiser. "I don't trust these people," he had said. "They are all thieves."

-------- africa

FOR THE RECORD

WORLD In Brief
Monday, February 18, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26202-2002Feb17?language=printer

The military inquiry into explosions at an armory in Nigeria that killed more than 1,000 people last month found that a large quantity of arms were stolen during the blasts, a local newspaper reported.

----

Uganda Bolsters Congo Force as Clashes Kill 200

By REUTERS
February 18, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-congo-democratic-uganda.html

KAMPALA - Uganda has sent troop reinforcements to the Democratic Republic of Congo to quell an upsurge in ethnic fighting that killed more than 200 people in two days, the Ugandan army said on Monday.

The army said scores of people were hacked to death last week in clashes between Hema and Lendu tribes in an area of northeastern Congo controlled by Ugandan troops.

``All we want to see is that nobody is killing anybody else,'' said army spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza.

``The United Nations has said that since the area is under our control, and we are the only credible force in the area, we should move in to restore peace and order,'' he said.

Bantariza declined to give the numbers of troops involved.

A spokesman for the United Nations Mission in Congo said the mission's force commander wrote to the Ugandan government earlier this month asking them to protect the local population in areas where Ugandan forces are operating.

Uganda, which backs rebels in northeastern Congo, says it has withdrawn most of its troops from northeastern Congo as part of a U.N.-backed peace process for the former Zaire.

Fighting between the Hema and Lendu communities over land and natural resources has broken out in areas vacated by the Ugandans, prompting Kampala to send troops back.

Many of the victims have been hacked to death by machetes or stabbed with spears in clashes that have reportedly killed hundreds of people this year and forced at least 15,000 to flee.

The United Nations said earlier this month the bloodshed in Ituri province near Uganda threatened to undermine the Democratic Republic of Congo's fragile peace process to end three years of civil war.

Representatives of the Congolese government, rebel movements, civic groups and political parties are due to start talks in South Africa on February 25 to chart a new political future for the country the size of western Europe.

The Hema community said last week an attack by Lendu militiamen on the Hema village of Kparnganza, around 15 miles north of the Congolese town of Bunia, had killed 200 people on Friday.

The Ugandan army spokesman said the latest deployments had been sent to Bunia, while reinforcements sent in January had gone to the Congolese towns of Aru and Mahagi, less than 12 miles from the Ugandan border.

The war in Congo began in 1998 when rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda sought to topple the late President Laurent Kabila. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia sent troops to support Kabila in a conflict pitting the government against various rebels groups.

----

U.N. Evacuates Some Staff as Somali Clans Fight

By REUTERS
February 18, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-somalia-fighting.html

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Monday it had evacuated international staff from a southern Somali town as a precaution after fighting among rival factions reportedly killed 36 people.

Witnesses said gunmen from both sides were killed in the second outbreak of fighting this month in Bardhere district of Gedo region 250 miles west of Mogadishu between factions using heavy machineguns.

The witnesses said 36 people were killed.

In Nairobi, a U.N. spokesperson said the world body was temporarily evacuating foreign staff from Baidoa town to neighboring Kenya as a security precaution but was keen that they return as soon as possible to work on drought relief.

The fighting pitted a faction friendly with neighboring Ethiopia known as the Somali Restoration and Reconciliation Council against the Juba Valley Alliance, aligned to Somalia's fledgling transitional national government.

The witnesses said the fighters of the Juba Valley Alliance took control of the Bardhere district at the end of several hours of clashes that began shortly after dawn on Monday.

Some witnesses said the Juba Valley Alliance militiamen were expected to try to advance on Baidoa in the next few days, where the SRRC has its headquarters and where workers on several U.N. humanitarian projects are based.

Eight people were killed in an outbreak of fighting between the two groups in Bardhere on February 12.

``We have relocated international professionals out of Baidoa and they will be moving via (the northeastern Kenyan town of) Mandera to Nairobi. This action was prompted by information about clashes this morning,'' the U.N. spokesperson said.

``We are concerned about regaining access as soon as possible due to understandable concern about a deteriorating humanitarian situation caused by drought.''

The spokesperson declined to say how many staff were being moved. U.N. international staff remain at work in other parts of the south, as well as in the center and north of the country.

Various U.N. agencies have 100 international staff and 400 local staff to help 750,000 of the country's most needy people in the chaotic Horn of Africa country of seven million.

-------- asia

Counterterrorism moves to Southeast Asia

By Sally Buzbee
ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 18, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020218-32784385.htm

The United States is rapidly expanding military ties in Asia, where President Bush is visiting three countries this week, as it fights terrorism and tries to promote regional stability.

In the most visible example, about 600 U.S. troops are advising Filipino troops fighting Muslim extremists on an island in the southern Philippines.

But U.S. military leaders and Bush administration officials also are talking with Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia about ways to increase military cooperation to pursue members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network or other terrorist groups.

Congress has passed a bill that would establish a counterterrorism training program for officers in Southeast Asian armies.

The CIA is quietly beginning to arm and train counterterrorist teams and intelligence services of other U.S. allies, including those in Southeast Asia, U.S. officials say.

Such efforts apparently have rattled China, already opposed to American support for Taiwan and the Bush administration's decision to build anti-missile defenses.

"If the Chinese chose to become alarmed, they'd have a lot of reasons to be alarmed" because of the growing U.S. presence around them, said John Pike, a defense analyst for Globalsecurity.org in Washington.

Relations between China and the United States have remained cordial since the September 11 terrorist attacks. China has supported the anti-terrorism effort, fearing Islamic militancy in Central Asia, and that has defused some tension.

The commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Dennis C. Blair, said recently he hopes the cooperation on terrorism will lead to more direct military cooperation with China.

"There are areas where the [PeopleŽs Liberation Army] and the armed forces of the United States could cooperate whenever it's in both of our interests," Adm. Blair said. "And I would hope that the campaign against terrorism would be able to provide that kind of an opportunity."

The U.S. military has had a large presence in Asia since World War II. It has about 47,000 troops in Japan under a mutual security treaty and 38,000 troops in South Korea to deter any invasion from North Korea. It also has a longtime security agreement with Australia.

But U.S. military ties in the region expanded substantially beyond those traditional allies during the Clinton administration. The United States began using the military "as a vehicle for engaging with and maintaining relations with all these various countries," Mr. Pike said.

Now, during the war on terrorism, "Having all these military relationships makes it much easier to project American power," he said.

Countries with ties to the U.S. military, in turn, get valuable help such as military training or access to equipment. Singapore, where Navy ships dock, gets a public linkage with America that might deter aggression, even if the United States makes no formal guarantee of military help.

The buildup in the Philippines could be a test for U.S. involvement elsewhere, including Indonesia and Malaysia, defense officials say.

Those countries have terrorist activity considered worse than in the Philippines, but their relations with the United States are not as close.

Nevertheless, Adm. Blair said the United States would look for ways to focus ongoing exercises, such as those each year with Malaysia, more on scenarios to fight terrorism.

Indonesia, which is barred from U.S. military ties because of human rights concerns, would be eligible for the counterterrorism training assistance approved by Congress.

----

Defense Official Praises Japan

By Larry Margasak
Associated Press Writer
Monday, February 18, 2002; 12:21 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28390-2002Feb18?language=printer

WASHINGTON -- A top defense official on Monday praised Japan for its participation in the war on terrorism, but said recovery of the Japanese economy is just as important to international security.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said there have been "extraordinary changes in Japanese security attitudes" since the Gulf War, and he praised Japan's contributions to the U.S. effort in Afghanistan.

Speaking to the U.S.-Japan Business Conference, made up of top companies from both countries, Wolfowitz said Japan has committed a third of its C-130 transport fleet to the campaign against terrorism. Japan also has been refueling naval vessels engaged in the operation.

"These are not things Japan was obligated to do," Wolfowitz told company executives. "These were actions of a close and trusted friend. They were actions Japan took on its own initiative."

Wolfowitz called Japan's economic recovery "every bit as important to the security of Japan and security of the United States and security of the region as are the contributions" against terrorism.

He said Japan "has all the tools it needs to put its own economic house in order."

"The question for Japan is not whether it has the means to restore itself to ... economic growth," he said. "The question is whether it has the will."

Wolfowitz spoke as President Bush was in Tokyo, where he praised Japan as "the bedrock for peace and prosperity" in the Pacific, and said he has full confidence that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's reforms will turn around Japan's ailing economy.

Discussing North Korea, a country Bush described as an "axis of evil" along with Iran and Iraq, Wolfowitz said that nation remains a menace but the United States is willing to have a dialogue without preconditions.

"North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction while its citizens starve," he said.

Despite this record, Wolfowitz said, the Bush administration supports South Korea's diplomatic efforts at reconciliation with its neighbor. "The door to dialogue is open," he said.

On relations with China, he said that country was "not an enemy, but it is not a strategic partner, either." He said the China "unfortunately, has been part of the problem" in the proliferation of weapons.

He added, "We will also continue to uphold our commitment to ensure that Taiwan has adequate means for its own defense."

----

Nepal Uses Rebel Attacks to Press Emergency Case

By REUTERS
February 18, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-nepal.html

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepal's government on Monday pressed for an extension of a state of emergency, after weekend raids by Maoist rebels killed 154 people in the deadliest attack of their six-year rebellion to topple the Hindu monarchy.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba told parliament the revolt would drag on and more people would die if the chamber refused the government's request.

``If it is not endorsed, it will have a more adverse impact on the country and the operation against the rebels,'' he told parliament in introducing a motion to extend the state of emergency, a move planned before the weekend bloodshed.

``The Maoist problem could be prolonged for several years and take an even more serious turn if parliament does not approve it,'' he said.

The violence is the latest to threaten the stability of the landlocked Himalayan country, sandwiched between India and China, after several members of the royal family were massacred in June.

Maoists fighting to topple the constitutional monarchy killed 141 people at the weekend -- including 110 at Mangalsen, capital of western Achham district -- in the biggest single strike of the six-year rebellion.

Most of them were soldiers and police. Authorities say 13 rebels also died in the fighting.

ROYAL MASSACRE

The strikes are the worst since the rebels broke a truce with a series of attacks in November.

That prompted the government to declare a state of emergency and the new king Gyanendra allowed the army to go after the Maoists for the first time, something his murdered predecessor had resisted doing. The king retains power over the armed forces under Nepal's constitutional monarchy.

Opposition politicians blamed the government.

``The Nepali Congress party must give up power because it has failed to provide security to the people and good administration to the country,'' said Pradeep Nepal, a member of the main opposition Communist Unified Marxist-Leninist party.

The opposition parties have not spelled out their position on the state of emergency vote, but they have previously criticized the declaration as unnecessary and restrictive.

Deuba's Congress has a majority in the parliament, but still needs at least 25 opposition members' support to achieve the two-thirds majority it needs to extend the state of emergency.

Communications and Information Minister Jayprakash Prasad Gupta told Reuters the army would now go on the offensive after running a mainly ``defensive'' operation.

``The situation will now change,'' he said. ``The government has instructed all security agencies to launch immediate offensive and defensive operations against the Maoists.''

VOTE ON FRIDAY

Deuba is seeking parliament's approval of the state of emergency, which would automatically extend it to late May. Without parliament's support, the state of emergency granting sweeping powers to security forces and restricting some civil rights lapses next week. A vote is due on Friday.

Nepal, home to some of the world's tallest mountains, relies heavily on foreign tourism but has been stricken since then-Crown Prince Dipendra massacred reformist King Birenda and other members of the royal family before committing suicide.

The new king, Gyanendra, has been unable to capture the same support of the people his popular brother enjoyed.

This has fueled popular support for the Maoists against the monarchy, prompting the king for the first time to order the army to crush the rebels after the truce was broken. Previously, the poorly-equipped and trained police had the task alone.

More than 200 people died in the November violence and the latest attacks bring the toll since then to more than 700 and over the course of the rebellion to more than 2,650.

REBELS A SERIOUS FORCE

Coming almost three months after the army was sent in after the guerrillas, the weekend attacks underline the extent to which the Maoists remain a serious force.

Analysts said the strikes appeared well-planned and executed and coincided with the sixth anniversary of the start of the rebellion, the scheduled debate on the state of emergency and Tuesday's National Democracy Day celebrations.

The rebels now virtually control Achham district, scene of the attacks, where government rule was never strong due to the isolated, rugged terrain and its poor resources.

``Life is at a standstill there,'' said Ram Bahadur Bista, the ruling Nepali Congress party's local MP.

One Kathmandu-based diplomat said the government could not regain control until reinforcements arrived.

``The Maoists have wiped out the presence of the government in the district. They picked their targets to make sure the government has no face left,'' he said.

The Maoists draw inspiration from Peru's Shining Path and its ideology from Chinese leader Mao Zedong, seeking power for the rural poor and attacking feudal rulers and the urban elite.

Analysts say although the 50,000-strong army easily outnumbers the estimated 2,000 hardcore rebels, many soldiers are tied up defending cities, employed in clerical work or on U.N. deployments, leaving barely 6,000-10,000 to hunt the guerrillas.

``Two brigades are not enough to conduct effective, nationwide counter-insurgency operations over rugged, mountainous terrain,'' said U.S.-based think tank Stratfor.com.

Despite 10 years of constitutional monarchy, Nepal remains driven by feudalism, its king seen as the reincarnation of a Hindu god, its 23 million people defined by Hindu castes.

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Bush Pledges U.S. Military Presence in Asia

February 18, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-bush-asia.html

TOKYO - President Bush pledged on Tuesday to defend South Korea against aggression, to keep a U.S. military presence in Asia and to pursue a missile defense system to protect its allies in the region.

Speaking to the Japanese parliament, the Diet, Bush warmly endorsed Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and voiced confidence that Japan would emerge from its third recession in a decade if it took ``bold action'' to revive its economy.

Wrapping up a three-day visit to Japan, Bush vowed to use ''American power'' to support Australia, Thailand and the Philippines, where U.S. forces are already training the Philippine military to fight ``terrorists'' suspected of being allied with accused September 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.

``We are more committed than ever to a forward presence in this region,'' Bush said in a prepared text released by his aides. ``We will continue to show American power and purpose in support of the Philippines, Australia, and Thailand.

``We will deter aggression against the Republic of Korea,'' he added. ``And to protect the people of this region, and our friends and allies in every region, we will press on with an effective program of missile defense.''

Bush made the relatively tough speech as he prepared to fly later in the day to South Korea, where small protests have erupted at his labeling of North Korea, Iran and Iraq as an ''axis of evil'' seeking weapons of mass destruction.

From there he will travel to China, where Bush suggested he will press the Chinese leadership to respect ``the rule of law, freedom of conscience and religion, and the rights and dignity of every life.''

``BOLD ACTION''

Bush began his six-day Asian tour in Japan, where he has sought to nudge Koizumi to enact painful economic reforms to revive an economy whose recession threatens to drag down the rest of the region and to slow recovery in the United States.

Seeking to avoid lecturing, Bush recalled the U.S. experience with its savings and loan financial sector crisis in the 1980s as a model for Japan to clean up the massive bad loans that plague its banking sector.

``We learned that in times of crisis and stagnation, it is better to move forward boldly with reform and restructuring than to wait, hoping that old practices will somehow work again,'' Bush said. ``Through bold action, we emerged a better and stronger economy, and so will you.''

As he has throughout his visit, Bush praised Koizumi -- whose popularity has recently plunged -- comparing him to Ichiro Suzuki, the Seattle Mariners star outfielder who last year won the American League's Most Valuable Player award.

``The prime minister and I have had many good visits. I trust him,'' Bush said. ``He reminds me of the new American baseball star, Ichiro: the prime minister can hit anything you throw at him.''

Bush also thanked Japan for aid in the war on terrorism -- including its unprecedented decision to send naval vessels to support the U.S. military in Afghanistan -- and he hailed the two countries' alliance as a ``bridge'' across the Pacific.

BUSH TO VISIT DMZ

After speaking to the Diet, Bush was have lunch with Emperor Akihito at Tokyo's Imperial Palace and then to fly to South Korea, the second leg of a six-day Asian trip that will take him to Beijing on Thursday and Friday.

If Bush's visit to Japan was an exercise in diplomacy to avoid lecturing on the economy, his two-day trip to Seoul will require equal delicacy in explaining that his ``axis of evil'' remark was not designed to undermine South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's ``Sunshine Policy'' of rapprochement with the North.

Bush first used the phrase last month, describing North Korea, Iran and Iraq as seeking weapons of mass destruction and warning the United States would not allow itself to be threatened with such chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

``We seek a peaceful region where the proliferation of missiles and weapons of mass destruction does not threaten humanity,'' Bush said. ``We seek a region in which demilitarized zones and missile batteries no longer separate people with a common heritage and a common future.''

Bush will peer into North Korea on Wednesday when he visits the Demilitarized Zone -- the heavily mined buffer that separates the two countries, which technically remain at war because the Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace agreement.

In China, he and Chinese President Jiang Zemin will again confront prickly issues such as arms proliferation, human rights, Taiwan and the U.S. missile defense program.

On Tuesday, Bush pledged ``America will remember our commitments to the people of Taiwan'' and suggested he would seek common ground with Beijing. ``In the United States, China will find a partner in trade. China will find the respect that it deserves as a great nation.''

-------- balkans

Fair Trial for Milosevic Questioned

By KATARINA KRATOVAC
Associated Press Writer
February 18, 2002, 8:13 PM EST
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-yugoslavia-president0219feb18.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Yugoslavia's president lashed out at the U.N. war crimes tribunal Monday, expressing doubts that Slobodan Milosevic would get a fair trial.

"So far we have seen much politics, a huge media spectacle but least of what this court should be about -- trying the defendant of serious crimes," President Vojislav Kostunica said.

A longtime critic of The Hague court that he considers biased against Serbs, Kostunica singled out the prosecution, accusing it of lacking logic and correct historical facts.

"The prosecution's opening statement had little to do with law but was full of shallow misinterpretation of history," he said.

"There is certainly room to ask the question" of whether th former Yugoslav leader can get a fair trial, he said.

With Milosevic's trial in its second week, such comments by one of Yugoslavia's new leaders appear to strengthen concern here that the trial of his predecessor is a trial against Serbs in general.

Milosevic is on trial on 66 counts of war crimes during the 1991-99 Balkan wars, including genocide in Bosnia. He could be sentenced to life if convicted on any count.

Last year, Kostunica opposed Milosevic's extradition to The Hague tribunal although he was part of the coalition that ousted the former president from power in the October 2000 popular uprising.

Kostunica contends that Milosevic's extradition was illegal because it violated a constitutional ban on surrendering Yugoslav nationals to foreign courts. He has since called on parliament to adopt a special law allowing extradition of Yugoslav nations to The Hague court.

"The prosecution's claim that this trial is against one person, not all Serbs, that there is no collective guilt but only individual, sounds extremely stretched," Kostunica said.

-------- biological weapons

Dilution could extend smallpox vaccine supply

Around the Nation
February 18, 2002
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020218-20679280.htm

BOSTON - In the event of a bioterror attack using smallpox, health authorities could stretch the nation's limited vaccine supply by diluting the 15 million doses that are on hand, a government official said yesterday. Experiments to see whether diluted smallpox vaccine still could offer protection against the disease have been "very successful," Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

------

Bioterror funds a boon for public health
Experts say research will apply to fighting infectious diseases

Sabin Russell, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, February 18, 2002
San Francisco Chronicle
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/18/MN202963.DTL

Boston -- A bonanza of federal dollars unleashed by autumn's anthrax attacks may help American medical researchers build better defenses against infectious diseases that are emerging naturally throughout the world, leading bioterrorism experts said yesterday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told scientists that the proposed $1.5 billion increase in funding for bioterrorism research is "the largest single increase . . . for any designation or disease in the history of the National Institutes of Health. "

The Bush administration's proposed 2003 budget would allot $1.75 billion to a variety of bioterrorism-related projects, compared with $274 million in the current fiscal year.

Fauci said it is essential that his agency spend those dollars wisely and stressed that the kind of studies conducted against potential biowarfare agents are applicable to any infectious disease.

"We may be able to transcend this attack on us," he said, "by translating it into the betterment of public health around the world."

He made his comments during a three-hour panel session and at a press conference at the 168th national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

One quick payoff of the research begun after anthrax was mailed to media and political targets is a promising approach to stretch existing stocks of smallpox vaccine. The United States maintains only 15 million doses of smallpox vaccine because the disease was considered wiped out in 1980.

But fears that old Soviet bioweapons stocks -- they brewed smallpox virus by the ton -- could have made their way to fanatics prompted a crash program to determine if the vaccine would work if diluted to one-tenth the normal dose.

Without providing details, he told the gathering that "it was a very successful experiment." Meanwhile, the United States is purchasing an additional 288 million doses of smallpox vaccine to be produced, using a new technology from the British drug company Acambis plc., and is conducting further studies on an all-new vaccine that would be safer that the current ones. Smallpox vaccine is considered to be dangerous for people who are immune compromised, and it typically kills 2 people for every 1 million immunized by causing encephalitis.

That is why smallpox vaccine has not been distributed publicly since 1972.

Experts on the panel noted that the anthrax attack sickened only 18 people, killing five of them, while ordinary diseases such as influenza kill 20,000 Americans a year.

"Bioterrorism is more terror than bio," said Dr. David Franz, a University of Alabama researcher who formerly headed the United States bioweapons defense laboratory in Fort Detrick, Md.

Franz noted that traditional biowarfare defense envisioned a huge aerial attack on troops, but the bioterrorist aim is to kill or frighten civilians. As a consequence, he said the standard list of bioterrorism agents -- anthrax, plague, smallpox and botulism -- may have to be expanded to more common but less deadly pathogens. "The list of agents that might be used is longer, but it isn't necessarily more lethal," he said.

Some of the most advanced biotechnology techniques have been harnessed against the unknown anthrax terrorist, who experts believe may have been an American scientist with knowledge of the nation's bioweapons program. Franz said that the person who did it "was someone who knew what he was doing -- a craftsman, if you will" but said he had no evidence that person used a process to disperse the spores that was developed by the U.S. weapons program.

Claire Fraser, president of the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville,

Md., explained how her company is comparing the genetic material found in anthrax mailed to a Florida newspaper office (killing one man) to a laboratory strain thought to be identical. The work has detected dozens of subtle differences in the genes of the two -- evidence that could pinpoint which lab held the strain used by the terrorist.

But Fraser cautioned that there is a limit to the amount of data collected so far. "It would be irresponsible to raise hopes that this approach, alone, will solve this crime," she said.

E-mail Sabin Russell at srussell@sfchronicle.com.

-------- britain

British Marines lose bearings and "invade" Spain

Monday February 18, 10:13 PM
Reuters
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/reuters/asia-90005.html

GIBRALTAR - British troops invaded Spain on Sunday -- but beat a hasty retreat when bemused locals informed them their sea borne landing exercise had strayed off course on to a Spanish beach near Gibraltar.

Officials said on Monday that about 20 Royal Marines had spent a few minutes on Spanish soil, some distance from their intended training target on the British colony that is the subject of a 300-year dispute between London and Madrid.

Spain moved quickly to avoid further blushes for Britain, dismissing the incident as a genuine mistake.

The two European Union and NATO allies -- once the greatest of foes -- are negotiating a deal to resolve their tussle over Gibraltar, which British marines seized from Spain in 1704.

"Two landing craft from HMS Ocean accidentally entered Spanish territorial waters and in bad weather one landing craft landed on the beach a few yards over the Spanish side of the border," a British Ministry of Defence spokesman told Reuters.

"About 20 Royal Marines disembarked for about five minutes and then the error was recognised and they all withdrew," he said, adding that it was the first time he had heard of such an error taking place during one of the frequent landing exercises.

"Clearly that is the end of the matter but obviously it is a situation we would rather not have taken place."

Spain's foreign ministry also played down the incident as a harmless error that would not undermine negotiations, known as the Brussels process, aimed at resolving the Gibraltar issue.

"We are not going to protest. From our point of view the matter is closed," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

The two countries hope to reach a deal on the colony's future in the next few months but many of the 30,000 inhabitants of "The Rock", as the peninsula is known, say they will not accept any move towards Spanish sovereignty.

-------- business

W uses fear to fatten military budget

By Dave Zweifel
February 18, 2002,
Madison Capitol Times (Wisconsin)
http://www.captimes.com/opinion/column/zweifel/20157.php

The joke around Washington these days is that our president has changed the motto "Leave no child behind" to "Leave no defense contractor behind."

Actually, there's more truth to that than joke. George W. Bush has parlayed the war against terrorism into a massive military buildup that includes billions for weapon systems that have nothing to do with that war.

As Paul Krugman said in his New York Times' column last week:

"The military buildup seems to have little to do with the actual threat, unless you think that al-Qaida's next move will be a frontal assault by several heavy armored divisions.

"We non-defense experts are a bit puzzled about why an attack by maniacs armed with box cutters justifies spending $15 billion on 70-ton artillery pieces, or developing three different advanced fighters (before Sept. 11 even administration officials suggested that this was too many)."

That's what is so disturbing about George Bush's budget that will soon wend its way through Congress. Once again, Social Security, health care and dozens of other programs that could make life a bit better for millions of Americans will take a back seat to the military.

What's so sad is that all too many people are accepting this absolute nonsense because this administration has cleverly created a perception that it's needed to not only get Osama bin Laden, but contain terrorist governments like Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

It isn't.

The war on terrorism may indeed require some more spending on intelligence, security and the further production of those new high-tech bombs and pilotless airplanes. And, absolutely, our servicemen and women need a raise.

But Bush is loosening the purse strings so much that there's enough money for everyone's favorite military program - whether or not it has anything to do with the fight against al-Qaida. And once again, rather than force the military to shift priorities, cut down on the massive amounts of wasteful duplication and redirect its resources to the new world realities, all those old Cold War-style ships, jet and weapon systems will get new funding, too.

George Bush was in Wisconsin last week to praise Gov. Scott McCallum for making the "tough decisions" on solving the state's budget crisis.

There was a terrible irony there. While McCallum has decided to force local governments to reduce services by cutting back on everything from firefighters to park maintenance, the president has decided to throw billions more at building yet more howitzers and a Star Wars anti-missile system that most experts say won't work in the first place.

But those are the kinds of priorities we've been getting from the Republican Party for the past several decades.

----

Schooling for the future

By William Glanz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 18, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/businesstimes/20020218-67182814.htm

The U.S. Army's decision to spend $453 million on a new cyber-education program for soldiers indicates online learning is big business.

The fact that three local companies are among the firms sharing the contract shows electronic learning has become big business around Washington.

The contact to design and deliver eArmyU is the largest ever for an electronic-learning project.

The main contractor and two of the subcontractors awarded the contract are Washington-area companies. Long known as a hub for Internet companies, Washington has quietly become a center for cyber-education businesses.

An estimated 65 firms in the area are marketing the technology and content that schools, private-sector employers and the federal government need to put information online. Washington's tech firms are helping young students take courses at home, college students sign up for courses and corporate workers participate in training programs.

"I find electronic learning to be exceptionally compelling and I find it especially satisfying because this area is turning out to be a major electronic-learning cluster," says Christopher Gergen, the 31-year old co-founder of Smarthinking Inc., a privately held company in the District that tutors students online.

Mr. Gergen, whose company is one of the three local firms helping run eArmyU, is arguably the most ambitious and voluble booster promoting the region's nascent electronic-learning companies.

In a sparse conference room at the headquarters of his Pennsylvania Avenue company, Mr. Gergen explains that his goal is to draw attention to electronic-learning companies doing business here and attract others to the region. A bigger cluster of companies will help attract investment and attract workers, he says.

Taking root

The effort to boost the number of electronic-learning companies took root nearly two years ago.

Thomas G. Morr, managing partner at the Greater Washington Initiative, an economic-development group, remembers a conversation in June 2000 on a trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to recruit Canadian companies to the region. A local businessman who accompanied him said the number of Washington-area tech companies engaged in online education was rising and suggested the Greater Washington Initiative turn its economic development efforts toward the burgeoning industry.

By the fall of 2000, Mr. Morr and his colleagues gathered a group of electronic-learning chief executives to see just how many there were and whether they supported efforts to attract other companies.

They did.

As part of the endeavor, the Greater Washington Initiative published the first-ever list of area electronic-learning companies last October. It is working on a new report to quantify the industry's fiscal effect on the area: its combined work force, payroll and revenues.

Recruitment efforts are under way, but Mr. Morr can't yet point to a single electronic-learning company that the Greater Washington Initiative has convinced to move here since it began recruiting efforts.

But he is optimistic.

"We believe it will work," he says.

The cluster of companies can attract other firms in the same industry, he says.

To date the reason so many electronic-learning companies have set up shop here has more to do with the presence of the Department of Education, the teachers' union headquarters and the numerous nonprofit groups representing educators and administrators than it does with the economic development agency's efforts to attract them.

The landscape of electronic-learning companies doing business here now consists mainly of small firms, but analysts say they have room to grow because the public's appetite for electronic learning is big.

Electronic learning used to be synonymous with taking school courses online. In fact, it means using the Internet to deliver all educational and training material for either students or workers. And schools aren't even the most prolific electronic-learning customers. Corporations and nonprofit associations that want employees to take mandatory training programs or want members to have access to materials for continuing education are the electronic-learning industry's biggest clients.

"We believe demand will grow very fast," said Daniel Neal, chief executive of VCampus Corp., a publically traded Reston firm marketing the technology and services that corporations, associations and government agencies use to deliver training programs.

A growing industry

Electronic learning already is a $5 billion industry, says Jerry Herman, managing director of education research at Baltimore investment banker Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc. Corporate spending for online-training programs will reach $15 billion within two years, Mr. Herman predicts. Spending by colleges and universities lags behind corporate spending, but higher education still invests about $2 billion a year in electronic learning.

By 2007 electronic learning will grow to an estimated $40 billion industry, Mr. Herman says.

"Electronic learning is not a niche industry," says Matthew Pittinsky, chairman and co-founder of Blackboard Inc., a 4-year-old privately held District company. Blackboard's enormous growth has been fueled by demand for software that colleges and universities need to put course information, registration services and teaching and learning applications online.

The local landscape of electronic-learning companies is populated with small firms. But Blackboard has blossomed to become one of the anchors of the region's online-education cluster. Its 2000 revenue reached $32 million, and it hasn't disclosed 2001 earnings.

Mr. Pittinsky and Blackboard President and Chief Executive Michael Chasen, classmates at American University, were working together at KPMG Consulting's online-education practice in 1996 and 1997 when they decided to start their own electronic-learning firm. Online education was still an unfamiliar concept in 1997, and the college friends had difficulty attracting interest, let alone investors.

"I had a tough time believing this group of people could build a company," Roger Novak, co-founder of the Bethesda venture- capital firm Novak Biddle Venture Partners, said last month at the Third Annual Early Stage Venture Capital Forum in the District.

With Mr. Chasen sitting next to him, Mr. Novak explained that he turned down Blackboard's initial request for funding. But he reconsidered after hearing other investors and other entrepreneurs talk about moving education initiatives to the Web. When he saw Mr. Chasen some time later, he swallowed his pride and made an admission.

"I'm the guy who spiked [any plans to invest in Blackboard]. I'm stupid. Let's do a deal," he remembers telling Mr. Chasen. Novak Biddle led the first round of venture-capital investment in Blackboard in Oct. 1998. Blackboard, which is also involved in the eArmyU contract, has raised $103 million to date, has 420 employees and 2,200 customers. Analysts say it is positioning itself for an initial public offering, perhaps as early as this year.

Mr. Gergen considers Blackboard to be one of the standard bearers of the regional electronic-learning cluster because of what its co-founders have accomplished. But Blackboard isn't the only compelling company here.

Learning pioneers

Smarthinking, founded in July 1999, works with 260 universities to provide online tutoring to students. It also provides online support for textbook publisher Houghton-Mifflin Co. Students who purchase one of 10,000 Houghton-Mifflin textbooks get a Smarthinking account and can consult one of its tutors if they have questions about material in the text.

Last month the company, which employs just 17 persons at its headquarters and has 150 tutors worldwide, secured a contract with the state of Massachusetts to tutor 10th-graders in its public schools who have failed the state's proficiency test and must retake the mandatory exam.

K12 Inc., a 10-month-old company in McLean with 140 employees, targets younger students by marketing software to parents of home schoolers and to the ever-increasing number of virtual charter schools.

Under the virtual charter-school model, students learn at home, have access to course materials online and have little direct contact with teachers. Teachers monitor the progress of students over computers and are in contact with parents over telephones, while parents lead children through lessons that K12 has crafted in language arts, math, history, science, art and music.

The K12 curriculum was written under the guidance of former Education Secretary William J. Bennett.

"We tell parents what their children should know, and that's very valuable," K12 Chief Executive Ron Packard says.

About 4,000 students at virtual public schools in Pennsylvania, Alaska, California and Colorado use the curriculum developed by K12, but the home school and virtual-charter school markets that the company targets are significantly larger.

Parents were home schooling an estimated 850,000 children in 1999, according to a U.S. Department of Education report last year. And there are at least 30 virtual charter schools in 12 states, according to the Center for Education Reform, a District-based school choice advocacy group.

The Center for Education Reform says about 10,000 students attend those virtual charter schools, which are public schools.

K12's curriculum for students in kindergarten through second grade is online now. The curriculum for students in grades three through five is expected to be online by September, and course material for students in upper grades will be complete in subsequent years.

VCampus makes most of its money serving the corporate electronic-learning market, but it is also turning its attention to the public sector. The company began running the General Services Administration's online-ethics course last year. GSA employees take the mandatory, self-taught course once a year. That will generate up to $4 million in revenue over two years for the publicly traded firm.

Last week VCampus started a new online-training program for the Social Security Administration that will generate up to $440,000 in revenue for the company over two years.

Despite the increase in the number of electronic-learning companies and the eager reception of online education and cyber-training by Internet users, the proliferation of electronic- learning companies may not continue.

"It will face the same constraints that the dot-coms did. We will begin to see that some companies find their future is better if it's tied to a bigger company," says Jill Kidwell, a principal at PwC Consulting's electronic-learning group, the Arlington company that was named the prime contractor on the eArmyU contract.

Some consolidation has already started.

Blackboard bought electronic-learning company Prometheus, based in Washington. last month, though terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Prometheus was a direct competitor of Blackboard with just 65 customers and its software also helped colleges and unviersities put course material online.

"Consolidation is a very important theme. I would expect a ton of merger-and-acquisition activity," Mr. Herman says.

-------- drug war

Britain Tests Drugs Based on Marijuana

February 18, 2002
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/18/international/europe/18MARI.html

LONDON, Monday, Feb. 18 (Reuters) - British doctors could be filling out prescriptions for cannabis- based pain-killing drugs as early as 2004 if clinical trials prove a success, the Department of Health said today.

Canada became the first country to legalize the use of marijuana as a treatment for chronic illnesses last year and now Britain plans to consider offering cannabis-based pills through the National Health Service.

The British health minister, Lord Hunt, said trials paid for by the Medical Research Council and supported by the Department of Health and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society had been set up to "assess the use of cannabinoids in multiple sclerosis and post-operative pain."

"Results are expected at the end of 2002 and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence will use these results in its appraisal of these drugs," he said.

Britain's Medical Research Council, a government-financed organization, has already begun trials with cannabis-based tablets on hundreds of people with multiple sclerosis.

The results of those tests will be forwarded to clinical institute, Britain's medical watchdog, which will decide whether the cannabis tablets should be offered by prescription through the National Health Service.

Marijuana is favored by many people who have multiple sclerosis and cancer; they say cannabis kills pain and stimulates appetite without the corrosive side effects of many alternatives.

A British company, GW Pharmaceuticals, is developing cannabis- based prescription medicines. It recently said it would expand clinical trials into dealing with cancer pain.

-------- europe

Italy drafts new law to oust illegal immigrants

By Kristine Crane
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 18, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020218-17924212.htm

ROME - Italy plans to begin expelling illegal immigrants from the Muslim nations of North Africa and elsewhere in response to the events of September 11, scrapping a long-standing policy of sheltering almost anyone who reaches its shores.

An immigration reform law backed by conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and moving through parliament calls for the expulsion of immigrants who entered Italy illegally and don't have regular work contracts.

The measure would affect an estimated 300,000 people, about 18 percent of the total immigrant population, according to Caritas, a charity group.

The government is determined to fight rising crime, which according to recent polls most Italians blame on illegal immigrants.

But officials say they have become especially wary of who shows up on their coasts in light of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and the subsequent arrests of suspected terrorists who immigrated from Northern Africa.

Some of these immigrants have been accused of providing false documents for al Qaeda members operating in Europe. The Islamic Cultural Center in Milan was targeted by the U.S. government in October as an important base for the terrorist network.

The Adriatic coast is prone to traffickers from Albania, largely responsible for bringing an estimated 3,500 women into Italy, and arrests of traffickers have increased by 53 percent in the last seven months, according to government figures.

Chinese immigrants also have been increasingly targeted for aiding illegal immigration to Italy. Recently, eight Chinese and several Italians were arrested in the Tuscan town of Prato, home to Italy's largest Chinese community. The city's textile industry is believed to be using illegal laborers, some of them children, who are treated as indentured servants.

Proponents of the law say Italy's fisheries and farming sectors employ large numbers of illegal immigrants at cheap wages, taking away jobs from Italians.

However, only 7 percent of the public agrees with this notion, according to a recent study commissioned by the Region of Lombardy, which has the highest concentration of immigrants. Eighty percent of those surveyed believe immigrants are taking up only the labor-intensive jobs that Italians will no longer do.

While most employers agree with the argument, over a half of those surveyed in a study by the Milan Observatory in the same region said Italian immigration law is too "permissive" and a third said immigration has an overall toll on society.

According to Apimilano, a trade association, 51 percent of entrepreneurs said they would not hire Muslims.

An approved amendment to the law, however, allows regularization of illegal domestic workers, baby sitters and caretakers of the elderly if they prove they have jobs and housing. These workers are considered indispensable in Italy's "graying" society, which the United Nations estimates would need a yearly influx of at least 150,000 immigrants to maintain its population stability.

After a recent report showed the majority of caretakers were irregular, the elderly took to the streets throughout Italy, demanding that the government regularize the workers.

The proposed law has provoked much opposition from both the left and the public. Two weeks ago, more than 150,000 people protested in Rome against the proposal, calling it racist and uncivilized.

The law is named for Vice Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini, leader of the National Alliance party that has roots in the Fascist Party, and Umberto Bossi of the Northern League Party, which is known for its anti-immigrant stance.

"This is a damaging law for Italy. We need more immigrants," said Mario Marazitti, spokesman for Sant'Egidio, Italy's largest immigration association that organized the protests.

Meanwhile, immigrants who have lived illegally in Italy for years have begun flocking to immigration offices, desperate to avoid expulsion.

Those caught entering Italy illegally are brought daily to the Regina Pacis assistance center for immigrants and trafficked women on the Adriatic coast. Asylum seekers stay there until other arrangements are made; others are either immediately repatriated or detained for a month and then given an expulsion slip good for 15 days, which often becomes a ticket to go underground.

Don Cesare Lodeserto, a priest who runs the center, hopes the law combats criminality without damaging the desperate. "It's a good thing that some immigrants are turned back. With others, we should engage in assistance, dialogue and integration," he said.

--------

Brits Storm Spanish Beach by Mistake

February 18, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Spain-British-Invasion.html

GIBRALTAR (AP) -- The British military apologized Monday for invading Spain over the weekend -- by mistake.

About 20 Royal Marines went slightly off course in an amphibious exercise and stormed a Spanish beach Sunday morning near the British colony of Gibraltar, a British Defense Ministry spokesman said.

Residents of the Spanish border town of La Linea watched in astonishment as the beach filled with combat-ready troops wielding mortar launchers and SA 80 assault rifles, according to Spanish press reports, which said at least 30 troops were involved.

Spanish television station Telecinco showed footage of an advance team in combat fatigues dashing through the surf to a beach several yards from the border, with paratroopers dotting the sky in the background.

Spain's Efe news agency said the soldiers left after several Gibraltarian fishermen and local police officers told them they were on Spanish soil.

The accidental incursion came at a delicate time in negotiations between Spain and Britain over the future of Gibraltar, where Britain established a military base in 1704.

The 2.5-square-mile territory was formally ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Gibraltar is an irritant to British-Spanish relations and the two countries are trying to reach an agreement, that would include the colony's internal self-governance, by summer.

The spokesman, who could not be identified under Defense Ministry rules, said the ``regrettable and embarrassing'' error lasted no more than five minutes.

He said the mishap was likely caused by a map-reading error, although details of an investigation carried out on board the HMS Ocean helicopter carrier, where the soldiers came from, were being kept secret.

However, a statement from the British Forces Gibraltar office blamed the incident on ``poor visibility due to local weather and a number of local fishermen being seen on the intended target beach.''

It added that there was a second border breach Sunday when a similar landing craft lost power and ``drifted outside Gibraltar waters.''

Local police spokesman David Iria said the mistake was understandable, because it is ``difficult to know exactly where you are'' on the poorly marked coastline.

The HMS Ocean, which had stopped at Gibraltar for maintenance, was heading to the Indian Ocean to support military operations in Afghanistan, the spokesman said.

-------- iraq

Lebanese daily: U.S. has already decided to attack Iraq

By Daniel Sobelman,
Ha'aretz Correspondent
Monday, February 18, 2002 Adar 6, 5762 Israel Time: 04:22 (GMT+2)
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=131145&contrassID=1&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=0

CIA Director George Tenet told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during their meeting Saturday in Sharm el Sheikh that the United States has already decided to attack Iraq, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Mustaqbal reported Sunday.

According to a source with knowledge of the Tenet-Mubarak talks, the Beirut daily reported that the U.S. intelligence chief asked that Egypt not publicly express opposition to an attack on Iraq.

Mubarak warned Tenet of the repercussions from an American attack on Iraq. According to the Egyptian president, the attack would endanger stability in the entire Middle East.

It was also reported that Tenet suggested the idea that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat be brought together for a meeting at Sharm al-Sheikh where the two leaders would declare an end to the violence and a renewal of security coordination between the two sides.

According to the report, Mubarak had reservations about the idea and said that first Israel needed to allow Arafat to leave Ramallah so he could attend the Arab summit in Beirut at the end of next month.

The daily also reported that Syrian President Bashar Asad will soon arrive in Egypt for a summit with Mubarak. It specified that they would discuss developments in regard to the Palestinians and Iraq.

----

Iraqi Papers: U.S. Preparing to Attack Iraq

By REUTERS
February 18, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-iraq-usa.html

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi newspapers said on Monday the United States was launching a psychological war on Iraq in preparation for military strikes on the country.

Babel, the newspaper of President Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday, said that as part of the ``psychological war against our country'' the United States ``concentrates on reiterating its aggressive intentions on Iraq to prepare peoples minds to accept this.''

It said the U.S. administration was preparing for military action against Iraq after the failure of its policy to ''dismantle Iraq and its territorial integrity'' -- a reference to the 1991 Gulf war over Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

``These desperate attempts will fail as they have failed in the past,'' Babel said in a front-page editorial.

Iraq on Friday tested war sirens throughout the capital Baghdad for the first time since February last year when U.S. planes attacked a radar system in southern Baghdad.

Speculation has mounted that Washington might launch military action against Baghdad after President Bush described Iraq, Iran and North Korea last month as forming an ``axis of evil'' developing weapons of mass destruction and sponsoring terror.

Bush has also warned Saddam his country will face the consequences if he does not allow U.N. weapons inspectors to return.

But senior U.S. officials said Bush had not yet decided whether to take military action against Iraq.

Iraq has barred the arms inspectors, charged with scrapping its chemical, nuclear and biological arms programs, since U.S. and British warplanes bombed Baghdad in December 1998. Iraq denies it has any weapons of mass destruction. The ruling Baath Party newspaper al-Thawra said Washington was using the issue of the inspectors as an excuse to attack.

``America wants the inspectors to return in order to manufacture a new crisis with Iraq which it will use as a pretext to attack Iraq under a U.N. cover,'' Thawra said.

The paper echoed a recent statement by Iraq's vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, in which he said there was no need for the inspection teams to return.

Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday rejected fresh assurances from Saddam that Iraq was not obtaining weapons of mass destruction and reaffirmed that the United States would act to counter what it sees as clear and present danger.

----

U.S. rejects assurances by Saddam on weapons

By Thomas Ferraro
Monday February 18
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/reuters/asia-89858.html

WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday rejected fresh assurances from Saddam Hussein that Iraq was not obtaining weapons of mass destruction, and reaffirmed that the United States would act to counter what it sees as clear and present danger.

But U.S. senior officials said U.S. President George W. Bush had not yet decided whether to take military action against Iraq.

Powell sought to ease European concerns that the United States might go it alone against Saddam and other potential targets in its war on terrorism and said those countries would eventually come to support the U.S. stand.

"There's a bit of a stir in Europe, but it's a stir, I think, we'll be able to manage with consultations, with contacts of the kind I have almost every day with my European colleagues," Powell told CNN's "Late Edition."

He said Bush had spoken in a very "direct, realistic" way last month when he called Iraq, Iran and North Korea an "axis of evil" and his approach had tended to "jangle people's nerves."

"But once they settle down and understand that he is going to go about this in a prudent, disciplined, determined way ... they begin to understand why it might make sense for them to join in whatever efforts we may be getting ready to undertake," Powell said.

"We'll find a way to move forward that will gather the support we need," he added.

Bush, preparing to pursue America's war on terrorism beyond the campaign in Afghanistan, accused the three countries of pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam, whose overthrow has been sought by many in Washington since his defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, was quoted by the official Iraqi News Agency on Saturday as saying his country has been misunderstood.

"We want to acquire more science to serve ordinary people and humanity at large," Saddam said, insisting Iraq "is not interested in acquiring weapons of mass destruction."

SADDAM IS NOT BELIEVED

Powell, in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," said he did not believe the Iraqi leader.

"No," Powell said. "I've heard that before. We've heard it for 10 years."

"If it is a true statement ... there is a simple way to test the proposition: Let the (United Nations) inspectors in" to conduct an examination.

Powell noted Bush has long pushed for such inspections and would continue to do so while considering various options if Iraq refuses.

"The president has made it clear that he reserves all of his options -- political, diplomatic and for that matter military," Powell said.

"Until that regime is changed, then his neighbours have much to fear and we should be fearful, too, because the weapons that he is developing could well fall into the hands of terrorists."

On the CBS "Face the Nation" program, Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said while the president believed Saddam's government "is a very bad regime," he had not decided to use military force to force him out.

"The president has taken no such decision," Rice said. "He thinks Saddam Hussein was a problem before 9-11 and he is still a problem .... And I can assure you he has taken no decision about the use of force against Iraq."

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," said the United States was not going to publicly discuss how it plans to tackle the threat from the three countries but stressed some form of action was essential.

"We're going to listen to people, and we're going to have ideas," he said. "And there isn't a fixed solution. There's a mix of things -- diplomatic pressure, political pressure, military pressure. But the problem has got to be dealt with; it can't be walked away from."

----

Why Europe Is Wary of War in Iraq

New York Times
February 18, 2002
By MICHAEL NAUMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/18/opinion/18NAUM.html

HAMBURG, Germany -- In June 1981, Israel's prime minister, Menachem Begin, ordered a posse of F-16 jets to take out Saddam Hussein's two nuclear reactors. With vast petroleum reserves, Iraq had no imaginable need for nuclear energy - except to make bombs. And Mr. Hussein had openly declared his intention to attack Israel.

Publicly, Begin was scorned for his outrageous breach of international law. Privately, however, many politicians agreed: Why not destroy Iraq's potentially murderous nuclear toys? Mr. Hussein did go on to start two wars. But he lost both, and if he had been armed with nuclear bombs world history could have taken a very ugly turn.

However, while the man is dangerous and crazy, we do not know that he has weapons of mass destruction. He seems to have had precious little connection to Sept. 11. His army has been destroyed. Therefore, two decades after Begin's attack, America's European allies would deplore a repetition of the Persian Gulf war. Their doubts are born from an ingrained sense of realpolitik. Europe learned a lesson in World War I: slipping into a conflict, with no clear moral sense of one's mission or of the likely military outcome, became a basic fear. Europeans' great source of anxiety was the prospect of being caught in an uncontrollable military escalation.

The trauma of World War II, and the experience of senseless and genocidal colonial wars before and after it, combined to telescope this fear into a collective memory that we have today. While American patriotism proudly celebrates its armed forces' power and victories, Europe's diverse loyalties and identities are formed by a war-weary pessimism thoroughly grounded in our history: Wars can be just, certainly those fought in self- defense can; but they can be bloody useless, too. This pessimism may shade, potentially, into appeasement, yet its roots are real. They explain European reluctance to intervene quickly in Bosnia - a deplorable reluctance, in hindsight - and the present refusal to join arms with the United States against Iraq.

This time, however, the powder keg is not the Balkans but the highly armed, explosive Mideast. Too many guns are drawn, too many fingers are on the triggers, and some of them could be on nuclear bombs. This should be the hour of forceful diplomacy, not to be mistaken for appeasement.

The distance between Europe's leaders and the Bush administration continues to grow. The existence of a new threat - global terrorism - is undisputed. But Washington's unilateralism, from here, looks like simply a form of America's longstanding isolationism, which is to say that the distance is created by America, not by Europe. Perhaps North Atlantic Treaty Organization members should not whine so much about being left out of Pentagon planning sessions. But the United States might benefit from recalling the late Senator J. William Fulbright's diatribes against "arrogance of power." Europe's liberal and conservative pundits already are.

Technological breakthroughs may have enforced a new military paradigm in the Pentagon. High-tech wars at a distance are now feasible and less dangerous for American forces. Yet the old conundrum of military history - what to do with the losers - remains unsolved. Who would govern Iraq after Saddam Hussein? Would the shaky mullahs in Tehran take "anti-American" revenge on their domestic, reformist opponents (and seize Iraq's south)? Would Vladimir Putin be able to corral his restless opposition in the underpaid and corrupt Russian army? He would certainly renew Moscow's reflex in times of trans-Atlantic disagreement: to drive a wedge into the Western alliance, this time on the strength of Russia's oil reserves.

In the meantime, general elections are looming in France (May) and Germany (September) - along with possible realignments that could draw Europe away from the United States. A war in Iraq would strengthen Germany's pacifist Party of Democratic Socialism at the expense of the Greens and their pro-American leader, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder succeeded by just a few votes in getting approval for German troops to help keep the peace in Kabul. Conflict in Iraq would force him to make the most difficult political commitment of his life: To follow America, come what may. That could cause him to lose in September.

Neither Jacques Chirac nor Lionel Jospin would support war in Iraq. And Tony Blair? He is many things, but he is not Margaret Thatcher. He was indicating before anyone even asked that Iraq would be, for him, an adventure too far.

Ultimately, Washington should return to the fold of its once strong Atlantic partnership, even if it means wasting time and losing military momentum. A fragmented alliance in Europe is much more difficult to repair than a broken pipeline. A truly enforced policy of serious sanctions against Iraq - and persuading Turkey to stop breaking them - would be more useful. Asking French, English, Russian and German businesses to suspend their lucrative dealings with Saddam Hussein's corrupt cronies, having governments freeze their bank accounts, and rekindling negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians would be less spectacular than cruise missiles and Navy Seals televised in green night vision. But it could dislodge the enemy without damaging valued friendships.

In the meantime, let's find Osama bin Laden, together. If alive, he is certainly not in Baghdad.

Michael Naumann, former German minister of culture, is editor in chief and publisher of the weekly ``Die Zeit.''

-------- israel / palestine

Palestinians Welcome Saudi Prince's Peace Proposal

By REUTERS
February 18, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast-saudi-palestinians.html

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinians on Monday welcomed remarks by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah in which he said he had nearly given a speech favoring Arab ties with Israel if it withdrew from occupied lands.

``This is the most important offer that's been made by the Arab world for decades,'' senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters.

``Prince Abdullah's offer is a very significant development that should be considered very seriously by the United States and Israel. (They) must not waste this historic opportunity.''

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat welcomed the prince's remarks as ``important'' and said they could contribute to reaching a just and lasting peace and ensure the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on Israeli-occupied lands.

Crown Prince Abdullah told the New York Times in remarks published on Sunday he had been ready to push for normalization of Arab ties with Israel in return for Israel's full withdrawal from Palestinian lands it occupied in a 1967 war.

But he said he changed his mind because of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policies against Palestinians.

Israel had no immediate comment on the news report.

``Full withdrawal from all the occupied territories, in accord with U.N. resolutions, including Jerusalem, for full normalization of relations. I have drafted a speech along those lines,'' Crown Prince Abdullah said.

``My thinking was to deliver it before the Arab summit and try to mobilize the entire Arab world behind it,'' he said. ``But I changed my mind about delivering it when Sharon took the violence, and the oppression, to an unprecedented level.''

Jordan and Egypt are the only Arab states that have peace treaties with Israel.

Saudi Arabia is an Arab political heavyweight and key ally of Israel's main backer, the United States. The kingdom, the birthplace of Islam, considers itself the protector of Muslims.

The Palestinian Legislative Council said in a statement it hoped the world and Israel would respond positively.

The Saudi de facto leader also pointed out that his speech had been intended to provide an explanation for the hostility many Arabs feel toward Israel and which has been on the rise since the Palestinian uprising erupted in September 2000.

At least 851 Palestinians and 263 Israelis have been killed in nearly 17 months of violence.

----

Car Bomb Kills Israeli Policeman, Bomber

By REUTERS
February 18, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast.html

MAALE ADUMIM, Israel - A Palestinian on his way to a carry out a car bombing killed an Israeli policeman when he detonated his explosives prematurely on Monday, in what Israel said was the fifth attempted suicide attack in 24 hours.

Israeli police said the Palestinian bomber was also killed in the explosion as police officers approached his car near the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim on a towering West Bank hill just outside Jerusalem.

``We saw a huge explosion and flames shooting up from the car. We stopped and saw the corpse burning up inside,'' Yitzhak Halabi, an Israeli motorist, told Israel Radio.

Israel had earlier said it feared a new wave of Palestinian suicide attacks after security forces arrested three suspected bombers and foiled an attack near an army base on Sunday.

A surge of tit-for-tat violence in the past week has increased pressure on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from the political right, which wants tougher action to end Palestinian attacks, and the left wing which wants peace talks.

Retired Israeli generals added their voices on Monday to calls for a military withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories, underlining Israelis' weariness with the 16-month-old Palestinian uprising as casualties mount.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, blaming Israel for the recent surge in violence, remained defiant and militant groups have vowed to continue attacks to avenge Israeli killings of some of their leaders.

``This people is mighty and steadfast and together we will reach Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem,'' Arafat told supporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where Israeli tanks have confined him, to put pressure on him to prevent attacks.

At least 851 Palestinians and 263 Israelis have now been killed since the uprising began against Israeli occupation in September 2000 after peace talks stalled.

``SUSPICIOUS VEHICLE''

Israeli police said they stopped a suspicious vehicle driving near Maale Adumim and heading toward Jerusalem. The driver then got out of the car when police officers asked for his documents.

``The driver started playing around, hands in and out of pockets, and they (the policemen) drew their pistols,'' police commander Shahar Elon told Army Radio.

``He got close to the car together with them and, using a remote control, detonated the bomb.''

It was the second fatal suicide bombing carried out against Israelis in the past 48 hours in the West Bank, and followed four foiled bombing attempts on Sunday.

A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up at the settlement of Karnei Shomron in the northern West Bank on Saturday night, killing two teenagers.

Palestinian militant groups say the attacks are intended to avenge Israeli killings of fellow militants and recent Israeli military raids into Palestinian-ruled areas.

GENERALS PROPOSE WITHDRAWAL

Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon, said the Israeli cabinet would meet this week to consider a new strategy for dealing with the violence. He said Palestinian militants were planning a new wave of attacks.

``There are warnings all the time,'' Gissin said. ``In the past few days they are able to get suicide bombers in a matter of days from recruitment to their targets.''

About 1,000 retired high-ranking army officers and security officials waded into a growing debate about whether Israel should pull its forces out of most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a strategy to separate from the Palestinians. The move followed a backlash against the government for its inability to prevent violence in which the Israeli and Palestinian death toll has risen sharply in the past few days.

Retired army general Shaul Givoli, the director of Council for Peace and Security, said the group of retired senior generals and security officers were advocating a pullout from the Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank, the dismantlement of 40 settlements and readiness to recognize a Palestinian state.

The Palestinians did not immediately react to the proposals. But they welcomed Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah's offer to normalize ties with Israel if it quit occupied lands.

--------

Palestinian Militants Stage Series of Deadly Attacks

February 18, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Palestinian militants staged a series of attacks Monday, leaving seven dead as Yasser Arafat praised a tentative proposal in which the entire Arab world would make peace with Israel in exchange for a total pullout from the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem

Israeli F-16 warplanes later responded to the attacks, destroying two Palestinian security buildings in the Gaza city of Rafah, near the Egyptian border, witnesses said. Four Palestinian police were hurt, none seriously, doctors said.

Also, the Israeli air force attacked a Palestinian police structure in Ramallah in the West Bank. The Israeli military said the air strikes were a response to ``murderous attacks'' by Palestinians. In addition, the military blocked the main road in Gaza in three places, banning Palestinian traffic, a statement said.

In the earlier Gaza violence, two armed Palestinians tried to infiltrate a Jewish settlement and soldiers opened fire on them, the military said. Palestinians said one of the gunmen was killed.

The Israeli military said Palestinians also opened fire on an Israeli vehicle near Gaza's Kissufim crossing into Israel, and then a suicide bomber blew himself up. Israeli officials said three Israelis and the bomber were killed and four people were wounded.

The Al Aqsa Brigades, a militia linked to Arafat's Fatah group, took responsibility for the attack on the vehicle in a phone call to The Associated Press in Gaza, and identified the attacker as Mohammed Kasser, 22, of Gaza City.

After the attack, Israeli tanks fired on houses in nearby Dir al-Balah, a Palestinian city, Palestinians said. Four people were wounded. The military had no immediate comment.

Elsewhere, police spotted a suspicious car and stopped it on the highway between Jerusalem and the West Bank's Jordan Valley. Police commander Shahar Ayalon said the driver got out of the car, and as police ``pulled out their guns, he activated the car bomb by remote control.'' The attacker and a policemen were killed, and another policeman was slightly injured.

Israel again blamed Arafat for the violence. ``It has now become a daily event,'' said Israeli Foreign Ministry official Arie Mekel. ``We certainly see an escalation planned by the Palestinian Authority and Arafat.''

On Sunday, near an army base in Israel's north, two Palestinians were killed after police stopped their vehicle. One died in an exchange of fire and the other was killed when explosives in the vehicle detonated. The Al Aqsa Brigades, affiliated with Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility.

Arafat has denied involvement in such attacks, and his aides have said that Israel's retaliations against Palestinian security installations and closures of Palestinian towns make effective Palestinian action against militant groups impossible.

Meanwhile, Arafat praised an idea reportedly being considered by a key Saudi ruler, offering Israel peace with the entire Arab world in exchange for an Israeli pullout from all the territory occupied in the 1967 war, including the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, which are claimed by the Palestinians.

In The New York Times on Sunday, columnist Thomas Friedman quoted Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah as saying that he had a speech ready to deliver to the Arab summit meeting next month making the offer.

However, Abdullah said he would not deliver the speech because of the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon against the Palestinians.

Israel has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and unofficial relations with some other Arab states -- but most have refused to formally accept the Jewish state in the Middle East.

In a statement to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, Arafat said the ``important positions'' presented by Abdullah ``represent a clear support and push for the peace efforts'' toward creation of a Palestinian state in the territories, while giving ``security for the state of Israel.''

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the Saudi proposal ``the most significant development since Madrid,'' a reference to the 1991 peace conference that started negotiations between Israel and several of its neighbors.

``I hope this will not be undermined by the Israelis,'' he added.

Israeli officials welcomed the concept of pan-Arab acceptance, though they rejected its conditions.

Raanan Gissin, Sharon's spokesman, said that if Abdullah ``really makes this speech, (it) would indeed contribute to peace in the region.''

He said, however, that since no actual proposal had been made, Israel would not have an official response to it, and denounced the implication that Israel would have to replace Sharon.

Palestinian leaders have said they would welcome peaceful coexistence with Israel if Israel withdraws from the disputed territories and accepts the principle of a ``right of return'' for Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Israel has rejected the latter idea, fearing millions of returning Palestinians would overwhelm its 5 million Jews demographically.

The idea of a total withdrawal is also difficult for Israel, because it would affect not only the 200,000 Israelis living in settlements in the West Bank and Gaza but also a similar number living in east Jerusalem. It would also end Israeli control over key Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites and leave Israel some 12 miles wide at its narrowest point.

A year ago the former Israeli government of Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians a state in all of Gaza and the vast majority of the West Bank, with a foothold in Jerusalem. But the Palestinians rejected the deal and Sharon, Barak's successor, says that even if peace talks resume he would offer far less.

Violence that erupted in September 2000 has killed 941 people on the Palestinian side and 273 people on the Israeli side.

--------

Netanyahu Says Arafat Must Go

February 18, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Netanyahu.html

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Exuding confidence that he will return to power, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel must remove Yasser Arafat and destroy the Palestinian Authority -- perhaps via military assault -- before peace talks can resume.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Netanyahu said he has no qualms about challenging Ariel Sharon, a sitting prime minister from his own Likud Party, and that he was gratified by polls showing Israelis -- who sent him packing in a 1999 election -- now give him widespread support.

Netanyahu, 52, has been speaking throughout the United States and Israel, and has criticized Sharon for stopping short of what Netanyahu believes is the only way to end terror attacks against Israelis -- the removal of Arafat.

``The goal is to defeat the terror regime, to effectively bring it down,'' he said at his well-appointed office in a modern high-tech complex in Jerusalem. ``And that goal is easily attainable.''

Netanyahu said he wasn't suggesting Israel physically harm Arafat. But instead of restricting Arafat to his compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah as Sharon has done, the Palestinian leader should be allowed to leave -- but not to return.

``He keeps wanting to go abroad -- I think we should not hinder him from doing so,'' Netanyahu said. ``I would very much like to see him have a happy retirement with his friends from Tripoli ... with his friends from Baghdad.''

Israel also should eliminate the terrorist infrastructure that has been established in the West Bank and Gaza, which would be ``a very simple thing to do, not very complicated and not very costly,'' Netanyahu said.

He was evasive about the exact steps he would take, but hinted strongly at a large-scale military operation: ``Israel has not used a fraction of a fraction of the means that it has available, as you can imagine.''

Netanyahu said deterrence would no longer work with the Palestinian leadership, because ``at this point Arafat is already in 'Never-Never-Land.'''

In a meeting Monday with hard-line legislators, Sharon rejected the idea of destroying the Palestinian Authority. ``Do you want to sit in Gaza and run the civil administration there? I don't want to sit in Gaza,'' he said. ``I hear such advice from ... self-appointed experts.''

Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat condemned Netanyahu's comments. ``It's very irresponsible, very shortsighted and very unacceptable,'' Erekat said. ``The Palestinian people chose President Arafat.... It just reflects the danger of the likes of Netanyahu who really, in their attitude, reflect a lack of concern for human life.''

Netanyahu opposed the 1993 interim agreements with Arafat's PLO. As prime minister from 1996 to 1999, he put the brakes on the land-for-peace process and had mostly acrimonious relations with the Palestinians. Still, he did negotiate two interim peace deals and handed over most of the West Bank town of Hebron.

He also developed a reputation for adventurism that dogged him throughout his tenure and contributed to his landslide defeat. But in light of almost 17 months of fighting, Netanyahu's hard-line ideas are again in vogue and he clearly feels vindicated and combative.

The Palestinian Authority is ``truly a corrupt, backward, primitive regime that oppresses the Palestinians, that kneecaps anyone who dares to disagree with Arafat ... that controls the media, sucks all the money, leaves the Palestinians in an impoverished state,'' he maintained.

He said that as prime minister he would only resume peace talks once terrorism was wiped out, and then offer much less than his successor Ehud Barak did a year ago -- a Palestinian state in almost all of the West Bank and Gaza with a foothold in east Jerusalem.

That this ``wild'' offer was rejected by Arafat proves the Palestinian leader's true intention remains to destroy the Jewish state, Netanyahu said.

Sharon has said a Palestinian state is inevitable eventually -- but Netanyahu disagreed. A state, Netanyahu said, would mean Palestinian control of borders and airspace -- with the potential of bringing in weapons and making military pacts with Israel's enemies -- and that this Israel could not allow.

At the same time Netanyahu said he strongly opposed expelling masses of Palestinians, once a fringe idea that is drawing increasing support.

On the wall of Netanyahu's conference room hung a large map of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and an etching of the Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Behind him was a floor plan of the terminal at Uganda's Entebbe Airport -- where Netanyahu's brother Yonathan was killed while leading a 1976 rescue operation of Israeli hostages; Netanyahu's acceptance in the West as a counterterrorism expert dates to that raid.

Netanyahu stunned the world when he edged out Nobel Peace laureate Shimon Peres in a 1996 election. His years in power were marked by bitter divisions within the public and between Netanyahu and Israel's security, academic and business elites.

However, polls show that he would stand a good chance of being elected today.

In a survey of right-wing voters published in the Maariv newspaper last weekend, 48 percent said they preferred Netanyahu to lead Likud into the next election; in the survey of 509 people, which had a 4.5 percent error margin, only 33 percent said they backed Sharon.

All current polls show the right wing winning an election today. The next general election must be held by November 2003, and many expect it sooner.

``I'm very gratified by the fact that both in the general public and in my own party there's widespread support for me,'' said the stocky, gray-haired Netanyahu, adding that he saw nothing wrong with challenging Sharon because ``we do not have a dynastic ruler.''

Looking back on his tumultuous years in power, Netanyahu acknowledged making ``quite a few mistakes'' but insisted these were primarily in the realm of management.

``The policies were sound, and many Israelis have had the chance to think about that again.''

-------- pakistan

Police Seize Four Rockets Near Pakistani Airport

By REUTERS
February 18, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-pakistan-rockets.html

KARACHI - Police in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi said on Monday they had found four rockets in a warehouse near the country's main international airport, which is also used by Afghanistan's multinational security force.

Asad Jahangir, additional inspector-general of police in Karachi, told Reuters the rockets were found within firing range of Karachi International Airport's main runway but were not primed for use.

``We found four 107 mm rockets in the warehouse of a company at the airport one mile away from the runway,'' he said. ``These rockets can be fired up to a range of 3-1/2 km.''

He said police were investigating. Further information was not immediately available.

Pakistan said last month the 17-nation International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan had started using Karachi airport as a transit station for operations in the war-torn country.

----

Pearl Abduction Was a Warning, Suspect Says

By Kamran Khan and Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 18, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25946-2002Feb17?language=printer

KARACHI, Pakistan, Feb. 17 -- A suspect in the abduction of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl told police the kidnapping was a "warning shot" to the Pakistani president for his crackdown on militant Islamic groups, officials familiar with the investigation said today.

Sheik Omar Saeed told interrogators that three recent deadly attacks in India were also intended to undercut Gen. Pervez Musharraf's efforts to curb the activities of extremist groups in response to pressure from the United States, police officials said.

Saeed said attacks outside the U.S. cultural center in Calcutta, the Indian Parliament in New Delhi and a legislative assembly in Kashmir were aimed at provoking India into taking action against Pakistan. Extremist organizers -- some with ties to Saeed -- hoped Musharraf would be forced to back away from his public stand against militant activities, Saeed told police.

Saeed is affiliated with the Jaish-i-Muhammad militant group fighting in the disputed Himalayan border region of Kashmir. Police officials said they could not verify any connection between Saeed's organization and supporters and the attacks in India. But authorities said he provided detailed information about the incidents and some of the perpetrators.

That information, plus Saeed's confession in court last week that he had helped plan Pearl's abduction, have raised troubling new questions for Pakistani and U.S. law enforcement officials investigating the Pearl case, authorities from both countries said.

Saeed was detained for a week by non-police Pakistani authorities before the government acknowledged he was being held and turned him over to Sindh state police, officials said.

U.S. and Pakistani police investigators said the secret detention of Saeed casts doubt on his statements and any statements Pakistani authorities may have persuaded him to give, according to officials close to the investigation.

Some Pakistani security officials said they believed Saeed was lying about his role in the Indian terrorist attacks to boost his image among extremist followers. Others said the details he provided seemed to verify some of his claims.

During the past several days of interrogation, police said, Saeed told them that he had traveled to Afghanistan "a few days after September 11" to meet Osama bin Laden. Saeed's ties with several Arab associates of bin Laden have been described by other suspects questioned in the Pearl case, police said. Police said Saeed reportedly served as a guerrilla warfare instructor at training facilities in Afghanistan during the Taliban's rule.

Police also said Saeed provided them with unsolicited details about his relationship with Aftab Ansari, the alleged gangster and chief suspect in the shooting outside the U.S. cultural center in Calcutta in which five policemen died. Saeed said he met Ansari while the two men were jailed in New Delhi's Tihar prison.

Authorities said Saeed offered police the identities of the Kashmiri militants who stormed the Indian Parliament on Dec. 13. Saeed also said the suicide bomber who attacked the state parliament building in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, on Oct. 1 was "more than a brother to me," one police official said.

Moore reported from Islamabad, Pakistan.

--------

Rockets Defused in Pakistan

February 18, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Airport.html

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) -- The police bomb squad defused four rockets rigged with a homemade timer on Monday -- explosives aimed at airport facilities in Karachi used by the U.S.-led coalition to support operations in Afghanistan.

Officials said they believed Islamic radicals were responsible. They said it appeared both the rockets and the Jan. 23 kidnapping in Karachi of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl were part of an extremist campaign against President Pervez Musharraf because of his support for the U.S.-led war against terrorism.

Two of the rockets were aimed at a terminal at Karachi's international airport used by the coalition for supplying troops in Afghanistan. The other two were aimed at an airport hotel used as a barracks for troops assigned to the airport.

A homemade timer was attached to the rockets that were spotted by a passer-by who alerted police. The city bomb squad defused the rockets.

``It's obvious who did it,'' police superintendent Asad Khan said. ``It is the extremists we are cracking down on.''

Police Chief Kamal Shah told the Associated Press that the 107 mm rockets, found about a half-mile from the terminal, would probably not have caused serious damage but were meant as a warning to the government about its support for the U.S.-led campaign.

``It was not possible to hit a target,'' Shah said. ``It was more 'to whom it may concern' because we have come down very hard with extremists.''

Concern about Islamic militant activity in this city of 14 million has risen after the kidnapping of Pearl, who was investigating links between Pakistani militants and Richard C. Reid, arrested in December on a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives in his shoes.

Police have four men in custody in the Pearl case, including Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born Islamic militant who is believed to be the ringleader.

Saeed admitted his role in the kidnapping during a court hearing Thursday and complained that Pakistan ``shouldn't be catering to America's needs.''

Pearl's whereabouts remain unknown. With Saeed in custody, the focus of the nationwide manhunt is Haider Ali Faruqi, believed to be Saeed's accomplice who actually carried out the kidnapping.

In a report Monday, the English-language newspaper, The News, reported that Saeed told interrogators Pearl's kidnapping was the ``first salvo'' in an all-out battle between Islamic militants and the government to stop Musharraf efforts to move Pakistan away from religious fundamentalism.

Last month, Musharraf banned five Islamic extremist groups, all of which are active in the Karachi area. More than 2,000 activists were arrested, according to the Interior Ministry.

Muslim activists were already upset with Musharraf because he abandoned the Taliban after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and threw his support to the U.S.-led war against terrorism.

-------- philippines

US Forces Approach Philippine Rebels

By PAT ROQUE
Associated Press Writer
FEBRUARY 18, 08:17 ET
http://wire.ap.org/?FRONTID=ASIA&SLUG=PHILIPPINES%2dUS%2dTROOPS

UPPER MAHAYAHAY, Philippines (AP) - U.S. special forces ventured Monday to within a few miles of a jungle stronghold of the Muslim extremist group targeted in counter-terrorism exercises with the Philippine military.

Four American soldiers, their Philippine military escorts and journalists surveyed the area from a hilly Philippine marine camp in Maluso town on the southern island of Basilan before more special forces arrived.

American soldiers stayed three hours to watch a helicopter landing, eat lunch and meet with more than 100 Philippine marines. The command post was about six miles from Mount Puno Mahaji, which one Philippine marine called an Abu Sayyaf rebel ``playground.''

It also is about the same distance from another area where suspected Abu Sayyaf recently beheaded a Philippine military guide, underscoring risks that U.S. troops are taking as they bring the war on terrorism to the violence-prone southern Philippines.

The four Americans were among the first of a 160-strong special forces contingent involved in a training exercise designed to wipe out the Abu Sayyaf, which has been linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network believed responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

More than 500 American troops are in the Philippines for six-month maneuvers ending in June.

American troops later may go to combat zones to observe Philippine troops roaming the island to search for the fewer than 100 guerrillas holding Wichita, Kan., missionaries Gracia and Martin Burnham and Filipino nurse Ediborah Yap hostage.

The small, ragtag rebel force is what's left of a violent, 2,000-strong Abu Sayyaf force that has been hammered by a nine-month military offensive involving 5,000 soldiers.

The Americans will be armed but can only fire in self-defense because of Philippine constitutional restrictions on the presence of foreign troops.

Escorted by three Philippine marines on Monday, Americans drove two pickup trucks through coconut groves, rubber tree plantations and sparsely populated communities where rebels roamed freely before the military offensive.

Because of security concerns, the Americans were not allowed to venture out of the camp, which sits on rolling hills and is fortified by dugout bunkers. The soldiers, armed with M-4 carbines, surveyed a helicopter landing area, ate lunch and were introduced by Filipino soldiers to a 13-inch tribal machete used for combat.

``This is an outstanding jungle camp,'' U.S. Army Maj. Mark Gatto said. While he seemed relaxed, two other U.S. soldiers constantly monitored the surroundings. Besides training, Washington also has pledged $100 million to provide weapons and equipment to help the poorly equipped Philippine military eradicate the Abu Sayyaf.

Many left-wing groups have protested the training exercises because of possible constitutional violations and an escalation of the conflict in the impoverished southern Philippines, where other Muslim rebels are battling the government for independence.

Also Monday, Philippine military officials told visiting Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., that they fear an excess of weapons from Afghanistan could end up in Abu Sayyaf possession. Officials said Gibbons told them the United States would work to prevent that.

-------- russia

United States "forgets its friends": Mikhail Gorbachev

Monday February 18, 2:15 AM
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020217/1/2i86l.html

Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev has accused the United States of forgetting its friends after the victory against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan

The Russian news agency Interfax reported Gorbachev as saying,"whenever it (the US) gains a victory, it falls into euphoria and starts forgetting its friends."

Gorbachev added his voice to growing criticism by western politicians who are concerned by the United States to widen the war against terrorism to include other countries.

Last week, Russian president Vladimir Putin implicitly criticized President George W. Bush's description of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil".

"I think our American friends should think of their partners, not only when the wheather is bad and stormy, but also when things straighten out and when successes are achieved," Gorbachev said.

Russia, which has supported the US war against terrorism in Afghanistan, has said it's opposed to the idea of widening the conflict to Iraq.

-------- spy agencies

CIA misdeeds fit profile of terrorist operations

Letters to the Editor,
Baltimore Sun
February 18, 2002
http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/oped/bal-ed.le.18ffeb18.story?coll=bal%2Doped%2Dheadlines

How interesting that the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, testifies before Congress about a worldwide terrorist network ("Tenet says al-Qaida still serious threat," Feb. 7). He's in a good position to do so, since he heads the largest terrorist organization in the world: the Central Intelligence Agency.

How many thousands of people have been killed in the last 50 years by CIA operations such as Operation Mongoose (in Cuba), the overthrow of governments in Guatemala, Iran, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Congo, Indonesia and Haiti, and assassination plots?

Perhaps CIA agents don't set off suicide bombs or fly airplanes into buildings, but they have been guilty of a multitude of murders, along with drug-running and total disregard for human rights, human welfare and democracy.

How about a report on the CIA's crimes against humanity?

The Rev. John Oliver Catonsville

----

Chinese official denies bugging Jiang's plane

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
World Scene
February 18, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020218-82836006.htm

HONG KONG - Former Chinese Prime Minister Li Peng yesterday denied he was behind the reported bugging of a new U.S.-made jetliner ordered for Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

Asked by the media during a visit to Macau about his reported involvement, Mr. Li said he had no knowledge of the matter. "I know absolutely nothing about that," he said in televised comments.

Citing U.S. intelligence reports, The Washington Times reported Friday that the Chinese president believed Mr. Li, head of China's national legislature, ordered the aircraft bugged so he could eavesdrop on Mr. Jiang's discussions of financial corruption related to Mr. Li's wife and children.

----

Saudi crown prince meets CIA chief

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
World Scene
February 18, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020218-82836006.htm

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Crown Prince Abdullah held talks yesterday with CIA Director George J. Tenet, who is on a tour of the region amid threats of attacks on U.S. targets, Saudi state television said.

Prince Abdullah, the kingdom's de facto ruler, and Mr. Tenet discussed "the international situation and issues of interest to both countries," the television said without providing details.

Mr. Tenet earlier visited Yemen and Egypt and met the Arab countries' presidents.

-------- un

UN seeks crackdown on hazardous chemicals

REUTERS COLOMBIA:
February 18, 2002
Story by Ibon Villelabeitia
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14594/story.htm

CARTAGENA - Albatrosses, whales and even remote Arctic tribes in some of the Earth's most pristine regions carry high levels of toxic chemicals and world leaders must act quickly to protect them, officials and scientists said last week.

With production of most hazardous chemicals shifting to developing countries, world environment ministers met in this Caribbean city to plan a global crackdown on the manufacture, dumping and rampant smuggling of banned substances.

The plan, which is being discussed at a U.N.-sponsored conference on the environment, would also provide funding to poor countries, whose weak safety standards and inadequate storage are raising fears of increased global contamination.

The chemicals in question deplete the ozone layer, cause climate change and affect the world's biodiversity. Some cause cancer, immune deficiencies and reproductive impairments.

Their spread to remote areas of the globe far from where they were released shows how pervasive they have become and the seriousness of the threat to the environment.

U.N. officials say a thorough evaluation of the health effects of various chemicals is needed, a difficult task with 70,000 different chemicals on the market and 1,500 new ones being introduced every year.

"You have people in the Arctic who have very high levels of these hazardous chemicals in their bodies from eating fish and seals, but the chemicals are released in North America or Latin America. The chemicals travel and poison people," James Willis, director of chemicals at the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), told Reuters.

A U.N. report released last week said albatrosses nesting on remote Midway Island in the Northern Pacific are carrying hazardous levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which are industrial chemicals, DDT, dioxins and furans.

REMOTE INUITS SUFFER HIGH CONTAMINANT LEVELS

Many whales have been found to carry PCBs and other contaminants that cause development defects in humans, the report said.

"Hunting, fishing and trapping continue to provide us with lessons of great relevance. We remain the guardians of the natural environment," Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a Canadian leader of the Inuit community wrote in the report.

Scientists have found high levels of PCBs and DDT in blood and tissues of the Inuit, a 150,000-strong tribe that lives in northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Russia's far East.

The plan, which will be sent for final approval to a world summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg in August and September, focuses on hazardous chemicals already banned under international treaties, including the so-called "dirty dozen."

Among these are dioxins, produced by incinerators and paper factories, and DDT, which is still used to control mosquitoes in malarial areas.

Hazardous chemicals are smuggled to poor countries, where they are dumped in landfills, and cities and villages are exposed, experts said.

The plan would enforce stricter controls on smuggling of chemicals. It also calls for global standards for the screening and labeling of hazardous chemicals to prevent smuggling, and seeks to make data on chemicals available to developing countries.

If approved, development agencies such as the World Bank would work closer with developing countries to fund the program, officials said.

Advocates of the plan, including European countries, say a global approach will help reduce risks to the environment and human health. But representatives from China, Kenya, Russia and Senegal said key to the program's success is finding international funding to pay for training and technology.

The United States has agreed to the plan in principle and said it should concentrate on high-volume toxic chemicals.

----

Ex-police chief urged for U.N. drug post

By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 18, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020218-70279400.htm

Several key members of Congress, along with U.S. drug officials, are calling for the appointment of retired Colombian National Police Director Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano as the new executive director of the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention.

Concerned that the State Department has not moved aggressively to endorse the appointment, the lawmakers and officials have written to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to solicit support for the Serrano nomination.

"Gen. Serrano's reputation as an international law enforcement officer and unwavering ally of the U.S. government is nothing short of legendary," said Asa Hutchinson, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, in a letter Friday to Mr. Powell.

"His relentless pursuit of the Medellin and Cali drug cartels, even in the face of countless threats against his life, personifies the resolve of the Colombian people in their ongoing struggle against the oppression of illegal drugs," he said. "Gen. Serrano's appointment as executive director would be a natural transition and well-deserved capstone of a stellar career in the counterdrug arena."

Sen. Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a separate letter to Mr. Powell that Gen. Serrano was a "man of uncommon courage and integrity who has a tremendous record of success battling on the front lines of the war against international narcotics trafficking."

"I strongly urge you to consider promoting Gen. Serrano's candidacy for this important U.N. post," Mr. Helms said. "His credentials are impeccable, his friendship with the U.S. is firm and his dedication to the task at hand is without question."

In a letter to U.N. Ambassador John Negroponte, with copies to President Bush and Mr. Powell, Republican Reps. Benjamin A. Gilman of New York, chairman emeritus of the House Committee on International Relations, and Dan Burton of Indiana, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, also encouraged the Serrano appointment.

"He is a good friend of the United States and a longtime ally in the worldwide fight against illicit drugs and crime," they said. "He is the right man at the right time."

Several other members of Congress, including House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, have offered their support for Gen. Serrano. Drug policy chief John Walters also met with Gen. Serrano in Colombia last month and has conveyed his support of the general to the State Department.

The State Department has not made any public comments concerning the U.N. post.

Recently, Paul V. Kelly, assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the department, told Mr. Gilman in a letter that a number of candidates to replace former Executive Director Pino Arlacchi were "still emerging" and that the department would "carefully consider the qualifications of all the candidates for the position and make our views known to U.N. Secretary-General Annan, who will make the appointment."

Capitol Hill sources said Gen. Serrano is believed to have fallen out of favor with the State Department, although they are not sure why.

"Serrano had been widely regarded as the most logical person to replace Pino Arlacchi as the executive director," said one key congressional source.

The sources noted that the appointment of an aggressive executive director for the United Nations post was critical, particularly in the wake of the war in Afghanistan and continuing concerns that those who produce the opium poppy crop in that country will threaten the viability of any new Afghan government.

Afghanistan has been a major source for the cultivation, processing and trafficking of opiate and cannabis products. It produced more than 70 percent of the world's illicit opium in 2000. Narcotics are the largest source of income in Afghanistan due to the decimation of the country's economy by years of war.


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS

The Great Unwatched

By WILLIAM SAFIRE
February 18, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/18/opinion/18SAFI.html

WASHINGTON -- Stipulated: The protection of our capital, its monuments and centers of authority, is a vital national interest.

Early in our history, when faced with a potential rebellion of unpaid officers, one of our leaders employed an uncharacteristic emotional trick - pretending to be going blind - to appeal to the infuriated military men not to march on the capital. He soon had them in tears and in hand.

In another time, another leader risked all by turning the capital's defense over to the man most opposed to his political aims, gambling that he could later overcome the nation's gratitude to a man on horseback.

In our time, after the Pentagon was hit, the White House targeted and the Capitol anthraxed, D.C. again saw itself besieged. But now, in terror of an external threat, our leaders are protecting our capital at the cost of every American's personal freedom.

Surveillance is in the saddle. Responding to the latest Justice Department terror alert, Washington police opened the Joint Operation Command Center of the Synchronized Operations Command Complex (S.O.C.C.). In it, 50 officials monitor a wall of 40 video screens showing images of travelers, drivers, residents and pedestrians.

These used to be the Great Unwatched, free people conducting their private lives; now they are under close surveillance by hundreds of hidden cameras. A zoom lens enables the watchers to focus on the face of a tourist walking toward the Washington Monument or Lincoln Memorial.

The monitoring system is already linked to 200 cameras in public schools. The watchers plan to expand soon with an equal number in the subways and parks. A private firm profits by photographing cars running red lights; those images will also join the surveillance network.

Private cameras in banks and the lobbies and elevators of apartment buildings and hotels will join the system, and residents of nursing homes and hospitals can look forward to an electronic eye in every room. A commercial camera atop a department store in Georgetown catches the faces of shoppers entering malls, to be plugged into omnipresent S.O.C.C.

Digital images of the captured faces can be flashed around the world in an instant on the Internet. Married to face-recognition technology and tied in to public and private agencies around the world, an electronic library of hundreds of millions of faces will be created. Terrorists and criminals - as well as unhappy spouses, runaway teens, hermits and other law-abiding people who want to drop out of society for a while - will have no way to get a fresh start.

Is this the kind of world we want? The promise is greater safety; the tradeoff is government control of individual lives. Personal security may or may not be enhanced by this all-seeing eye and ear, but personal freedom will surely be sharply curtailed. To be watched at all times, especially when doing nothing seriously wrong, is to be afflicted with a creepy feeling. That is what is felt by a convict in an always- lighted cell. It is the pervasive, inescapable feeling of being unfree.

As the law now stands, there is no privacy in public places; that's why sports stadiums are called "Snooper Bowls." A whisper to your spouse on your front porch is the public's business, say the courts; and on that intrusive analogy, long-range microphones may soon be allowed to pick up voice vibrations on windowpanes.

When your government, employer, landlord, merchant, banker and local sports team gang up to picture, digitize and permanently record your every activity, you are placed under unprecedented control. This is not some alarmist Orwellian scenario; it is here, now, financed by $20 billion last year and $15 billion more this year of federal money appropriated out of sheer fear.

By creating the means to monitor 300 million visits to the U.S. yearly, this administration and a supine opposition are building a system capable of identifying, tracking and spying on 300 million Americans. So far, the reaction has been a most un-American docility.

It's Presidents' Day. To save the capital and thus the nation, the leader who manipulated his rebellious officers with an emotional pretense of incipient blindness was George Washington, and the one who risked creating a Caesar out of a necessary general was Abraham Lincoln. Neither would sacrifice our freedom to protect his monument.

----

[Virginia] Bill seeks to limit cameras that spy

By Larry OŽDell
ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 18, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20020218-5006155.htm

RICHMOND - You're walking down the street, unaware that a camera is taking your picture and feeding the image to a government computer.

You've become an unwitting participant in what amounts to a high-tech police lineup.

Far-fetched scenario from a science fiction novel?

Hardly, says Delegate H. Morgan Griffith, Salem, Va., Republican. Facial recognition technology is here, and its use is likely to grow as the government seeks more weapons for its war on terrorism.

"Authorities could use this technology to track people wherever they go," Mr. Griffith said. "That's scary."

Concerned about erosion of individual liberties, Mr. Griffith proposed legislation requiring a locality to get a circuit court judge's permission to use facial recognition software. The applicant would have to justify its need for the technology. The court order would be good for 90 days.

"Without a law on the books to control this, the government can do most anything," said Mr. Griffith. "It seems a lot like Big Brother to me."

Similar concerns have been voiced in the District of Columbia, where police started using surveillance cameras for crowd control during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank protests in April 2000, and photo-radar cameras to catch speeding motorists in August.

Virginia's House of Delegates has passed Mr. Griffith's bill. Its next stop is the Senate Courts of Justice Committee, chaired by Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, a former Virginia Beach police detective. Virginia Beach has received a $150,000 state grant to become the second city in the nation, after Tampa, Fla., to use the technology.

"I think the bill is totally unnecessary," Mr. Stolle said. "I can't tell you how many stakeouts I went on with a photo of the person we were looking for. This technology just allows them to do the same thing with a computer."

Virginia Beach Police Chief Jake Jacocks has been lobbying for the defeat of Mr. Griffith's bill, which would take effect July 1 - about the time Virginia Beach hopes to have its system running.

"This is not Big Brother watching you," Chief Jacocks said in an interview. "If anything, it's Big Brother watching out for you."

Here's how the Virginia Beach system will work: Ten cameras along the resort strip will scan faces and create a "map" of 80 distinctive points, such as the distance between facial features. The images will be fed to a computer and sorted against a database containing mug shots of thousands of runaways and people wanted by police.

If at least 14 of the 80 points match, an officer monitoring the computer screen will radio an officer on the street for further action.

"We have over 2,500 outstanding felony warrants," Chief Jacocks said. "We need to get these people off the streets and into court. To me, this technology is no different than an officer standing on the street corner with a 'Wanted' flier."

But Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Virginia, says there is a big difference.

"The first concern is the ever-increasing ability of government to spy on innocent people," he said. "No matter how you look at it, this is a camera owned by the government taking pictures of you. In that sense, it has Big Brother written all over it."

Chief Jacocks said those concerns are misplaced. Signs will inform people about the cameras, and images will be kept only long enough to scan them against the mug shots in the database, he said.

"If your picture is not in there, your image is destroyed. It would be of virtually no use to us," Chief Jacocks said.

However, some localities could impose more draconian policies without some judicial oversight to hold their crime-fighting and anti-terrorism zeal in check, Mr. Griffith said.

The Metropolitan Police Department plans to link hundreds of cameras already in place around the city and install dozens more. It has operated 12 cameras near federal buildings and monuments around the Mall since September 11.

The chairman of a House subcommittee on the District said she will hold a hearing on the citywide surveillance system being developed by D.C. police because she is worried about encroachments on civil liberties.

"I am holding this hearing out of my concern that the pendulum between security and privacy is beginning to swing too far in one direction," said Rep. Constance A. Morella, Maryland Republican, who heads the House Government Reform subcommittee on the District.

She said she will hear testimony in the near future to examine the District's efforts to create the nation's largest network of surveillance cameras, which would be able to monitor shopping areas, schools, subway stations and federal buildings around the city.

Mr. Willis agrees with the direction Mr. Griffith's bill is taking.

"At least this bill attempts to limit the use of the technology and make certain there's a rationale for when it's used," he said. "We live in a time when we are searching for quick and easy solutions to create at least an illusion of safety. We're probably poised for an explosion of technical devices that presumably help promote security."

Facial recognition technology has been used for years in the private sector, particularly by casinos, to identify known gambling cheats. It first gained widespread public attention when it was used at the 2001 Super Bowl, which critics of the technology renamed the "Snooper Bowl."

Some airports are beginning to use the systems. Airports and seaports are exempt from Mr. Griffith's bill.

Olympic organizers considered using the face-scanning system to screen crowds for suspected terrorists and criminals in Salt Like City, but they decided against it, saying the technology is unproven.

Chief Jacocks said Virginia Beach officials began researching the technology two years ago and solicited comment from civic organizations and the public.

The organizations agreed to help develop the department's policy governing the surveillance system, he said.

"We've gone to great lengths to not only make sure our community is comfortable with this, but also to get them involved in the guidelines and allow them some oversight," Chief Jacocks said.

If the General Assembly wants safeguards, he said, it should scrap the judicial review and pass legislation requiring other localities to follow the Virginia Beach model for public involvement.

Chief Jacocks and Mr. Stolle said that while Mr. Griffith's bill would not sink the Virginia Beach program, it would create unnecessary obstacles.

"It clearly is an impediment," Mr. Stolle said. "It's almost as strict as what you have to do to get a wiretap, and the reason that's not easy is because a wiretap is an invasion of privacy. There's no invasion of privacy here."

---

District's red-light camera conflict of interest

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
February 18, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20020218-87105616.htm#2

It is admirable that Mayor Anthony A. Williams wants to avoid a conflict of interest for the company operating the District's red-light cameras, but perhaps the mayor should examine the city's own conflicted interests in the matter ("Cameras for 'calm' or for cash?" Feb. 13). After all, with technology provided by private industry at virtually no cost and projected revenues of $160 million by 2004, the city has every incentive to install the cameras.

The current discussion over compensation for the camera contractor only highlights the city's true concerns. D.C. Council Chairman Linda Cropp even went so far as to complain that the District is not receiving a high enough percentage of the camera revenue. These cameras always have been about boosting the District's bottom line. Any benefit to public safety is just an afterthought.

Instead of allowing this invasion of privacy and tax on motorists to continue, Mr. Williams and the D.C. Council should recognize the inherent conflict of interest and look for less "taxing" solutions to traffic safety.

PAUL J. GESSING
Policy associate
National Taxpayers Union
Alexandria

--

Britain's 'security' model coming to America

Regarding your Feb. 14 story "Vast network of cameras to monitor wide areas of D.C.," if D.C. residents want a glimpse of their future, they need look no farther than Britain.

Several years ago, in an effort to lower crime rates, British law enforcement began installing public surveillance cameras on the streets of London. On an average day in London, from the time an individual leaves his front door to the time he re-enters his home in the evening, he is filmed by more than 300 cameras. People's entire lives are captured and stored on government videotape. Meanwhile, as crime rates in Britain begin to rise, one must ask, "What useful purpose do the cameras serve?"

In addition to using the cameras, British police are amassing the world's largest DNA database. Prime Minister Tony Blair has endorsed DNA testing kits to be used by law enforcement personnel to gather biometric samples from individuals at routine traffic stops.

The tragic events of September 11 have hastened America's plunge toward a British-style police state. The rapid expansion of government surveillance cameras, most notably in our nation's capital, and the current drive for a national identification system that would document biometric information should serve as a wake-up call. "The land of the free" is quickly coming to resemble the oppressive society from which we fought to rid ourselves centuries ago. Americans must be wary of government's quest to monitor every aspect of our lives, lest we find ourselves dwelling in Britain's prisonlike atmosphere.

J. PEYTON KNIGHT
Legislative director
American Policy Center
Warrenton, Va.

-------- death penalty

Fiji Court Sentences Coup Leader to Death

WORLD In Brief
Reuters
Monday, February 18, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26202-2002Feb17?language=printer

SUVA, Fiji -- Fiji's High Court sentenced indigenous coup leader George Speight to death today after he pleaded guilty to treason, but his attorney said the sentence was unlikely to be carried out.

Speight, who overthrew the small South Pacific country's first ethnic Indian prime minister in May 2000, broke down in tears as the judge ordered him taken from the court to a prison and then to a place of execution to be hanged.

Speight made his surprise guilty plea on the opening day of his treason trial. Asked by the judge how he pleaded, Speight, dressed in a traditional sulu and jacket, stood alone in the dock and said: "I am guilty, your lordship."

Treason carries the death penalty, but Fiji's nationalist government said last week it would introduce legislation to replace the punishment with a sentence of life in prison.

---

Fiji Rebel Speight Escapes Death Penalty

By REUTERS
February 18, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-fiji.html

SUVA - Fiji coup leader George Speight escaped the death penalty Monday when the South Pacific island nation's president commuted a death sentence for treason to life imprisonment.

Speight, who overthrew ethnically divided Fiji's first ethnic-Indian prime minister in 2000 in the name of indigenous rights, pleaded guilty to treason before the high court earlier in the day and burst into tears on hearing the death sentence.

But Fiji's Attorney General Qorinasi Bale told Reuters that President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, himself an indigenous Fijian, had signed a document later in the day commuting the sentence to life in prison.

``It means the death penalty imposed by the court is no longer in existence,'' Bale said. ``George Speight now faces a sentence of life imprisonment.''

Speight, dressed in a traditional sulu skirt and jacket, caused surprise by pleading guilty to the charge when the long-delayed hearing began Monday in the capital Suva, where rioters burned and looted shops and Indian homes during the coup.

``I am guilty your lordship,'' he told the judge.

Speight's lawyer immediately lodged a plea for clemency and read a statement from Speight urging his supporters to stay calm. ''The judge's hands were tied and he had to pass the sentence that he did,'' Ron Cannon said, before the president's decision.

The city remained calm following the hearing.

Britain, which ruled Fiji at the time, brought ethnic Indians to the country in the late 1800s to cut sugar cane. Ethnic Indians now make up 44 percent of the 800,000 population.

THREE COUPS

Three coups, fueled by a fear among some indigenous Fijians that the economically powerful Indo-Fijians would gain the political upper hand, have rocked the island nation since 1987.

Speight and armed supporters stormed parliament on May 19, 2000, saying Indo-Fijians were undermining indigenous rights. His backers, who included some Fijian chiefs, said they wanted ethnic Indians stripped of political power.

During the coup, Speight held the then Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and most of his multi-racial government hostage at parliament for 56 days.

The armed forces, dominated by indigenous Fijians, stepped in and took over running the country but did not endorse the rebel bid for power.

The authorities arrested Speight after he freed his hostages and organized fresh elections in September 2001.

Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, an indigenous Fijian, chose an all-indigenous government after he won those elections.

Chaudhry, who was re-elected to parliament at the same time, won an appeal court ruling last week that his opposition party had a constitutional right to seats in government based on its showing in the September elections.

``I take no pleasure in the sentence, but the law must take its course,'' Chaudhry told Reuters before Speight's sentence was commuted.

Qarase's government said before the trial it planned to introduce legislation to make the penalty for treason life imprisonment rather than death.

Asked how he would vote on axing the death sentence for treason, Chaudhry said: ``I have always felt that the right to life is the prerogative of the Lord Almighty.''

Qarase has threatened to resign rather than allow Chaudhry's party into his government and is excepted to take fresh legal action following last week's appeal court ruling.

Speight's lawyer told Reuters his client had entered a plea of guilty knowing he faced the death sentence so that 10 co-accused rebels could face a lesser charge. ``He is loyal to the members of his group,'' Cannon added.

Ten of Speight's co-accused pleaded guilty to kidnap charges late Monday after the more serious treason charge against them was dropped. Two others have asked that their treason charge also be reduced to a lesser charge.

The last execution in Fiji, where death sentences are usually commuted to jail terms, was in 1961 for a double murder.

Sitiveni Rabuka, who staged two military coups in 1987, was pardoned and later became prime minister.

The trial against Speight's co-accused continues on Tuesday.


-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Check this out:
http://www.josephnewman.com/

----

Wind farms offered hedge against windless days

REUTERS GERMANY:
February 18, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14576/story.htm

ESSEN - Wind farms will soon be able to protect themselves financially against the risk of gales turning to gentle breezes and cutting electricity flows from their turbines, said energy company Entergy-Koch Trading last week.

Wind power, on land and offshore, is booming across Europe as companies invest billions of dollars in renewable energy schemes.

But electricity output from the farms is unpredictable, depending on the vagaries of the weather, which causes problems for producers and their financiers.

The new financial instruments allow wind farms to hedge against a drop in the wind, compensating them for any shortfall in output if expected gales turn out to be just calm breezes.

"The hedge smoothes out the cashflow and makes the project less risky," William Gephardt, a weather specialist at Entergy-Koch told Reuters on the sidelines of an energy conference.

Changes in the weather can affect the output of a wind farm by as much as 50 percent over a year, he added. No deals have yet been done but Gephardt said his company was close to finalising a couple of contracts.

Wind power is one of the main sources of renewable energy in Denmark, Germany and Spain. In Britain, companies are planning a raft of wind schemes, mainly offshore, as the country tries to meet the government's target of producing three percent of its power from green sources by 2010.

Currently Britain produces just under three percent of its power from renewable schemes.

----

Fate of hydrogen cars seen helped by Bush plan

REUTERS USA:
February 18, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14575/story.htm

NEW YORK - President George W. Bush's new plan to boost the use of hydrogen fuel cell cars is a small step toward investing billions and making the huge societal change from gasoline stations to hydrogen stations, a leading fuel cell developer said.

The Bush plan announced last month, the Freedom CAR (Cooperative Automotive Research) program, has been criticized for not yet creating solid spending or performance goals, but proponents say it does include plans to start building an infrastructure of hydrogen filling stations, which many see as a big hurdle.

"Most importantly Freedom CAR includes the infrastructure system," said Robert Stempel, formerly the chief executive at General Motors and now Chairman and Executive Director of Energy Conversion Devices , a fuel cell developer.

Freedom CAR, a joint venture between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Detroit's Big Three automakers, aims to bring hydrogen fuel cell cars into the mainstream by the end of the decade.

It replaces the Bill Clinton-era multibillion-dollar Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV), which aimed to put 80 mile-per-gallon (mpg) cars on the road by the end of the decade.

While government and business have yet to hash out how much money will be devoted to Freedom CAR, the DOE announced earlier this month it has set aside $150 million for Freedom CAR in the 2003 budget.

But the changeover to so called hydrogen age will be a bit more costly. In fact, Argonne Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy research lab operated by the University of Chicago, recently estimated that a network of national hydrogen filling stations allowing fuel cell cars drivers convenient fuel access will cost between $100 billion to $600 billion, depending on hydrogen demand.

"If we're going to have hydrogen powered fuel cells, we need to buy hydrogen at convenient places," said Stempel, whose company is 20 percent owned by the oil company Chevron Texaco Corp. "One of the reasons the automobile works today is because we can get fuel for it at literally every corner," he said.

But not everyone think the plan goes far enough.

"There's something in our industry called the chicken and egg dilemma, and that is, you can't get the vehicles on the road without the infrastructure, but no one's going to build the infrastructure without the vehicles," said James Winebrake, Science and Technology professor at James Madison University in Virginia.

"The government hopes that Freedom Car will get the vehicles to the point that people will buy them and from there infrastructure will develop," said Winebrake.

"I saw the same logic fall apart with natural gas vehicles, and other alternative fuel vehicles. Without large government incentives for infrastructure development, hydrogen will not get off the ground," he added.

-------- energy

Army Secretary's Enron Role Probed
Touted for His Business Expertise, White Oversaw Energy Conservation Unit

By Ellen Nakashima and Peter Behr
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, February 18, 2002; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25816-2002Feb17?language=printer

As an Enron Corp. division vice chairman, Thomas E. White was responsible for the nuts-and-bolts performance of big energy-management contracts with an impressive roster of customers, ranging from J.C. Penney Co. to the Archdiocese of Chicago.

How well White did that job has now become an issue in the aftermath of Enron's collapse, as investigators try to determine whether White's unit, Enron Energy Services (EES), contributed to the massive misstatement of Enron's profits over the past four years.

White, who retired in 1990 from the Army as a brigadier general, returned to the Pentagon last year as President Bush's choice as secretary of the Army -- an appointment for which his business expertise was highly touted. Now he and others who worked at EES are answering investigators' questions about the unit's operations.

White has declined to discuss publicly his 11-year executive career at Enron. "I have fully cooperated with investigators on the subject of Enron and will continue to do so," he told a reporter last week.

One source of concern is whether White violated his Senate ethics agreement to sever all financial ties to Enron when he elected to receive an annuity payment, part of which came from Enron. Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) has asked the Office of Government Ethics to look into the issue.

As vice chairman of EES -- a job for which he was paid $5.5 million in salary and bonus his last year -- White oversaw energy conservation investments Enron planned to make at customers' facilities to reduce electricity and gas usage. Since EES was responsible for furnishing its customers' power needs, the lower the energy costs at these facilities, the higher the profit Enron would make.

Some clients and former Enron employees say EES performed well on this score. Others say EES lacked the will or the ability to complete the conservation projects on time. But in Enron's accounting practices, these forecasted energy savings were a key to the revenue and profit figures that EES reported to the public, Enron documents say.

Formed in 1997, EES grew quickly, according to Enron's financial statements, emerging as one of the company's hot new ventures. In 2000, it produced a pre-tax operating profit of $103 million on revenue of $4.6 billion, the company reported.

However, EES was not really profitable in 2000, according to Enron Vice President Sherron Watkins.

Watkins testified before Congress last week that EES was made to appear profitable that year by counting financial trading gains from one of the Raptor partnerships created by then-chief financial officer Andrew S. Fastow. "It was very important to Enron that we announce that Enron Energy Services was profitable in 2000," Watkins told Congress.

The Raptor transactions violated accounting rules and should not have been counted, according to a report of a special investigation by a committee of Enron's board that was released two weeks ago.

Former employees say EES lost money initially on many of its contracts, deliberately bidding low to gain the business.

Margaret Ceconi, a former employee who sent an e-mail to Enron's board in August warning of huge losses at EES, wrote: "It became obvious that EES had been doing deals for two years and was losing money on almost all the deals they had booked."

Enron, for example, took an $8 million loss on an energy-services contract with shopping center owner Simon Property Group Inc., Ceconi said. A spokesman for Simon Property declined to comment on the contract. Enron officials have said the facts will emerge as investigators work.

Eli Lilly and Co., the Indianapolis pharmaceutical manufacturer, signed a $1.3 billion contract in February 2001 turning all its energy requirements over to Enron for 15 years. But Enron paid Eli Lilly $50 million upfront to win the deal, according to a former senior executive of Enron.

Eli Lilly spokesman Ed West confirmed that Enron had made an advance payment but would not disclose the amount for business confidentiality reasons. "We looked at it as Enron backing up their words with cash," he said.

Such upfront payments were not unusual, said Glenn Dickson, a former EES director of asset operations. "It was fairly common on the really big deals to pay the customer, to lose money, in effect, on the contract, whether you were paying the customer or losing money because you were charging less than it really cost."

What made it all work, Dickson said, was a form of accounting in which the company counted future projected earnings as current income. "It was huge amounts of money that covered up those cash outlays," he said.

He said that EES even had to pay its parent corporation interest -- he recalls a 16 percent rate -- on such payments. "The former management [EES chairman Lou Pai and White] didn't worry that the internal charge for capital was 16 percent," he said.

How Enron handled the Lilly agreement on its books was not immediately known.

Enron sometimes would create an off-balance-sheet entity -- a private corporation or partnership -- to manage the contract, according to an in-house EES training document. But such contracts were reported as pluses in Enron's financial statements because the company would estimate the profit it expected to receive over the length of the contract and report part of that estimate as current income each year.

The approach, called fair value accounting, is permitted as long as the long-term estimates of results are realistic, accountants say.

EES could make money if it used its trading know-how to buy energy at bargain prices. But EES's success in the deal also depended on installing energy-saving equipment and technology -- light bulbs, motors and meters -- to reduce a customer's energy use. And that was White's part of the operation.

EES's contract staff did good work, "but when the customer actually bought the product, when it came to delivering, they [EES] had a tough time doing it," said Houston energy consultant Art Gelber, whose 50-employee firm provides many of the same services that EES did and competed against Enron on a small scale.

"The infrastructure wasn't in place to get the projects installed," said Dickson, the former EES manager. The result was "we fell behind in being able to put the projects in the ground to meet the earnings projections." There was also no real way to prove if money was being saved, he said.

Some clients say that EES did what it said it would do. In the Chicago archdiocese, EES surveyed about 2,000 buildings -- parishes, rectories, schools -- and worked out the cost of recommended repairs. The construction phase began about three years ago, said Ray Martin, the archdiocese's construction manager. Apart from one project that ran four months late, the rest were completed on time, he said. The archdiocese is now saving $1.9 million a year in energy, facilities director Greg Veith said, adding, "We were very satisfied."

Though the asset or demand side of EES -- White's part of EES -- was relatively small compared with the commodity portion -- about $200 million compared with $2.3 billion -- it was seen as a big growth area.

"That was a huge focus for the future because it is what differentiated us from any other energy provider," Dickson said. "Nobody had taken it to the level we had of trying to do integrated management of both the supply and the demand."

Annual reports gave glowing reports of contracts signed. In its 1999 annual report, Enron said EES surpassed its goals when it signed contracts representing $8.5 billion of customers' future energy expenditures. In 2000, EES expected to double its total contract volume to more than $16 billion.

"So many big deals were being booked, but no one really made sense of the physical execution," said a former EES executive who asked not to be named. "Tom White ran around, shook hands, met high-level clients and just kind of coasted."

He said that White and his team treated contract fulfillment cavalierly. "This is a very, very complex series of individual efficiency upgrades that have to be managed," he said. "That angers me -- the systematic failure of not realizing you had a supply chain issue. You needed to back off and just grow the business."

But another former executive said White was recruited to Enron precisely because of his expertise, developed in the military and in his early Enron career, in "building things, making things work right and bringing things to completion and operating them. Because of his military background, White was a good manager of operations and logistics functions."

Tony Spruiell, a former EES vice president of risk management, said he held White in high regard. "I respected him because he listened to people who knew something about industry, organizational redesign and all the things industry has been working on for the last 10 years," he said. "While Tom hadn't worked in that area, he was smart enough to listen to people who had."

Enron, which is trying to resolve its debts in bankruptcy court and re-emerge as a smaller company, hopes to keep managing some of the EES contracts, but others have been abandoned.

The allegations that White was out of the loop at Enron, hardly recommend him as a leader of the "transformation" that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld envisions for the Army, said Ronald J. Gilson, a professor of law and business at Stanford University.

"You can't really have it both ways," Gilson said. "He was either active in running the business or he wasn't. If he wasn't, then he's been saying something really different about his role."

Researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

-------- environment

FACTBOX - Bush climate change, pollution reduction plan

REUTERS USA:
February 18, 2002

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush last week proposed a voluntary plan for companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful pollutants from power plants and other industrial sources.

Details of the plan are as follows:

SULFUR DIOXIDE

Cuts sulfur dioxide to 4.5 million tons in 2010 and 3 million tons in 2018 versus current emissions of 11 million tons, a 73 percent cut by 2018. Sulfur dioxide is known to cause acid rain.

NITROGEN OXIDES

Reduces nitrogen oxides to 2.1 million tons in 2008 and 1.7 million tons in 2018 versus 5 million tons currently, a 66 percent cut by 2018. Nitrogen oxides are a cause of urban smog.

MERCURY

Cuts mercury emissions to a cap of 26 tons in 2010 and 15 tons in 2018 versus 48 tons currently, an eventual 69 percent cut. Mercury has been shown to cause health defects, especially among pregnant women.

CARBON DIOXIDE

Does not include mandatory cuts in carbon dioxide, a gas linked to global warming.

Proposes voluntary carbon dioxide emission growth cuts of 18 percent over next 10 years, linked to growth in U.S. gross domestic product; sets goal to lower emissions from 183 metric tons per million dollars in GDP growth in 2002 to 151 tons per million dollars in GDP growth in 2012.

MISC

-Improves existing voluntary registry of greenhouse gases for better measurement accuracy, reliability and verifiability.

-Directs Energy Department to improve methods for companies that comply with voluntary emission reduction plan; allows firms that comply to transfer emission credits to later programs

-Pledges to review progress in 2012 and take additional measures if goals are unmet, including market-based program and additional voluntary measures.

-Provides $4.5 billion in tax incentives in 2003 budget to encourage voluntary installation of energy efficiency technology like wind and solar generation.

----

Theodore Roosevelt wouldn't bear ANWR drilling

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
February 18, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20020218-87105616.htm#2

I read with interest and some ire professor James Pruitt's assertions regarding President Theodore Roosevelt's conservation ethos, as quoted by John McCaslin in his Feb.13 Inside the Beltway column. Mr. Pruit asserts that Roosevelt would have supported oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) because "he worked to find a way of using America's natural resources for the benefit of Americans, while at the same time working to conserve them for future generations." Mr. Pruitt's analysis is half-baked, and his conclusion is wrong. First, he presumes that only the "use" of natural resources "benefits" all Americans; a presumption TR did not share - even 100 years ago, before the greater press of today's ecological damage.

TR's genius lay in his ability to embrace both wings of the last century's conservation movement. He was a pragmatist, and his goal was to get the job done: to protect a resource for the greatest good. A first-class naturalist in his own right, he was great friends with John Burrows and John Muir, who represented the "preservationist" wing of the movement. At the same time, he fully appreciated the value of Gifford Pinchot's "multiple use" approach to our national forests. They worked together to set aside huge amounts of land for our national forests, both to preserve ecological values and to maintain the nation's supply of timber.

On the other hand, TR also thoroughly understood the need for preservation when it came to lands such as Yellowstone National Park or our National Wildlife Refuge System, which he founded and of which ANWR is a part. TR worked closely with George Bird Grinnell to get legislation passed that would preserve Yellowstone in an ideal state - as it was before the white man came to these shores. At one point, Grinnell and Roosevelt fought hard to prevent the construction of a railroad across the park because they properly viewed this as a serious assault on the concept of a national park.

TR intended that wildlife refuges, such as ANWR, should be preserved for the benefit of wildlife. Today, these lands do far more than protect wildlife; they are linchpins in maintaining ecosystem function, in protecting water resources and climate stability. The "nonuse" of these lands is far more vital to our national interests than a six-month supply of oil. Today, the "use" and abuse of land resources far outweigh any restraint practiced toward them; it is an imbalance that threatens to wreak harm on the quality of American lives as it jeopardizes the health of the ecosystems upon which we and our economy depend. To suggest that TR would abrogate the principles upon which he founded our National Wildlife Refuge System for a short-term fix to our energy problem is nonsensical.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT IV
Brooklyn, N.Y.

----

Shipments of Scrap and Stress
Indian Groups Say Steel From Twin Towers Is Contaminated

By Rama Lakshmi
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, February 18, 2002; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25759-2002Feb17?language=printer

NEW DELHI -- For scrap trader Sashi Kumar, the collapse of the World Trade Center towers five months ago has become a "daily headache."

His problems began last month when a routine shipload of steel scrap arrived in the southern port of Chennai. This time, the 33,000-ton shipment apparently included material salvaged from New York's ground zero.

Environmental and labor activists say the scrap metal was contaminated by other debris from the twin towers -- such as cancer-causing asbestos, PCBs, dioxins, mercury and lead -- and accuse the United States of dumping "toxic and hazardous material" in India. They have launched an aggressive campaign calling for a halt to further movement of the scrap.

"What I have purchased is just steel scrap," said Kumar, 36. "I believe it may contain some scrap from the WTC site, but there is no label, no sticker on the scrap that says it is WTC scrap. Now it has become a headache for me."

The city of New York has decided to sell 175,000 tons of steel scrap from the World Trade Center, despite emotional appeals from relatives of some of the more than 2,800 people killed there on Sept. 11. Some of it is going to U.S. cities, but about 60,000 tons has been sold overseas, to companies in India, China and South Korea, where it will be turned into everything from appliances and bridges to car parts and even new skyscrapers. China's largest steel company, Shanghai Baosteel, has denied reports it plans to make souvenirs from the metal.

"This is not normal demolition steel scrap," said Anantha Padmanabhan, executive director of Greenpeace India. "Just look at the circumstances in which the twin towers came down. High-temperature incineration with jet fuel has taken place. This is incineration steel."

"Each office in the WTC had computers, chip boards, tube lights, electrical lights, video and computer monitors, plastics and furniture," he said. "There is every possibility that high levels of toxins are in the debris that would pose serious health and environmental risks to uninformed recycling workers in India."

Indian port authorities conducted no tests on Kumar's cargo when it arrived because it was imported as general steel scrap, which is legal in India. About 700,000 to 800,000 tons of steel scrap is imported into the country every year for recycling and reuse. The low import tariffs on steel scrap make it more attractive than using what is available in the country.

Part of Kumar's New York scrap has already been sent to be made into recycled steel for construction, but he has agreed to allow a Greenpeace team to inspect the rest.

Greenpeace said more steel scrap from the World Trade Center has arrived in the western Indian port of Kandla and a third shipment is bound for the eastern city of Calcutta later this month.

"I don't like the label 'WTC scrap.' In this trade, I don't ask questions about the source of the scrap," said Kumar, who has been in the scrap trade for five years.

But all the controversy about his latest consignment has made him wary. Recently, he received photographs of demolished bridges in the United States and an offer to buy the scrap from the debris.

"I said no, let's not even talk about it. Maybe after all this I should just say I want disaster-free scrap."

Kumar said the events of Sept. 11 weigh on him.

"If I think about the enormous tragedy, I feel very sad," he said. "I don't want to make a commercial deal out of disasters. But if I had said no, somebody else would have used it. It has to be used ultimately. It can't be thrown into water."

-------- health

Britain could approve prescription cannabis drugs

By Jason Hopps
Monday February 18, 11:47 AM
Reuters
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/reuters/asia-89904.html

LONDON - British doctors could be filling out prescriptions for cannabis-based pain-killing drugs as early as 2004 if clinical trials prove a success, the Department of Health said on Monday.

Canada became the first country to legalise the use of marijuana as a treatment for chronic illnesses last year and now Britain's clinical watchdog will consider offering cannabis-based pills on the National Health Service.

"Medical Research Council funded trials supported by the Department of Health and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society have been set up to assess the use of cannabinoids in multiple sclerosis and post-operative pain," Health Minister Lord Hunt said.

"Results are expected at the end of 2002 and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) will use these results in its appraisal of these drugs," he said.

Britain's Medical Research Council, a government-funded research body, has already begun trials with cannabis-based tablets on hundreds of sufferers of the crippling condition multiple sclerosis.

The results of those tests will be forwarded to NICE, Britain's medical watchdog, which will decide whether the cannabis tablets should be offered on prescription through the government's National Health Service.

"A decision whether one or more of these (cannabis-based) products will be licensed for official medical use is likely in 2004/5," the Department of Health said in a statement.

"If the drugs do receive a license the NHS will require timely and clear guidance on the clinical and cost effectiveness of these treatments," it said.

Long smoked as a recreational drug, marijuana is favoured by many multiple sclerosis or cancer sufferers, who say cannabis kills pain and stimulates appetite without the corrosive side effects of many prescription alternatives.

Britain has recently relaxed its stance against marijuana, saying it would downgrade its classification so users caught with small quantities of the drug for personal use will escape with only a police caution.

A British company, GW Pharmaceuticals, is developing cannabis-based prescription medicines. It recently said it would expand clinical trials into dealing with cancer pain.

-------- human rights

What U.S. newspapers are saying
35 million people worldwide are fleeing war or persecution

2/19/2002
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=19022002-090117-1925r

New York Times -

Today 35 million people worldwide are fleeing war or persecution. The last time the number was this high, World War II was raging. Yet many countries are hardening their refugee policies. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees must cut its services -- which already fall far short of the need -- by 10 percent because contributions from the European Union have dropped. Even as wealthy countries cut back their financing for food, health and education in refugee camps, they are also taking in fewer people. Nations like the United States, Denmark and Australia, historically open to the persecuted, are now closing the doors.

Refugees are less popular than ever because of post-Sept. 11 security worries. But the concern is misguided; only the most incompetent terrorist would try to enter a Western nation as a refugee. A tiny percentage of refugees are accepted and the process takes years, much of that time spent living in a squalid camp. In addition, refugees coming to America have always undergone far more thorough background checks than people entering on student, tourist or business visas. ...

Taking in refugees may not be popular in hard economic times, but it is the right thing to do. Moreover, prosperous countries like the United States and Australia have found that refugees and their children can become among their most devoted and productive citizens. Western nations more and more are adopting the view that refugees are not victims in need of sanctuary, but a political problem to be solved by keeping them anywhere but here.

Los Angeles Times -

Ishmael Beah was 13 years old when soldiers in Sierra Leone dragged him onto the battlefield. His family had disappeared during that West African nation's civil war, and he wandered the countryside starved for food and solace. As he told students at Southern California high schools and colleges last week, he eventually turned to the army. Suddenly he found an automatic rifle in his hands.

''At first I couldn't pull the trigger," he said. "I was lying almost numb in ambush watching kids my age being shot and killed. The sight of blood and the crying of people in pain triggered something inside me that I didn't understand and made me lose compassion for others. I lost my real being.''

He found peace, he said, "writing song lyrics about the good times before the war." Then one day, amid war's chaos, a relative rescued Beah and enrolled him in school. But 300,000 other children, some as young as 8 years old, are currently fighting wars in Angola, Burma, Colombia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Congo, Afghanistan and many other countries. Hoping to save some of these children from the loss of innocence he experienced, not to mention the loss of their lives, Beah has joined the Human Rights Watch Student Task Force, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group that is calling on members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to support U.S. ratification of an international agreement to prohibit armies from enlisting children as soldiers.

The committee should recommend to the Senate the ratification of the so-called Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits the forced recruitment of children under 18 and voluntary participation under 17.

Ninety-four countries, including the United States, have signed the protocol, but only 14 have ratified it. The Bush administration has indicated that it considers ratification a priority. The Senate should push for that action. Not that existing mechanisms can fully enforce the ban. But anything that civilized nations can do to make the inherent inhumanity of warfare less so is worth pursuing.


-------- activists

Israeli soldiers' revolt revives public debate

By Dan Ephron
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 18, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020218-23420992.htm

JERUSALEM - A threat by more than 200 Israeli reserve soldiers to refuse to serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has revived public debate over the way the army is fighting the Palestinian uprising.

The dissenters, who number about 210, complain that soldiers are increasingly called on to "dominate, expel, starve and humiliate" Palestinians. Their revolt poses one of the most serious internal challenges in the Israeli army's history.

They have also given encouragement to the nation's peace movement, which drew about 14,000 supporters to a rally Saturday night, and which had become moribund in the wake of the wave of Palestinian suicide bombings.

"I think we triggered a national discourse that until now no one was willing to instigate," said Haim Weiss, a reserve army captain who was in the first wave of dissenters last month.

Though some Israelis have criticized the army's aggressive measures - including its sieges on Palestinian towns and its air strikes on urban areas - analysts say an overwhelming majority of Israelis regard the army's response to Palestinian violence as reasonable and proportionate.

The protesters have drawn severe criticism from Cabinet ministers, army officers and even some left-wing groups. An opposing group of reservists published an open letter in the same newspaper criticizing the dissenters.

Defense forces chief Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, viewed as a hard-liner in policies against the Palestinians, defended the army's record during 16 months of fighting and suggested that political groups might have engineered the dissent.

"Very few armies in the world would ... behave on the same moral and value level as Israeli soldiers and commanders do in the field," he told journalists last week. But Gen. Mofaz has not decided whether to jail the reservists or let them conduct their future tours of duty inside Israel proper.

Television news programs have aired film of harsh military action at roadblocks and jails, and newspapers have allowed soldiers to relate disturbing experiences from service in the West Bank and Gaza. One high school has invited the dissenters to speak to its graduating class.

The former head of Israel's domestic security agency, Ami Ayalon, while taking exception to the reservists' behavior, said that some orders being handed down in the West Bank and Gaza are patently illegal, and that more soldiers should be challenging their commanders.

The dissent by reservists is not a broad phenomenon, and thousands of Israeli soldiers serve in the areas Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war without raising objections. Nor is this form of dissent new. A few hundred soldiers refused to serve in Lebanon during and after the 1982 Israel incursion into Lebanon, which had no effective government.

But it is the makeup of the group that has jolted the military brass. Most of dissenters are combat veterans, low to midranking officers - among the most committed and motivated reservists in the Israeli army. They ordinarily serve up to six weeks of reserve duty a year.

Many are career professionals or graduate students in civilian life. Nearly all served long stints in the West Bank and Gaza over the past decade.

"My unit was sent to the West Bank many times," says Mr. Weiss, a doctoral student in Hebrew literature who served until recently as deputy commander of a tank platoon. "I was always troubled by what we were doing to the civilian population. But I believed it was better that I do the work than someone who had no compunctions about punishing innocent people."

Mr. Weiss mainly objects to Israeli roadblocks in the West Bank, where large numbers of Palestinians are subjected to sieges or to aggravating traffic jams.

What changed his mind, he said, was an order in October to conduct a "violent patrol" in Bethlehem. "In military vernacular, that means you go in firing machine guns arbitrarily in every direction."

Though the task ultimately fell on another platoon - Israeli soldiers killed 23 Palestinians during that foray into Bethlehem - Mr. Weiss pledged at the end of his month of duty never to go back.

Last month, Mr. Weiss agreed when a friend asked if he would like his name added to a public declaration. Among other things, the declaration said: "We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the territories destroy all the values we had absorbed while growing up in this country ... [hereby declare] we shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders."

The first group of dissenters numbered 50, most of whom responded to an ad posted on the walls of Tel Aviv University. Their declaration was published in Israel's largest-circulation newspaper, and it drew more dissenters to the list.

Mr. Weiss said a tough response by the army would only increase the group's numbers. "I don't think the army wants 210 people in prison."

----

Protesters seek cardinal's resignation

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Around the Nation
February 18, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020218-20679280.htm

BOSTON - Demonstrators carried protest signs and sang hymns yesterday outside the residence of Cardinal Bernard Law, demanding that he resign because of his handling of accusations that priests sexually abused children.

Calls for Cardinal Law's resignation intensified since he admitted he transferred defrocked priest John Geoghan to other churches after learning of sexual abuse accusations against him.

----

New Yorker's Prison Sentence Upheld by Peruvian Court

February 18, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Peru-Berenson.html

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Peru's Supreme Court has upheld a 20-year prison sentence against American Lori Berenson for collaborating with leftist rebels in a thwarted plot to seize Congress, the presiding justice said Monday.

The panel was Berenson's last option for an appeal in the Peruvian justice system.

Berenson, 32, was convicted in June of terrorist collaboration in a failed bid by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement to take over Peru's Congress in 1995, but was acquitted of being a member of the rebel group.

It was the New York native's second terrorism conviction. She was first convicted in 1996 by a military tribunal and served more than five years of a life term. But that sentence was overturned in August 2000 and a new trial ordered after years of pressure from the United States.

In the 1996 trial, the military court of hooded judges sentenced Berenson to life in prison without parole on charges she was a rebel leader.

That court ruled that Berenson aided the Tupac Amaru rebels by renting a house that served as their hide-out and posing as a journalist to enter Congress to gather intelligence with a top rebel commander's wife.

Berenson says she didn't know her housemates were rebels, and hired the commander's wife as a photographer to help with articles she was writing for magazines in the United States.

Berenson, a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology student, considers herself a political prisoner and says authorities unfairly portrayed her concern for social justice as a terrorist agenda.

President Supreme Court judge Guillermo Cabala announced the decision Monday. He said a panel of five judges reached its verdict last week, but held off releasing it until Monday.

Cabala said that four of the five judges on the panel that oversees criminal appeals voted to uphold the 20-year sentence. One judge voted to reduce the sentence to 15 years.

Her parents, Mark and Rhoda Berenson of New York, have begun a campaign to pressure Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo to grant her a pardon.

Peruvian officials had declined to comment on the possibility of a pardon as long as the case was in the courts. There was no official reaction to Monday's verdict.

Berenson condemned the Supreme Court's decision in a statement released by her parents, who have spoken regularly with their daughter by telephone from New York.

``This judicial process was a farce from its beginning to its end. I am innocent of the charges,'' Berenson said in the statement.

Berenson's parents said they will ``personally appeal'' to Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo to grant their daughter a pardon.

``We know that Lori is innocent, and we remain optimistic that she will be released. We call upon President George W. Bush to right this wrong and to secure Lori's release,'' the Berensons said in the statement.

The State Department had no immediate comment.

Bush will visit Peru on March 23 to meet with Toledo to discuss trade and combating drug trafficking and terrorism. Peruvian Foreign Minister Diego Garcia Sayan last week did not rule out that the two presidents could discuss Berenson's case.

Bush urged Toledo during a meeting in Washington last June to consider humanitarian concerns in Berenson's case.


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