------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Atomic Experts Examine Kabul Cobalt
Wind flips trailer hauling nuke waste
Bulgarians fear reactor closures could trigger economic hardships
North Korea at the centre of diplomatic offensive
Bush Hard - Liners See End of N.Korea Accord
Nuclear minister laments shortage of funds
Bush, Putin May Sign Accords in May
Some Plants Take Name 'Nuclear' Out
Congress pressing for help for weapons-plant workers

MILITARY
China pulls troops
Exhaustion and Emptiness at Epicenter of Grief
Afghan US Military Glance
Donating to Quake Aid
China, India open commercial air link
Finds suggest more smallpox vaccine stocks
Drug Company Donates Smallpox Vaccine to U.S.
N. Ireland Measures Peace Progress
China Bars Troops From Mobile Phones
Arafat pledges cease-fire
Extended Operation Set in West Bank After Terror Bombing
European Leaders Are Alarmed By Rising Turmoil in Mideast
Palestinians Say Sharon Has Declared War on Them
Philippine army closing in on Abu Sayyaf rebels
Sisters Are Right On Space Weaponization
Israel Assailed at UN Council Meeting
US Military Upgrades Gulf Flexibility
US Troops Killed in Training Accident
American Fire, Not Ambush, May Have Killed U.S. Solider
Hypocrisy Hits High Note With Arafat's 'Cease-Fire' Offer
Study Ties Television Viewing to Aggression

POLICE / PRISONERS
Some Detainees May Be Held Even if Acquitted
Terror warning irks Italy
Rumsfeld Backs Plan to Hold Captives Even if Acquitted
U.S. Denies Mistreatment of Lindh

ENERGY AND OTHER
Hybrid Solar Cells Combine Nanotech with Plastics
Bush tapped solar energy funds to print energy plan
Why We Need A Blood Reserve

ACTIVISTS
EU Protests Israeli Attack




-------- NUCLEAR

Bunker Buster Cartoon:
http://www.truemajority.org/buster/index.asp?ms=bb1.

-------- accidents and safety

Atomic Experts Examine Kabul Cobalt

By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press Writer
Friday, March 29, 2002; 3:43 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36917-2002Mar29?language=printer

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Atomic experts came to Afghanistan this week after radioactive cobalt-60 was found in the abandoned wing of a hospital - a discovery that raised fears other dangerous material l treatment or that it had been tampered with by al-Qaida or the Taliban, said Capt. James Cameron, head of the peacekeepers' nuclear, biological and chemical monitoring group.

The team, acting on information from Afghan authorities, discovered the cobalt-60 at the hospital in the western part of Kabul, Cameron said. It was housed in a machine for treating cancer and was located in an abandoned wing of a hospital - surrounded by 10-foot-thick, lead-lined walls.

The doors of the room were open, and the machine where the cobalt-60 was stored had been pried open. Cameron said the tampering had probably been done a decade ago during factional fighting that destroyed large parts of the hospital. International peacekeepers closed up the machine and sealed the room.

Finds of such dangerous materials are cause for concern, experts said.

"These sources are very worrying, and particularly in Afghanistan," said Tom Clements, executive director of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington.

U.S. officials have sounded the alarm about the threat posed by so-called dirty bombs since Sept. 11, and regulatory authorities have called for greater monitoring of radioactive materials that could be used to make them.

The devices use explosives to scatter radioactive material. They are not nuclear bombs, but could contaminate populated areas and cause disease and panic, experts say.

Investigators believe the medical equipment was brought to Afghanistan by the Soviets in 1978. The material inside measured a still-potent radiation reading of more than 300 curies last week, Cameron said.

A three-member team from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency arrived on Monday to investigate after the peacekeepers determined they couldn't handle such the radioactive materials on their own.

The agency team also toured an out-of-use physics laboratory at Kabul University that contained several radioactive isotopes that could be dangerous in the wrong hands, Cameron said.

The energy agency team determined that no hazardous radiation had contaminated the laboratory or the hospital, but nevertheless recommended both be secured, a U.N. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

On Monday, crews were to begin transporting the materials from the physics lab to the hospital wing so they could be safely stored in the lead-lined room, Cameron said.

The materials eventually will have to be removed to ensure they don't leak or fall into the wrong hands, but it will be a multimillion-dollar operation that will require international assistance, Cameron said.

He said his team will have to investigate other possible radioactive sources at textile and food factories where the Soviets may have installed radiation equipment.

Cameron credited Afghans with having kept the cobalt-60 source quiet during the years when al-Qaida had much influence in the country's government.

"They as much as anyone realized the potential of the wrong people getting ahold of this," he said.

-------

Wind flips trailer hauling nuke waste

Associated Press
Friday, March 29, 2002
From: Carah Lynn Ong <research@napf.org>

ARLINGTON, Wyo. (AP) A tractor-trailer hauling radioactive material blew over on Interstate 80 early Thursday, according to Wyoming Department of Transportation officials.

No radioactivity was released and no one was injured in the accident, which happened around 7 a.m. about 35 miles west of Laramie, officials said.

WyDOT spokesman Bruce Burrows said the truck was carrying radioactive liquid in two one-liter padded containers. The containers were the only items inside the trailer.

Winds gusting up to 80 mph were recorded in the area when the trailer flipped on its side at the Cooper Cove Road interchange.

At least six wind-related crashes were reported Thursday morning on Interstates 80 and 25. Just north of Wheatland, an accident involving a pickup pulling a trailer closed I-25 for about 45 minutes.

Westbound traffic was diverted on the interchange ramps around the wreck until the tractor-trailer was righted and towed back to Laramie around 10:30 a.m. Eastbound traffic was unaffected.

The material remained on board the truck owned by Triad Transport Inc., of McAlester, Okla.

The material was headed to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory near Idaho Falls, Idaho, from a Cold War-era plutonium processing facility in Ohio, officials said.

The 1,050-acre former nuclear weapons plant, known as the Fernald site, is located about 18 miles northwest of Cincinnati.

Glenn Griffiths, deputy director of the Fernald office, said the bottles contained a liquid solution of plutonium and neptunium.

Although the solution is radioactive, ́it is not waste and it is very low activity from a nuclear perspective,î he said.

If the solution had spilled, ́at these quantities, it would have had to be a very low risk.î

The material is used to calibrate instruments and help analyze samples that might contain radioactive materials, he said.

-------- europe

Bulgarians fear reactor closures could trigger economic hardships

Fri Mar 29, 2002
By VESELIN TOSHKOV,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020329/ap_wo_en_ge/bulgaria_nuclear_2

KOZLODUI, Bulgaria - Months ahead of the scheduled closure of two aging reactors at Bulgaria's only nuclear power plant, opposition to the shutdown is getting stronger.

The government has agreed to turn off the two oldest reactors at the Kozlodui plant by the end of this year and to negotiate by 2004 a timetable for the closure of two others.

Built by the Russians back in the 1970s, the plant long has been considered the flagship of Bulgaria's energy sector, even though visiting Western experts consider it outdated, ill-equipped and dangerous.

In 1999, 10 years after communism fell, Bulgaria signed an agreement with the European Union (news - web sites) on the step-by-step closure of Kozlodui's oldest reactors - a move the EU since has rewarded by starting accession talks with Bulgaria, which is eager to join.

But now, many people in this impoverished Balkan country fear an early closure of the reactors could drive up prices for power.

About 500,000 Bulgarians have signed a petition calling for a referendum on the future of the troubled nuclear plant 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Sofia, which provides some 45 percent of the country's electricity and employs 5,380 people.

Marko Semov, a leader of a group that calls itself "Save Kozlodui," claims that after the closure Bulgaria might lose its position as a regional energy center.

"The shutdown of the four reactors would propel electricity prices upward. The country will lose serious incomes after it loses its chances to export electricity to its neighbors," he warned.

Although the fate of the two oldest units is already decided under the deal to shut them down by the end of 2002, the prospect of shutting units 3 and 4 has prompted calls for tougher bargaining with the EU. Bulgaria believes those reactors could operate safely until 2010 and 2012, respectively, but the EU wants them shut down in 2006.

Western concerns about safety conditions at the plant have been fueled by persistent reports of fires, oil leaks and generator malfunctions.

Under the 1999 accord, Bulgaria was offered 200 million euros (dlrs 175 million) in aid from 2000 to 2006, but half of that cash will be withheld until an agreement is reached on the closure of units 3 and 4.

The nuclear plant also has two newer 1,000-megawatt reactors, which it agreed to modernize further with 250 million euros (dlrs 220 million) in EU loans.

Plant director Yordan Kostadinov is convinced the plant is safe, and he points to dlrs 650 million worth of safety improvements that have been made over the last decade.

One of the EU's main arguments for the closure of the aging reactors was the lack of a protective encasement around them. The plant responded by enforcing the reactor walls and installing a separate pressure system designed to prevent radioactive leaks in case of an emergency.

"This is the best-controlled nuclear plant in the world," Kostadinov said, citing numerous inspections by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.

Emil Vapirev, who heads a government panel on nuclear energy, says closing down reactors 3 and 4 would be "premature and technically unsubstantiated" because their normal life is 50 to 60 years. Fears for the plant's safety are unfounded, he argues, because Kozlodui has fulfilled all the safety recommendations made by international experts.

Lilyana Rashkova, a 24-year-old teacher, said she had her doubts about Kozlodui when she moved nearby two years ago.

"But now I can say that all my fears are gone," she said. "I have a 3 year-old daughter, and I'm not worried about her."

-------- korea

North Korea at the centre of diplomatic offensive

Friday March 29, 2002
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020329/1/2n784.html

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il was at the centre of a new diplomatic offensive to persuade the Stalinist state to renew dialogue with rival South Korea and the United States.

Kim was to meet Indonesia's President Megawati Sukarnoputri in Pyongyang Friday while South Korea stepped up efforts to ensure the success of a visit to the North next week by a top envoy.

South Korea's Foreign Minister Choi Sung-Hong held talks in China, the communist North's last major ally, while the envoy, Lim Don-Wong, a top advisor to President Kim Dae-Jung, met the US ambassador in Seoul.

Megawati arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday for a three-day stay, carrying a message from the South Korean leader.

The Indonesian president will be the first foreign leader to meet Kim Jong-Il since the United States said in January that North Korea is part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq.

North Korea broke off contacts with the South last year in protest at US policy. Washington and Seoul have been close since the 1950-53 Korean War when US troops fought with the South.

The "axis of evil" comments only increased North Korean anger and it came as a surprise when the isolated state agreed to the visit by the South Korean envoy.

Lim is to go to Pyongyang on Wednesday and is expected to meet its supreme leader to urge him to reopen dialogue with the South and the United States.

US ambassador to Seoul Thomas Hubbard met Lim on Friday morning and reaffirmed a US offer for dialogue with North Korea without conditions, said a US official speaking on condition of anonymity.

He said Lim would not take any special US message to North Korea. A South Korean government official said only that the two held "a broad exchange of opinions on the North Korean nuclear programme and missiles."

The United States is most concerned about North Korea's missile sales and suspected nuclear weapons development. Lim has already said he will raise international concerns about North Korea's weapons when he goes to Pyongyang.

South Korea's foreign minister has been in Beijing since Thursday consulting with Chinese leaders on inter-Korean dialogue.

Choi met his Chinese counterpart Tang Jiaxuan to discuss Seoul-Pyongyang negotiations and ask for Beijing's support, officials and China's state media said.

Tang told Choi that Beijing welcomed the decision to send the envoy and hoped he would achieve positive results, according to China's state television.

The South Korean minister is also expected to call on President Jiang Zemin.

--------

Bush Hard - Liners See End of N.Korea Accord

March 29, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-korea-usa.html

WASHINGTON - Hard-liners in the U.S. Bush administration hope a recent decision questioning North Korea's compliance with a 1994 nuclear agreement is a prelude to the accord's demise, according to U.S. officials.

If they are right, it would mark another administration assault on a 30-year-old system of arms control agreements.

``The battle remains to be fought (on North Korea) but that's why this shift in the certification question this year is so important,'' one senior official told Reuters.

The White House sent a strong message, ruling it could not be sure Pyongyang was adhering to the agreement that was hailed as a landmark on signing eight years ago and aimed to freeze its nuclear weapons program.

It was a dramatic break with the administration of former President Bill Clinton, which negotiated the accord called the Agreed Framework to resolve a nuclear crisis with Pyongyang.

As a condition of U.S. assistance to North Korea, Congress requires the U.S. president to certify annually that Pyongyang is in compliance with the 1994 accord.

The White House told Congress nine days ago it could not do that because it was not satisfied Pyongyang was making new nuclear inspection arrangements with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But it gave North Korea some respite by invoking a national security waiver allowing U.S. commitments to continue -- at least for this year.

Those commitments include $95 million for half a million tons of fuel oil to the secretive and economically desperate communist country as well as backing for construction of two light-water nuclear power reactors, all part of the estimated $5 billion deal.

FUTURE OPTIONS

Next year could be a very different story.

U.S. officials said administration hard-liners who are most suspicious of Pyongyang see this year's certification decision as a first step toward unraveling the agreement altogether.

It occurred after Bush toughened his rhetoric following the Sept. 11 attacks on America and put North Korea in an ``axis of evil'' with Iran and Iraq, claiming each was intent on developing weapons of mass destruction.

``It was a transitional move away from saying, 'Everything is fine.' It's saying, 'Be on notice. You've got a year to go,''' one official said.

This official, who opposes the 1994 accord and believes North Korea has not complied with nuclear safeguards, was optimistic the administration next year would declare Pyongyang in violation of the agreement.

``If they don't allow the IAEA the kind of access they need (for inspections), then it's clear they (North Koreans) will have broken the Agreed Framework and the responsibility for that will be unambiguously theirs,'' the official said.

``You might as well say flatly, 'You're in breach of the agreement and it's over,''' he added.

In such a case, he would press the United States to stop backing the reactor construction and stop providing oil supplies, although humanitarian aid would continue.

The official added that the Korean Energy Development Organization, a New York-based international agency overseeing the reactor project led by the United States, South Korea and Japan -- would then ``disappear.''

Officials said hard-liners believe the accord with its massive aid is propping up North Korea and impeding its reunification with South Korea -- a U.S. democratic ally.

In general, the debate over the 1994 agreement has pitted the State Department, which favors the accord, against the Pentagon, which opposes it. An exception is undersecretary of state for international security affairs, John Bolton, who often goes with the Pentagon.

The administration insists the North must immediately begin full cooperation with the IAEA on inspections to determine how many nuclear weapons or material Pyongyang produced.

Former Clinton aides argue Pyongyang does not need to begin those inspections until KEDO is ready to install the nuclear components in the reactors.

Under Clinton, high-level visits took place and North Korea agreed to suspend test launches of their long-range missiles. But Bush has taken a much harder line toward the North and talks have been erratic and at lower levels.

Bush has given formal notice that the United States will withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and has refused to support ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. He has taken issue with other pacts as well.

-------- russia

Nuclear minister laments shortage of funds for submarine dismantling

Friday, March 29, 2002
By Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/03/03292002/ap_46799.asp

MOSCOW - The Russian government is short of funds to quickly get rid of its rusting fleet of mothballed nuclear submarines and deal with other leftovers of the nuclear era, the top nuclear official said this week.

"We carry a heavy burden left by the nuclear weapons program and industrial use of nuclear power," Alexander Rumyantsev said. "We have the necessary technology to dismantle and bury the nuclear waste, but we are short of money."

Russia has decommissioned 190 nuclear-powered submarines, but nuclear fuel has been removed from only 97 of them, and most are languishing dockside, waiting to be dismantled, officials said. The entire dismantling effort is estimated to cost US$2.5 billion to $3 billion - a large sum for the cash-strapped Russian government.

"Our state isn't ready for the task, and dismantling programs have lagged behind schedule," Rumyantsev said.

Last year, the nuclear ministry unloaded spent nuclear fuel from 18 nuclear submarines. Fuel from 18 more will be unloaded this year, but there is no money for any more this year, Rumyantsev said.

The wrecked Kursk nuclear submarine is to be among those dismantled this year. The Kursk sank during naval maneuvers in August 2000, killing its entire 118-man crew, and was hoisted from the Barents Sea bottom last October.

Rumyantsev said that the number of dismantled submarines could increase starting from 2004, and all submarines could be dismantled around 2007.

Environmental groups have repeatedly criticized the deteriorating condition of the decommissioned submarines, some of which have sat in ports for as long as 15 years, with fuel aboard and their hulls rusting through.

Rumyantsev voiced hope that imports of spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing would let his ministry earn funds to speed up nuclear dismantling programs. He said that a project of building a storage for low-active nuclear waste at Russia's Shimushir Island was economically feasible but stands little chance of implementation because of strong protests by environmentalists.

-------- treaties

Bush, Putin May Sign Accords in May

March 29, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Russia.html

WASHINGTON -- U.S. and Russian negotiators have made so much progress on offensive weapons and a new strategic framework that President Bush and Vladimir Putin may sign agreements on both at their Moscow summit in May, the State Department says.

``There are issues that remain to be discussed, as there always are in this sort of affair,'' John Bolton, undersecretary for arms control and international security, told reporters Friday at the Foreign Press Center.

``But we're making good progress, and I think it accurately reflects the maturing and merging relationship that is both strong and deep and hopefully will culminate in being able to sign and release these documents in May,'' he said. ``Their determination to move forward is quite evident.''

Among the issues still to be worked out are the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and a U.S. proposal for a new way to count warheads as the United States and Russia reduce their strategic arsenals to 1,700-2,200 each.

``The nonproliferation question is a very high priority for us,'' Bolton said. He said the Bush administration is focusing on sales to Iran and other ``countries of concern'' that could lead to new nuclear-armed militaries.

Although the United States suspects Russia of helping Iran develop nuclear weapons, Bolton indicated the two generally worry about many of the same countries.

When U.S. and Russian officials spoke last fall about Bush's plan to forge ahead with missile defense, the United States said the two countries were not a danger to each other, but ``we both faced threats from other states, from rogue states,'' Bolton said.

``On the Russian side, their threat assessment ultimately was not that different than ours,'' he said. Russian military officials recognized they faced even greater danger. ``The countries we're concerned about are closer to Russia than they are to the United States,'' Bolton said.

He said the United States hopes to work with Russia to develop defenses against the common threat, but that can't happen until the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty expires on June 13, six months after Bush announced the United States was withdrawing from the pact.

Citing what he called a ``curiosity'' in the ABM treaty, Bolton said it ``precludes the sharing of technology and research and development on missile defense from one country to another.'' So cooperation must wait until the treaty expires.

Another matter under negotiation is how to count the 1,700-2,200 warheads that will remain after the two sides make cutbacks their presidents have vowed to make. The United States wants to change the counting procedure so the arms agreement will focus on weapons both sides worry about the most, he said.

Their descriptive, though cumbersome, name is ``operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads.'' That means warheads installed in intercontinental ballistic missiles or submarine-launched missiles or those near heavy bombers and heavy bomber bases -- weapons that can be used immediately.

Under START I, the arms-control agreement now in place, counting was based on warhead delivery systems, not the number of warheads.

If a missile could carry 10 separately targeted re-entry vehicles, each with a warhead, a single missile counted as 10, ``no matter how many re-entry vehicles it actually has,'' Bolton said. START I limited each side to 6,000 warheads on strategic offensive nuclear weapons.

``The Russian side certainly began with a preference to use START I counting rules,'' he said.

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

Some Plants Take Name 'Nuclear' Out

By Karen Matthews
Associated Press Writer
Friday, March 29, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36616-2002Mar29?language=printer

NEW YORK -- They still make energy by harnessing the power of the atom, but at least a few plants from Connecticut to Washington state have scrubbed "nuclear" from their signs and stationery.

Anti-nuclear activists say such name changes are an attempt to mollify a nervous public that still remembers the Three Mile Island accident 22 years ago and now fears terrorists could target the plants.

Among the renamed plants is the now-christened Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, N.Y., 35 miles north of Manhattan. Entergy Corp., based in New Orleans, decided to remove "nuclear" from the name after completing the purchase of Indian Point's two nuclear generators last year.

"To identify it as a nuclear site does not fully describe it any longer," spokesman Jim Steets said. "It wasn't this calculated, planned thing. We're very proud of the fact that these are nuclear power plants." The name change reflects, in part, Entergy's plans to add a gas turbine to the site, Steets said. He noted that the decision was made before the World Trade Center attack, after Entergy completed its purchase of Indian Point 2 on Sept. 6.

The Millstone Power Station in Waterford, Conn., and the Columbia Generating Station in Richland, Wash., both deleted nuclear from their names within the past three years.

The government, the industry and watchdog groups do not keep track of name changes, but it's clear the changes are not uncommon.

"The industry is trying to use some public-relations spot remover," said Paul Gunter of the watchdog group Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C.

James Riccio, a nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace, called the practice "greenwashing."

"If they're so proud to be splitting atoms why not leave it in the name?" he asked.

Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents plant owners, said the naming of plants is done by the individual companies.

His agency, for one, is proud of its name. "We have every intention of keeping our name the Nuclear Energy Institute for the foreseeable future," Kerekes said.

In Connecticut, Millstone's name was changed after its purchase by Virginia-based Dominion last year. Spokesman Jim Norvelle said the company calls all of its plants "power stations." Dominion's two Virginia nuclear stations, North Anna and Surry, each built in the 1970s, never had 'nuclear' in their names.

-------

Congress pressing for help for weapons-plant workers

By NANCY ZUCKERBROD
Associated Press
Friday, 03/29/02
http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/02/03/15400396.shtml?Element_ID

WASHINGTON - Members of Congress are demanding that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham tell them how he plans to help workers exposed to toxic chemicals at the agency's Cold War-era weapons plants.

Workers from the Oak Ridge nuclear reservation are among those likely to seek the Energy Department's assistance.

The workers were not compensated under legislation passed more than a year ago that provided medical care and $150,000 to sick workers with illnesses linked to radiation, silica or beryllium.

But Congress ordered the Energy Department to establish a program that would help those exposed to harmful chemicals file claims under state workers' compensation systems.

That would reverse a decades-old policy in which the agency aggressively fought such claims.

In a letter sent to Abraham late Wednesday, members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce criticized the Energy Department for taking too long to establish a program.

The letter said ''claimants are understandably impatient,'' particularly those who have suffered years of adverse health effects because of exposure in the workplace.

Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said yesterday the final regulations establishing the program probably would be out within two months.


-------- MILITARY

China pulls troops

March 29, 2002
Inside the Ring - Notes from the Pentagon.
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough -
bgertz@washingtontimes.com, rscarborough@washingtontimes.com
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020329-4546728.htm

U.S. intelligence agencies have closely monitored the buildup of Chinese military forces in western China since the start of military operations in Afghanistan in October.

China moved troops and armored vehicles to Xinjiang province in response to the deployment of U.S. forces in Central Asia, specifically in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Chinese military writers have described the U.S. deployments as part of a strategy to encircle and contain China's growing power.

Last week, several motorized infantry brigades sent to China's western border recently were spotted withdrawing, as the fighting in Afghanistan has subsided, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

Pacific Fleet vacancy

Adm. Dennis Blair, who won high marks inside the White House for his handling of crises in Asia, is retiring in May. He turns over the reins of U.S. Pacific Command to Adm. Thomas Fargo, who is relinquishing command of the Navy's Pacific Fleet, based in Honolulu.

We hear there are a pair of three-star admirals at the top of the list to replace Adm. Fargo in Honolulu. They are Vice Adm. Walter F. Doran, a former 7th Fleet commander in Japan, who is now an assistant to the Joint Chiefs chairman; and Vice Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani, who is senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Rotating troops

The Army's 5th Special Forces Group, which did the bulk of ground combat in Afghanistan and led the way to victory over the Taliban, mostly has turned over in-theater duties to the 3rd Special Forces Group.

Most of the 5th Group Green Berets are back at Fort Campbell, Ky., resting up and preparing for possible future missions. The 3rd Group, which is geared toward action in eastern Africa and the Middle East, is based at Fort Bragg, home to Army Special Operations Command.

On many Green Berets' minds is action in Iraq. One option weighed by the Bush administration is to build up existing opposition forces in northern and southern Iraq. The administration might also create a whole new anti-Saddam Hussein army to topple the dictator. If that track is taken, Green Berets would play a major role, roaming the hills of northern Iraq and the marshes of southern Iraq to equip and train resisters.

Green Beret visionary

When Army Brig. Gen. Frank J. Toney took command of Army Special Forces in 2000, he was greeted with a lot of grumbling in the ranks. Gen. Toney, who spent just one year as commander before retiring in September, reoriented the Army's 3,500 Green Berets toward their old standard mission: Unconventional warfare.

The retraining came just in time. Terrorists stuck America on September 11. Weeks later, Green Berets were inserted inside Afghanistan to organize anti-Taliban forces. In other words, classic unconventional warfare.

Of the Gen. Toney era, one Army officer told us, "This was extremely inconvenient for the teams as they struggled to change their training focus in midstream. They had to go out and figure out how to train this stuff with no additional funding. Toney began to beat it into everyone's heads that unconventional warfare was our niche and this is what would make us relevant in the 21st century ... In hindsight, Toney was speaking prophetically. His vision of Special Forces was on full display in Afghanistan, where 5th Special Forces Group did exactly what he said SF would be called upon to do."

Chinese choke points

The U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., may be getting a new neighbor. U.S. officials tell us Hutchison Port Holdings, the Hong Kong-based port conglomerate headed by billionaire Li Kashing, is trying to buy a new container facility in Tampa.

Mr. Li is viewed by U.S. intelligence as having close ties to China's communist leaders. And Hutchison is part of the same company, Hutchison Whampoa, that quietly obtained long-term leases on two port facilities at either end of the Panama Canal in the 1997. The ports give China easy access to the canal and any U.S. strategic cargo that passes through - like military supplies needed in the Pacific or Europe.

U.S. security officials are worried that if Hutchison gets access to Tampa, it would provide Chinese intelligence with a close-up viewing and listening post for Central Command headquarters, where the war in Afghanistan is being directed.

Sen. Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, set off alarms in 1999 when he wrote the Pentagon warning that U.S. ships could be blocked by the Chinese company from using the waterway. He stated that "we have given away the farm without a shot being fired."

The U.S. military has been concerned since the 1990s about communist China moving into strategic choke points around the world, using its pseudo-commercial entities as cover. The U.S. Southern Command, in charge of U.S. forces in Latin America, carried out an intelligence study in 1997 focusing on China's efforts to obtain strategic bases at ocean choke points.

In this hemisphere, the company has port facilities in Panama; Vancouver, Canada; and the Bahamas. Other U.S. locations sought by Hutchison in its bid for a U.S. presence are Jacksonville, Fla.; Savannah, Ga.; Charleston, S.C.; Tacoma, Wash.; and Long Beach, Calif.

The port of Boston agreed in January to allow China Ocean Shipping Co. (COSCO) freighters to call in Boston beginning this month. COSCO was started by the Chinese military and has been used recently to ship military goods to Cuba.

Knife warning

U.S. military security agencies issued a safety alert recently to all soldiers and police involved in airport security. The alert warns passenger screeners to be on the lookout for lethal plastic knives that could be used by hijackers.

One of the knives was taken from a Japanese national during a search at Los Angeles International Airport on Feb. 6. It was described as "completely invisible" to screening equipment.

"This item is sharp and could easily be used as a stabbing weapon," the Air Force Office of Special Investigations stated in a notice. "The knife was distributed free of charge to attendees at a local Las Vegas shotgun/handgun outdoor trade show known as the Shot Show."

One military source said the knife was similar to a blue CIA "letter opener," although it was improved because it is nearly clear and has a blade designed for increased strength.

NorthCom rises

The Pentagon has set up a team to organize Northern Command, with a new commander in chief, or CINC, that will be responsible for the military's defense of U.S. shores.

A memo signed March 7 by Gen. Richard Myers, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, said President Bush is expected to approve creating this new homeland security command. He said the command's area of responsibility will encompass the continental United States, Alaska, Canada, Mexico and surrounding water out to 500 miles.

NorthCom is to reach initial operating capability by Oct. 1 and be headquartered somewhere in the Washington area.

The memo says the Joint Chiefs have approved this definition of homeland security: "The preparation for, prevention of, deterrence of, preemption of, defense against, and response to threats and aggression directed towards U.S. territory, sovereignty, domestic population, and infrastructure; as well as crisis management, consequence management, and other domestic civil support."

-------- afghanistan

[Question: could earthquakes be precipitated by the huge new "thermobaric" (air-sucking) bombs? et]

Exhaustion and Emptiness at Epicenter of Grief
Tremors Continue as Survivors Dig Out

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 29, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33694-2002Mar28?language=printer

Map: http://a188.g.akamaitech.net/f/188/920/1d/www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/images/I35478-2002Mar29

NAHRIN, Afghanistan, March 28 - In a town turned to rubble by two successive earthquakes this week, the sounds of the living today were these: The wail of a woman calling, "My children, my children," as she rocked disconsolately atop a pile of broken mud bricks where four of her children had been crushed to death.

The soft, erratic chunk of a shovel as a man dug halfheartedly at the ruins of his home, hoping to retrieve a few belongings.

The bewildered howl of a dog, sitting alone in a yard strewn with dust-covered quilts, teapots and an empty bird cage.

On a slope above this isolated hamlet in the hills of northern Afghanistan, where most of the estimated 800 victims died when two earthquakes shook Baghlan province Monday night and Tuesday morning, the dead lay in hastily dug earthen graves.

There had been no time for proper Muslim funerals, only brief prayers and goodbyes before the survivors turned to the grim tasks at hand: setting up tents for shelter, cleaning off their rescued household goods, signing up for relief supplies.

But even as vast quantities of aid poured in, with a stream of cargo trucks and military helicopters and relief agency vehicles busily churning up clouds of dust, and clusters of donated tents springing up on the surrounding hillsides, Nahrin remained deadened by unspeakable grief.

Almost every family in the town of 10,000 had lost a relative or close friend to the quakes. Almost every mud-brick house had been damaged, and many had completely collapsed. A number of smaller villages in the surrounding hills were also affected, but Nahrin took the brunt of the temblors.

Most inhabitants were poor farmers with few possessions except a hand-built mud hut and perhaps a mule. They were hardy people who had endured five years of conflict - with the men of Nahrin repeatedly taking to the hills to fight Taliban forces before the fall of the radical Islamic militia last year - and three years of drought, with no rain for many planting seasons.

Now, even as spring arrived and the town burst into bloom, with apple blossoms and birch buds and young wheat sprouting everywhere, nature has taken a violent toll.

And even now, two days after the second quake, the exhausted inhabitants were not permitted to sleep. Dozens of aftershocks continued to shake the earth; on Wednesday night alone, 10 separate tremors could be felt.

Abdullah, a 40-year-old shopkeeper, slumped in a bare tent near his ruined house this morning, too drained to do much but stare. His mother, brother and young son had died in the quakes, and he had buried them in the hills. Now, the future stretched emptily ahead.

"My brother and I fought together in the hills, and my mother took care of the family while we were gone," Abdullah said. "We were so happy when the new government came and we could return home. We thought we would have a good life. Now, it doesn't matter if we live or die."

Across a small, newly plowed field, his sister-in-law Homaira, 27, was absorbing her own loss, with five children buried once in the quake and again, finally, in the hills. She moved about the yard in slow motion, picking up a salvaged teapot and putting it down again.

"The children were all inside, and I had come out of the house for a moment when the ground shook," she said. "I heard the children crying, but after a few seconds there was no more sound, and I understood that they were dead."

Many of Nahrin's surviving residents wore new bandages on their hands or feet, evidence of remarkably quick treatment by teams of relief doctors who had set up tent clinics in the newer part of town on Tuesday and attended patients around the clock.

Today, more help arrived in a military convoy carrying medicine, equipment and doctors, sent from Kabul by the multinational peacekeeping force that has been patrolling the capital for several months.

Despite the tragedy, the swift outpouring of assistance from both the interim Afghan government and a variety of international relief agencies seemed to lift Nahrin's spirits a bit, and small signs of determination and enterprise were visible in the town today.

A man set up a table display of soap, cigarettes and flashlight batteries in front of his ruined shop. Women washed mud-streaked bedding and hung it out to dry. Children gathered twigs to make cooking fires, or pulled mud bricks from the ruins to use again.

But for some survivors, like 30-year-old Shaima, there seemed little point in trying to pick up the pieces. Four of her six children had died, her injured husband was in the hospital and their home was a shallow heap of rubble with a single metal bedstead poking out.

"That's where they died," she said, perching on a neighbor's wall and pointing down to what had been their bedroom. "I had six children, and now I have two. I don't know where we will live. The world is dark for me now. It is not day anymore."

Then, as Shaima stared at the ruins, she began to moan. At first the words were inaudible, but she repeated them over and over, as if in a trance. "My children, my children," she was saying, and the sound seemed to fill the unanswerable silence of Nahrin.

----

Afghan US Military Glance

March 29, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-US-Military-Glance.html

Mishaps during the war in Afghanistan:

-- Oct. 16 and Oct. 26, 2001: U.S. forces bomb Red Cross buildings in Kabul. The military says the Red Cross didn't provide the coordinates of the building before the first strike, so the military hadn't crossed it off as a potential target. Officials are still investigating why it was bombed the second time.

-- Nov. 11: A U.N. convoy was damaged by U.S. airstrikes. The military says the strikes were aimed at closing a road and the convoy was damaged by debris. U.N. officials had also not informed U.S. forces the convoy was traveling that day. No one was hurt.

-- Nov. 26: An F-18 dropped a bomb during the prison riot at Mazar-e-Sharif, injuring five U.S. soldiers. The military says there were ``procedural errors'' in transmitting the target coordinates to the plane.

-- Nov. 28: U.S. helicopters attacked a ground force of Navy troops. No one was injured. The military changed some of its communications procedures after the incident.

-- Dec. 5: A B-52 dropped a bomb on U.S. and Afghan forces near Kandahar, killing three Americans and at least seven Afghans, and slightly wounding Afghan leader Hamid Karzai. The military says the investigation isn't complete, but officials have said there were errors in transmitting target coordinates to the B-52.

-- Dec. 22: U.S. aircraft struck a convoy near Khost, killing dozens of Afghans. Some Afghans say the convoy was carrying tribal leaders to the inauguration of Karzai in Kabul. Senior U.S. military commanders insist it was a legitimate target.

-- Jan. 23, 2002: U.S. forces raided two compounds near Hazar Qadam. The military says the people in the compounds -- who were neither Taliban nor al-Qaida -- opened fire on the U.S. forces. The Americans returned fire, killing 16. Several Afghans who were captured also said they were mistreated by the Americans; the U.S. military denied any unnecessary force was used.

-- Feb. 12: A detainee said he was beaten by his American captors at Kandahar. The U.S. military said he resisted and suffered injuries while he was restrained.

-- March 2: An AC-130 taking part in Operation Anaconda may have mistakenly attacked a convoy of U.S. and Afghan forces, killing one U.S. soldier. The military said the matter is still under investigation.

-- March 6: Coalition forces attacked a suspected al-Qaida leadership target near Shikin, Afghanistan. Fourteen were killed, including three women and three children. The matter is under investigation.

-------

Donating to Quake Aid

Friday, March 29, 2002; Page A16
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33948-2002Mar28?language=printer

Here is a list provided by InterAction -- a coalition of international development and relief organizations operating in more than 100 countries -- of groups accepting contributions for victims of this week's earthquake in northeastern Afghanistan:

Action Against Hunger
875 Avenue of the Americas
Suite 1905
New York, N.Y. 10001
212-967-7800
www.aah-usa.org

Adventist Development and Relief Agency International
12501 Old Columbia Pike
Silver Spring, Md. 20904
800-424-2372
www.adra.org

American Friends Service Committee
1501 Cherry St.
Philadelphia, Pa. 19102
888-588-2372
www.afsc.org

American Jewish World Service
45 W. 36th St., 10th floor
New York, N.Y. 10018
800-889-7146
www.ajws.org

American Red Cross
International Response Fund
P.O. Box 37243
Washington, D.C. 20013
800-435-7669
www.redcross.org

B'nai B'rith International
Disaster Relief/Communities in Crisis Fund
1640 Rhode Island Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20036
202-857-6533
www.BBInet.org

Brother's Brother Foundation
1200 Galveston Ave.
Pittsburgh, Pa. 15233
888-323-1916
www.brothersbrother.org

CARE
151 Ellis St., NE
Atlanta, Ga. 30303-2440
800-521-2273
www.care.org

Catholic Relief Services
P.O. Box 17090
Baltimore, Md. 21203-7090
800-736-3467
www.catholicrelief.org

Christian Reformed World Relief Committee
Afghanistan Relief
2850 Kalamazoo Ave. SE
Grand Rapids, Mich. 49560
800-848-5818
www.crwrc.org

Church World Service
Afghanistan Earthquake
P.O. Box 968
Elkhart, Ind. 46515
800-297-1516
www.churchworldservice.org

Concern Worldwide USA
104 E. 40th St., Room 903
New York, N.Y. 10016
212-557-8000
www.concernusa.org

Direct Relief International
Afghanistan Earthquake Fund
27 S. La Patera Lane
Santa Barbara, Calif. 93117
805-964-4767
www.directrelief.org

Doctors Without Borders USA
P.O. Box 2247
New York, N.Y. 10116-2247
888-392-0392
www.doctorswithoutborders.org

Halo USA
1841 Broadway, Suite 711
New York, N.Y. 10023
877-425-6872
www.halousa.org

International Aid
17011 W. Hickory
Spring Lake, Mich. 49456
800-251-2502
www.internationalaid.org

International Medical Corps
11500 W. Olympic Blvd.
Suite 506
Los Angeles, Calif. 90064
800-481-4462
www.imcworldwide.org

International Rescue Committee
122 E. 42nd St.
New York, N.Y. 10168-1289
877-733-8433
www.theirc.org

Lutheran World Relief
P.O. Box 17061
Baltimore Md. 21298-9832
800-597-5972
www.lwr.org

MAP International
2200 Glynco Pkwy.
P.O. Box 215000
Brunswick, Ga. 31521-5000
800-225-8550
www.map.org

Mercy Corps
Afghan Earthquake Fund
Dept. NR, P.O. Box 2669
Portland, Ore. 97208
800-852-2100
www.mercycorps.org

Operation USA
8320 Melrose Ave., Suite 200
Los Angeles, Calif. 90069
800-678-7255
www.opusa.org

Oxfam America
Afghanistan Response
P.O. Box 1745
Boston, Mass. 02105-1745
800-776-9326
www.oxfamamerica.org

Relief International
11965 Venice Blvd., #405
Los Angeles, Calif. 90066
800-573-3332
www.ri.org

Save the Children
54 Wilton Rd.
Westport, Conn. 06880
800-728-3843
www.savethechildren.org

United Methodist Committee on Relief
Afghanistan Earthquake Advance #982450-8
475 Riverside Dr., Room 330
New York, N.Y. 10115
800-554-8583
http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor

United Way International
Afghanistan Earthquake
701 N. Fairfax St.
Alexandria, Va. 22314-2045
703-519-0092
www.uwint.org

U.S. Fund for UNICEF
333 E. 38th St.
New York, N.Y. 10016
800-367-5437
www.unicefusa.org

World Concern
Afghan Earthquake Relief
19303 Fremont Ave. N.
Seattle, Wash. 98133
800-755-5022
www.worldconcern.org

World Vision
Afghanistan Quake Relief
P.O. Box 70288
Tacoma, Wash. 98481-0288
888-562-4453
www.worldvision.org

-------- asia

China, India open commercial air link

World Scene
March 29, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020329-79828038.htm

BEIJING - China and India opened direct commercial air links yesterday, a move hailed by Beijing as a "big event" that would boost ties between the sometimes uneasy neighbors.

The China Eastern Airlines Airbus 340, carrying about 100 passengers, was seen off from Beijing's International Airport by Chinese aviation officials, the Indian ambassador and people with bunches of flowers.

China and India are both developing nations with more than 1 billion people each, but relations often have been chilly.

They fought a border war in the 1960s and have sparred verbally in recent years. China is a longtime ally and weapons supplier to Pakistan, India's bitter rival. The presence in India of 120,000 exiles from Tibet remains a source of tension between New Delhi and Beijing.

-------- biological weapons

Finds suggest more smallpox vaccine stocks

ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 29, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020329-83984419.htm

The nation will have a lot more smallpox vaccine than was previously thought in case of a bioterror attack: New research shows 15 million stockpiled doses can be stretched to make up to 10 times the amount, and the government is negotiating to buy millions of doses discovered in a drug company's freezers.

Both discoveries are important because while the government has ordered for production of 200 million new doses by a British company, they won't arrive until at least year's end. Once they do, they must pass testing to ensure their safety and effectiveness.

Having more vaccine already on hand would buy more time to ensure the new production is done properly.

The nation quit routine smallpox vaccination in 1972, and the disease was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980.

But the U.S. and Russian governments hold stocks of the deadly virus, and bioterrorism specialists worry that samples could fall into the hands of terrorists and be used as a weapon.

So the government has been working to get enough vaccine for every American, just in case. If an attack occurred, doctors would quickly vaccinate people in the vicinity, because inoculations up to four days after exposure still offer protection. There are no plans yet to resume routine vaccination, because the vaccine can cause some severe, even fatal, side effects and, until now, there wasn't enough available anyway.

That may no longer be the case.

Some 15.4 million doses are in a government stockpile. That vaccine could be diluted, with each dose generating five to 10 additional doses, and still be protective, say two studies released yesterday by the New England Journal of Medicine. The studies of more than 700 previously unvaccinated young adults found that about 97 percent responded to diluted or undiluted inoculations, although some required two doses.

One catch: A few people never responded, and blood tests suggest they had been vaccinated decades earlier but had forgotten about it. Thus, more study is needed to tell if diluted vaccine can boost the presumed waning immunity of millions vaccinated 30 years ago, wrote lead researcher Dr. Robert Belshe of St. Louis University.

In addition, Pennsylvania-based Aventis Pasteur has told the government it has 70 million to 90 million doses of smallpox vaccine sitting in its freezers, stocks federal health officials hadn't thought existed.

Aventis now is checking whether that vaccine still is effective after so many years, and the government is discussing whether to buy it.

"Those discussions are ongoing and nearing conclusion," said Kevin Keane, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. Details of a deal could be announced as early as today.

Now that so much more vaccine seems available, "it's time for an open public debate ... on whether it makes sense to vaccinate the public pre-emptively," said Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, editor of the New England journal.

But make it quick because the time spent debating is a de facto decision not to vaccinate, he added.

If all Americans were vaccinated, specialists estimate 180 to 400 persons could die just from the inoculation's side effects.

In the latest studies, no one became severely ill. But one person had blisterlike lesions erupt in a swath over his body. More than a third had pain bad enough to miss school, work or other activities. Fever, headache, nausea, muscle aches, lesions and swelling were fairly common.

--------

Drug Company Donates Smallpox Vaccine to U.S.

New York Times
March 29, 2002
By ROBERT PEAR
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/29/business/29CND-POX.html

WASHINGTON, March 29 - A huge supply of smallpox vaccine frozen for the last 44 years appears to be as potent and effective as newer vaccine produced for the nation's pharmaceutical stockpile, federal officials and drug company executives said today.

Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, confirmed today that the government would receive a donation of about 85 million doses of the smallpox vaccine from Aventis (news/quote) Pasteur, a major vaccine maker.

The old vaccine was produced around 1958 and until recently was stored in freezers at an Aventis production plant in Swiftwater, Pa.

Mr. Thompson tried today to reassure the White House and the nation that he was moving quickly, with cooperation from private industry, to protect Americans against the threat of biological terrorism.

"We are moving faster in building our pharmaceutical stockpiles than anyone imagined was possible," Mr. Thompson said at a news conference. "The president challenged us to get ready fast, and we are rising to the challenge because everyone is working together."

With the existing stockpile of smallpox vaccine and with additional quantities being purchased from another drug company, Mr. Thompson said, the government will have 286 million doses of smallpox vaccine, "enough to cover every man, woman and child in America by the end of the year."

The last case of smallpox in the United States occurred in 1949. The disease was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980. Vaccinations to prevent smallpox have not been routinely given in the United States since 1972. Experts fear that if a secret supply of smallpox is in the hands of terrorists, it could decimate a population that is not vaccinated.

The National Institutes of Health will test the old Aventis vaccine in humans over the next two months, to confirm whether it is still effective.

Scientists from Aventis, Mr. Thompson and Dr. D. A. Henderson, the secretary's chief adviser on bioterrorism, said laboratory tests strongly suggested that the old vaccine was potent and effective.

"All indications are that it would be as effective as the supply we already have," Mr. Thompson said. "What the Aventis supply can give is an extra layer of protection, a huge insurance policy."

Dr. Michael D. Decker, vice president of Aventis Pasteur, said the old vaccine still had a high concentration of virus particles. In laboratory tests, he said, it infected cells with the same potency as newer vaccine in the federal stockpile.

David J. Williams, president of Aventis Pasteur, said the old vaccine appears to be "almost indestructible."

In a crisis atmosphere created by anthrax attacks last October, Mr. Thompson said the Bush administration wanted to buy millions of doses of vaccine to protect every American against the potentially lethal smallpox virus.

Mr. Thompson said today that federal officials knew at that time about the large stocks of vaccine held by Aventis. But, he said, federal officials did not tell the public because they did not know if the vaccine would prove effective after being frozen for four decades.

"We did not known if it was going to work," Mr. Thompson said. "We did not want to heighten the expectations of the American people if it was a vaccine that couldn't be used."

-------- britain

N. Ireland Measures Peace Progress

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
Associated Press Writer
MARCH 29, 2002
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS7IIA8SG0

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) - Catholic and Protestant politicians reflected Friday on how much has changed, and how many tensions and dangers remain, since they achieved Northern Ireland's Good Friday peace accord four years ago.

``As we see the turmoil and despair today in the Middle East in particular, we should all the more value and protect what we so painstakingly created in the Good Friday agreement,'' said Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who helped negotiate the landmark pact.

But police had to evacuate part of a predominantly Protestant village Friday because of a bomb blamed on Irish Republican Army dissidents. The boobytrap device, placed beneath the car of a former British soldier, was safely defused, but it demonstrated that extremists on both sides are still trying to unravel years of patient diplomacy.

``We don't have a perfect peace, we don't have a perfect democracy yet, but we have made immense strides forward over the past four years,'' said Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid.

Reid, Britain's senior official here, retains considerable powers as part of the U.S.-brokered deal to promote cooperation and compromise between the British Protestant majority and Irish Catholic minority in this land of 1.7 million.

The central goal of the April 10, 1998, accord, a joint Catholic-Protestant administration responsible for most government responsibilities, has been running smoothly in recent months thanks to the IRA's decision to begin disarming last October.

The IRA, by scrapping a cache of weapons in secret, created just enough support among Protestants for Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble to resume leadership of a coalition that includes the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party. But Trimble's hold over Protestant opinion remains finely balanced and the future of the four-party administration is far from secure.

Disarmament officials have reported no further progress in talks with the IRA, which retains tons of hidden weapons stockpiles, but expectations are growing for another move soon.

Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said the IRA was committed to gradual disarmament. A second step down that road, he said, ``would fit into Sinn Fein's aspirations.''

Sinn Fein leaders are campaigning hard to win several parliamentary seats in an expected May election in the Republic of Ireland, where the party now holds just one of 166 seats. Winning several seats could leave Sinn Fein holding the balance of power between larger parties and give it influence in shaping the next Irish government.

Analysts say Sinn Fein's electoral hopes in the predominantly Roman Catholic south, which won independence from Britain in 1922, would be boosted by a second disarmament move.

In Dublin on Good Friday, one Protestant church paid a marathon tribute to the dead. Ministers and volunteers at a Unitarian church took turns reading the names of more than 3,600 people slain in political-sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, Britain and the Republic of Ireland since 1968.

The IRA or rival anti-British groups were responsible for more than 2,000 dead, anti-Catholic extremists for nearly 1,000, and British troops or police for about 350. The rest died in mob violence, riots or otherwise unclear circumstances.

In much of Northern Ireland today, the main threat to peace comes from the Ulster Defense Association, the biggest outlawed Protestant group.

The UDA's political representatives were included in negotiations that produced the 1998 pact, but proved inept at winning votes and influencing their murderous colleagues.

The group's political party disbanded last year after Britain declared the UDA was no longer honoring its 1994 cease-fire. The UDA has refused to surrender any weapons; along with smaller Protestant gangs the UDA has been blamed for 200 pipe-bombings and about a dozen deaths in the past two years.

-------- china

China Bars Troops From Mobile Phones

The Associated Press
Friday, March 29, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35235-2002Mar29?language=printer
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-Military-Secrets.html

BEIJING -- China has barred its soldiers from using mobile phones and pagers in an effort to keep its military secrets under wraps.

Even soldiers granted exceptions to the new rules will be barred from taking mobile phones into sensitive military facilities, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

The regulations also forbid soldiers from visiting "unhealthy places," Xinhua said, an apparent reference to brothels.

The regulations were signed by Jiang Zemin, China's president and head of powerful Communist Party and government commissions that oversee China's 2.5-million member People's Liberation Army, the world's largest military.

Soldiers must have permission from an officer of divisional commander rank or above to use a mobile phone, and then only for work, Xinhua said. Otherwise, "military personnel should not use mobile telephones, pagers and similar communications equipment," Xinhua said.

Those with permission also are barred from taking mobile phones aboard military planes and boats, or into war rooms, intelligence facilities, communications complexes, missile firing areas, or secret conference rooms, Xinhua said.

The regulations also forbid soldiers from "discussing or transmitting secret information on mobile phones and pagers," the agency reported.

-------- israel / palestine

Arafat pledges cease-fire

By Dan Ephron
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 29, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020329-8821864.htm

JERUSALEM - Hours after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said he was ready for an immediate cease-fire, Israeli tanks rolled into the West Bank town of Ramallah, about 20 of them taking positions nearly 200 yards from his headquarters, according to security sources.

The tanks positioned themselves for possible retaliatory action against a string of Palestinian suicide bombings.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Cabinet continued to meet into the early hours today. While the discussions continued, Israeli officials reacted with skepticism to Mr. Arafat's cease-fire offer.

Israel also decided to call up extra reserve troops for a partial mobilization as tensions rose sharply.

"The government approved that, following the recent wave of murderous terror attacks, there will be mobilization of a number of additional combat reserve units," an Israeli military source said.

Meanwhile, violence again erupted yesterday when a Palestinian gunman opened fire at a Jewish settlement near the West Bank town of Nablus, killing four persons before being shot dead by soldiers, the military said. The militant Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility.

The attack came even as Israel continued to reel from a suicide attack Wednesday that killed 20 Israelis at the beginning of Passover. Speaking at a news conference in his Ramallah headquarters last night, Mr. Arafat said the Palestinians had informed U.S. envoy Gen. Anthony Zinni of "our readiness for an immediate implementation of the [U.S. truce] plan without any conditions."

"I assert our readiness to implement an immediate cease-fire, as we have informed General Zinni," Mr. Arafat told reporters at his compound.

The general arrived in the area in mid-March on a third attempt to broker a cease-fire. But the steady drumbeat of Israeli-Palestinian violence and preparations Israel appeared to be making for war all but drowned out Gen. Zinni's efforts and overshadowed a separate peace initiative toward Israel from Arab leaders.

Gen. Zinni has been shuttling between Jerusalem and Ramallah the past two weeks, trying to get Israelis and Palestinians to agree to a truce, then peace talks, spelled out last year in two American initiatives, one led by CIA Director George J. Tenet and the other by former Sen. George J. Mitchell, Maine Democrat.

Israel said that it has agreed to the Zinni cease-fire proposal and that Mr. Arafat, while paying lip service to a truce, continues to allow suicide bombers to attack the Jewish state.

"Arafat has said about 10 times that he accepts a cease-fire, and then he turns around and violates it, so he will be judged by his actions and not his words," said Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"The Cabinet is considering major decisions on the course of military action. We have to defend ourselves. The Palestinians are cranking out those suicide bombers at a rate of two a day," Mr. Gissin said.

He spoke as the Israeli Cabinet was in the midst of deliberations on how to respond to Wednesday's attack on a hotel dining room in the coastal city of Netanya.

A senior military official said the army asked the Cabinet for a green light to mobilize reservists for the operation. Mr. Sharon was expected to hold a late-night news conference to announce decisions reached by his government.

In Ramallah, where Israeli troops carried out a punishing three-day incursion earlier this month, Mr. Arafat ordered police and security officials to evacuate bases while residents, expecting a protracted Israeli occupation, emptied supermarket shelves of food.

"I have never seen so many people come in here," said Diala Khalaf, a 19-year-old cashier at the Max supermarket in downtown Ramallah.

Streetlights did not go on after dark, and people stayed indoors, unusual for a Thursday night.

"It's obvious that the Israelis are preparing for a major military campaign," said Hussein Sheikh, a top leader in Mr. Arafat's Fatah faction.

The anxiety ran to the Israeli side as well, where residents have been hit by a spree of bombings and shootings.

Hamas, which was behind yesterday's attack, also claimed responsibility for Wednesday's Passover bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya.

About 250 people were sitting in the dining room of the hotel when a Palestinian bomber darted in and blew himself up in one of the worst suicide attacks in 18 months of fighting.

Two-thirds of the guests sustained injuries. One of them, Yitzhak Atsits, a 73-year-old widower from Jerusalem, crossed the lobby just after 7 p.m. and took a seat in the dining room. The table was garnished with traditional Passover provisions.

The main dish hadn't been served yet, Mr. Atsits said yesterday from his hospital bed. Suddenly, he heard an earsplitting blast from the center of the room, a few tables from his own. He remembers the lights going out and events unfolding in eerie sluggishness - the force of the blast hitting him like a board, debris falling from the ceiling, guests wailing from their wounds.

--------

Extended Operation Set in West Bank After Terror Bombing

New York Times
March 29, 2002
By JOEL BRINKLEY and SERGE SCHMEMANN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/29/international/29CND-MIDE.html?pagewanted=all&position=bottom

JERUSALEM, March 29 - After declaring Yasir Arafat an "enemy" today, Israel sent troops and tanks smashing into the Palestinian leader's West Bank compound in Ramallah, shelling his private offices and battling his security guards.

Israeli tanks, troops and helicopters were reported to be in control of the city, the unofficial Palestinian capital, after room-to-room fighting inside the building housing Mr. Arafat's offices.

Five Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed, with at least 25 Palestinians wounded. Israeli officials said up to 60 Palestinians had been arrested inside the compound, but Palestinians disputed that number.

As leaders of countries around the world voiced concern at the Israeli action, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in Washington today that he had been assured by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that Israel did not intend to harm Mr. Arafat, but simply to isolate him.

The current crisis, Secretary Powell said, was caused by acts of terrorism aimed at "innocent civilians," referring to recent Palestinian suicide bombings. He repeated the United States' call for Mr. Arafat to act against those responsible.

But he said the United States deplored "the killing and wounding of innocent Palestinians" in Ramallah, and called on Mr. Sharon to "carefully consider the consequences of those actions."

Damage inside the Ramallah compound was described by witnesses as severe, with walls and iron gates leveled by tanks and armored bulldozers.

Mr. Arafat's aides said his building had come under heavy tank and machine-gun fire, but that the Palestinian leader was unhurt.

"They want me under arrest or in exile or dead, but I am telling them, I prefer to be martyred," Mr. Arafat said in a telephone interview broadcast by Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television channel. "May God make us martyrs."

In a new Palestinian attack, a female suicide bomber set off explosives this afternoon at a supermarket in a working-class area of West Jerusalem, killing two people, the police said, including a guard who had stopped her at a metal detector. At least 20 people were wounded.

The Al Aksa Brigades, a militia linked to Mr. Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack and identified the bomber as Ayat Akhras, 16, from the Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem.

In the Gaza Strip today, a Palestinian militant stabbed two Israelis to death in the Netzarim Jewish settlement and was then shot to death by soldiers, the Israeli Army said. The militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Earlier the Israeli government sent tanks and armored personnel carriers to fully isolate him in his Ramallah headquarters and to launch an "extended operation" in the Palestinian territories.

After an all-night meeting of his cabinet and flanked by senior ministers, Mr. Sharon recalled the deadly suicide bombing of a Netanya hotel on Wednesday night as well as two subsequent terror attacks. He said Israel had extended its hand in peace, "but all we get back in response is terrorism, terrorism and more terrorism."

"No sovereign state can ignore such a sequence of events."

He said 20,000 reserve soldiers were being called up to free regular forces for an operation that could last a long time.

By the time Mr. Sharon spoke, a heavy force of Israel armor was already on the move in Ramallah, the unofficial Palestinian capital. Officials in Mr. Arafat's compound said tanks and armored personnel carriers had fully ringed them and bulldozers had breached a hole in the wall.

Benjamin Ben Eliezer, the minister of defense, followed Mr. Sharon to the podium and declared that the operation had begun in Ramallah, "the capital of terror," but would continue elsewhere. "Nobody is immune to the armed forces as long as that person is labeled a terrorist," he said.

The new explosion of violence also followed an Arab summit in Beirut which had adopted a Saudi initiative offering normal relations with Israel if it pulled out of all occupied territories. That declaration, which the Bush administration had actively supported, now seemed effectively superseded by events.

And some Middle East observers saw the Arab League offer as a mixed message, encouraging the Palestinians to keep fighting.

The operation effectively put an end, at least for the duration of the incursion, to the efforts by the American envoy, Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, to mediate a cease-fire, and opened a new and potentially vicious chapter in the violence that has wrenched the Middle East for 18 months now. After an extensive operation in Palestinian areas early this month, Israeli tanks and forces pulled back when General Zinni began his mission. This time, however, Mr. Sharon repeatedly said the operation would be "long, drawn-out and protracted."

From within Mr. Arafat's compound, Nabil Aburdeineh, a senior aide to the Palestinian leader, said by telephone today that the operation marked a "declaration of war" against the Palestinian people, and called on the United States to call off the Israelis and to isolate Mr. Sharon and his government. Mr. Aburdeineh said Mr. Arafat was in charge, and was telephoning leaders around the world in search of support.

The military operation followed one of the most severe terror attacks of the latest uprising, when a suicide bomber detonated a massive charge in a Netanya hotel filled with Israelis celebrating the Passover Seder. Twenty-one people were killed. On Thursday, another Palestinian gunman fatally shot four Israelis in a Jewish settlement near the West Bank city of Nablus, and this morning another Palestinian was reported to have infiltrated a Jewish settlement in Gaza, killing two people.

In the wake of the attacks, and with an Israeli retaliation imminent, Mr. Arafat issued a statement saying he was willing to immediately start implementing an American cease-fire plan without conditions. But Mr. Arafat stopped short of actually declaring a halt to hostilities, and Israelis dismissed the statement.

There was no immediate reaction from General Zinni.

Throughout Thursday, Mr. Arafat had come under pressure from many quarters to agree to a cease-fire. Aides said he had received calls from the foreign minister of Germany, the secretary general of the United Nations, the commissioner for foreign affairs of the European Union and the government of France, among others.

Nonetheless, at a news conference on Thursday night, Mr. Arafat chose language that fell short of actually putting a cease-fire in place. He rejected the draft cease-fire agreement under discussion with General Zinni, the American special envoy, and indicated that he wanted to remove several conditions that the Israeli government had added. That will undoubtedly require much negotiation.

"We are ready to start implementing immediately the Tenet work plan without prejudicing any of its articles," Mr. Arafat said, referring to the cease-fire plan drafted last year by George J. Tenet, the American director of central intelligence.

He added that "there are ideas" that have been added "that are not from Zinni." Mr. Arafat was referring to Israeli modifications to the plan, like the removal of a ban on "proactive attacks" on Palestinian civilian targets.

The State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, reacted cautiously to Mr. Arafat's remarks.

"We've seen the statement," he said. "We've noted what he's said. We continue to work with both parties, and the focus needs to remain on carrying out the specific steps to reduce the violence and implement the Tenet understandings."

The death toll from Wednesday night's suicide bombing could rise given the number of seriously wounded remaining in hospitals. An unidentified senior Israel official, quoted on the nation's main midday radio newscast, called the bombing at the start of a Passover in a hotel dining room in Netanya "a declaration of war against Israel."

Mr. Gissin said Israel was giving Mr. Arafat one last chance to act to "stop this crazy, stupid butchery of Israeli civilians." He said, "This is his last moment, a moment of truth for him and his people."

Late Thursday, Palestinians said Mr. Arafat's security forces had started arresting Islamic militants of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron and Nablus.

At the same time, some 600 pro-Palestinian foreigners, including the French farmers' union leader, José Bové, arrived in Ramallah to offer themselves as human shields for Palestinians. "We are going to stay here in Ramallah in particular to provide the Palestinians with protection," Mr. Bové said.

On Thursday afternoon, the army moved into the Gaza Strip and divided it into thirds to make travel between the sections more difficult, both for terrorism suspects and for ordinary people.

With that tension in the air, the Israeli government reacted negatively on Thursday to the peace overture from the Arab summit meeting. On Thursday afternoon, one Israeli government spokesman called the proposal a "nonstarter." Another called it "an important and interesting initiative" deserving of further study.

Mr. Sharon, in an interview published in the newspaper Yediot Ahronot on Wednesday, was more explicit. The plan was well known then, but the Arab nations had not yet endorsed it.

"A return to the 1967 borders will destroy Israel," he said. "The entire world is talking about the Saudi plan; everyone enthusiastically recommends endorsing it, and the only one that no one asks is Israel. No one!"

Thursday was a national holiday in Israel, for Passover, so most government officials were not working. But in Ramallah residents were furiously getting ready for a siege.

"There is a lot of talk all over Ramallah that there is going to be a reoccupation, and this time the Israelis are going to stay a long time," said Salah Hanienett, who like many residents was stocking up on groceries. "We think they will arrest a lot of people, collect a lot of weapons, just to make propaganda."

Gideon Ezra, Israel's deputy minister of internal security, said he believed that the country should set up detention camps for Palestinians caught with illegal or improper papers. Those people, he said, are potential terrorists.

At Mr. Arafat's compound, most buildings stood empty; workers had fled. An ambulance was parked outside, standing ready.

Mr. Arafat was still inside and gave his news conference from there. Two uniformed soldiers stood guard at the entrance, warming themselves by burning scrap lumber in a tin can. They seemed very much alone.

"We expect something to happen soon," said Nidal, one of the soldiers.

Nearby, shoppers were mobbing Tayseer Habib's vegetable stand.

"Usually I sell in one week what I have already sold today," he said.

"People didn't prepare the first time Israel invaded," he added, referring to an incursion early this month that lasted several days. "But this time they are planning for a siege, and when I carry the boxes to people's cars I see they are full with cans, sacks of rice, other things."

--------

European Leaders Are Alarmed By Rising Turmoil in Mideast

New York Times
March 29, 2002
By WARREN HOGE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/29/international/29CND-REAX.html

LONDON, March 29 - European nations expressed alarm today at the escalating warfare in the Middle East, urged a return to negotiations and pointedly warned the Israelis against harming the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat.

"It is not by asphyxiating Arafat that a solution will be found," said Hubert Védrine, the French foreign minister. He said he "understood how Israelis felt faced with the terrifying pressure of terrorist attacks," but he cautioned them not to act against Mr. Arafat based on "a kind of obsession that he is responsible for all that."

Officials coupled their appeals for restraint with denunciations of the suicide bombings in Israel. But the focus of their concern was on Mr. Arafat, a frequent visitor to European capitals and a man who European officials view as the legitimate representative of the Palestinians despite attempts by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel to marginalize him.

"Any attempt to crush the Palestinian leadership is unacceptable to the international community and will only lead to greater losses and insecurity for Israel," said Anna Lindh, Sweden's foreign minister. Ms. Lindh said she was "horrified" to hear Mr. Sharon refer to Mr. Arafat this morning as his "enemy."

Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, spoke by telephone with both Mr. Arafat and Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister. Afterwards, Mr. Solana's spokeswoman, Cristina Gallach, said, "We are not going to resolve the Palestinian conflict by military action." She noted that the recent European Union summit meeting in Barcelona had reaffirmed the organization's faith in Mr. Arafat. "He remains our interlocutor and the legitimate authority," she said.

A French foreign ministry spokesman, François Rivasseau, said, "We are calling on the Israeli authorities to respect the physical safety of Yasir Arafat." He also called on Washington to step in more forcefully than it has. "We continue to plead for the Americans to commit themselves further," he said. "It is they who have the most means to reason with the opposing parties."

Igor Ivanov, Russia's foreign minister, expressed "extreme concern" at today's events and joined in the appeals against efforts to exclude Mr. Arafat. "We consider that the policy of isolating Arafat is not the way to find a way out of this situation," he said.

He said that Russia was engaged in "active consultations" with the United States and Europe over ways to control the violence in the Mideast. Urgent international action was needed, he said, "to halt this crisis, which threatens not only regional stability but could also spill over beyond the region."

Muriel Berset-Kohen, a spokeswoman for Switzerland's foreign ministry, called Mr. Arafat "our legitimate interlocutor" and added, "Nothing must be done to harm him."

Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland telephoned Mr. Arafat and afterwards called on Israel to withdraw its forces from the Palestinian headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah and to end its "harassment" of the Palestinian leader.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Austria's foreign minister, said, "If any harm came to President Arafat, it would doubtless have a widespread negative impact on the Middle East conflict, which would help neither Israel nor help resolve the problem."

Belgium expressed "anguish" at today's confrontation, saying it "could not accept that the physical integrity of President Arafat be placed in danger."

George Papandreou, the Greek foreign minister, decried the effort to marginalize Mr. Arafat, saying, "We condemn the army's intervention and the isolation of Mr. Arafat, just as we condemn the terrorist attacks."

Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, made no mention of Mr. Arafat or Mr. Sharon in issuing a statement saying: "The situation is extremely critical for the millions of people who live in Israel and the Occupied Territories. But never has there been a greater need for restraint to be shown on both sides. It can only be through negotiation that there will ever be a peaceful future for the citizens of Israel, for the Palestinians and for everyone in the region."

In Berlin, Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, condemned "barbarous acts of terrorism" against Israeli civilians and urged both sides to return to U.S.-brokered talks.

The Italian government had no comment, but the main opposition party, the Democrats of the Left, said today's actions proved "the absolute inadequacy of Prime Minister Sharon and his politics."

Turkey, which has close diplomatic and military ties with Israel, singled out its ally in a plea for calm on all parties. "We call on both sides to take a rational path," a government spokesman, Sukru Sina Gurel, said. But he quickly added, "Particularly Israel, in order to display rational, forward-looking and constructive stances, needs to review many concepts and views it holds."

--------

Palestinians Say Sharon Has Declared War on Them

March 29, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast-palestinians-sharon.html

JERUSALEM - Senior Palestinian officials said Friday Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had declared a comprehensive war on Palestinians and appealed to the world to stop Israel's siege of Yasser Arafat's compound.

``The Israeli government, which practices state terrorism, has declared a comprehensive war and Sharon is intent on destroying the Palestinian Authority and the peace process,'' the Palestinians' chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters.

Arafat's top aide, Nabil Abu Rdainah, said the international community must isolate Sharon and his government because they threatened the security of the entire Middle East region.

``We ask the United States and the United Nations Security Council to swiftly intervene to stop the Israeli war waged on the Palestinians,'' Abu Rdainah told Reuters by telephone from inside Arafat's compound besieged by Israeli tanks in Ramallah.

Sharon, in a televised news conference, declared Arafat ``an enemy'' Friday and said widespread action would be taken to isolate his Palestinian Authority wherever it was believed to be fostering a ``terrorist infrastructure.''

Palestinian officials accused Sharon, who had said he regretted not harming Arafat in recent incursions, of seeking to settle old scores with his longtime foe.

Sharon sent troops and tanks sweeping back into Ramallah, handed over to Palestinian self-rule under interim peace deals in 1996, after accusing Arafat of doing nothing to stop suicide bombings targeting Israelis. Palestinians rose up against Israeli occupation after talks on a final peace accord stalled.

Palestinian officials said a gun battle erupted between Arafat's bodyguards and Israeli troops as an armored bulldozer punched a hole in the outer wall of Arafat's compound and tanks fired shells at his office building, setting it ablaze.

Arafat was inside at the time but was not harmed, they said.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said this was the most dangerous Israeli military action in 18 months of conflict.

He called on the Palestinian people to remain steadfast and united in facing the Israelis' three-month-old confinement of their leader in his office.

One woman bystander was killed and 10 people, mostly policemen, were wounded in the clashes early Friday, hospital sources said. They said three were seriously hurt.

``It is clear this aggression is Sharon's response to the Arab peace initiative that was adopted by the Arab summit,'' Rabbo said.

Arab leaders adopted a Saudi peace initiative which offers Israel normal ties with the Arabs in return for full withdrawal from Arab and Palestinian lands it occupied in 1967.

Israeli forces entered Ramallah, 15 km (nine miles) north of Jerusalem, after Israel dismissed an offer of an unconditional and immediate cease-fire by Arafat.

Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Ramallah was the ''capital of terror.''

-------- philippines

Philippine army closing in on Abu Sayyaf rebels

By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 29, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020329-22298698.htm

The U.S.-trained Philippine army is moving closer to the jungle area where a violent Islamic guerrilla group is holding a kidnapped American couple.

"They are tightening the noose," a senior U.S. military official said yesterday. "The noose is getting tighter and it's a combination of the Philippine armed forces pressing harder in pursuit, along with very extensive human intelligence, combined with the assistance and advice being provided by U.S. Special Forces."

The Philippine soldiers are hunting down pockets of Abu Sayyaf, an extremist rebel group with ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. U.S. military officials believe the hostages, American missionaries Gracia and Martin Burnham, and a local nurse, remain alive.

As part of the war on terrorism, the Pentagon has dispatched 600 troops to the Southeast Asian archipelago. Only the Afghanistan theater, with 6,000 American forces, has required more ground troops in this increasingly global conflict.

U.S. forces are under restraining rules in the Philippines, unlike their brethren in Afghanistan who are pounding al Qaeda terrorists from the air and on the ground.

A contingent of about 150 Green Berets are stationed at battalion headquarters on Basilan island and are restricted from direct combat. Experts in counterinsurgency warfare, the Green Berets stay in constant communication with the commanders of about 3,000 Philippine soldiers.

The commandos make up part of the 600-strong Joint Task Force-510 that is training and holding exercises with Philippine army units.

With U.S. advice, as well as training and sharing of intelligence, the local army has killed scores of Abu Sayyaf fighters and has kept others on the run.

"You're got to keep in mind the topography is very difficult," the military official said. "We're talking about deep ravines and gorges and hilly and mountainous terrain. Even though it may be a small area, it is not easy terrain to maneuver in."

Officials say the Philippine army is making tactical improvements and showing a new desire to win with the help of Special Forces A Teams. Afghan anti-Taliban tribesmen displayed similar gains when they hooked up with American fighters.

The army last June reportedly cornered Abu Sayyaf leaders, then inexplicably let them and their hostages go. U.S. officials say there will be no repeat of that fiasco.

Navy Adm. Dennis Blair, who is overseeing operations as head of the U.S. Pacific Command, last week predicted victory on Basilan when addressing an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.

The four-star officer, who retires in May, profiled Abu Sayyaf this way: "There are historical ties with al Qaeda, some current ties. It's generally a criminal organization as well as a terrorist organization."

In other developments on the anti-terror front, a Navy SEAL was killed and another wounded from a land mine blast in southern Afghanistan. The Pentagon said Navy Chief Petty Officer Matthew Bourgeoris, 35, was on a training mission south of Kandahar when he was killed, becoming the 31st American death in the war.

U.S. forces continue to watch for pockets of al Qaeda and hardcore Taliban fighters in a mission that will likely last into 2003.

Despite the protracted stay there, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the armed forces stand ready to fight in another theater.

"You can be absolutely certain that to the extent that the United States of America decides to undertake an activity, that we will be capable of doing it," Mr. Rumsfeld told at a Pentagon press conference.

He seemed to part company with some of his top commanders who told Congress last week that they cannot perform all their missions due to battle assets tied up in the war in Afghanistan.

"We do not have adequate forces to carry out our missions for the Pacific if the operations in [Afghanistan] continue at their recent past and current pace," Adm. Blair told the House Armed Services Committee.

Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, the top commander in Europe, gave similar testimony.

The military's readiness has become an even more important question now that President Bush and his top national security advisers have agreed on a policy of deposing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

There are fears among analysts that the military does not have sufficient stocks of precision-guided munitions to wage an effective air war against Iraq.

Said Gen. Richard B. Myers, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, "We'll be ready to do whatever the president asks us to do."

-------- space

Sisters Are Right On Space Weaponization

March 29, 2002
by Gordon R. Mitchell
Hartford Courant Op-Ed
http://www.ctnow.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-outerspace0329.artmar29.story

Believe it or not, the future of outer space is on the agenda for the annual shareholders' meeting of the Hartford-based United Technologies Corp. scheduled for April 10 in New York.

UTC's weaponry division, Pratt & Whitney Space & Missile Propulsion, manufactures rocket motors for Pentagon missile defense and satellite programs. Shareholders concerned about the destabilizing nature of space weaponry have filed a proposal asking that UTC's board of directors issue a report "describing our company's involvement in space-based weaponization and an assessment of the potential financial, legal and public relations liabilities involved."

Although the shareholder organizations requesting the space weaponization report - the Sisters of Mount St. Joseph Convent Philadelphia and Trinity Health from Farmington Hills, Mich. - are so far asking only for information, UTC management wants no part of the discussion.

In a Feb. 22 letter, Chairman George David emphatically "recommends that shareowners vote AGAINST this proposal" on the grounds that "public policy concerning activities in space" is a matter to be discussed in "the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government," not corporate boardrooms.

The board's response is more than a bit disingenuous, because the shareholder proposal is not primarily concerned with public policy issues. Instead, the Sisters and Trinity Health have called for a report on how UTC's involvement in the manufacture of space weaponry might cause liabilities for the corporation. Those, of course, are perfectly legitimate business concerns.

All right, you say, but aren't the missile defense components supplied by Pratt & Whitney a far cry from exotic space weapons? Not necessarily. Pratt & Whitney's Orbus 1A booster motor (selected by the Pentagon to power part of the national missile defense ground-based interceptor program) could, when coupled with other technology, make up a key component of offensive antisatellite (ASAT) weaponry.

Introduction of such weapons into outer space would likely trigger an ASAT arms race that would place the entire commercial space industry at risk.

Since UTC itself is heavily involved in the space industry (its Hamilton Sunstrand unit, headquartered in Windsor Locks, is one of the largest global suppliers of aerospace products and a major supplier of international space programs), public relations difficulties may be the least of the troubles UTC could bring upon itself and its shareholders by participating in such an arms race. If Pratt & Whitney's Orbus 1A booster helps turn outer space into a war zone, imagine how difficult it will be for UTC's commercial aerospace ventures to prosper.

A Pentagon ASAT program designed to hold the world's civilian space satellites at risk and possibly destroy them in times of crisis creates strong incentives for competitors and adversaries to acquire their own ASAT weaponry. U.S. targets could even include commercially owned Boeing 702 satellites (manufactured in part by Hamilton Sunstrand).

Cold War logic suggests that the Pentagon could win this outer space arms race, outspending adversaries to dominate the heavens. The problem, as Air Force Lt. Col. Bruce DeBlois points out, is that technological superiority does not automatically translate into security in outer space. Sophisticated space networks are vulnerable to "asymmetric" attack, where adversaries use relatively cheap countermeasures to bring down entire systems.

The shareholder proposal from the Sisters of Mount St. Joseph is about not just peace, but profits. If corporate leaders balk at coming to grips with the "financial, legal and public relations liabilities" posed by space weaponry, they may find themselves forced to address such issues down the road, when the government is able to provide only limited protection for commercial space assets in the midst of an ASAT arms race.

It took a boycott in 1986 by 6,700 academic researchers nationwide to rein in the excesses of President Reagan's wasteful and deceptive Star Wars program. Before the boycott, many professors had believed, like George David, that space weapon policy should be discussed in Washington, D.C., not in their own academic environments. Yet when it became clear that Reagan's Star Wars program was a scientific fraud, thousands of faculty members changed their minds and blocked missile defense deployment.

David Wright, the MIT physicist who organized the National Pledge of Non-Participation in SDI research campaign, has suggested that a similar approach would probably fail to stop space weaponry today, because the bulk research occurs in the private sector.

UTC's shareholders have an opportunity to show Wright that the business community, no less than academia, can look beyond short-term profits and see the wiser path to tomorrow's prosperity. -- Gordon R. Mitchell is an associate professor of communication and director of debate at the University of Pittsburgh. He is author of "Strategic Deception: Rhetoric, Science and Politics in Missile Defense Advocacy" (Michigan State University Press, 2000).

-------- un

Israel Assailed at UN Council Meeting

March 29, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast-un.html

UNITED NATIONS - Israel's assault on the Palestinian Authority came under heavy attack in the U.N. Security Council late on Friday, with U.S. envoys virtually alone in placing blame for the escalating crisis on the Palestinians.

While virtually all speakers condemned suicide attacks against Israeli citizens, most strongly assailed Israel's sending of tanks and troops into Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Finding a common council position proved difficult, with some of body's 15 nations consulting quietly during an emergency public debate with more than 30 speakers, the first international forum on this week's Middle East violence.

Arab nations, who called the meeting, circulated proposals calling for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian cities as well as a halt to all acts of violence and terrorism. But Western envoys were consulting on amendments.

U.S. envoy James Cunningham made clear he doubted the council could find a unified position but U.S. officials said Washington was now being consulted.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened the meeting by telling Israel to halt its assault on the Palestinian Authority and said Palestinians had to stop ``horrific terrorist attacks'' against Israeli civilians.

``Terrorism will not bring the Palestinian people closer to their long-deserved claim of the right to self-determination,'' he said. ``Destroying the Palestinian Authority will not bring Israel closer to peace.''

But Cunningham told the council it was obvious why recent hopes for peace were shattered.

``Let us be clear about what has brought it all to a halt: terrorism on the part of those who target innocent civilians with the explicit purpose of destroying hopes for peace,'' he said.

However, Cunningham called on Sharon and his government to ''carefully consider the consequences of their action.''

``MOTHER OF ALL MISTAKES''

Palestinian delegate Nasser al-Kidwa told the council that Sharon had embarked on ``new insane steps.'' ``Let me state here that any harm to President Arafat, would be the mother of all these mistakes,'' he said.

Al-Kidwa as well as most speakers from Arab nations directed their criticism at Sharon, personally, and said he was committing ``state terrorism.''

Sharon, al-Kidwa said, had declared Arafat his enemy and said military action would last for weeks to come.

``I must state that this represents the beginning of the destruction of the elected Palestinian Authority and the beginning of getting rid of Yasser Arafat and the reoccupation of Palestinian territory,'' al-Kidwa said.

At least 1,111 Palestinians and 383 Israelis have been killed since the violence began in September 2000. Some 200 Palestinians and 100 Israelis died in March alone.

In response Israeli U.N. Ambassador Yehuda Lancry told the council that the man who killed 22 Israelis in the seaside town of Netanya on Wednesday was someone Arafat had been asked to arrest some four years ago.

He said Israel had ``no intention of occupying any territory under Palestinian control but to uproot the terrorist network that exists there. And in doing so we will, as we always have, keep our hand outstretched for peace.''

Despite continued attacks last week ``we continued to show maximum restraint and withheld any response,'' Lancry said. ``But Israel cannot walk alone on the path leading to a cessation of violence and a resumption of political dialogue.''

``Through this entire period the voice of the Palestinian leadership has not been one of moderation. It has been a voice of terrorism,'' Lancry said.

Chinese Ambassador Wang Yingfan called on Israel to end its ''barbaric aggression,'' saying its actions were ``no different from a declaration of war against Palestine which will bring very serious consequences.''

And France's ambassador, Jean-David Levitte, told the council that Arafat had to be granted complete freedom of movement. ``The actions taken since this morning in Ramallah and several other West Bank towns must stop, the Israeli forces must begin withdrawing,'' Levitte said.

-------- us

US Military Upgrades Gulf Flexibility

March 29, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Iraq.html

WASHINGTON -- The United States is upgrading its ability to spearhead a war in the Persian Gulf from countries other than Saudi Arabia, the general who would command any attack against Iraq said Friday.

Still, the Arab world's recent showing of support for Iraq has put new pressure on President Bush to find a non-military way to deal with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

U.S. forces have been increased in recent months in Kuwait, the tiny country bordering Iraq, U.S. defense officials disclosed Friday, and additional ground troops could be on the way.

That provides both valuable training and ``a hedge against miscalculation,'' Gen. Tommy Franks, the head of U.S. Central Command, said at a Pentagon briefing in a clear reference to Iraq.

Adding the U.S. forces sends Iraq a warning not to begin any aggressive actions against its neighbors while the U.S. military is focused on Afghanistan, said one defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Franks denied the United States was positioning troops or equipment for possible military action against Iraq. He has received no order to plan for war, he said.

But the general made clear he's working to ensure the United States could run a war in the Gulf, even if allies such as Saudi Arabia refused to allow operations on their soil.

``Let me put it this way. We are increasing or improving our command and control capacity in all of my region,'' Franks said.

Asked if equipment was being moved from Saudi Arabia to a Qatar base, Franks said: ``I would not be at all surprised if we are changing the location of some of the assets that we have. We want to be sure that we have redundant communications inside the region.''

The general said he has no plans to move a key U.S. air operations command center, now in Saudi Arabia. American officials have used it to operate the air war over Afghanistan and would, in ideal circumstances, run any air war over Iraq from there, military analysts say.

But Franks added: ``That does not say that I don't have plans to replicate it someplace.''

The Bush administration accuses Iraq of developing weapons of mass destruction and sponsoring terrorists, and says options are being considered ranging from diplomatic efforts to push Saddam to readmit U.N. weapons inspectors to possible military action.

Saudi Arabia, a longtime U.S. ally, has made clear that America should not invade Iraq, and that if Bush decides to go ahead, U.S. troops could not operate from Saudi soil -- at least publicly.

In a rebuff to Bush's Iraq stance, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah on Thursday embraced a top Iraqi official in front of other leaders at an Arab summit, signaling a reconciliation for the first time since the 1991 Gulf War.

Abdullah is to visit Bush at the president's Texas ranch next month.

The Arab countries also issued a statement Thursday saying that any attack on Iraq would be considered a threat to the security of all Arab countries. And Iraq made conciliatory gestures toward Kuwait, the southern neighbor it invaded in 1990 to trigger the Gulf War. The Kuwaiti government reacted cautiously.

Arab countries friendly to America apparently worry their governments would face widespread internal unrest if the United States attacked Iraq while the Israeli-Palestinian crisis raged.

``It shows (Iraq) cannot be Afghanistan II,'' Robert Pelletreau, a former assistant secretary of state and ex-U.S. ambassador to Egypt, said of the show of Arab support for Iraq.

``It's going to be much more difficult to gather international support for an action against Iraq,'' Pelletreau said. Yet, it's unlikely the Bush administration will back off its Iraq policy, he said.

State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said Friday that Saddam is a ``serious threat to the Iraqi people, to Iraq's neighbors,'' and said the Bush administration would keep all options open.

Judith Kipper, a Middle East analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said she doesn't believe the United States intends to attack Iraq any time soon.

Franks, the general who would head any Gulf military action, said moving of equipment from Saudi Arabia had begun a year and a half ago.

Until Vice President Dick Cheney's recent visit to the Mideast, however, the United States had not even acknowledged the existence of the Qatar base in the desert outside the capital, Doha. The huge U.S. installation, which offers long runways, is marked only by a handwritten ``Army Camp'' sign.

--------

US Troops Killed in Training Accident

MARCH 29, 2002
AP
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS7II7DCG0

FORT IRWIN, Calif. - Three soldiers were killed early Friday in a training exercise involving live ammunition, military officials said.

One other soldier was wounded but the injury was not life-threatening, said Maj. Rob Ali, a base spokesman.

The accident happened shortly before 2:30 a.m. during a ``live fire'' training exercise, Ali said. He had no details on how the soldiers died.

The armored brigade, estimated at 4,000 soldiers, was visiting from Fort Riley, Kan. It was finishing its last day of training as part of a four-week exercise, Ali said.

Other military units train at Fort Irwin in realistic combat training, a program the base has had since 1982, Ali added.

The identification of the victims were being withheld pending notification of their families.

``Our main concern and effort is the support of the families involved,'' Ali said.

In January 2001, two soldiers stationed at Fort Irwin died after they were found unconscious in their tent during a desert training exercise. The same month, five soldiers visiting Fort Irwin from a Fort Hood, Texas, battalion were injured when their UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crashed during a night exercise.

Fort Irwin is about 120 miles east of Los Angeles.

Friday's accident was the second military tragedy in California in as many days. A Navy helicopter crashed Thursday on a Sierra Nevada ridge during a training flight, killing two crew members and injuring four.

The cause of both accidents are under investigation.

----

American Fire, Not Ambush, May Have Killed U.S. Solider

New York Times
March 29, 2002
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/29/international/29CND-FIRE.html

WASHINGTON, March 29 - A United States soldier killed in an assault on Al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan four weeks ago may not have been a victim of an ambush, as first thought, but rather a victim of American aircraft fire, the Pentagon said today.

Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who runs the day-to-day operations in Afghanistan as head of the United States Central Command, emphasized at a news briefing at the Pentagon that investigators had not concluded that Chief Warrant Officer Stanley L. Harriman died from "friendly fire" on March 2.

But intelligence has turned up enough coincidences that the possibility cannot be ruled out, the general said.

"What I noticed on the 2nd of March was that, as Operation Anaconda kicked off and the forces were moving into position, there was reporting of one of our convoys, a friendly convoy of Americans and Afghans, being under fire," General Franks said.

"Simultaneously, on a different radio network, I noticed reporting by an AC-130 gunship that it was engaging a convoy," he continued. "I put the two things together and said, `O.K., what we need to do is, we need to find out the facts associated with that.' And so, I've asked our special operations component to investigate the facts and circumstances and see if there is any connection between the two."

Immediately after Chief Warrant Harriman's death, the Pentagon said the soldier, who was 34 years old, was killed in combat against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in the icy mountains of eastern Afghanistan. His family was told that he was the victim of mortar fire.

The AC-130 aircraft that the authorities now suspect may have accidentally killed the soldier has been described as a fearsome weapon that can lay down withering machine-gun and cannon fire.

The revised and still unfolding information about Chief Warrant Officer Harriman's death was announced as part of a report on 10 cases of "friendly fire" and Afghan civilian casualties.

Seven other Americans were slain in a firefight with Al Qaeda forces around the time that Chief Warrant Officer Harriman was killed, making the encounter the deadliest so far in the Afghan campaign.

The general said the "fog of war" cliche is apt for describing what happens in a combat zone, that military people operate with the best intelligence they have at the time, and that some of it may turn out to be wrong later.

"The fact is, we're never going to be able to absolutely eradicate the loss of life - and in some cases the loss of the wrong life - when we are engaged in these kinds of operations," General Franks said. "If we're honest and we're sincere, we want to be lifelong learners from each one of these incidents."

Another incident occurred on Jan. 23, when American troops raided two suspected enemy compounds, killing 16 men and capturing 27 who turned out not to be Al Qaeda or Taliban forces. Nevertheless, the men in the compound had fired upon American troops, and General Franks said the Americans did what they were trained to do - shoot back.

Asked about worries that the United States might be sliding into a Vietnam-like "quagmire," General Franks said, "We're a long way from a quagmire in Afghanistan."

The general said the United States is doing what it has to do to defeat terrorism and it is getting good cooperation from Afghanistan's neighbor, Pakistan. And he said that "hundreds" of reports come into the Pentagon daily about the possible whereabouts of the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

-------- propaganda wars

Hypocrisy Hits High Note With Arafat's 'Cease-Fire' Offer

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 29, 2002

Arafat offers to talk cease-fire just as Israeli tanks begin moving to retaliate for the latest suicide bombing.

The Saudis unveil a peace plan after opposing Israel for decades.

Arthur Andersen pushes its own peace plan to avoid conviction after its Enron shredding party.

Bush heads off to raise big bucks after signing a campaign-finance reform bill.

The White House says there's nothing surprising in Energy Department officials shaping a pro-industry plan after meeting with big-industry contributors (and rushing in some environmentalists at the very end).

The church insists that all these pedophile priests don't amount to a major scandal.

Walter Hewlett tries to derail the Hewlett-Packard merger with Compaq, loses, then sues his own company because he doesn't like the outcome.

The media say the recession was rather mild after roughly 89,000 stories about how terrible it was.

Paine Webber tells its clients that Enron stock is fine after firing an analyst hours after he offended the energy company by downgrading its now-worthless stock.

The Pentagon says Army Secretary Thomas White was on official business when he flew this month to Aspen, where the former Enron executive just happened to close on the sale of his $6.5 million home there.

Marion Barry is outraged that his successor suggests he has a drug problem after the ex-mayor is found with a small rock of crack cocaine.

Playboy says it's planning a Women of Enron spread because of its deep concern for the employees who lost their jobs (as long as they have sufficiently impressive measurements).

Do we detect a pattern here?

A small whiff of hypocrisy, perhaps?

Doubletalk seems the order of the day. Everyone proclaims his or her lofty motives while doing what in his or her own base self-interest.

It's enough to make us downright cynical.

We've all come to expect spin, in every walk of life. But does the phony rhetoric have to be so insulting? ....

----

Study Ties Television Viewing to Aggression
Adults Affected As Well as Children

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 29, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33672-2002Mar28?language=printer

Teenagers and young adults who watch even as little as an hour of television a day are more likely to get into fights, commit assaults or engage in other types of violence later in life, according to a provocative new study.

The more television people watch, the more likely it appears that they will later become violent, an effect that researchers argued bolsters the case that it is television that causes the aggression.

The study tracked the impact of television on violence among more than 700 young people over 17 years. Previous studies have found an association between television violence and aggression. But this is the longest study to track the consequences of TV viewing of any kind and the first to show that adults are affected as surely as children, the researchers said. If the study had examined violent programming alone, the link would have been more dramatic, they said.

"The correlation between violent media and aggression is larger than the effect that wearing a condom has on decreasing the risk of HIV," said Brad Bushman, a professor of psychology at Iowa State University at Ames who wrote a commentary accompanying the study in today's issue of the journal Science. "It's larger than the correlation between exposure to lead and decreased IQ levels in kids. It's larger than the effects of exposure to asbestos. It's larger than the effect of secondhand smoke on cancer."

The findings renewed debate over whether media violence contributes to violent behavior.

Television and entertainment proponents said there was a long history of conflicting results on the issue. "The consensus is there is no consensus," said Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters. The National Cable and Telecommunications Association said in a statement that it supports "responsible television viewing" and that its ratings system allows viewers to block violent programs.

Jonathan Freedman, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, said the study had failed to prove that television watching was the cause of the aggressiveness. "It has nothing to do with TV -- it has to do with lifestyle," he said. "People who watch more than three hours of TV are different than those who watch less than an hour."

The researchers said they tried to account for that possibility by statistically eliminating the effects of parental neglect, poverty, dangerous neighborhoods, a history of psychiatric disorder and other independent risk factors for aggression. Although all the participants were from upstate New York, the researchers said the group was broadly representative of the northeastern United States.

For the study, the researchers interviewed 707 teenagers about the amount of television they watched. In 1983, the average age of the group was 14. Eight years later, the scientists correlated the television statistics with police and FBI records of violence, and interviews with the participants.

Of the group that watched less than an hour of TV a day, 5.7 percent had committed a violent act that resulted in serious injury, such as a broken bone. Among those who watched one to three hours, 18.4 percent had been violent. Of those who watched more than three hours a day, the rate of aggression was 25.3 percent.

The researchers also re-interviewed the group about their television habits and followed up after another eight years. While 1.2 percent of the adults who watched less than one hour per day had committed a violent act, 10.8 percent of those who watched three or more hours had inflicted a bruise, scar or other assault. Men tended to be more likely to be violent than women.

The only definitive way to establish a causal link between television content and the violence would be to conduct an experiment where some people are randomly made to watch more TV for several years while others are made to watch less, the researchers said.

"To force people to watch a certain amount of TV for a lengthy period would not be permissible," said Jeffrey Johnson, a Columbia University clinical psychologist and the lead researcher. "It's analogous to research on cigarette smoking. . . . You couldn't force people to smoke a lot and see if they got cancer."

Nielsen Media Research reports the average American household has the television on for more than eight hours a day. Children and teens between 2 and 17 years old watch TV more than three hours per day. Adult men watch more than four hours, and adult women more than five.

Television violence may desensitize viewers, or depictions of violence without its real-life consequences may prompt viewers to assume that it is acceptable, the researchers speculated.

George Gerbner, who has done pioneering work on television violence and is dean emeritus of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, argued that the biggest consequence of TV violence was insecurity, not aggression.

Watching programs about violent crime on dark streets, for instance, does not turn people into muggers -- it makes them fear becoming victims. Even as violent crime in American society has declined, he said, heavy television viewing was more likely to make the viewers believe they lived in an unsafe world.

"They may accept and even welcome repressive measures such as more jails, capital punishment, harsher sentences -- measures that have never reduced crime but never fail to get votes -- if that promises to relieve their anxieties," he wrote. "That is the deeper dilemma of violence-laden television."


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS

Some Detainees May Be Held Even if Acquitted

By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 29, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33209-2002Mar28?language=printer

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that some al Qaeda and Taliban fighters could continue to be imprisoned even after being tried and acquitted by U.S. military tribunals, if U.S. officials still believed they were dangerous terrorists.

Human rights organizations expressed concern about the policy. But they said it is defensible under international law as long as the U.S. government places a time limit on its detention of prisoners who have not been charged with a crime.

Rumsfeld was clarifying a point made by subordinates last week, when they announced new Bush administration guidelines for conducting military tribunals or commissions.

"If one were to be acquitted by a commission of, for example, a specific criminal charge," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news briefing yesterday, "that would not necessarily change the fact that that individual remains an enemy who was captured during an armed conflict and, therefore, one who could reasonably be expected to go back to his terrorist ways if released."

"It might not be possible to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that an individual committed a particular crime," Rumsfeld said. "He may be guilty of other crimes."

Three hundred al Qaeda or Taliban prisoners are being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and more than 200 others in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials say privately that they expect only a small number of them will face charges before the tribunals; a larger number, they say, are likely to be detained indefinitely without being charged. That is because U.S. officials are having trouble obtaining information about the detainees, and most are turning out to be low-ranking fighters.

"It sounds outrageous," Tom Malinowski, Washington representative of Human Rights Watch, said of the policy of continuing to hold captives who have been acquitted. "But I can envision circumstances where under international law it's not outrageous."

Under the Geneva Conventions, he said, "prisoners of war can be held for the duration of a conflict, even if in the meantime they are acquitted of specific crimes."

The test, he and other human rights advocates said, is: Which conflict?

The U.S. government has the right under international law to detain the prisoners until the end of the war in Afghanistan, he said, and arguably could claim the right to keep uncharged people as long as the United States is pursuing al Qaeda members.

"What they can't do is hold someone for the duration of the more general war on terrorism, which essentially means forever," Malinowski said.

Rumsfeld suggested he had in mind some lengthy detentions.

"The end of the conflict is when we feel that there are not effective global terrorist networks functioning in the world that these people would be likely to go back to," he said.

----

Terror warning irks Italy

March 29, 2002
Embassy Row
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020329-27633360.htm

Italian authorities are annoyed that the U.S. Embassy in Rome issued a terrorist warning of a suspected Muslim militant plot to kill American tourists in Italy over the Easter holidays.

Defense Minister Antonio Martino told Rome's La Repubblica newspaper that the embassy's statement could "cause panic."

"I think the decision to release it was unfortunate and inopportune," he said.

The embassy on Wednesday cited "credible evidence" of a terrorist plot and warned Americans to avoid Florence, Milan, Venice and Verona.

Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former anti-terrorist chief and now security adviser to the Vatican, told the La Stampa newspaper that the embassy based its warning on information from Italian police.

"The alarm came from the Italian authorities who discovered that a group of five or six Egyptians entered the country in recent weeks to kill American tourists during the Easter holidays," he said.

--------

THE PRISONERS
Rumsfeld Backs Plan to Hold Captives Even if Acquitted

New York Times
March 29, 2002
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/29/international/asia/29DETA.html

WASHINGTON, March 28 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today defended the Pentagon's plan to keep some prisoners from the Afghan war in captivity in Cuba indefinitely even if they are acquitted in military tribunals.

To release them after an acquittal so they could return to the battlefield, he said, would be "mindless."

But he did say that some prisoners had already been released, evidently having provided little intelligence about any future attacks.

He implied vaguely that some of those prisoners might have been released from the United States naval station in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but an officer in Guantánamo said by phone that the base still had in custody the same 300 prisoners it had since Feb. 15, when the United States stopped transferring prisoners from Aghanistan to Cuba because Guantánamo ran out of room.

Instead, officials said, the prisoners set free were released from custody in Afghanistan, but there was no exact count of how many or under what circumstances.

No new prisoners have been sent to a temporary camp at Guantánamo for more than a month. The military has just hired 400 Filipino engineers and construction workers to build a permanent prison in Cuba for the detainees. The new camp is to be ready by April 12 and will accommodate 408 prisoners. Eventually it could house up to 2,000 prisoners.

The Pentagon has not yet established which prisoners will face charges at a military tribunal, nor has it settled on a location for the trials, Mr. Rumsfeld said today at a Pentagon briefing. But he did indicate that prisoners could be held indefinitely, not just until the end of the war in Afghanistan but until the end of the war on terrorism - which could last years. Under the Geneva Conventions, prisoners are to be repatriated to their countries at the end of a conflict. The administration has been murky about whether that release point would be the end of the campaign in Afghanistan or the end of the global war on terrorism. Mr. Rumsfeld said today that it was up to President Bush to make that determination but that he thought it would be the latter.

"The way I would characterize the `end of the conflict' is when we feel that there are not effective global terrorist networks functioning in the world that these people would be likely to go back" to terrorist activities, Mr. Rumsfeld said.

The Bush administration has decided that the Geneva Conventions apply to some extent to captured Taliban but not to members of Al Qaeda, the terrorist network. In any case, the administration has said, none of the prisoners are being given the status of prisoners of war and the United States is deciding on its own when it will release them.

Top Pentagon officials said last week that even if prisoners were acquitted in a tribunal, they might not necessarily be freed, and Mr. Rumsfeld affirmed that today.

"In some cases it might not be possible to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that an individual committed a particular crime, and therefore he might be acquitted," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "However, it does not change the fact that he is an enemy combatant."

So far, none of the prisoners - who come from 33 different countries - have been charged with any crime. Six were not caught on the battlefield but in Bosnia. And the top officer in charge of antiterror intelligence told The Miami Herald that some of those being held in Guantánamo were essentially lost souls who could provide scant intelligence. The officer, Maj. Gen. Michael Dunlavey, told the newspaper that at least two were so ill mentally that they possessed no intelligence value.

Human rights groups oppose the Pentagon's holding prisoners if they are acquitted.

Michael Posner, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, said: "It sends a very negative signal to the rest of the world. There are too many countries around the world that would love to imitate that."

He added: "If this is a war that could last 50 or 100 years, there has to be some discussion about whether there is an end point to the detention."

--------

U.S. Denies Mistreatment of Lindh

March 29, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Lindh-Taliban.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- American-born Taliban John Walker Lindh received the same food and medical care as U.S. soldiers while in custody in Afghanistan, and even slept on a stretcher while his physician made do on a concrete floor, U.S. prosecutors said Friday.

The government's written court filing responded to repeated claims by Lindh's lawyers that their client was all but tortured while in U.S. military custody.

The defense had argued that incriminating statements Lindh made to interrogators should be thrown out, in part because he was interviewed after being confined in a freezing metal container, bound with circulation-cutting handcuffs and blindfolded.

The government did acknowledge that conditions in a U.S. military camp in Afghanistan weren't ideal for anyone.

However, the United States ``had not plucked John Walker Lindh out of the California suburb where he used to live and dropped him into a metal container in the middle of Afghanistan,'' the court filing said.

Lindh entered that country, sought out training at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan, learned to use shoulder-fired weapons and grenades and swore allegiance to jihad, or holy war, it said.

Lindh is charged with conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals, providing support and services to foreign terrorist organizations and using firearms and destructive devices during crimes of violence. Three of the 10 charges carry a maximum life sentence, and the other seven have maximum prison terms of 90 years.

Wounded in the leg, Lindh was given ``the very same medical treatment provided to wounded United States military personnel,'' the filing said. He was fed with the same Meals Ready To Eat as U.S. forces, in the same quantities, and was given warm comforters.

``While the Navy physician who was treating him had to sleep on a concrete floor in a sleeping bag in a room with a hole in the wall and a hole in the ceiling, Lindh slept on a stretcher in a container that protected him from the elements,'' the filing said.

After he was taken aboard a U.S. military ship, Lindh had a bullet removed by a senior surgeon, received a second haircut when he complained about an earlier one, had his mustache trimmed and was advised of the direction of Mecca so he could say his Muslim prayers, the government contended.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III has scheduled a hearing on the defense document requests Monday. The case is in Alexandria, Va., and the filing was released in Washington by the Justice Department. In addition to the comments on Lindh's captivity, the prosecutors rejected several defense accusations against the government.

They said U.S. military officials did not tailor interrogation reports prepared last January to make Lindh appear more guilty than in reports prepared in December.

Reports in both months ``paint a similar portrait of the defendant as a man who, even after the catastrophic events of Sept. 11th ... maintained his allegiance to enemies of this country,'' the filing said.

The government rejected a claim that it omitted from documents a Lindh statement that he was disillusioned after the Sept. 11 attacks -- and would have left his unit but for fear of death.

The word was not from Lindh, but rather was placed in the report by a military interrogator, giving his own interpretation of Lindh's remarks, the filing said.

Prosecutors did not deny a request for defense lawyers to interview military detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but said they would respond by April 23 after consulting with military officials.


-------- ENERGY AND OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Hybrid Solar Cells Combine Nanotech with Plastics

March 29, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-29-09.html

BERKELEY, California, A new generation of solar cells developed by California researchers combines nanotechnology with plastic electronics. In nanoscience, objects are measured in nanometers, one billionth of a meter.

Such hybrid solar cells will be cheaper and easier to make than their semiconductor counterparts, and could be made in the same almost infinite variety of shapes as pure polymers, say the researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley.

Paul Alivisatos, a chemist who holds a joint appointment with Berkeley Lab's Materials Science Division (MSD) and UCB's Chemistry Department, led the research team, who report their hybrid solar cell development in today's issue of the journal "Science."

"We have demonstrated that semiconductor nanorods can be used to fabricate readily processed and energy efficient hybrid solar cells together with polymers," said Alivisatos, director of The Molecular Foundry, a center for nanoscience now being established at Berkeley Lab.

The use of solar, or photovoltaic, cells - devices that can absorb and convert light into electrical power - has been limited to date because production costs are so high. Making even the simplest semiconductor cell is a complex process that has to take place under controlled conditions, such as high vacuum and temperatures between 400 and 1,400 degrees Celsius.

Since the discovery in 1977 of conducting plastics - polymers that can carry an electrical current - scientists have been interested in using these materials in solar cells. Plastic solar cells can be made in bulk quantities for a few cents each.

But the efficiency with which plastic solar cells convert light into electricity has been quite poor compared to the power conversion efficiencies of semiconductor cells.

"The advantage of hybrid materials consisting of inorganic semiconductors and organic polymers is that potentially you get the best of both worlds," said Janke Dittmer, an MSD staff scientist. "Inorganic semiconductors offer excellent, well established electronic properties, and they are very well suited as solar cell materials. Polymers offer the advantage of solution processing at room temperature, which is cheaper and allows for using fully flexible substrates, such as plastics."

Although the efficiency of the Berkeley hybrid cells for converting sunlight into electricity was only 1.7 percent - far off the mark of the best semiconductor solar cells - Dittmer said there is ample opportunity for improvement.

"The most important step is to increase the amount of sunlight absorbed in the red part of the spectrum, which we can do by going to other semiconductor materials such as cadmium telluride," Dittmer explained. "Also, our published hybrid solar cells have a very simple structure, in order to investigate the science behind them. In the future, many engineering tricks can be applied to make the cells more efficient."

The Berkeley researchers have already been approached by companies that are interested in commercializing the technology.

-------

Bush tapped solar energy funds to print energy plan

Friday, March 29, 2002
By Tom Doggett,
Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/03/03292002/reu_46809.asp

WASHINGTON - While environmentalists have slammed the White House national energy plan for not doing enough to promote renewable energy, the Bush administration found those government research programs useful in paying the bill for printing copies of the 170-page plan.

The administration took money from the Energy Department's solar and renewable energy and energy conservation budgets to pay for the cost of printing its national energy plan.

Documents released under court order by the Energy Department this week revealed that $135,615 was spent from the DOE's solar, renewables, and energy conservation budget to produce 10,000 copies of the White House energy plan released last May.

Another $1,317.39 was spent for producing 16 "briefing boards" used by administration officials to illustrate and explain the White House energy plan.

The newly released documents also show that $176.40 was taken from the energy conservation program to pay for an Alaska trip by Andrew Lundquist, the White House energy task force's staff director, to promote the energy plan. The administration's energy policy called for drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a proposal strongly opposed by environmentalists.

At the same time the White House tapped the renewable budget for funds to print the energy plan, the administration was urging Congress to cut the renewable and energy efficiency research budgets by more than 50 percent.

Vice President Dick Cheney, who headed the White House energy task force, criticized environmentalists for relying too much on renewables and conservation to solve the nation's energy problems. "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy," Cheney said two weeks before the energy plan was released last May.

The administration did try to spread around the cost of producing the energy plan.

It dipped into the DOE's fossil energy program, which covers primarily oil research, to pay $100.92 for a hotel room near the Government Printing Office where the policy publication was being produced. The documents did not name the official or if the hotel offered a government rate.

-------- health

Why We Need A Blood Reserve

By Bernadine Healy
Friday, March 29, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33873-2002Mar28?language=printer

Our country maintains grain reserves that are equivalent to 70 days' consumption. We strategically stockpile oil and gas, medicines and vaccines. Yet the nation has no strategic blood reserve.

As our people are targeted for mass chemical, biological, nuclear and other high-yield explosive attacks, a blood reserve as part of homeland security becomes an imperative. Our nation's current state of blood readiness is unacceptable. Many times a year our "peacetime" blood supply is perilously low. Doctors and hospital workers become distraught, and patients suffer. The blood industry "goes out on appeal" to beg for donors, and the media invariably carry the cry -- often with the proverbial "not again" under their breath.

Yet the public always responds. Within a week or so blood inventories float up and the alarm bells stop ringing. Periodically the opposite occurs: "Extra" blood is discarded. This mighty struggle stems from several factors. (1) The ranks of blood donors become thinned by such events as weather, flu or holidays, or by the perception of not being needed. (2) The oxygen-carrying part of blood, red cells, expires in 42 days. (3) Blood transfusions are typically needed on a moment's notice for life-threatening situations such as car accidents, cancer chemotherapy, surgery or neonatal care. (4) There is no substitute for blood. (5) "Just in time" inventory is hampered by the roughly two days it takes to screen, draw, transport, safety-test and process blood.

These factors are fixed. What we can change are the inventory practices of the industry and the assumptions about donors, both of which contribute to blood shortages.

Blood center inventory is at a "critical level" when it falls to a one-day supply or less. That's panic time. Mostly, however, blood centers get by with a two-day supply (a "minimum level"). A mere three-day supply is called "optimum" in industry lingo, an arbitrary ceiling. Worse yet, O-type blood (the universal donor type) is almost always in critical shortage, with a supply of one day or less.

Running our blood supply so close to empty often plays out in silent agony at the bedside: A cancer victim is denied a transfusion; a failing patient, months on the waiting list, must forgo a transplant when the organ becomes available because blood is not; or the anxiety-ridden soul waiting for an "elective" hip or heart-valve replacement is sent home to be rescheduled.

As distressing as these "peacetime" failures may be, we must ask: How can this be tolerated now, a time of war, when numerous credible threats appear regularly?

The lesson of the Sept. 11 attacks on our country is not that we collected too much blood in its aftermath, but rather that we were morbidly "lucky" that more blood was not needed. When present and future readiness is the goal, the focus shifts. Were 30,000 units of blood suddenly required for victims of mass attacks, we would fail. And, if we had frozen 50,000 or more extra units of the blood that poured in after Sept. 11, we would be well into building a wartime reserve -- rather than groaning that blood was discarded and repelling new donors.

Frozen blood is FDA-approved and costs roughly twice that of regular blood. It lasts for as long as 10 years and can be thawed and used in three hours. A screened, tested and frozen O-type blood reserve stored in depots across the country with a predetermined transport plan and under the oversight of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services would be a national resource for civilian and, if need be, military casualties. Using and replenishing a portion of the reserve yearly keeps it fresh.

Why don't we have a strategic reserve of blood? Creating it requires change in an industry that is set in its ways, has more local than national focus and struggles to fulfill its current responsibilities. Higher liquid blood inventories are unpopular because they mean more expirations and discards. At the same time frozen blood is resisted because it requires technology that is seen as complex and costly.

The niche field of transfusion medicine generally ascribes to the view of collecting when the crisis happens and meeting the immediate blood needs through cancellations of routine medical care. This would not work for a massive national catastrophe, and it would create chaos as attack victims would seize blood from equally desperate patients elsewhere. A frozen blood reserve would enable a steady, ready and separate blood source.

The outpouring of donations after Sept. 11 belies the resolute belief that there are too few blood donors to build a separate frozen reserve. That experience should prompt yet another conclusion: Needed blood should be frozen whenever supply exceeds demand.

The most fatalistic excuse to justify the status quo was stated recently in the New England Journal of Medicine: In an overwhelming event such as Sept. 11, it doesn't matter whether blood is available because "the ability of medical personnel to administer blood to all those in need will also be overwhelmed." This is utterly absurd. We need to rethink how our blood industry serves this nation. A strategic blood reserve available on a moment's notice -- along with a cache of medical personnel ready to administer it -- is imperative.

The writer is former president of the American Red Cross.


-------- ACTIVISTS

EU Protests Israeli Attack

By ANGELA DOLAND
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/?FRONTID=EUROPE&SLUG=EUROPE%2dMIDEAST

PARIS - The 15 European Union nations collectively protested Israel's attack on Yasser Arafat's West Bank headquarters Friday, with Italy pressing Israel to guarantee the Palestinian leader's safety.

The EU also called on Israel to withdraw its troops from the town of Ramallah, where Arafat's complex is located.

At the same time, the EU urged the Palestinian Authority to halt the current ``spiral of violence'' and punish those responsible for the recent string of attacks on Israelis.

Spain, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said Israel's fight against terrorism and its response to recent attacks must be compatible with safeguarding the Palestinian Authority and its president - ``the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people.''

In France, President Jacques Chirac said ``any attack on (Arafat's) ability to act, or on his person, would be extremely serious.''

The French leader also urged Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to ``immediately take all measures to stop the violence.''

``Nothing can excuse or justify blind terrorism against civilians,'' Chirac told France-Info radio. ``Everyone knows there cannot be a military solution to the conflict in the Middle East.''

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine accused Israel of obsessing over Arafat and trying to ``asphyxiate'' him.

``It's a complete illusion to believe that, even with Arafat elsewhere or replaced by whatever Palestinian chief, the problem would be different,'' Vedrine told RFI radio.

Israel sent troops and tanks to break into Arafat's Ramallah compound, battling his security forces and shelling the buildings. Arafat took refuge in a windowless room, although Israeli officials said they were not trying to hurt him.

The operation was a response to the latest string of Palestinian attacks, including a Passover massacre that killed 22 diners at a seafront hotel in Israel.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government asked Israel to guarantee Arafat's security and respect his elected position.

``It is fundamental that deeds are not carried out which can prejudice the prospects for a resumption of dialogue,'' a government statement said.

Berlusconi's government also said it made a new appeal to the Palestinian Authority to prevent acts of terrorism against unarmed civilians and to dismantle terrorist structures.

Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou condemned the Israeli military action, saying his country had ``ties, both friendly and personal, with President Arafat.''

``For us Arafat is not an enemy, and beyond this he is also a personal friend,'' said Papandreou, who also condemned the terror attacks on Israelis.

About 1,500 Greek and Palestinian protesters chanting, ``Freedom for Palestine!'' and banging steel drums gathered outside the Israeli embassy in Athens to protest the military action. Police riot squads kept the protesters from the building.


-------

------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)

------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!