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NUCLEAR
US, Russia plan joint effort against dirty bombs
US push for storing nuclear warheads roils many Russians
Oconee nuke plant had worker with criminal record
The Kashmir Time Bomb
Iran defends nukes
Russia and Ukraine expected to seal gas transit pact
The verdict on 'Unsigning the ICC'
Business, environmentalists spar over NY nuke
S.C. Plutonium Shipments Postponed
House passes $383 billion bill
House Panel Raises Voice on Spending Bill
Senate Panel Delays Decision on Artillery Gun
House Backs Bill Including Controversial Weapon
White House lists doomsday succession order
MILITARY
CIA Fails to Kill Afghan Warlord
UK firm accused of selling landmines
Taiwan Test-Fires New Missile
Clues to Anthrax Attacks Found
Cuba Denies Developing Bio - Weapons
Ga. Worries Over Submarine Departure
General Dynamics Faults $3 Billion Navy Deal
U.S. Delays Some Aid for Colombia
Colombia's Anti - Drug Chief Fired
Iraq deploys missiles, violates no-fly zones
Rumsfeld Says Iraq Still Building Deadly Weapons
What Happened in Jenin?
Israelis Advancing on Gaza
Soldiers Leave Manger Square
Israeli Soldier Just Wants to Go Home
War looms over Gaza
NATO Cuts Balkans Peacekeeping Forces
Bomb at Parade Near Chechnya Kills 36
Bomb Blast at a Crowded Parade in Russian Town
Ex-F.B.I. Agent Sentenced to Life in Prison for Spying
CIA Fails in Bid to Kill Afghan Rebel With a Missile
Taiwan Test - Fires Homegrown Sky Bow Missile
Newspaper Appeals Subpoena in U.N. War Crimes Tribunal
Israel Military Censorship Glance
POLICE / PRISONERS
INS Tracking System Set to Roll
Gooey, Smelly Weapons Under Study
Death Penalty Is Suspended in Maryland
Maryland Second to Ban Executions
The War on Terror Flounders
Feds to Track Foreign Students
Feds Warn on 'Trucking Terrorists'
ENERGY AND OTHER
DEET Linked to Neurological Damage
Pollution Kills Thousands of Children
Ruling on Dumping of Mine Waste Stuns Coal Industry
Family Gets Chips Implant in Study
Women Vote in Bahrain for First Time
ACTIVISTS
A Vibrant Battler of Apartheid Keeps Her Vibrancy
Saturday night: Massive Tel-Aviv peace rally
Activists Removed From Church
Peace activists to be deported: Israeli police
-------- NUCLEAR
US, Russia plan joint effort against dirty bombs
REUTERS USA:
May 10, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15891/story.htm
WASHINGTON - The United States and Russia, laying ground for a presidential summit later this month, yesterday agreed to try jointly to tighten security on radioactive material that could be used in "dirty bombs."
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said after nearly three days of talks with Alexander Rumyantsev, head of Russia's Atomic Energy Agency, the two governments would establish a task force to examine the issue and recommend remedies.
But despite what Abraham hailed as a "very strong working relationship and partnership" with Rumyantsev, neither official indicated progress in resolving a long-running dispute over U.S. charges that Russia is helping Iran develop nuclear arms.
Abraham did announce that Washington would resume purchasing plutonium 238 from Russia to help fuel the U.S. space program, with an initial order of 6 kilograms (2.7 pounds) to be placed immediately.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks on America, U.S. officials have expressed greater concern that terrorists might try to build a radiological dispersal device, or "dirty bomb" which could spread toxic radiation when exploded.
While such a device would not have the destructive capability of a nuclear weapon, materials for it could be easier to obtain.
Until now, non-proliferation efforts have mainly focused on securing nuclear weapons and fissile material that could be used in those arms, and more efforts are needed to also secure lower-level radioactive materials, Abraham told a news conference with Rumyantsev.
"Perhaps the most important step we took this week was an agreement to work together to protect the security of radiological sources that might be used to develop so-called dirty bombs. This will be a new logical extension of the work we're already doing together in protecting nuclear materials" in Russia, Abraham said.
The Sept 11 attacks on New York and Washington, which the U.S. blamed on Islamic militants, "made clear to the United States and Russia that more needs to be done," he said.
"Both countries have become concerned with radiological materials that, while not capable of causing a nuclear explosion, would be very suitable for use in so-called dirty bombs," he said.
"It's not that we believe such dirty bombs would be hugely devastating in terms of loss of life, but they can be highly disruptive. Thus, we need to look at what we can do to preclude such sources from becoming useful to terrorists," he added.
Radioactive materials can be found in many forms, including medical isotopes, radiography and beacons.
Rumyantsev said these materials are a serious problem and Russia is ready to work promptly to solve it.
On the plutonium 238, which is produced by Russian military reactors, Abraham cited a U.S. decision to resume purchasing the material as further evidence of U.S.-Russia cooperation ahead of a May 23 summit in Moscow between U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The United States, concerned post-communist Russia was awash in unsecured nuclear material, signed a contract in 1992 to purchase plutonium 238 and some deals were consummated.
In recent years, purchases halted as the United States met its needs from domestic nuclear power sources, an Energy Department spokesman said. But now NASA "has increased needs" necessitating new purchases from Russia, he said.
----
US push for storing nuclear warheads roils many Russians
By David Filipov,
Boston Globe Staff,
5/10/2002
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/130/nation/US_push_for_storing_nuclear_warheads_roils_many_RussiansP.shtml
MOSCOW - Major General Pavel Kukushkin spent most of his 48-year military career defending the Soviet Union, and later Russia, against a possible attack from the United States. But he really loves Americans.
Linking up with American troops outside Prague at the end of World War II was one of Kukushkin's greatest thrills. His Katyusha rocket batteries performed best against Nazi troops when mounted on American-made Studebaker trucks, he said.
But when asked about President Bush's summit here with Russian President Vladimir Putin later this month, Kukushkin's tone changed. The general, like most Russians, supports a measure proposed by both leaders to slash nuclear weapons on both sides to 1,700-2,200 warheads over the next 10 years from the current total of more than 6,000.
But he doesn't understand why the United States wants to put the weapons in storage rather than destroy them, as Russia has proposed. As far as Kukushkin can see, these warheads could someday be used against Russia.
''What does it mean to store them?'' Kukushkin said as he took a break from a Victory Day celebration - marking the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany - yesterday in Moscow's Gorky Park. ''Another American leader will come and put them back and use them against us. Why don't the Americans trust us?''
Kukushkin's comments - similar to those of other Russian soldiers and officers - illustrated the suspicion and misgivings many in Russia feel toward the United States only two weeks before the May 23-26 visit and are another sign of the growing anti-American mood here since Putin began pursuing strongly pro-Western policies after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The nuclear weapons agreement has become such a central part of the summit that both Washington and Moscow have decided to ignore the major sticking point on how to disarm. Apparently determined to make the summit a success, officials in both countries have described the deal as a symbol of the end of Cold War-era tensions.
''We are hoping for a turning point in terms of consolidating Russia's new, more westward orientation in foreign policy and a real major step forward in cementing its integration in the West,'' a senior US diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters in Moscow Tuesday.
Russia disagrees with the Pentagon's plans to store hundreds of the warheads when they are removed from missiles and bombs. Washington wants the warheads available in case of emergency. But for many in the Russian military, the proposed deal is symbolic of everything they feel is wrong with US-Russian relations, which they see as bullying and distrustful behavior by their former Cold War enemy, even as the two presidents talk about ''friendship'' and ''partnership.''
Some officers complain that Putin may be putting Russia at a disadvantage by allowing the Americans to store their warheads.
''Our leaders are always bending over backwards to the West,'' said retired Lieutenant General Venedikt Mariasov. ''This deal is the same as putting the bombs in a warehouse next to the planes. The Americans say we are not enemies. We want friendly relations, but this is a problem.''
Putin's popularity remains high, with approval ratings still above 70 percent. But anti-American sentiment is as high as it has been in Russia since Moscow backed former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic during the 1999 Kosovo crisis. A recent survey of 1,600 Russians by the VTsIOM polling agency found that 52 percent see bad relations between the two countries despite Putin's support for Bush's war on terrorism and the once unthinkable presence of US forces in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Many Russian analysts and politicians increasingly are asking what rewards they have reaped from Putin's pro-American line.
Russia has seen its efforts defeated when the White House last year said it would scrap the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Moscow had vowed to save. NATO is planning to continue its expansion to include Eastern European countries that were once Soviet satellites, which Moscow has vehemently opposed. Washington has failed to cancel the Soviet-era Jackson-Vanick amendment, which links trade policies with Russia's human rights performance, and it has continued to block Moscow's entry into the World Trade Organization by not declaring Russia a market economy.
Continued US criticism of Russia's human rights record in Chechnya, Bush's recent imposition of steel import quotas, and a dispute over US chicken imports and Russia's continued nuclear cooperation with Iran have all added to the sour feelings.
''The majority, who didn't support the president's plans from the beginning, now are washing their hands of them, saying, `We warned you, you won't get anything from the Americans,''' said lawmaker Alexei Arbatov at a roundtable discussion of US-Russian relations last month.
Arbatov, a retired colonel, was one of the more moderate speakers. Lieutenant General Leonid Ivashov, who until last year headed the Russian military's foreign relations department, went further, calling Putin's moves since Sept. 11 ''an attempt at geo-strategic suicide.''
US officials are well aware of this mood. Alexander Vershbow, the US ambassador to Moscow, attended a roundtable with Ivashov and came away with the impression that ''many in the Russian military have not gotten over the idea that everything the US does is a threat,'' as he put it in an interview last month.
The idea of signing a treaty on nuclear arms reduction with Moscow was intended as a concession to Putin, Vershbow said. Aware that Russia's nuclear arsenal would shrink over the next decade because of a lack of financing and decay, Bush had stated the United States was willing to cut its stockpiles but was prepared to strike only an oral agreement with Russia. But in February, Washington signaled its readiness to sign a binding document, giving Putin a victory of sorts.
-------- accidents and safety
Oconee nuke plant had worker with criminal record
By Bob Montgomery bmontgom@greenvillenews.com
ENVIRONMENTAL WRITER
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002
From: "Scott D. Portzline" <sportzline@comcast.net>
The Oconee Nuclear Station allowed a contract worker with a criminal background to enter a vital area of the power plant, a report says.
The incident raised the concern of nuclear watchdog groups, who said it shows the vulnerability of nuclear power plant security to possible terrorist attacks.
The report, filed by Duke Energy Co. and sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said a subsequent FBI background check found that the worker lied on a job application by not mentioning his criminal background.
The NRC and Duke Energy refused to disclose the nature of the criminal background or the name of the worker.
FBI spokeswoman Carol Allison declined to comment, saying the investigation is ongoing.
The report says badges allowing access are issued on an interim basis and last up to 180 days.
Ed Lyman, scientific director of the Washington-based Nuclear Control Institute, which opposes nuclear proliferation, said, "the practice of granting temporary access without FBI checks is ridiculous, especially now.
"This shows you what could happen. This is obviously benign, but they're letting criminals get access to the plant right now. This is a warning. I don't know who's listening."
The incident was the third since 1999 where applicants for temporary employment failed to report prior offenses in order to get a job, according to the report.
"Therefore, this is a recurring event," the report said.
No one was harmed and there was no threat to public safety, according to the report.
Duke spokesman Tom Shiel declined to comment.
NRC spokesman Ken Clark said a protected area is anywhere within the fence that surrounds the site, while a vital area means he entered the power plant.
"Occasionally contract workers -- painters, maintenance workers -- get in without an adequate background check," Clark said.
He also declined to comment on the Oconee incident. "We couldn't discuss ongoing investigations," he said.
According to the report, the worker filled out a job application and was issued a badge on March 18 for temporary access, the report said.
To get a badge, the applicant must have a photo identification, pass a credit check, have a character reference, have an employment check for the past year, pass a psychological evaluation, and submit a fingerprint.
The worker was found in the Unit 1 and 2 cable room vital area of the plant for less than four minutes during a pre-job orientation for pending workers. During that time, he was accompanied by another employee who was authorized to the area and had full unescorted access, the report said.
"At no time did he display any form of aberrant behavior. The intentional falsification does not appear to be due to any malicious intent with respect to the health and safety of the public."
Shiel said the worker was escorted during the four minutes they were in the restricted area.
Duke revoked the worker's badge.
Meanwhile, nuclear watchdog groups said the incident shows how vulnerable nuclear power plants are and how security is lacking.
The report said there were no equipment failures or releases of radiation.
Bob Alvarez, the former top aide to ex-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, said a 1997 NRC study said a release of radiation would make an area 188 square miles from the plant uninhabitable, cause 20,000 cancer deaths and cause $59 million in economic loss. It would be worse than a meltdown, he said.
Greenville is about 30 miles east of Seneca, where the power plant is located.
"So much for crack teams," Alvarez said. "That doesn't excuse the fact that they aren't checking. There may be some reactor operators rising to the occasion and some may not -- no one knows."
He said the NRC has not conducted routine exercises since Sept. 11.
He also said the NRC has become less open to the public since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
"The NRC has dropped an iron curtain," he said. "We don't know if they're slapping their wrists or taking it seriously. These are weapons of mass destruction for terrorists."
-------- india / pakistan
The Kashmir Time Bomb
By David Ignatius
Friday, May 10, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63059-2002May9?language=printer
Sometime this month, the Indian intelligence service -- known as RAW because of the initials of its more genteel official name, the Research and Analysis Wing -- will complete a report on whether Pakistan has complied with an Indian ultimatum that it halt terrorist infiltration into Kashmir and hand over alleged terrorists.
The Indians will doubtless report the truth, which is that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf -- for all his good intentions -- has so far failed to meet the two demands the Indian government made last December, after pro-Pakistani terrorists bombed the Indian parliament.
But what will the Indian government do then? Up to 500,000 Indian troops are poised along India's 1,800-mile border with Pakistan, in what experts say is the highest state of Indian mobilization in the past 30 years.
With a three-to-one superiority in conventional forces, the Indians could burst across the border and, in a matter of days or even hours, overrun Lahore and effectively cut Pakistan in half. And many hawkish Indians will demand military action when RAW and other security agencies issue their reports, perhaps next week.
What would Pakistan, a state with nuclear weapons and sophisticated missiles to deliver them, do in response to an Indian military move?
Pakistan is vague about its nuclear doctrine, so it's hard to be sure. But many analysts fear Pakistan's missiles are targeted against Indian cities, and that facing an Indian conventional onslaught, it would launch a retaliatory nuclear attack on, say, New Delhi, that would leave millions dead. India would probably retaliate with its own nuclear weapons, probably dropped from bombers -- killing many millions more.
Welcome to what a senior State Department official calls "the other crisis." It's difficult these days to focus on anything other than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with its grisly daily death toll. But in this case it's essential. Because if the India-Pakistan situation gets out of hand, the death toll could run, not to dozens, but to tens of millions.
The Indian subcontinent is the only part of the world where nuclear war is today a serious possibility. U.S. and European officials are increasingly worried about what could happen there this summer. They warn that all the ingredients are in place for a disastrous chain of miscalculation on the order of August 1914, when over-armed European nations blundered into World War I.
The State Department is alarmed enough that it is hurriedly sending a senior official to visit India and Pakistan -- probably next week. Secretary of State Powell is expected to call top officials in the two countries by telephone this week to caution against miscalculation.
Intelligence reports make clear why U.S. and European officials are so worried. Western analysts believe Musharraf doesn't have the political clout to comply with the Indian demands, even if he wanted to. These analysts argue, for example, that Musharraf still doesn't fully control the Pakistani intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, even after firing its chief, Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, last October.
The Indians believe ISI is deeply involved in the long-running terrorist campaign to free Kashmir from Indian control, and the list of 20 alleged terrorists they have given to Pakistan for extradition includes some people who are reputedly close to the ISI.
Musharraf cannot meet the other Indian demand, for an end to Pakistani infiltration of Kashmir, even if he finds some face-saving compromise on the 20 names. The Pakistani president already ordered such a halt in a widely praised Jan. 12 speech, but analysts say the flow of potential terrorists into Kashmir has continued. Indeed, they say it has increased in recent weeks as the Himalayan snows have begun to melt and transit routes have opened.
It's almost inevitable that pro-Pakistani terrorists eventually will strike again inside India -- triggering demands for military retaliation by the fully mobilized Indian forces.
Another factor worrying U.S. and European analysts is the political weakness of India's prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee. Though he has restrained Indian militants in the past, and held what appeared to be a productive summit with Musharraf over Kashmir last year, Vajpayee is in poor health. The dominant Indian political figure now is the home minister, L. K. Advani, a hard-liner who has no interest in making a deal with Musharraf for outside mediation that could at last defuse the Kashmir time bomb.
India has maintained its costly mobilization since January, and analysts note that it has scheduled the rotation of troops and equipment to keep its forces at peak levels through June and July -- when analysts fear the danger of military action will be highest.
A nuclear war between India and Pakistan would mean loss of life on a scale the world has never before seen. The simple but unpleasant fact for the Bush administration is that to reduce this danger, it must play a more active diplomatic role. As in the Middle East, the United States is the only power with enough leverage on both sides to make a difference.
The apocalyptic scenarios may prove wrong, but the Indians and Pakistanis will have trouble averting them on their own. This is the real thing, Mr. President -- one of those moments when history is watching and will not forgive inaction.
-------- iran
Iran defends nukes
May 10, 2002
Inside the Ring
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
Washington Times
Notes from the Pentagon.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020510-7708702.htm
Iranian military forces recently moved additional air defense missiles to a key nuclear facility in what U.S. intelligence officials view as a sign Tehran is preparing for an attack.
Several batteries of Iran's U.S.-made improved Hawk missiles, known as I-Hawks, were added to defenses ringing Iran's Bushehr nuclear facility and were photographed late last month by a U.S. spy satellite. Iran has about 150 I-Hawks.
The Bushehr nuclear power plant is located 10 miles south of the city of Bushehr and has been under construction since the 1970s. Russia has been the main supplier of the equipment for the two reactors.
CIA nonproliferation officials have told Congress that Iran is actively pursuing the acquisition of fissile material and the expertise and technology necessary to form the material into nuclear weapons. The weapons are based on both plutonium and highly enriched uranium nuclear arms, according to the agency.
-------- russia
Russia and Ukraine expected to seal gas transit pact
Fri May 10, 2002
AP
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020510/ap_wo_en_ge/ukraine_russia_gas_1
KIEV, Ukraine - Ukrainian Prime Minister Anatoliy Kinakh and his Russian counterpart Mikhail Kasynov are expected to sign a gas transit agreement during trade talks in late May, news reports said Friday.
The expected agreement will decide the volume of natural gas that transits Ukraine en route to western Europe, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
Kinakh and Kasynov are also expected to discuss transit of Russian crude oil via Ukrainian pipelines, how Russian companies might help finalize construction of two Ukrainian nuclear power stations and implementation of a joint program to overhaul the countries' commercial aircraft fleets.
Kinakh hinted that a free trade agreement with Russia might also be discussed at the talks to be held in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on May 20 1nd 21, ITAR-Tass said.
Gas transit has been a volatile issue in relations between the two former Soviet republics. Russia started talks with Ukraine's neighbors about building alternative pipelines about two years ago, after accusing Ukraine of illegally siphoning off Russian gas and allowing its debts for official imports to increase.
Ukrainian officials have said the country has stopped the siphoning and settled its debts.
Ukraine could lose more than dlrs 3 billion in transit fees if Russia and European countries build gas pipelines that bypass the country, experts said.
Russia supplies about a quarter of Europe's natural gas, of which about 90 percent transits Ukraine, bringing the country dlrs 1.5 billion in annual revenue.
-------- treaties
The verdict on 'Unsigning the ICC'
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Washington Times
May 10, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20020510-31704770.htm#2
Your May 8 editorial "Unsigning the ICC" contains multiple statements about the International Criminal Court that are indisputably false.
The editorial says Russia has not signed the treaty. Russia signed the treaty on Sept. 13, 2000.
The editorial says the court has jurisdiction over crimes committed in signatory countries.
This is incorrect. The court has jurisdiction over crimes committed in countries that have ratified the treaty and citizens of ratifying countries. The difference is significant because 139 countries - 138 now that President Bush has renounced the U.S. signature - have signed the ICC Treaty, but just 66 have ratified to date.
The editorial raises the possibility that "any case an American court dismisses could be revived by the Security Council on purely political grounds." This is true only if the United States votes to send the case to the ICC because the U.N. Charter empowers the United States to block any decision by the Security Council. It's a little hard to see the scenario where the president would send a case to the ICC that had been dismissed by a U.S. court, especially on "political grounds." The final outright falsehood is that "the ICC is not accountable to anyone." The judges and prosecutors are accountable to the countries that ratify the treaty. To whom does The Washington Times think they should be accountable? As in the U.S. legal system, judges can be removed in a process analogous to impeachment. The prosecutor arguably is on a shorter leash than elected prosecutors in the United States.
The Washington Times doesn't like the ICC Treaty on philosophical grounds. That's fine, but The Times has an ethical obligation to present accurate information.
CARL NYBERG
Cheverly
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new york
Business, environmentalists spar over NY nuke
Story by Scott DiSavino
REUTERS USA:
May 10, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/15892/story.htm
NEW YORK - Amid a growing public outcry to shut down the Indian Point nuclear station, supporters of the giant power plant said this week that its loss could spell economic turmoil for nearby New York City.
"New York City depends on electricity generated at Indian Point ... closing it would do irreversible harm to efforts to restore the city's economy," Daniel Walsh, president of the Business Council of New York, said in a statement.
Environmentalists and civic leaders, on the other hand, call Indian Point a health hazard, citing its spotty safety record, and say it should be shuttered. They are enlisting local politicians to their cause by arguing it could also be a possible terrorist target.
Indian Point is in the town of Buchanan along the Hudson River about 35 miles (56 km) north of New York City.
"Twenty million people, about 8 percent of the U.S. population, live within a 50-mile radius of Indian Point ... A terrorist attack on the facility could have devastating consequences, rendering much of the Hudson River Valley, including New York City, uninhabitable," warned Riverkeeper, an environmental group working to shut the plant.
The Council issued its statement in response to studies from various environmental and community groups released on Tuesday that found closing Indian Point would have little impact on electric service in the metropolitan area.
"These reports leave no doubt that Indian Point is not needed to provide reliable and reasonably priced power," said Daniel Rosenblum, senior attorney at the Pace Law School Energy Project, one of the groups supporting the plant's closure.
The Indian Point station is owned by energy giant Entergy Corp. , of New Orleans, which over the past few years bought the station's two operating reactors from the state-owned Power Authority and New York City's electric utility, Consolidated Edison Inc. .
POWERING NEW YORK
The 1,916-megawatt Indian Point station provides enough energy to serve nearly 2 million homes.
"Indian Point power is among the lowest-cost electricity in New York. To consider shutting it without bringing new capacity on line is a certain prescription for brownouts," Walsh of the Business Council wrote in a letter to New York City leaders.
The likely effect of shutting Indian Point, which supplies about 20 percent of the electricity used in the New York City area, would push the area's already-high energy costs up by more than $1 billion a year, the Business Council said.
Those who want the plant shut, however, argue that New Yorkers can conserve enough electricity to allow the plant to shut without hurting the reliability of the grid.
"To further increase reliability while providing significant cost savings and environmental benefits, New York should implement a concerted energy conservation and energy efficiency program," said Pace Law School's Rosenblum.
If New York adopted conservation measures similar to ones used last year in California during its energy crisis, New York could cut electricity use by 2,000 MW, more than Indian Point generates, according to a study by those favoring closure.
The Business Council, however, found that "even the most optimistic projections say conservation could capture only 500 MW."
Moreover, the Council said, New York already faces a growing gap between the energy it has and the energy it needs.
According to a study by The Public Policy Institute, the Business Council's research affiliate, New York must add at least a dozen new power plants with at least 9,200 MW of capacity in the next five years to keep pace with the region's growing energy demand.
"New York requires a reliable and reasonably priced energy supply. If power is too scarce or too costly, businesses will be reluctant to invest here, and the ones that are here could leave," the Business Council's Walsh said.
A gradual exodus of businesses from metropolitan New York was accelerated by the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, which also triggered fears of more attacks on strategic targets in the region, like nuclear power plants.
-------- south carolina
S.C. Plutonium Shipments Postponed
By Amy Geier
Associated Press Writer
Friday, May 10, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63595-2002May10?language=printer
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- A standoff between the state of South Carolina and the federal government over plutonium shipments is on hold at least until next month.
The Energy Department agreed Thursday to postpone planned shipments to South Carolina until at least June 15 so a judge can hear arguments in the state's lawsuit against the agency.
Gov. Jim Hodges sued the federal agency and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham last week in an attempt to halt plans to ship tons of weapons-grade surplus plutonium to the Savannah River Site near Aiken for conversion to nuclear reactor fuel.
"Given that the governor has elected to throw this matter into litigation, DOE believes that the best way to avoid an undue delay in shipments is an expedited briefing schedule that will allow the court the opportunity to make an informed decision on the merits of the matter," Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said Thursday.
The first shipments from the former nuclear weapons plant at Rocky Flats outside Denver had been expected to begin later this month. But Hodges fears the conversion program will never be funded and the plutonium will remain in the state indefinitely.
"That's good news for us that they've agreed to delay shipments," Hodges said Thursday night. But he added, "all this does is move from May to June the day of reckoning."
-------- us politics
House passes $383 billion bill authorizing 2003 defense spending,
biggest Pentagon boost in decades
Fri May 10
By JENNIFER LOVEN,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020510/ap_wo_en_ge/us_defense_spending_5
WASHINGTON - The House passed the biggest increase in military spending in decades early Friday to help fight the war on terrorism, including money for a new mobile artillery cannon the Pentagon (news - web sites) doesn't want.
Lawmakers voted 359-58 to send the dlrs 383 billion measure outlining 2003 defense spending to the Senate.
Armed Services Committee Chairman Bob Stump, a Republican from Arizona, said the bill provides the largest real boost in Pentagon spending, in inflation-adjusted dollars, since 1966.
"We are starting to dig out of the budget hole we created after 13 years of budget cuts," Stump said.
Across Capitol Hill, the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites) completed work on its defense authorization bill. Behind closed doors, senators agreed to about dlrs 1 billion less in missile defense spending than President George W. Bush (news - web sites) requested and put off their debate over the politically popular dlrs 11 billion Crusader cannon until next week, Chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat from Michigan, told reporters.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced earlier that the Pentagon plans to get rid of the new gun in favor of more-futuristic technologies, like precision-guided bombing. The White House budget office said Bush's advisers would recommend a veto if Congress limits "his ability to cancel this program."
In the House, Democrats fumed about exemptions the bill gives the military from major environmental laws.
But Republican leaders beat back their attempt to force votes on the environmental provisions and on various other proposals concerning U.S. nuclear weapons policy, base closures and missile defense.
----
House Panel Raises Voice on Spending Bill
Members Question Homeland Defense Priorities, Add $2 Billion to Bush Request
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 10, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62751-2002May9?language=printer
Relegated largely to the sidelines in the war on terrorism, Congress has seized upon an emergency spending bill as a chance to influence the administration's priorities on homeland defense, diplomatic relations and other matters.
Lawmakers generally support President Bush's overall response to the Sept. 11 attacks, but they have begun to question some of his funding decisions and his unwillingness to share details of domestic security activities. Asserting their authority for the first time in months, House appropriators yesterday added $2 billion to the president's emergency spending request of $27.1 billion.
"We're showing that we're the ones that appropriate the money, and we have the responsibility under the Constitution," said Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.), ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.
In a report accompanying the $29.1 billion supplemental appropriations bill, House members criticized the White House for not providing more "timely and adequate materials" in support of its spending request. "The administration should not expect the committee to recommend large expenditures of public funds without proper justification -- even for critical activities," the report said.
Members also waded into foreign policy, providing Israel an extra $200 million "for activities related to combating international terrorism." At the urging of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell -- once it was clear the aid for Israel would pass -- they also added $50 million for humanitarian assistance for Palestinians.
Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.) said Congress was unwise "to pressure the president to provide aid to any of the parties in this dispute." He suggested that his colleagues "not try to one-up [Bush] on the most sensitive foreign policy issue we'll deal with in our lifetimes." But the amendment passed by voice vote.
The White House, eager to limit the spending bill's scope, had urged Congress not to add aid to Israel. An administration official said last night: "We're looking at the whole bill before making decisions about its components."
The spending bill provides an additional $800 million to deploy National Guard and Reserve troops, $102 million for the FBI and $88 million to protect the Energy Department's nuclear materials. At House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's request, the panel included $450 million to upgrade election procedures, and $1 billion for Pell education grants.
Lawmakers did not add specific pork projects, as with past emergency bills. Instead, they shifted funds between agencies and questioned how the administration was implementing programs to make Americans safer.
Thelawmakers especially criticized the Transportation Security Administration, which Congress created after the Sept. 11 attacks. They provided the agency with $400 million less than the administration request of $4.4 billion, and questioned why the government plans to hire 68,000 airport baggage screeners -- more than twice what Congress had foreseen.
"As far as I'm concerned, that agency is out of control," Obey said. "It's run amok."
Democrats attempted to attach language demanding that homeland security chief Tom Ridge testify before Congress. Republicans defeated the proposal on a party-line vote, 34 to 27.
The panel also modified language that would have given the Defense Department the right to give $100 million to any ally in the war against terrorism. Under the revised language, the Defense and State departments would consult lawmakers before spending the money.
The committee adjourned before completing its work on the emergency spending bill and is now expected to clear it on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The Senate will not take it up until it passes the full House.
In separate action on the House floor, lawmakers took up a $393 billion defense authorization bill that includes nonbinding language supporting the $11 billion Crusader artillery program that the administration plans to kill.
Staff writer Mike Allen contributed to this report.
--------
Senate Panel Delays Decision on Artillery Gun
May 10, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-arms-congress.html
WASHINGTON - A Senate panel Friday was to unveil its roughly $390 billion bill for the military that cuts $1 billion from President Bush's missile defense program and delays a fight over the Pentagon's plan to kill the Crusader artillery system.
After an all-day closed committee meeting to draft the defense bill that Bush wants to help launch his proposed military buildup, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said his panel postponed a decision on whether to try to save the Crusader until after a committee hearing next Thursday.
Earlier on Thursday, the White House warned Congress it would veto legislation that tries to save the 40-tongun that the Pentagon says does not fit plans for a more agile military.
Levin, a Michigan Democrat, also said the panel moved to cut some $1 billion from Bush's request for $7.8 billion to develop a system to intercept missiles.
That sets up a conflict with Bush and the Republican-led House of Representatives which in the early morning hours voted 359-58 for its $393 billion defense bill that included all of Bush's missile defense money.
The House bill also had language endorsing the Crusader, but it should skirt the veto threat because it did not have statutory language to save the weapons system that has been in development for eight years.
Levin said most of the funds his panel cut from missile defense were shifted to Navy shipbuilding, and some went to tighten security at nuclear facilities and other uses.
He told reporters that the bill passed his committee 17-8, and that the panel's top Republican, John Warner of Virginia, voted against it.
Warner said he opposed the cuts in the missile defense program, but had little other comment.
Levin said the panel cut missile defense funds that were ''duplicative'' and likely would not get spent before the end of next fiscal year that starts on Oct. 1.
He said if the majority of the committee agrees to an approach to the Crusader after next week's hearing, the bill will be amended to reflect that agreement before it reaches the Senate floor.
The Crusader issue pits Bush against lawmakers from Oklahoma and Minnesota, where much of the gun that has been eight years in development would be built, as well as some defense hawks who view the big cannon as a key weapon system.
Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, pushed the committee to save the 155mm self-propelled howitzer.
``I am working to rally support for Crusader and plan to continue this fight through every step of the legislative process,'' Inhofe said in a statement.
But other lawmakers have said that backing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's decision is crucial to weed out other low-performing weapon systems.
Like the House bill, the Senate panel includes the $475 million the administration asked for in February to continue the gun's development, Levin said.
--------
House Backs Bill Including Controversial Weapon
New York Times
May 10, 2002
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/10/politics/10PENT.html
WASHINGTON, Friday, May 10 - Defying the White House, the House early this morning overwhelmingly approved legislation that includes $475 million for a mobile artillery system known as the Crusader that Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has vowed to cancel.
The House action, part of the $383 billion military authorization bill for the 2003 fiscal year, came after the Office of Management and Budget issued a statement on Thursday afternoon saying Mr. Bush's senior advisors would recommend that he veto legislation that restricted Mr. Rumsfeld's ability to cancel the program.
"The secretary of defense has determined that the Crusader is no longer relevant to the type of warfare we are likely to face in the 21st century," the statement said. It added that the administration would ask Congress to transfer funds earmarked for the Crusader to alternative Army programs.
Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, also cautioned Congress against trying to stop the cancellation.
"The Department of Defense has conducted a very careful and thorough review on the merits of the Crusader program, and they have come to the determination that it should not proceed," Mr. Fleischer told reporters today. "The president urges the Congress to adhere to Secretary Rumsfeld's well-thought-out recommendation."
The military authorization bill, which passed by 359 to 58, also includes language directing the administration not to terminate the Crusader until the Army has completed a comprehensive analysis of potential alternatives.
Until Mr. Rumsfeld declared his intention to cancel the program on Wednesday, the Army had argued that nothing could adequately replace the weapon, which is designed to fire 155-millimeter shells farther and faster than existing artillery.
The skirmishing over the measure was expected to be just the first round of a protracted battle over the Crusader, the most prominent weapons program to face cancellation in more than a decade.
In the Senate, the Armed Services Committee voted late Thursday night to keep all $475 million for the Crusader in its bill. But the committee rejected language proposed by Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, that would protect the program from termination.
The committee also cut about $1 billion from President Bush's missile defense program, shifting much of the money to shipbuilding.
The committee has asked Mr. Rumsfeld to appear at a hearing next week to defend his decision. Senate supporters of the system, led by lawmakers from Oklahoma, where the Crusader would be assembled, have vowed to push for stronger protections for the program than are in the House version.
Congressional officials said the Crusader's manufacturer, United Defense Industries Inc., owned by the Carlyle Group, was planning a major lobbying campaign, including advertising, to promote the Crusader.
"There's no question this has reached a new level," said a House Republican official.
Critics of the Crusader contend that it is too heavy, even after being slimmed down to 40 tons, to be swiftly moved to far-flung battlefields, and that improvements in precision guided bombs have reduced the need for conventional artillery.
The Army and its supporters have contended that fighter jets are not always available to protect ground troops and that artillery can outperform many kinds of precision guided bombs in bad weather.
Crusader supporters won an initial victory on Wednesday night when the House Rules Committee refused to allow floor debate on Democratic amendments that would have stripped funds for the system out of the spending authority bill. Republican leaders blocked the amendments to avoid a divisive debate that might have caused Republicans to vote against the bill, officials said.
Nevertheless, some Crusader critics used general debate on the bill to attack the system.
"The Crusader has been rightly cut," said Representative Cynthia A. McKinney, Democrat of Georgia. "It should remain that way."
The House bill also included three provisions that would ease Federal environmental regulations on military installations. The Pentagon contends the regulations have hurt military training.
--------
White House lists doomsday succession order
Chain of command for many federal agencies
Los Angeles Times
Friday, May 10, 2002
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/05/10/MN27486.DTL
Uncle Sam's latest doomsday scenario is out -- and it is a bureaucratic pecking order that may be unlike any in history.
To ensure the continuity of government in the post-Sept. 11 era, the White House detailed the line of succession Thursday for numerous federal departments and agencies, reaching down in the ranks well below top management.
The lists were required by the 1998 Federal Vacancies Reform Act. But the task took on new urgency after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The Bush White House disseminated succession lists late last year for a handful of federal agencies and departments. But in releasing new or updated lists for a dozen government bureaucracies on Thursday, it called fresh attention to the contingency plans to keep the government running -- presumably after some catastrophic attack on Washington.
At the Treasury Department, if Secretary Paul O'Neill and his deputy "died, resigned or otherwise become unable to perform," the next in line are the fiscal assistant secretary, the chief of staff and the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.
At the Justice Department, those in line to succeed Attorney General John Ashcroft, deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson and Associate Attorney General Jay B. Stephens are the U.S. attorneys for the southern district of New York, the eastern district of Virginia, Utah and the western district of Texas. No explanations accompanied the listing.
Since Sept. 11, President Bush has taken a number of precautions to ensure government continuity -- including occasionally dispatching Vice President Dick Cheney to "undisclosed locations" to minimize the time that both are at the White House at the same time.
Without fanfare, Bush also has created what amounts to a "shadow" government, staffed by a rotating group of officials representing key departments and agencies who work at an undisclosed location away from Washington.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
CIA Fails to Kill Afghan Warlord
May 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Targeting-Warlords.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the U.S. view, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is a villain who deserves a violent death, although he is different from the al-Qaida and Taliban leaders previously targeted by the military and CIA in Afghanistan.
The CIA took a shot at Hekmatyar with a missile from one of its unmanned Predator drones on Monday near Kabul, but missed, defense officials said. The missile killed some of his followers.
U.S. officials accuse Hekmatyar of plotting attacks on American troops, offering rewards for their deaths and trying to destabilize the U.S.-backed interim government of Hamid Karzai.
At the same time, officials acknowledge that Hekmatyar, who once served as Afghanistan's prime minister, has limited ties to the Taliban and is only suspected of working with al-Qaida. But they say his anti-U.S. activities make him a more immediate threat than the other feuding warlords.
``I can assure you when we go after individuals in the theater of war, it is because they intend to do some harm to America,'' President Bush said Thursday when asked about the strike.
CIA officials declined comment.
U.S. special forces are stationed in Khost and Gardez in eastern Afghanistan, where warlords such as Bacha Khan Zardran and Zakim Khan wage artillery duels, park their tanks on street corners and hide their men behind bunkers.
Some of these same warlords are the anti-Taliban soldiers on whom the U.S.-led coalition is relying to help it find Taliban and al-Qaida members.
Hekmatyar presents a special case, U.S. officials say. Not only is he targeting Americans, he is thought to maintain close ties with fellow ethnic Pashtuns in the Pakistani intelligence service, some of whom are operating without the consent of President Pervez Musharraf to oppose U.S. interests.
The strike against Hekmatyar was one of the U.S. government's first overt actions against a non-al-Qaida or Taliban group in Afghanistan.
Officials provided few specifics on what they had learned of Hekmatyar's intentions. He has been marked for months as a potential destabilizing force opposing the shaky new Afghan regime.
In April, hundreds of people linked to his Hezb-e-Islami group were arrested in Kabul for an alleged plot to set off bombs throughout the capital, officials said at the time. Pentagon officials said there was intelligence that Hekmatyar had been making plans to strike the Afghan government, perhaps Karzai himself, and American troops in Afghanistan.
Public statements from Hekmatyar and his followers have been somewhat contradictory.
From exile in Iran, Hekmatyar called for jihad against the United States in November. Iranian authorities closed his offices there in February and ordered him out in a move that appeared a gesture toward the United States and Karzai. Hekmatyar went to Afghanistan to rally his supporters, and the United States lost track of him.
Hekmatyar has claimed he still has U.S.-made Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and controls a loyal militia in his homeland that would be ready to follow him.
But several weeks ago, Hekmatyar's son told a news conference in Peshawar that Hekmatyar wants elections. The party announced in early March that it had sent a delegation to meet with Karzai in Kabul to work out disputes.
Hekmatyar's whereabouts were unclear Thursday.
``Hekmatyar is somewhere in Afghanistan but we don't know in which area he is living,'' said Qutbuddin Hilal, a senior member of his hardline party living in Peshawar, Pakistan. ``Hekmatyar is a supporter of peace in Afghanistan.''
Hilal denied that the group was plotting an attack on Afghanistan's government, saying Hekmatyar supports Karzai.
Also in April, Pashtun figures said they suspected Hekmatyar's group might be responsible for threatening leaflets found in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the traditional stronghold of former Taliban rulers. The leaflets said parents who send their children to school will be killed and their homes burned down. Hekmatyar is a longtime player in the violence that passes for Afghan politics. U.S. officials describe him as an Islamic fundamentalist who desires secular power.
``What we're talking about here is someone at the absolute margin of violence in Afghan society -- in his own way someone as extreme as Osama bin Laden,'' said Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
``I think we have to distinguish between warlords just as we have to distinguish between all other potential targets. ... This is a violent, vicious man who deserves to be a target.''
In the 1980s, Hekmatyar was an able rebel commander during the war against Soviet occupation, becoming a benefactor of CIA weapons and support funneled through Pakistan, according to former U.S. intelligence officials who served in the region.
After the Soviets retreated from Afghanistan, he served as a prime minister in the fractious government that took power in 1992.
But civil war continued, and ruthless power struggles between his forces and those of rival Ahmed Shah Massood -- the late commander of the anti-Taliban northern alliance -- led to fighting that left whole Kabul neighborhoods destroyed and tens of thousands of civilian noncombatants dead. Hekmatyar fled to Iran after the nascent Taliban took Kabul in 1996.
Hekmatyar, 52, is a Ghilzai Pashtun from Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan. He speaks several languages, including English, and has two wives and several children.
-------- arms sales
UK firm accused of selling landmines
Staff and agencies
Friday May 10, 2002
UK Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,10674,713388,00.html
MPs demanded a police investigation today into claims that an executive of a British company agreed to sell anti-personnel landmines to an undercover reporter despite them being illegal in this country.
Derbyshire-based PW Defence's parent company, the Chemring Group, insisted it did not make the devices and that it complied fully with the law after a report on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
The report said an undercover journalist was offered the weapons by an executive from PW Defence, which is located at Draycott, Derbyshire - an allegation the firm said was "completely untrue".
The manufacture and sale of anti-personnel landmines has been illegal in the UK for the last three years as a result of legislation passed by the government.
According to the programme, the firm was advertising E190 fragmentation grenades, activated by a trip wire, at a Ministry of Defence-sponsored arms fair in London's docklands.
In a secretly-recorded interview, PW Defence's regional marketing manager David Howell appeared to confirm that the weapons were being manufactured in the UK and added that they were on "the fringes of legality".
However, the Chemring Group, said it stopped making the fragmentation grenades three years ago, as the law dictated, and trip wires five years ago.
A spokesman speculated that Mr Howell had "got a bit confused" and had simply been trying "to keep a potential customer talking". He added: "He did not make clear, unfortunately, that they no longer made them."
The spokesman also accused the BBC of "entrapment". "It was quite artfully done," he said. "They were getting a salesman a bit confused and muddled."
He added of Mr Howell: "The poor bloke is probably feeling beleaguered. All he was trying to do is size up the customer and be helpful."
However, Labour MP Roger Berry, a member of the Commons trade and industry committee, said: "There should be an immediate police investigation into what are extremely serious allegations. I will be referring this matter to police immediately."
The Today programme said its reporter - posing as a representative of a private security company - arranged a meeting with Mr Howell in a hotel room in London last month.
The reporter said he was seeking perimeter security for oil fields in north Africa and Mr Howell had offered to supply 500 of the fragmentation grenades, with trip wires, at a cost of £25,000.
Mr Howell told the reporter: "The trip wires are actuated either by someone cutting them or by someone walking up against them."
He initially stated that the weapons were not landmines under the terms of the legislation, but later said the situation was not clear cut. "You are on the fringes of legality," he said.
The head of the International Red Cross's mines unit, Peter Herbie, said the weapons were clearly anti-personnel landmines under the terms of international Ottawa Convention.
He added: "The convention entirely prohibits, under all circumstances, any munition which is designed in such a way that it will be detonated by the presence or proximity or contact of a person."
Chemring insisted it had done nothing wrong and the weapons were no longer being made. "Chemring maintains policies and procedures to ensure compliance with all applicable regulatory requirements including proper vetting and proposed sales," the firm said in a statement.
Anti-landmine group Landmine Action, which carried out the investigation with the BBC, claimed its researchers had found PW Defence representatives promoting the mines at arms fairs in Greece, South Africa and London.
Richard Lloyd, director of the group, said he was "appalled", adding: "There is no question that this landmine is illegal."
He said the government was not doing enough to implement the UK's obligations under the Ottawa Treaty, in which signatory countries agreed to ban the manufacture and sale of landmines.
Asked about claims the company was also promoting the mines at arms fairs abroad, Cheming's spokesman said: "I can't comment on that. I do know that it couldn't be a Chemring device because they don't make them."
Oxfam's policy director, Justin Forsyth, said: "The rules surrounding British arms exports is open to systematic abuse and brings into sharp focus the failings of the Export Control Bill.
"Patricia Hewitt [the Trade and Industry Secretary] cannot brush this controversy under the carpet. The current system of end-use controls must be urgently reviewed."
Meanwhile, Oxfam was organising a demonstration outside the Draycott offices of PW Defence at 2pm today. Protesters were to join a mock funeral cortege and pretend to lay a minefield outside the gates of the factory.
-------- asia
Taiwan Test-Fires New Missile
By William Ide
Associated Press Writer
Friday, May 10, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64516-2002May10?language=printer
CHIUPENG, Taiwan -- With the president warning of a growing threat from China, Taiwan successfully test-fired a locally made missile that some Taiwanese experts hope will eventually replace the island's U.S.-made Patriot missiles.
With boom and a roar, the Sky Bow II surface-to-air missile shot straight into the sky before arcing to hit a target 70 miles off Taiwan's southeastern coast in the first firing open to the media.
Three short-range, surface-to-air Hawk missiles were also tested. The American-made missiles hit their targets, creating a big black cloud of smoke.
President Chen Shui-bian praised the successful tests, saying that without a reliable defense, Taiwan could not guarantee the continued development of the island's political system and economy.
Taiwan faces a growing threat from China, which considers the island to be part of Chinese territory and has warned it might use force to take it over. In recent years, China has been developing missiles and buying advanced jet fighters from cash-strapped Russia.
"Although the Taiwan Strait looks peaceful now, communist China has not publicly abandoned its policy to attack Taiwan," Chen said. "They've been investing the money they've earned from their growing economy to modernize their military and purchase large amounts of modern weapons."
China did not immediately comment on the missile tests.
The Sky Bow II was developed by the Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology, a state-run center that designs and produces the island's weapons. Sky Bow I and II missiles are deployed at six bases around Taiwan.
The deputy director of the missile project at the institute, Chao Yao-ming, said he hoped that research in the Sky Bow program could lead to a Taiwanese version of the Patriots, deployed in northern Taiwan.
"We're doing our best to move in that direction," Chao said.
Taiwan purchased about 200 of the U.S. missiles after they were used in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Patriots are expensive and China has protested Taiwan's requests for more of the weapons.
Chao said the Sky Bow II, with a range of 120 miles, was better than a Patriot at hitting fighter jets and bombers. But the Patriots are more effective at knocking down missiles.
Developing its own versions of the sophisticated Patriots could be difficult for Taiwan. Its weapons program has a tight budget and many talented engineers and scientists have been lured away by higher-paying jobs in the island's highly competitive computer industry.
-------- biological weapons
Clues to Anthrax Attacks Found
Findings of DNA Analysis Could Point to Source of Microbes
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 10, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62614-2002May9?language=printer
The first detailed genetic analysis of the bacteria used in last fall's anthrax attacks has revealed minuscule but consistent differences between the terrorist strain and the nearly identical strain developed by the Army at Fort Detrick -- clues that could narrow the search for the person or people behind the attacks.
The differences -- a handful of mutations that apparently arose some time after the bacteria left the Army lab -- are so subtle that it is now indisputable the mailed microbes are direct descendants of the germs developed at Fort Detrick, according to scientists who did the analysis.
But the tiny genetic hallmarks found in the DNA of the bioterror microbes also amount to telltale fingerprints that had been invisible to scientists, who until now had been relying on cruder genetic techniques.
Those fingerprints could eventually help investigators figure out which of the 20 or so laboratories known to have worked with the Army's strain was the one the terrorist's microbes came from.
Researchers cautioned yesterday that they could not be certain that genetic fingerprinting would solve the mystery of who mailed the deadly bacterial spores to media organizations and elected officials last fall, killing five and sickening at least 13. Even if the technique helps to identify the lab from which the microbes most likely came, there will still be questions about who absconded with them and to whom that person may have passed them along.
Indeed, some scientists said yesterday they were discouraged that the differences between the bioterror and Army strains are so small because that finding makes it more likely that rare but unavoidable errors in the fingerprinting process could obscure the similarly rare differences between substrains.
But project leaders Timothy Read and Claire Fraser of the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville said they hope the detailed genetic information would help rule out certain labs as sources of the terrorist bugs and perhaps highlight others for the FBI.
"Without a doubt, this kind of information can lead you in the right direction," said Fraser, who is president of TIGR, a not-for-profit research institute. "It has the potential to narrow the focus a lot."
The FBI has said that it has no hot leads in the case. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said in Senate testimony on Wednesday that recent scientific findings in the case have not altered the belief that the culprit is likely a U.S. man with a scientific background, acting alone. Lately, the agency has been giving lie-detector tests to some scientists with a history in the field.
More generally, several scientists said, the new work shows that the novel DNA analysis techniques developed by TIGR and Paul Keim of Northern Arizona University can reliably identify small but important differences among closely related strains of bacteria. That could help researchers identify the small genetic variations that account for the differences in virulence and antibiotic resistance among strains. It could also speed the development of new medicines, vaccines and detection systems.
To achieve those goals, researchers are recommending a crash program to conduct similar studies on many disease-causing bacteria, especially those most likely to be used in terrorist attacks.
"Building a comprehensive database of . . . the genomes of important pathogens will allow investigators to quickly pinpoint the isolate that is most closely related to an outbreak strain," the researchers conclude in today's online issue of the journal Science. "Such a database would greatly accelerate investigations and may deter future attacks."
The new work grew out of a 3-year-old effort at TIGR to determine the order of all 5.2 million molecular "letters" of genetic code inside Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax. That federally funded project focused on a sample of the Ames strain obtained from Porton Down, a British biological warfare lab, which in turn had obtained the microbes from Fort Detrick.
The work was still incomplete when anthrax spores started turning up in U.S. letters last fall. Preliminary tests on a few key segments of DNA in those spores indicated that the bacteria, like those from Detrick, belonged to the Ames strain, a lineage that had its start in an anthrax-infected Texas cow. Bacteria from that cow were sent in 1981 to Detrick, where the strain was for years a central player in this nation's biological warfare program. Offspring of those microbes were later distributed to as many as 20 laboratories in the United States and abroad, including Porton Down.
One of the U.S. government's first responses to the mail attacks was to direct grant money to TIGR and Keim to speed the completion of the Porton Down/Detrick sequencing project and to determine the full genetic sequence of the anthrax bacteria retrieved from Bob Stevens, the Florida photo editor who was the first to die in last fall's attacks.
Today's report shows that virtually every clearly identifiable letter of genetic code is identical in both of those Ames samples. But it also notes four locations where there were small but consistent differences between the two.
Scientists said it is impossible to say when those differences arose. Little is known about the rate at which mutations typically arise in B. anthracis, and even less is known about how those rates might change during the months or years that the bacteria can lay dormant in their spore form.
Without that kind of information, it's not possible to calculate whether the terrorist substrain came out of Detrick's labs only recently or spent years being stored or cultivated in another lab.
The researchers hope to conduct similar analyses on samples of B. anthracis from other labs.
Staff writer Dan Eggen contributed to this report.
--------
Cuba Denies Developing Bio - Weapons
May 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Cuba-US-Castro.html
HAVANA (AP) -- President Fidel Castro on Friday denied U.S. charges that his country was trying to develop biological weapons and challenged American authorities to offer evidence.
Speaking live on state television, Castro called on U.S officials to ``present even the most minimum proof'' -- something he said is impossible because such evidence ``does not and cannot exist.''
``No one has ever presented a single shred of evidence that our homeland has conceived a program that develops nuclear, chemical or biological weapons,'' Castro said. ``The doors of our institutions are open ... Cuba has absolutely nothing to hide.''
Castro's speech broadcast across the island was the Cuban government's first detailed response to the charges U.S. State Department Undersecretary John R. Bolton made Monday during an address to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group in Washington.
In a brief note on Thursday, Havana had simply described Bolton's statements as ``loathsome.''
Castro said his country opposes terrorism, so much that if any Cuban scientist were ever discovering working on biological weapons for the transfer to other countries they would be tried for treason.
He also noted that Cuba publicly condemned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States that same evening.
Bolton's allegations seemed aimed at adding to the Bush administration's rationale for keeping Cuba on a list of countries accused of engaging in international terrorism. Bolton's statements marked the first time the United States had raised the possibility of Cuban involvement in weapons and mass destruction.
``The only thing true in Bolton's lies is that Cuba is 90 miles away from United States territory,'' said Castro. The Cuban leader described the United States as ``a superpower that has thousands of nuclear weapons ... but cannot vanquish the human being.''
Castro's government in the past has accused the United States of using biological means to destroy crops and livestock on the island.
In an additional protest of the U.S. official's allegations, the Cuban government has called out more than 100,000 people for a Saturday morning rally in a Havana suburb to denounce Washington's ``fallacies.''
-------- business
Ga. Worries Over Submarine Departure
By Russ Bynum
Associated Press Writer
Friday, May 10, 2002; 2:24 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1616-2002May10?language=printer
ST. MARYS, Ga. -- Business tripled for Meg Lawrence a year ago when she moved her buffet-style restaurant with its sidewalk carry-out window to a shopping center not far from the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base.
Sailors started coming to Meg's Diner several times a week for the $7 buffet, eating barbecued ribs in their starched white uniforms.
Like many in this southeastern Georgia city, Lawrence anchored her economic fortunes to the nuclear submarine base and its more than 9,000 employees.
But now some of her best customers are shipping out for good.
This summer, two of the 10 Trident nuclear submarines stationed at Kings Bay will be reassigned to the West Coast, taking 636 sailors, a $27 million payroll and an estimated 1,400 family members with them.
"It's going to hit the economy hard," says Lawrence, wearing her apron and a ball point pen in her hair. "That's quite a few people to be gone all at once. I know it's going to hurt us for a while."
Worried by the "For Sale" signs that began multiplying in her neighborhood, Lawrence recently laid off three of her five employees.
The USS Kentucky and USS Pennsylvania leave Kings Bay for their new home base at Bangor, Wash., in May and July.
The reshuffling is part of the Navy's decision to temporarily take out of service four of its 18 ballistic missile submarines so that they can be refitted to carry conventional weapons.
All four subs slated for conversion are based at Bangor, across the Puget Sound from Seattle; two of them will go to Norfolk, Va., while the other two will be converted at the nearby Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
The two subs from Kings Bay are being reassigned to Bangor to shore up the nuclear fleet there. Their arrival is expected to cushion the economic impact on Bangor.
Kings Bay has been the backbone of Camden County's economy since the 1980s, when it became the East Coast base for the Navy's Trident subs. It has an annual payroll of $298 million and employs more than half the county's 17,000 workers.
Residents remember how the economy suffered from the loss of 1,000 Kings Bay jobs in 1994 when the Navy decommissioned the submarine tender USS Canopus. Several small businesses closed as a result.
But Chamber of Commerce president Carla Carper says Camden County should weather the loss of the two submarines much better.
Camden County, population 43,600, grew 45 percent between 1990 and 2000, largely because of an influx of retirees and commuters with jobs in nearby Jacksonville, Fla.
"We really had been warning our business community for a number of years because we knew this was going to happen," Carper says.
Some sailors are staying, though it is unclear how many. The base has let some sailors who don't want to move trade assignments. Others plan to keep their homes here so their wives and children can stay.
"This is where they've brought their wives. This is where their kids have gone to school. Or they've got a girlfriend or a fiancee in the area," says Petty Officer 1st Class James Phillips, a crew counselor on the USS Kentucky.
He adds: "Right now, keeping people in the Navy and quality of life are such a big priority. It's an arduous lifestyle. And anything we can do to help them, we're going to do."
The submarines' impending departure rattled the school system, which feared it might have to close a school. But the school system sent surveys to sailors and now expects to lose only about 80 out of 9,600 children.
An expected glut of homes for sale or rent has not materialized. Instead, says real estate broker Nancy Stasinis, "We've heard a lot of (families) say, 'We're going to send the guy off and stay here.'"
Like Meg's Diner a few shops away, Sheila's Hallmark shop gets about half its business from the naval base. Owner Sheila McNeill makes sure she has cards in stock two months ahead of season - Christmas cards in October, Valentines in December - so sailors can buy them before their 77-day rotations at sea.
She is not sure how much the submarines' departure will hurt. But she is already thinking ahead. Last year she led a group of local business leaders to Washington to lobby for Kings Bay to receive two of the nuclear once they have been refitted, which should a take about five years.
"The more we connect with our biggest employer, the better off we all are," McNeill says. "Some may still wish it was a little bit quieter here and we didn't have all the traffic. But, goodness, what the base has done! In every way they've been good neighbors."
----
General Dynamics Faults $3 Billion Navy Deal
Northrop Selected To Build Warships
By Greg Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 10, 2002; Page E02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62833-2002May9?language=printer
General Dynamics Corp. filed a rare protest yesterday over the Navy's decision to award a $2.9 billion contract for a new generation of warships to rival Northrop Grumman Corp.
The General Accounting Office has 100 days to investigate the protest. A Navy spokesman said the service has not yet decided whether to halt the program for that period.
Falls Church-based General Dynamics was favored by many experts to win the contract when it was announced April 29. Northrop Grumman, based in Los Angeles, only entered the shipbuilding business last year through its purchases of Litton Industries Inc. and Newport News Shipbuilding Inc.
The effort to build a new-era fleet of destroyers and cruisers is a major push forward for the Navy. The goal is to make ships that are hard to spot with radar and so automated that they need only small crews. Electronics will be as important as firepower.
It is uncommon for large defense companies to openly challenge the Pentagon, their primary customer, over such a major issue. General Dynamics officials said yesterday they were not suggesting there is anything wrong with Northrop's winning entry.
"This is about . . . questioning the fairness of the evaluation process," General Dynamics spokesman Kendell Pease said.
The protest is on behalf of the General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works, the shipyard in Maine that led dozens of corporations in a group known as the Blue Team against Northrop's Gold Team for the Navy contract.
General Dynamics' protest is supported by its partners, which include Lockheed Martin Corp. and an electronics unit of Northrop Grumman, which now finds itself working against its parent corporation.
Northrop released a statement yesterday promising to include roles for General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin in the program, known as DD(X).
"We believe the Department of Defense and U.S. Navy conducted a fair and open competition for the DD(X) program based upon well defined requirements and ground rules that were well known to all parties," the company said. But General Dynamics argued that the government's procedure was flawed.
Among other things, the company alleges the government praised Northrop for planning to use a particular Navy vessel as a floating laboratory but refused to let General Dynamics use the same vessel. General Dynamics also alleges that Pentagon evaluators double-counted Northrop's scores on one part of the competition.
-------- colombia
U.S. Delays Some Aid for Colombia
Move Comes After Funds for Counter-Drug Force Vanish
Reuters
Friday, May 10, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62744-2002May9?language=printer
BOGOTA, Colombia -- The United States has suspended a portion of its aid for Colombia's war on drugs after a "significant amount of money" earmarked for the counter-narcotics police disappeared, a U.S. Embassy official said today.
Gen. Gustavo Socha, chief of the counter-narcotics police force, confirmed that an investigation was underway and said he had fired six officers. Socha said he did not know how much money was missing but denied news reports that it was $2 million.
The funds were taken from an account to help offset administrative expenses of the police. The United States has frozen only the aid that would normally enter this account -- a relatively small proportion of the hundreds of millions of dollars the United States contributes to Colombia for fighting drugs. Colombia is the world's biggest cocaine producer.
"We discovered about two months ago a diversion of U.S. government funds from an account used by the Colombian counter-narcotics police," the embassy official said. "We are confident that action will be taken against the individuals involved. When this has happened, we anticipate resuming full support for [counter-narcotics police] activities."
The scandal comes as the U.S. Congress is considering an expansion of aid beyond the drug war to help Colombia's government fight the oldest and largest leftist rebel force in Latin America, the 18,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The conflict is increasingly fueled by the drug trade and claims about 3,500 lives a year.
The line between the drug war and the guerrilla conflict has blurred over the past year. In March the United States indicted three FARC leaders on charges of trafficking cocaine. Washington has already spent $1 billion on Plan Colombia, the anti-drug offensive, but has yet to see any impact on cocaine output or prices on U.S. streets.
At a news conference, Socha played down the possibility that the missing money had been stolen, saying the funds might have been misdirected to legitimate government programs that are not directly linked to the drug fight.
"It is possible that the purchase of something like drinking water in remote, jungle zones, where there is no running water . . . well, it could have been prioritized as a necessity and it might not have been budgeted," Socha said.
The U.S. Embassy denied reports that the scandal had prompted the United States to freeze funds for 33 UH1N helicopters.
Instead, the embassy said that some funding for the Colombian military had been delayed as a routine procedure pending U.S. certification of the armed forces' respect for human rights.
-------- drug war
Colombia's Anti - Drug Chief Fired
May 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Colombia-Police-Scandal.html
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- The head of Colombia's antinarcotics police was removed on Friday after about $2 million dollars in U.S. drug war aid allegedly vanished into the pockets of some of his officers.
The widening corruption scandal had already led to the suspension of some U.S. aid to Washington's key drug war ally and the dismissals of at least 12 police officers.
Gen. Gustavo Socha was reassigned to a police unit that provides security to dignitaries, said Gen. Ernesto Gilibert, chief of the Colombian National Police.
He said Socha has not been found personally involved in any wrongdoing, calling him ``an honest man, a transparent man,'' but said he had to go to lend ``transparency'' to the investigation into the missing funds.
On Thursday, the U.S. Embassy said it had suspended some aid to the counter-narcotics police after discovering two months ago that a ``significant amount of money'' was missing.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States believed action would be taken against still more Colombian police officials.
``When that's happened, we can resume full administrative support for Colombian counternarcotics police activities. There's about $2 million involved,'' Boucher said.
A U.S. Embassy official said about 20 members of the police are believed to have taken money ``for personal ends.''
The embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the pilfered account covers police administrative expenses and other items including fuel for vehicles. It receives about $4 million in U.S. aid per year, part of Washington's support to President Andres Pastrana's ``Plan Colombia'' drug-fighting effort, the official said.
The Bogota newspaper El Tiempo also reported that about $2 million was involved, and that the money apparently had been paid out to fake companies for goods including fuel, water, gasoline, vehicles and parts.
The U.S. Embassy said Washington's confidence in the Colombian anti-narcotics police remained ``unshaken'' despite the lost funds.
``This type of incident can happen in any organization,'' the embassy said in a statement, adding that it expected aid would be resumed once action is taken against officers who were involved.
Gen. Jorge Linares, currently National Police operations chief, will take Socha's place.
Colombia's anti-narcotics police have managed hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. aid over the years, much of it for the aerial fumigation of illegal drug crops, using U.S.-supplied aircraft and herbicides.
Washington has pumped in $1.7 billion in aid in the last two years to the police, military and civilian institutions, most of it for anti-drug operations, with police getting about 15 percent of the assistance. The Bush administration seeks to widen Washington's aid to help Colombia battle leftist insurgents who are financed by drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping
-------- iraq
Iraq deploys missiles, violates no-fly zones
May 10, 2002
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020510-989318.htm
U.S. intelligence agencies have identified new surface-to-air missile batteries near Nasariya in southern Iraq, and Iraqi military pilots are increasingly violating no-fly zones created by the United Nations, U.S. intelligence officials say.
The missile batteries are protecting an airfield and several underground bunkers near Nasariya that could be involved in the development of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, the officials say.
"These are threatening our pilots," said an official familiar with the deployment of several trucks equipped with SA-3 missiles and radar recently spotted inside the southern no-fly zone.
U.S. intelligence officials said the SAM deployments spotted in April appear to be part of a nationwide air-defense buildup by Iraq in preparation for an attack by U.S. forces.
Meanwhile, Iraqi MiGs recently conducted flights over southern Iraq in violation of a post-Persian Gulf war ban by the United Nations. The officials did not identify the type of MiG aircraft that were detected during the incursions. One official said the jets were either MiG-23 or MiG-25 fighters.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, disclosed the new deployments last month but declined to specify where the missiles were located. They included missile deployments in both northern and southern Iraq.
He also said he movements of air defense missiles inside the no-fly zones "increased the risk to the pilots that are patrolling in those zones, and that's what's been happening."
The new Iraqi military activities in the southern part of the country coincide with efforts by the United Nations to negotiate the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq. A U.N. spokesman said last week that progress had been made on allowing weapons inspections to resume. The inspections were halted by Iraq in 1998.
Iraq is believed to have up to 25 SA-3 missile systems and 10 SA-6s, a more advanced air defense weapon. A fiber-optic communications network purchased from China was used to link the air defense weapons. The fiber-optic system was targeted during U.S. bombing strikes last year.
New air-defense missile movements were spotted in February near the Turkish border. Then, in April, more surface-to-air missile systems were photographed by U.S. reconnaissance equipment as they were moved to western Iraq.
The United Nations is close to completing work on new sanctions for Iraq. The new controls will make it easier for humanitarian goods to reach Iraq but will tighten restrictions on goods that could be used by the military.
Earlier this year, U.S. intelligence agencies discovered that trucks used for the U.N.-sponsored oil-for-food program, which allowed Baghdad to sell oil, were found to have been diverted for Iraqi missile launchers.
President Bush repeatedly has singled out Iraq for potential military action as part of his anti-terrorism strategy.
A spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command had no immediate comment on the deployments and no-fly zone violations.
Asked about the recent deployments of SA-3s in southern Iraq, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, said Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is "sitting right on top of the point of his own bayonet."
"He can play games by ordering various assets here and there, and we shouldn't be playing his game," said the senior member of the House International Relations Committee, who last month led a nine-member delegation of congressmen and staff to Turkey, Afghanistan and Russia. "We should simply target him and not his assets."
Mr. Rohrabacher said U.S. pilots patrolling both northern and southern Iraq have dangerous rules-of-engagement restrictions. He said U.S. and British warplanes should be allowed to return fire on hostile forces, not just on the specific missile or anti-aircraft artillery site that originated the fire, as is allowed now.
"We have suggested that we should be ratcheting up the toughness of our policy toward Saddam Hussein, and the first step to say that if an American is pilot shot at, we can respond against any military target," Mr. Rohrabacher said.
Mr. Rohrabacher said the nine-member congressional delegation met with Iraqi resistance groups in London. Several of the group leaders complained the U.S. State Department had barred them from using some of the $100 million allocated by Congress for ousting Saddam from inside Iraq.
--------
Rumsfeld Says Iraq Still Building Deadly Weapons
May 10, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-rumsfeld.html
WASHINGTON - Iraq is forging ahead with its outlawed chemical, nuclear and germ weapon programs as well as with the development of missiles to deliver them, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Friday.
``Saddam Hussein's appetites for these weapons is enormous,'' he said in an interview with the Fox News Channel. ``We know he's been focusing on them.''
Rumsfeld said Iraq's ballistic weapons program had proceeded ``apace,'' as had chemical and biological programs.
``The borders are porous, they are able to get any number of things across those borders,'' he said, referring to so-called dual-use items that, he said, were immediately put to military ends.
Rumsfeld added that Iraqi nuclear experts had gone on working together, under the ``guise of working on other things,'' even before Iraq expelled United Nations weapons inspectors in December 1998.
Iraq was supposed to scrap any weapons of mass destruction under the Security Council disarmament resolutions that ended the U.S.-led 1991 Gulf War that drove Iraq from Kuwait but left Saddam in power.
``Under the U.N. resolution, Saddam is not supposed to have weapons of mass destruction,'' Rumsfeld said. ``Therefore the focus should not be so much on inspecting ... but to actually finding what they are doing and disarming them and denying having those weapons.''
President Bush and his aides have been building the case for toppling Saddam, fueling speculation that Washington is waiting for the right moment to launch military action.
-------- israel / palestine
What Happened in Jenin?
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002
From: "FAIR" <fair@fair.org>
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
MEDIA ADVISORY
As violence continues in Israel and Palestine, so does debate over what exactly happened during Israel's invasion of the Jenin refugee camp. Israel barred journalists and aid workers alike from the camp during the invasions, but as access restrictions have eased, human rights groups have issued graphic reports detailing evidence of human rights violations by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and possible war crimes.
Some media accounts, too, have vividly described the damage across the West Bank: One New York Times story (4/11/02) reported that "it is safe to say that the infrastructure of life itself and of any future Palestinian state-- roads, schools, electricity pylons, water pipes, telephone lines-- has been devastated." Lately, however, much U.S. coverage and commentary has passed over investigations of whether the IDF committed widespread rights abuses in favor of narrower-- and less meaningful-- wrangling over whether or not the IDF committed a "massacre."
Amnesty International has emphasized that "there is no legal definition in international law of the word 'massacre'," and that using the term in reference to Jenin "is not helpful" for determining whether the IDF violated human rights there (AI press release, 4/29/02). Nevertheless, the "massacre" question has become central to many journalists' approach to the story-- even when they don't have a working definition of the word.
One illustration of how poorly media have thought through the concept came when CNBC's Chris Matthews (Hardball, 4/16/02) asked chief PLO representative to the U.S. Hasan Abdel Rahman whether he had evidence of a massacre in Jenin. Rahman turned the tables, asking, "Well, first of all, what's a massacre?" With disquieting vagueness, Matthews replied, "Oh, a couple hundred people or civilians or ten or 20 civilians."
Most early estimates in the U.S. press of the number of Palestinians killed in Jenin ranged from 100 to 200. Media were caught up in the implications for Israel's image, declaring Jenin a "diplomatic and public relations minefield" (CBS Evening News, 4/24/02). As initial excavation work got underway, however, those original figures were downgraded, and the question for many news outlets became whether Palestinians had manufactured "massacre" claims. In fact, many of those early casualty figures had been provided by Israeli officials. "The Israeli army estimates that it killed 100 to 200 people in eight days of fighting," reported CBS Evening News on April 12. On ABC's Nightline (4/11/02), Dave Marash reported that Israeli defense forces "estimate 100 Palestinian fighters were killed there, but refused to say where the bodies are, and they continue to bar news people from the camp."
Once Human Rights Watch (HRW) gained access to the camp, the group was able to document 52 people killed by the IDF, including 22 civilians, many of whom "were killed willfully or unlawfully" (press release, 5/3/02). HRW's report on Jenin didn't focus on the sheer numbers of dead, however. Instead, the bulk of the report catalogued a pattern of serious human rights violations in Jenin, some of which the group says may be war crimes. The abuses include attacking and killing medical personnel, using civilians as human shields, failing to distinguish between military targets and civilian homes, and causing "extensive and disproportionate destruction of the civilian infrastructure"-- so much so that more than a quarter of Jenin's population is now homeless.
Amnesty International announced similar findings in a May 4 report, "The Heavy Price of Israeli Incursions," which condemned the IDF invasions of the Occupied Territories as collective punishment of Palestinians. The report documents "unlawful killings, destruction of property and arbitrary detention [and] torture and ill-treatment" by the IDF, and states that many of these actions violated human rights and international law.
The HRW and Amnesty reports were very direct in their conclusions, but some journalists nonetheless managed to miss the point. On NPR's May 4 "Weekend Edition," anchor Scott Simon asked NPR analyst Daniel Schorr to explain what the newly released reports said about Jenin. Schorr said:
"Human Rights Watch has found that there was no massacre as such. Yes, there were a couple of things that were not very nice. They found Israelis destroyed more buildings than they absolutely had to. The Israelis say they had to 'cause they thought they were booby trapped, but Human Rights Watch says sometimes human beings were used as human shields. Maybe. Some things happened which were not terribly, terribly nice, and I'm sure they happened a lot. But if the question is raised that 'Was there a deliberate massacre of civilians in Jenin?' the answer seems to come out no. "
It's hard to imagine a mainstream U.S. commentator characterizing civilians being "killed willfully or unlawfully" as "a couple of things that were not very nice"-- if the perpetrators were an official U.S. enemy, like Serbia or Iraq. And, of course, in large part it's up to Schorr and his media colleagues to decide which questions are raised about Jenin.
Some of those colleagues gave up even on the narrow question of a massacre, taking the troubling stance that the facts may never be known, or might not even matter. As CBS Evening correspondent Mark Phillips put it on April 18, "Did a wholesale massacre take place here? In terms of the hostility between Palestinians and Israelis, it almost doesn't matter. Perceptions are what count, and Jenin has already become another reason for mistrust, hatred and revenge."
The following night, CNN's Christiane Amanpour reached a similar conclusion: "Jenin will remain for the Palestinians a place of myth and legend and perhaps even a place of revenge." The same day, NPR's Julie McCarthy commented that "The story of Jenin is set to live on in memory and myth." On April 20, CBS's Phillips still didn't know who to trust: "What happened in Jenin depends on who you believe."
Of course, the job of a journalist is to separate myth from fact, and to investigate conflicting claims to see which are true. Even when journalists did try to report what happened at Jenin, however, that reporting was sometimes sanitized beyond recognition. Consider this description from the New York Times on April 21: "As Israeli forces pursued militants, civilians continued getting in the way and dying as a result."
----
Israelis Advancing on Gaza;
Progress Made to Resolve Siege
New York Times
May 10, 2002
By ALAN COWELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/10/international/middleeast/10MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, May 9 - Israel moved tanks toward the Gaza Strip, called up reservists and threatened airstrikes today as it prepared to retaliate after a Palestinian suicide attack two days ago that killed 15 Israelis south of Tel Aviv.
The military steps provided ample evidence that, as anticipated, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon set no store by Yasir Arafat's order for a crackdown on militants by his own battered security force, which today arrested 16 members of Hamas, the group believed to have carried out the suicide attack.
Indeed, Israel seemed to be investing far more diplomatic energy in trying to end the 38-day standoff in Bethlehem after yet another deal stalled early today, dashing the hopes of the more than 150 people still inside the Church of the Nativity, one of Christianity's holiest sites.
After a day of multicornered diplomacy, the foreign minister of Cyprus, Ioannis Cassoulides, told a hastily arranged news conference in Nicosia tonight that his government had agreed to help remove an obstacle to earlier deals. Cyprus said it would "keep for a few days" the 13 Palestinian gunmen wanted by Israel who are inside the church before they are dispersed in at least seven other countries.
He said a British military plane from the Akrotiri base in Cyprus would fly to Tel Aviv to pick them up, but he did not say when and told reporters some issues still remained to be resolved.
The Italian Foreign Ministry said Italy and Spain would accept some of the 13 gunmen along with Austria, Greece, Luxembourg, Ireland and possibly Canada, in an arrangement that would spread the burden of hosting them.
But today was not the first time that a deal seemed within grasp.
In Bethlehem, right up until dawn's light spilled over Manger Square today, negotiators were preparing to lift the siege, which started when some 200 people, including armed Palestinians, burst into the church as Israeli troops overran Bethlehem on April 2.
But today, as the morning wore on, Israeli soldiers dismantled the metal detectors and tables they had set up at the low door to the 1,700-year-old shrine built on the site where Jesus is believed to have been born - and a tank rumbled back into position opposite the entrance. Negotiators said the plan stalled over demands for European protection for the 13 militants until a foreign sanctuary for them is found.
Israeli officials said the lifting of the siege and the release of the people in the church, among them members of the clergy and foreign supporters of the Palestinians, were already beginning when the 13 hard-liners raised new demands that a European envoy be sent into the church as the other people left.
But Palestinian officials accused the Israelis of backtracking on an earlier agreement that the envoy, Alistair Crooke, a European official, would enter the church.
European nations also raised a host of legal objections to previous proposals. The first setback came Tuesday when Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi abruptly denied reports that Italy had agreed to offer sanctuary to all 13 gunmen.
In remarks made public today, Mr. Berlusconi, who has said Italy was not consulted as a likely destination, questioned how the men could legally be moved to his country.
"How can we now accept Palestinians accused of serious acts of terrorism who would inevitably be free here since they haven't been tried or convicted?" he said. The Spanish foreign minister, Josep Piqué, also said the legal position surrounding the 13 men was ambiguous because they did not face charges in Europe. "They aren't even on the list of persons linked to terrorist organizations," he said.
However, the latest deal foresees the European Union, as a bloc, devising a legal basis for the Palestinians' exile.
Within this region, though, sensitivities about the arrangement are certain to persist.
Jordan said today it, too, had been approached to accept the gunmen but had refused on the grounds that it did not in principle approve of deportation.
Jordan has a large Palestinian population and has been leery of hosting Palestinian extremists since it put down an uprising by militant Palestinians in 1970 that became known as "Black September."
Arab states in general - and many Palestinians - remain wary of any talk of deportation and exile since the creation of Israel in 1948 and the 1967 war sent hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan.
Amr Moussa, the Secretary General of the Arab League, told reporters in Cairo today that "there is a total Arab rejection to the issue of deportation." In Gaza, Mr. Arafat sought today to display his resolve to curb terrorism by ordering the arrests of the Hamas members.
But Hamas said the detainees were low-ranking, and the arrests elicited not only Israel's dismissive reaction but also a skeptical response from the White House. President Bush has put Mr. Arafat on notice that he expects not only a tough stance against terrorism but also moves to make the Palestinian Authority a far more effective administration.
"Now it's up to Chairman Arafat to perform, to keep them in jail - arrest them and keep them in jail," President Bush said today.
At the same time, he made statements to shore up Mr. Arafat's position. Mr. Bush said that, despite reports in the Israeli press, he had never indicated to Mr. Sharon that under the guise of the White House embrace of "reform" of the Palestinian Authority his administration was trying to move Mr. Arafat out of power.
"It's not an accurate reflection of what went on in the Oval Office," he said today. "What is an accurate reflection of my opinion is that Mr. Arafat has let the Palestinian people down. He hasn't led. And as a result, the Palestinians suffer and my heart breaks for the Palestinian moms and dads who wonder whether or not their children are going to be able to get a good education and whether or not there's going to be a job available for their children."
Mr. Bush also said he was "pleased that Chairman Arafat spoke in Arabic against terrorism. That's good. That's a positive development." Israeli officials were less fulsome. "We will judge Arafat by his actions, not his declarations," said Ephraim Sneh, the transport minister. In the past, Mr. Arafat has ordered arrests only to release the detainees soon after.
Sensing an impending attack, some among the one million residents of the Gaza Strip - a narrow, overcrowded strip of refugee camps - began stockpiling food and water.
Since March 29, Israeli forces have been attacking Palestinian-run cities in the West Bank in an effort to crush the infrastructure behind a wave of suicide bombings. But Gaza, the spiritual home and headquarters of the Hamas movement, has so far been largely spared. Israeli military planners say it presents far more complex challenges and risks to Israeli ground forces if only because of its teeming refugee camps.
Mr. Sharon cut short a visit to Washington to fly back to Israel late last night and immediately secured the backing of security chiefs for military action.
While Israel's incursions into the West Bank drew in thousands of reservists and lasted through weeks of re-occupation of Palestinian towns like Jenin and Nablus, Shimon Peres, the dovish foreign minister and deputy prime minister, indicated that the attacks on Gaza might be conducted differently.
"We are going to strike at the nests of terrorism, whether in Gaza or elsewhere," he said. "The intention is to reach only those places where the isolated concentrations of suicide terrorists are located."
Since the latest suicide bombing at Rishon le Zion, no Palestinian group has publicly identified the bomber as a Gaza resident and some have sought to suggest that the attacker was from the West Bank town of Jenin, the target of a major Israeli attack last month.
--------
Soldiers Leave Manger Square;
Palestinians Crowd Into Basilica
New York Times
May 10, 2002
By ALAN COWELL and JOEL GREENBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/10/international/10CND-MIDE.html
BETHLEHEM, May 10 - Israeli troops pulled their remaining forces out of Manger Square this evening, ending a 38-day siege of the Church of the Nativity, hours after the last of those holed up in the church made their way out.
The square was soon filled with exuberant Palestinians, crowds of whom flooded into the basilica, which is a high vaulted building with a wooden ceiling, hung with ornate lamps and overlooked by a huge gilt cross.
Many went down to the basilica's grotto venerated by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus, which is situated below the basilica itself, under the altar. Half a dozen children were seen kissing the multipointed star said to mark the actual spot of his birth.
Israeli forces said they had found some 40 booby-trapped explosive devices inside the church, but they allowed priests to hold a service at 5:15 p.m. local time. Reporters and residents of Bethlehem thronged the church, but there was no sign of explosive devices in the church itself.
Inside the basilica, a baptismal font seemed to have been used to wash pots and pans. Empty sardine cans, torn papers and votary candles littered the floor, but there was no sign that gunfire had struck inside the basilica, or other damage.
An adjacent Franciscan priory had been gutted by a fire last week.
A Western pool reporter described the grotto as in "pristine condition," which was confirmed by reporters who made their own way into the church within minutes of the Israeli withdrawal.
Makeshift beds seemed to have been set up between the church's 18-feet to 20-feet columns of amber marble, darkened by age and polished at the base by people making their way by.
The Israeli evacuation came after 10 foreign supporters of the Palestinians were led out of the church by Israeli policemen. Eight hours earlier, the first of 13 Palestinian hard-line militants filed out of the church and were later taken to Cyprus.
In the Gaza Strip, 26 Palestinians also freed from the church were greeted as heroes today by a flag-waving crowd, which chanted "Death to Israel!" Some of the released militants were given assault rifles, which they fired into the air.
Israeli and troops continued to mass near the Gaza Strip today as it prepared to retaliate for a Palestinian suicide attack that killed 15 Israelis south of Tel Aviv three days ago.
The Palestinian supporters' departure had been delayed because of fears they would be deported. Details of the arrangements that convinced them to leave were not immediately made known.
But the pool reporter said she was told by one of the Palestinians' supporters that "we are not leaving of our own accord."
Earlier, there was close American involvement in arranging the departure of the Palestinians. United States federal agents were seen outside the church loading weapons into American vans several hours after the accused Palestinian hard-liners emerged.
After several false starts and last-minute delays, Palestinians began to file out of the besieged Church of the Nativity one by one as the church bells tolled 7 a.m.
The military steps initiated on Thursday, including calling up reservists and threatening airstrikes, provided ample evidence that, as anticipated, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon set no store by Yasir Arafat's order for a crackdown on militants by his own battered security force, which on Thursday arrested 16 members of Hamas, the group believed to have carried out the suicide attack.
Indeed, Israel seemed to be investing far more diplomatic energy in ending the Bethlehem standoff after yet another deal stalled early Thursday, dashing the hopes of the more than 150 people who were still inside the church, one of Christianity's holiest sites.
After a day of multicornered diplomacy, the foreign minister of Cyprus, Ioannis Cassoulides, told a hastily arranged news conference in Nicosia on Thursday night that his government had agreed to help remove an obstacle to earlier deals. Cyprus said it would "keep for a few days" the 13 Palestinian gunmen wanted by Israel before they are dispersed in at least seven other countries.
The 13 men were the first to emerge, going through a metal detector, having their belongings checked by Israeli soldiers, then boarding a bus that took them to the airport in Tel Aviv where a British military plane took them to their first stop, Cyprus. Officials said that one of the 13 fugitives, who was injured and carried out on a stretcher, would be treated for his wounds.
The men emerged into bright sunshine after five and a half weeks inside the church, all but one needing to stoop before he could leave through the cramped opening known as the Door of Humility. They then stood face to face with Israeli soldiers. The men shook hands with priests who stood by as Israeli soldiers took their papers. But the men did not shake hands with the soldiers.
Female relatives watching the scene on nearby rooftops wept and shouted, "God is great!" Then, they shouted, "God is greater!"
The 13 militants were followed by the first of 26 other men who were then taken to an army base at Gush Etzion, near Bethlehem, and, after being checked, to Gaza, where they were released in small groups. More than 80 Palestinians who had also been holed up in the church were taken off in buses today for questioning and were later allowed to go back to their homes.
The Italian Foreign Ministry said Italy and Spain would accept some of the 13 men along with Austria, Greece, Luxembourg, Ireland and possibly Canada, in an arrangement that would spread the burden of keeping them.
The standoff ended after days of disagreement and delay. Right up until dawn's light spilled over Manger Square on Thursday, negotiators were preparing to lift the siege, which started when some 200 people, including armed Palestinians, burst into the church as Israeli troops overran Bethlehem on April 2.
But as Thursday morning wore on, Israeli soldiers dismantled the tables they had set up at the low door to the ancient shrine built on the site where Jesus is believed to have been born - and a tank rumbled back into position opposite the entrance. Negotiators said the plan stalled over demands for European protection for the 13 militants until a foreign sanctuary for them could be found.
Israeli officials said the lifting of the siege and the release of the people in the church, among them members of the clergy and foreign supporters of the Palestinians, were already beginning when the 13 hard-liners raised new demands that a European envoy be sent into the church as the other people left.
But Palestinian officials accused the Israelis of backtracking on an earlier agreement that the envoy, Alistair Crooke, a European Union official, would enter the church.
European nations also raised a legal objections to previous proposals. The first setback came Tuesday when Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi abruptly denied reports that Italy had agreed to offer sanctuary to all 13 gunmen.
In remarks made public Thursday, Mr. Berlusconi, who has said Italy was not consulted as a likely destination, questioned how the men could legally be moved to his country.
"How can we now accept Palestinians accused of serious acts of terrorism who would inevitably be free here since they haven't been tried or convicted?" he said. The Spanish foreign minister, Josep Piqué, also said the legal position surrounding the 13 men was ambiguous because they did not face charges in Europe. "They aren't even on the list of persons linked to terrorist organizations," he said.
However, the latest deal foresees the European Union, as a bloc, devising a legal basis for the Palestinians' exile. Within this region, though, sensitivities about the arrangement are certain to persist.
Jordan said on Thursday that it, too, had been approached to accept the gunmen but had refused on the grounds that it did not in principle approve of deportation.
Arab states in general - and many Palestinians - remain wary of any talk of deportation and exile since the creation of Israel in 1948 and the 1967 war sent hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan. Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League, told reporters in Cairo on Thursday that "there is a total Arab rejection to the issue of deportation."
In Gaza, Mr. Arafat sought Thursday to display his resolve to curb terrorism by ordering the arrests of the Hamas members.
But Hamas said the detainees were low-ranking, and the arrests elicited not only Israel's dismissive reaction but also a skeptical response from the White House. President Bush has put Mr. Arafat on notice that he expects not only a tough stance against terrorism but also moves to make the Palestinian Authority a far more effective administration.
"Now it's up to Chairman Arafat to perform, to keep them in jail - arrest them and keep them in jail," President Bush said Thursday.
At the same time, he made statements to shore up Mr. Arafat's position. Mr. Bush said that, despite reports in Israel, he had never indicated to Mr. Sharon that, under the guise of the White House embrace of "reform" of the Palestinian Authority, his administration was trying to move Mr. Arafat out of power.
"It's not an accurate reflection of what went on in the Oval Office," he said Thursday. "What is an accurate reflection of my opinion is that Mr. Arafat has let the Palestinian people down. He hasn't led. And as a result, the Palestinians suffer and my heart breaks for the Palestinian moms and dads who wonder whether or not their children are going to be able to get a good education and whether or not there's going to be a job available for their children."
Mr. Bush also said he was "pleased that Chairman Arafat spoke in Arabic against terrorism. That's good. That's a positive development."
Israeli officials were less fulsome. "We will judge Arafat by his actions, not his declarations," said Ephraim Sneh, the transport minister. In the past, Mr. Arafat has ordered arrests only to release the detainees soon after.
Sensing an impending attack, some among the one million residents of Gaza - a narrow, overcrowded strip of refugee camps - began stockpiling food and water.
Since March 29, Israeli forces have been attacking Palestinian-run cities in the West Bank in an effort to crush the infrastructure behind a wave of suicide bombings. But Gaza, the spiritual home and headquarters of the Hamas movement, has so far been largely spared. Israeli military planners say it presents far more complex challenges and risks to Israeli ground forces if only because of its teeming refugee camps.
Mr. Sharon cut short a visit to Washington to fly back to Israel late Tuesday night and immediately secured the backing of security chiefs for military action.
While Israel's incursions into the West Bank drew in thousands of reservists and lasted through weeks of re-occupation of Palestinian towns like Jenin and Nablus, Shimon Peres, the dovish foreign minister, indicated that the attacks on Gaza might be conducted differently.
"We are going to strike at the nests of terrorism, whether in Gaza or elsewhere," he said. "The intention is to reach only those places where the isolated concentrations of suicide terrorists are located."
--------
Israeli Soldier Just Wants to Go Home
New York Times
May 10, 2002
By STEVEN ERLANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/10/international/middleeast/10SOLD.html
BETHLEHEM, West Bank, May 9 - Nisan, 19, stood on the other side of the makeshift barricade of Israeli-blue metal stands and barbed wire, leaning his helmeted head against the wall, listening to the women in head scarves. They were begging to be allowed to see their sons and relatives, still besieged in the Church of the Nativity, but part of the group of wanted Palestinian gunmen who are supposed to go into exile in Gaza or abroad.
"We just want to see them one more time," said Shibah Daghlalah, whose brother, Ahmad, a Palestinian Authority policeman, is headed for a prison in Gaza. "I'm afraid I won't see him again alive!" she said, shouting and weeping.
"Go away, go away - it's curfew. Go home," Nisan shouted in Arabic, exasperated, while two other Israeli soldiers, all paratroopers, consulted on the radio about the women.
The few journalists watching, during a hot morning's lull in the long Bethlehem siege, started taking photographs. "Now I'm the bad guy," said Nisan, who declined to give his last name, continuing a conversation in English. "They have to understand that there is a curfew." He shook his head. "I'm supposed to arrest them," he said.
"I won't. I'm not going to attack them, they're women."
"Doesn't your mother call you to see how you're doing?" Iman Abayat shouted at him in Arabic. "I bet she calls you every hour." Nisan shook his head and spat at the ground.
Her son, Ibrahim, 29, is a former Palestinian policeman who resigned to join the Aksa Martyrs Brigades and is believed to be its local leader, wanted for the killings of three people and considered one of Israel's main catches. He is one of the 13 in the church expected to go abroad.
"She says she wants to see her son," Nisan said. "Well, let him come out. We want them all to come out. We want to go home. Nobody wants to be here in Bethlehem, but everyone thinks we like it."
Thirty-five years ago, during the 1967 war, Israel's soldiers bravely defended their doughty little country from a combined attack of Arab nations. Today is Jerusalem Day, the anniversary in the Hebrew calendar of Israel's greatest moment in that war, the day when East Jerusalem was captured. Throughout Israel, it is a day of celebration and national fervor.
But today, barely five miles from the center of Jerusalem, in Bethlehem, Nisan and his comrades have, at least temporarily, retaken Palestinian land seized in that war and never yet fully returned, and they are viewed as occupiers, holding down Palestinian aspirations to a state through disproportionate force.
They are doing their job, they say, defending Israelis against terrorism and suicide bombers, but they know how they are often perceived, and they hate it.
One of his soldier colleagues said in Hebrew, "These people are taking pictures, don't look so depressed." Nisan said: "Depressed? I'm fed up with this - with these morons on the other side for two weeks," referring to the Palestinian gunmen in the church. "How many agreements do we have to reach with them?"
He turned back, speaking in English. "I know I look like a monster in all this," he said, tapping his helmet, then his vest, then his rifle. "I'm not a monster," he said. "I don't like this. I'm a human being just like you."
An Israeli journalist asked him in Hebrew: "Will this stop the suicide bombings?" Nisan looked up, exasperated again. "I'm not like you," he said. "I'm a soldier. If I'm told to lie down, I'll lie down." Why not just surround the whole place with barbed wire, the Israeli asked.
"This?" said Nisan, kicking at the wire. "This is nothing." He stopped, then said: "Let's not get into politics."
He broke into English again. "I'm here to defend my family, my father and my mother and my brother and my girlfriend, that's all."
He shouted at the women again, to go away, to obey curfew. "People outside think that all Israelis pray and eat kosher, and I eat cheese and meat together and I don't pray, not once, I don't believe in it," he said.
"People outside think I'm a monster with a gun, and pray every day and eat kosher and kill Arabs," he said. "We just want to go home."
And what is home? Metulla, he said, right on the border with Lebanon.
"Hezbollah is firing rockets at us all the time," he said. "I'm in a war here and at home, too."
Nisan rested his helmet again against the wall. "I've been awake from 8 a.m. yesterday," he said at 2 p.m. today. "I don't know what's going on with the negotiations. The ones who are deciding, the higher-ups, are sleeping now."
He looked longingly across the barricade meant to keep the journalists and families out. "At least you get to go away and change your socks," Nisan said. "I sleep like this, dressed like this, with a helmet. I haven't had these boots off in two weeks."
--------
War looms over Gaza
May 10, 2002
By Ravi Nessman
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020510-91521180.htm
JERUSALEM - Israeli tanks were poised outside the Gaza Strip and military reservists were called up yesterday in anticipation of an attack in retaliation for a Palestinian suicide bombing. War preparations proceeded while a deal was reached to end the standoff at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.
In a sign that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was taking action against terror groups, Palestinians arrested 16 members of Hamas, the Islamic militant group that claimed responsibility for the suicide attack earlier this week.
Tanks were parked off Gaza, the home base of Hamas, and Israeli forces around the strip were being beefed up last night.
But Hamas leaders in Gaza - a sliver of Mediterranean coastline two-thirds of which is under Palestinian autonomy - said they were going about life as usual.
Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin went ahead with the afternoon wedding reception for one of his seven daughters, his son Mohammed said. A Yassin deputy and university professor, Mahmoud Zahar, said he was staying at home to prepare for exams. A Hamas spokesman, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, said his schedule was filled with TV interviews.
Mohammed Dahlan, Mr. Arafat's security chief in Gaza, said the Palestinians were expecting an attack.
"Everyone is prepared, and our people know how to confront the occupation," said Mr. Dahlan, who has been in the West Bank town of Ramallah for months. "We said this before, and we mean it now - if the occupation forces carry out an aggression, we will face this aggression."
In the standoff at Bethlehem, an Israeli official said that late in the day, a deal was reached that 13 suspected terrorists inside the church would be divided among up to eight countries.
Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides and Palestinian sources said the militants would be taken first to Cyprus and then elsewhere.
Under the deal to end the 38-day standoff at the site widely believed to be the birthplace of Jesus, Italy and Spain would take some of the militants, and the remainder would be distributed among at least four other countries, the Israeli official said. Twenty-six would be sent to Gaza. Others inside the church would be allowed to go free.
Also yesterday, the Israeli Cabinet approved unspecified reprisals in response to the pool hall bombing in a Tel Aviv suburb on Tuesday. Fifteen Israelis were killed in the attack, the deadliest since Israel began its West Bank military offensive on March 29 after a wave of Palestinian suicide missions.
The reserve call-up was smaller than the one that preceded the March 29 operation during which troops occupied six of the eight main Palestinian towns in the West Bank. The occupation lasted several weeks, and troops fought running battles with Palestinian gunmen.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres hinted that his country might have a more limited operation in mind this time, "striking at centers from which the suicide attackers come, or the houses from which they come, or the nests from which the organization of suicide bombers comes."
Military sources said the operation will be centered on Gaza but may not be restricted to the strip. The objective is to hit at Hamas leaders and end the sense of immunity that militants in the strip have enjoyed, senior officials said.
Military commentators also said they expected the Gaza operation to be more limited than the West Bank offensive. Fighting in densely populated Gaza would be much more complicated and could expose troops to greater risks.
European Union envoy Miguel Moratinos condemned the suicide attack but said the EU was "very concerned" about increasing violence and new military action. The European body was working with the United States, Russia and the United Nations to try to prevent that, he said.
Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat criticized the expected operation.
"Such an attack will lead to disastrous consequences for the Palestinian people there," he said. "This will be adding fuel to the fire."
In a televised address on Wednesday, Mr. Arafat said he had ordered his security forces to arrest Palestinian terror groups. Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said yesterday that the Palestinian Authority "has already taken some measures to control the security situation."
In Gaza City, Hamas reported that of the 16 members arrested yesterday by Palestinian police, none was a senior official.
In the past, Palestinian police have temporarily detained Hamas leaders, then released them soon after. In some cases, it appeared that the Palestinians took the moves largely to protect the leaders from possible Israeli attack.
Israel has accused the Palestinian Authority of attempts to create the appearance of a crackdown on militants.
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer reacted cautiously, saying the key test will be whether those arrested remain in custody. "We're looking into the reports of the arrests," he said.
-------- nato
NATO Cuts Balkans Peacekeeping Forces
May 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-NATO-Balkans.html
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- The NATO alliance agreed Friday to reduce its peacekeeping forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo to reflect an improved security situation in the Balkans.
The Bosnia force will be cut to 12,000, from 19,000 troops by the end of the year while the size of the Kosovo peacekeeping force will go from 38,000 to 33,200.
The cutbacks will be completed by mid-2003, NATO said in a statement. NATO stressed the reductions reflected no letup in its commitment to keep Balkans at peace.
``Since we first sent forces to the Balkans much has changed and improved, and we are changing with them,'' said NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson. ``What hasn't changed though is our determination to work with the people of the region to build peace and prosperity together.''
Under the changes approved by the 19 NATO allies, the peacekeepers will reduce much of their heavy armor to reflect the military's view that threats come more from criminal gangs or lightly-armed extremists rather than a return to all-out war.
NATO commanders insist the changes will not diminish their ability to track down war crimes suspects, such as Bosnian-Serb war leader Radovan Karadzic, who remains at large.
Local leaders in Kosovo welcomed the troop reduction, suggesting that it indicated that the troubled province was making progress.
``There is no reason for alarm -- their presence is still needed here, but I believe that this reduction will not reflect in troops' ability to secure Kosovo,'' Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi said.
The international force first deployed in Bosnia in 1995, after a peace deal to end almost three years of ethnic fighting. Its numbers have been gradually reduced from an initial 60,000.
In Kosovo, the NATO-led KFOR force deployed in 1999 after a peace agreement saw the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops. It has been scaled down from 50,000.
The current restructuring plan will eliminate two of the five multinational brigade headquarters in Kosovo. The French- and British-led brigades will be merged into one, as will the German- and Italian-commands. The United States will maintain control of it's eastern command.
-------- russia / chechnya
Bomb at Parade Near Chechnya Kills 36
Islamic Separatists Suspected in Blast in Russia; 13 Children Among the Dead
By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 10, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62892-2002May9?language=printer
MOSCOW -- Thirty-six people, including 13 children, died this morning when a bomb ripped through a military parade in a town near the volatile region of Chechnya, in southwest Russia. Local authorities said more than 150 people were injured.
Black smoke billowed down the main street of Kaspiisk, a Caspian Sea port of 12,000, after the blast tore a hole in the sidewalk just as a military band marched by en route to a wreath-laying ceremony at the local cemetery. Video footage showed children darting between the rows of band members, pretending to march with them.
Authorities said the bomb packed 6 to 11 pounds of TNT, metal balls, plates and screws and was probably remote-controlled.
It was the worst such attack in Russia since Sept. 13, 1999, when explosives hidden in sugar sacks in a Moscow apartment building killed 119 people.
President Vladimir Putin blamed the bombing on "scum who hold nothing sacred."
Officials in Kaspiisk suggested the obvious suspects were Islamic militants from neighboring Chechnya, roughly 100 miles west. Chechen separatists, aided by bands of foreign fighters, stage regular attacks against the Russian military there.
That suspicion was bolstered by the fact that it occurred on Victory Day, when Russians celebrate the defeat of Nazi Germany 57 years ago. Nearly six decades after the war's end, the holiday is still one of the most revered dates on the Russian calendar.
Putin, who apparently learned of the attack as he watched thousands of elite Russian troops march through Red Square this morning, said Russia would treat its new enemy as it did the Nazis and recalled the Soviet Union's World War II slogan: "Kill the viper."
"Today is the most cherished holiday for our people. Even on such a day, bandits without any emotion are killing innocent people, including children," he told a crowd gathered near the Kremlin for the celebration.
Eighteen servicemen, most of them musicians, 13 children and five adult bystanders died in the blast, according to a duty officer with the Dagestan Emergency Situations Ministry quoted by the Associated Press. Dagestan is the Russian region where Kaspiisk is located.
"I remember we were playing the Victory Day march," Sadrudian Osmanov, the conductor of the band, told RTR, a state-controlled television network. "At first I thought maybe that was fireworks."
"It became completely dark," said one woman, who was watching the parade from her apartment window. "It was so joyful and then, oh God, blood everywhere, bodies and bodies, human fragments everywhere. So awful."
"At first we thought it was soldiers shooting next to our memorial," said another witness. "But no, it was 10 times stronger."
The town didn't have enough ambulances for the wounded, so residents drove some of them to the city hospital in their cars. There, the injured lay on the floor while surgeons labored in two operating rooms and residents stood outside to offer blood.
More than half the wounded were taken to hospitals in Makhachkala, a larger town nearby. Interfax, the Russian news agency, said about one-third of the wounded were servicemen stationed in Kaspiisk.
"I don't have any words to describe this," one nurse told NTV television outside the hospital. "Some do not have legs, lots of open wounds, some miss parts of their limbs, legs, hands."
Television networks showed a woman in a green jacket frantically searching for a victim wearing white tennis shoes. "Where are they, where are they?" she cried to another woman.
The scene was reminiscent of November 1996, when a bomb tore through an apartment building in the same town, killing 68 people, including 21 children. That bombing remains unsolved.
Another bomb exploded in September 1999 in the nearby city of Buinaksk, killing 64 people. Hundreds more died from explosions that same month in Moscow and other Russian cities as Russian troops invaded Chechnya for the second time in five years.
Mindful of the threat of terrorism, local authorities said security services swept Kaspiisk's main street at 8 a.m., about 90 minutes before the bomb went off. Still, Russian media blamed the tragedy partly on lax security.
In between Russia's best-loved World War II movies, television networks tonight showed Kaspiisk's main street, by then deserted.
In the middle of it sat a drum, flowers, pieces of a trumpet and a boot.
----
Bomb Blast at a Crowded Parade Kills at Least 34 in Russian Town
New York Times
May 10, 2002
By MICHAEL WINES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/10/international/europe/10RUSS.html
MOSCOW, May 9 - A powerful bomb stuffed with bolts and nails and hidden in roadside bushes ripped through a military parade today in southwest Russia commemorating the end of World War II. At least 34 people died, including at least 12 children, and Russian news services said another 130 were hospitalized.
It was the deadliest terror attack in Russia since September 1999, when a string of apartment complex bombings in Moscow and elsewhere killed more than 300 people.
No one claimed responsibility for the explosion today, which ravaged a military brass band as it marched, surrounded by youngsters and World War II veterans, through Kaspiisk, a town of about 12,000 people on the Caspian Sea's western shore about 1,000 miles south of Moscow, in the Russian republic of Dagestan.
Witnesses said the band, part of a column of marines headed to lay wreaths at a military cemetery, was playing a march and striding down the town's main avenue, Lenin Street, when the explosion occurred around 9:40 a.m. Official estimates of the blast's power varied, from the equivalent of about 6 1/2 pounds of TNT to more than 26 pounds of the explosive.
President Vladimir V. Putin, while not placing direct blame, appeared to suggest that the explosion was the work of rebels who are fighting Russian forces in Chechnya, which borders Dagestan. During a Kremlin reception today marking Nazi Germany's defeat 57 years ago, he said the explosion showed that the world must unite against terrorists just as it united to defeat the Nazis. Mr. Putin regularly calls the Chechen rebels terrorists.
"This crime today was committed by scum who hold nothing sacred. But we have the right to regard them as Nazis, whose purpose is to sow death and kill," Mr. Putin said. "During the years of the Great Patriotic War, people went to war to kill scum, and it was destroyed. And however difficult the problems that Russia faces today, we will solve them."
Mr. Putin dispatched the head of the Federal Security Service, Russia's domestic intelligence agency, to the scene to join a criminal investigation of the explosion.
President Bush said today that the United States is "saddened and angered" by the deaths in Kaspiisk. "Of particular concern is that this evil act of terrorism occurred on a holiday when Russia celebrates its World War II victory over fascism, and at a time when our nations are allied once again in a war against global terror," the president said in a statement. "Terrorism and the killing of innocents can never be condoned or justified."
Video footage shot seconds after the explosion and broadcast tonight showed a narrow street littered with bodies of the dead and wounded and shrouded in a pall of black smoke as screaming bystanders fled the scene. Later scenes showed blood-soaked victims lying in a grisly landscape of body parts and wrecked musical instruments. Russian television said the blast left a huge hole in the ground.
"I was standing by the window. The musicians were coming, playing `Victory Day,' " one woman told the NTV television network. "Then suddenly, there was such an explosion. You couldn't see anything. It was dark. Little children had been running alongside them - it was such a happy scene.
"Then there were corpses, corpses, flesh, flesh."
An older woman, in tears, was reduced to single-word descriptions of the devastation. "It was horrible," she told the state-run ORT television network. "Children. Young men. Sailors. The orchestra. Drums. Horns."
At hospitals where the wounded were taken in Kaspiisk and in nearby Makhachkala, Dagestan's capital, hundreds of frantic people gathered for information on the condition of relatives and friends.
The symbolism of both the bombers' military target and their timing was unmistakable. May 9, Victory Day, is an almost sacred holiday here, a celebration of Russian military might and of the war against Hitler, which Russians call the Great Patriotic War.
Mr. Putin has sought to cloak the Chechnya conflict in the same patriotic trappings. Twice in the last year or so, he has declared Russian troops victorious and announced plans to withdraw forces or turn more of the military duties over to local police and militia. The government's disclosure late last month that a leading Islamic guerrilla fighter in Chechnya, known as Khattab, had died - the victim, officials claimed, of a special intelligence operation - was treated as a media splash.
Nevertheless, the conflict has continued to grind on. It claims anywhere from a handful to a score of Russian troops and pro-Russian police each week. Terrorist bombings, many apparently related to the war, are not uncommon in either Dagestan or in the Caucasus Mountain regions just west of Chechnya. One such bombing, in Kaspiisk in 1996, killed 68 residents of an apartment complex for military families.
Today, Russian officials said security police had swept the route of the Kaspiisk parade at 8 a.m., and speculated that the bombers had planted their remote-controlled device sometime after that. The explosion appeared to have occurred on the most crowded portion of the parade route.
Tonight, Russian officials said the dead included 18 soldiers, apparently all band members, and 16 civilians, 12 of them children. Dagestan, a republic with a large degree of autonomy from Moscow, declared Friday a day of mourning. The chairman of the Dagestan state council, Magomedali Magomedov, said the terrorists "must be destroyed as traitors who are not letting humanity live."
"It's very hard to call those who committed this act of vandalism people," he said. "They are subject to liquidation."
The blast in Kaspiisk is the second major blow against Russian forces in less than a month. A rebel ambush three weeks ago in Grozny, Chechnya's capital, killed 17 Russian soldiers, the largest single loss by Russian forces in the Chechen war in nearly two years.
In Grozny today, unknown attackers fired a grenade launcher during a Victory Day observance in the city's stadium that was being led by the region's Kremlin-backed leader, Akhmad Kadyrov. Mr. Kadyrov was not hurt, but one policeman was seriously injured.
-------- spy agencies
Ex-F.B.I. Agent Sentenced to Life in Prison for Spying
New York Times
May 10, 2002
By SHERRI DAY
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/10/national/10CND-SPY.html
Robert P. Hanssen, the former F.B.I. agent who confessed to selling secrets to Moscow, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole today by a federal judge in Alexandria, Va.
Mr. Hanssen, 58, was a 25-year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a counterintelligence expert. Prosecutors charged that he spied for the Russians for several years and earned more than $1.4 million in cash and diamonds for his espionage. At the sentencing hearing this morning in Federal District Court, Mr. Hanssen apologized for his actions.
"I am shamed by it," Mr. Hanssen said. "I have opened the door for calumny against my totally innocent wife and children. I have hurt so many deeply."
Dressed in a green prison uniform, Mr. Hanssen also thanked his family, friends and co-workers for their support. None of his family members were present at the sentencing, but several of his former F.B.I. colleagues were in the courtroom.
Before Judge Claude M. Hilton handed down Mr. Hanssen's sentence, an assistant United States attorney, Randy I. Bellows, said Mr. Hanssen "broke every major promise he made," and was "in essence the cruelest kind of thief."
After the sentencing, Paul J. McNulty, the United States attorney in Eastern Virginia, told reporters that Mr. Hanssen's sentencing closed one of the "darkest chapters of American history."
"Robert Hanssen was trained, and he was entrusted to us," Mr. McNulty said. "He betrayed us. He turned his back on us."
Mr. Hanssen's lawyer, Plato Cacheris, told reporters that he believed a life sentence was appropriate for his client.
"Obviously, this is a serious case," Mr. Cacheris said. "Otherwise, the punishment wouldn't have been as extreme as it is. There wouldn't have been threats of the death penalty."
Last July, Mr. Hanssen pleaded guilty to 15 counts of espionage, attempted espionage and conspiracy. Six other counts in the original 21-count indictment against Mr. Hanssen were thrown out as part of a plea bargain.
According to the terms of the plea bargain, Mr. Hanssen would not be sentenced to death if he agreed to cooperate with investigators and undergo extensive debriefings detailing the extent of his spying activities. He would also not be eligible for parole or early release.
The plea agreement also provided for Mr. Hanssen's wife, Bonnie, to receive the survivor's portion of his F.B.I. pension and retain ownership of their home in Vienna, Va. The Hanssens have six children.
Earlier this week, the government agreed to stand by its pledge to not seek the death penalty against Mr. Hanssen. But some government officials doubted whether or not he had been completely forthcoming in sharing information about his years as a spy for the Russians. Mr. Hanssen told C.I.A. agents that he suffered from poor memory. The Justice Department charged that Mr. Hanssen's statements were often "contradictory, inconsistent or illogical."
But the F.B.I. said during the more than 200 hours of debriefings, Mr. Hanssen had met the terms of the plea agreement.
"Mr. Hanssen's sentencing today reflects the belief of the investigating agencies that there was substantial compliance by Mr. Hanssen in his responsibility to cooperate as a part of this sentencing," Attorney General John Ashcroft said this afternoon at a news conference.
He added, "He used the training and abused the trust in a way which threatened the safety and security of America, and I'm pleased that this chapter in American history has been closed on this day."
Mr. Hanssen's debriefing sessions with federal officials were confidential. But when he confessed to espionage last summer, he told his lawyer that he began selling secrets to Moscow in 1979. He broke off his activities in 1981, and then resumed spying in 1981.
Mr. Hanssen also admitted to spying continuously for the Russians from 1985 to 1992, when he stopped for seven years. He started spying again in 1999 and continued until he was arrested in February 2001.
Among the secrets Mr. Hanssen sold to the Russians was the revelation that the United States government had dug an eavesdropping tunnel underneath the Soviet embassy in Washington. Mr. Hanssen also told the Russians about three K.G.B. officers that were spying for the United States. Two of the K.G.B. officers were executed.
Prosecutors said Mr. Hanssen obtained at least $600,000 in cash and diamonds from the K.G.B., and later the S.V.R., which succeeded the Soviet spy agency. The Soviets also promised Mr. Hanssen that they had an additional $800,000 for him in a bank in Moscow.
As part of the plea agreement, Mr. Hanssen promised to forfeit the money he may have obtained from Moscow as well as any money he might earn from a future book deal or other ventures.
--------
CIA Fails in Bid to Kill Afghan Rebel With a Missile
By Walter Pincus and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 10, 2002; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62842-2002May9?language=printer
The CIA fired a missile from an unmanned Predator aircraft over Afghanistan Monday in an unsuccessful attempt to kill a factional leader who has vowed to attack U.S. service personnel and oust the interim Afghan government of Hamid Karzai, according to administration sources.
The targeting of a meeting of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his top aides outside Kabul was based on information he was plotting attacks against Americans, officials said.
Hekmatyar is a Pashtun who, as leader of a hard-line Islamic party, Hezb-e-Islami, has frequently changed his loyalties over the past 20 years. Anti-Americanism has been one of his few lasting positions, sources said. U.S. officials and Afghanistan's interim leadership allege Hekmatyar has ties to al Qaeda.
The CIA missile strike against Hekmatyar represented an escalation in a confrontation that has been brewing for the past two months between the United States and Hekmatyar. It came a week after British forces established a field operating base on Hekmatyar's home turf of Logar province, to the southeast of Kabul.
Hekmatyar's presence in the area worries the U.S. military because of the threat it presents to the weak central government in the capital and because it is in the same region as U.S.-led military operations against al Qaeda and Taliban fighters along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan.
CIA operators of the Predator were trying to hit "a group of people from his organization, not specifically aiming to kill Hekmatyar," a senior administration official said. "Sadly," the official added, "he survived."
The attack, which was first reported in yesterday's New York Times, was planned without any consultation with the Karzai government, one administration source said.
Hekmatyar returned to Afghanistan in February after years of exile in Iran. He had been asked to leave by Iran, which was about to play host to Karzai and his senior cabinet members. On the eve of Karzai's visit, Hekmatyar called for the removal of the interim leader and for Afghans to attack Americans.
In the last two months, Hekmatyar worked to revitalize his party and is "thought to have developed links to al Qaeda and Taliban groups," according to a Bush administration official. He has been accused of being behind a series of bombings in Kabul in March aimed at destabilizing the Karzai government in advance of the return of the exiled former Afghan king, Mohammed Zahir Shah.
He also was said to have been involved in the attempted assassination of the interim Afghan defense minister, Mohammed Fahim, last month. That attack, in which a bomb detonated as Fahim's convoy passed, killed four bystanders and wounded 18. An Afghan defense ministry spokesman said at the time that the Karzai government has not made any direct links between Hekmatyar and the attempted assassination. "But there's no doubt that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has a close relationship with al Qaeda and the Taliban," the spokesman said.
In the 1970s, Hekmatyar formed his hard-line Islamic group with aid from Pakistan's intelligence services. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, he gained increased funding and arms for anti-Soviet guerrilla operations from Arab countries and the United States through Pakistani intelligence and the CIA. He was one of the most influential factional leaders and during this time had contact with Mohammad Omar, who emerged as an enemy of Hekmatyar when he became leader of the Taliban after the Soviets were defeated.
During the 1980s, Hekmatyar was accused of fighting the Soviets as well as some of his supposed allies from the Northern Alliance, particularly the group's Tajik commander, Ahmed Shah Massoud. He served as prime minister briefly in 1995 before going to Iran.
The U.S. military in Afghanistan sees Hekmatyar as an ally of al Qaeda. "He has been actively involved in trying to undermine the political process in Afghanistan," a State Department official said yesterday. "Hekmatyar has never been a force for stability in Afghanistan," said Haron Amin, the senior Afghan diplomat in Washington.
Gul Haidar, an ethnic Tajik who commands the Kabul government's forces in southeastern Afghanistan, where Hekmatyar appears to be strongest, said in an interview earlier this week, "Al Qaeda and Hekmatyar are the same to me."
In Afghanistan yesterday, British forces said they discovered a large weapons cache in caves in eastern Afghanistan, apparently belonging to al Qaeda or the Taliban.
British Royal Marine Lt. Col. Ben Curry said engineers opened one of four caves and found about 30 truckloads of 12.7mm machine gun ammunition and 82mm mortar shells, the Reuters news service reported. Antitank ammunition was also discovered.
The caves were in the mountains of Paktika province, where British forces have been hunting for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters for 10 days.
-------- taiwan
Taiwan Test - Fires Homegrown Sky Bow Missile
May 10, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-taiwan.html
PINGTUNG, Taiwan - Taiwan test-fired an indigenous surface-to-air missile in public for the first time on Friday, flexing its military muscle a day after President Chen Shui-bian said he wanted to resume talks with rival China.
The test-firing of a long-range Sky Bow II missile and three U.S.-made Hawk missiles was witnessed by Chen and a group of reporters at a missile base in the southern county of Pingtung.
The missiles hit their targets.
Taiwan's Sky Bow and the U.S.-made Patriot missiles form the mainstay of Taiwan's air defense against an ever-growing threat from China, which views the self-governing island as a wayward province and has threatened to attack if it tries to declare independence.
``The situation in the Taiwan Strait seems calm at the moment, but Communist China has never publicly renounced the use of force against Taiwan,'' Chen said in speech.
The president said China's military buildup and deployment of M-class missiles in the past years along its southeast coast was a serious threat to Taiwan's security.
``The main purpose is to build a force with sufficient self-defense, not to engage in an arms race with Communist China,'' Chen said.
Chen said on Thursday he wants to send a delegation from his ruling party to China to get talks with China going again.
Military officials said Friday's test-firing was a normal activity ``with no other motives'' and was not part of Taiwan's annual Han Kuang (Chinese Glory) war games between April and May.
-------- propaganda wars
Newspaper Appeals Subpoena in U.N. War Crimes Tribunal
May 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-War-Crimes-Journalist.html
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- The Washington Post appealed Friday against the subpoena of a former reporter by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, in what could be a precedent-setting case for war correspondents in international justice.
A defense lawyer, seeking to block the summons to retired Washington Post reporter Jonathan C. Randal, argued that compelling journalists to testify to a war crimes court could endanger the journalist's life and the lives of his sources, and would make news gathering more difficult in war zones.
The prosecutor countered that Randal had information that ``goes to the heart of the case'' of ethnic cleansing against two Bosnian Serbs accused of war crimes during the 1992-95 Bosnian conflict. Journalists cannot be given a blanket exemption from testifying in court, said prosecutor Joanna Korner, who argued that the overriding public interest was the fair prosecution of war crimes suspects.
Defense attorney Geoffrey Robertson sought a ruling from the court granting journalists a ``public interest privilege'' to refuse to testify other than in exceptional cases, but which would not stand in the way of any journalist who volunteered his testimony. Those exceptions would fall into ``a narrow area'' in which the evidence is crucial to proving guilt or innocence, he said.
Randal was summoned in the case of Radoslav Brdjanin and Momir Talic, who are accused of the persecution and expulsion of more than 100,000 non-Serbs during the Bosnian war. The defendants have pleaded innocent to 12 counts of war crimes, including genocide.
A court spokesman said Randal's subpoena had been kept confidential, apparently on orders of the court, until it was brought for argument in an open hearing.
In an article published Feb. 11, 1993, Randal quoted Brdjanin, whom he described as a Serbian housing official, as advocating the expulsion of non-Serbs from the Bosnian city of Banja Luka.
The article said Brdjanin ``personally argued that those unwilling to defend Serb territory must be moved out but that the Serb political leadership so far had not agreed. He said he believed the exodus of non-Serbs should be carried out peacefully to create an ethnically clean space through voluntary movement. Muslims and Croats, he says, should not be killed, but should be allowed to leave -- and good riddance.''
Randal was summoned after he told tribunal investigators that a local journalist was with him and had translated Brdjanin's words. The prosecutors said they wanted him to testify because those quotes did not appear in an article written three days later by the second journalist, whose name was being kept secret for his own protection.
In a statement to the court read by Robertson, the Washington Post said it recognized the need to gather evidence against accused war criminals, but forcing reporters to testify was against the long-term public interest.
``Coerced testimony of reporters impairs the news gathering function which is so important to democracy,'' Robertson said, citing the Post's argument. ``These concerns are particularly appropriate in the context of war zone reporting. War correspondents who take the witness stand risk being perceived by potential sources an investigative arm of a judicial system, government or private parties.''
Robertson cautioned the three-judge bench that their ruling would set a precedent for the permanent International Criminal Court, due to come into existence in July to hear cases of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The United States has disavowed its signature on the treaty creating the court and said it will not cooperate with it.
--------
Israel Military Censorship Glance
May 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Censorship-Glance.html
Here's a look at Israel's military censorship:
WHAT IT IS:
The Israeli government, through emergency regulations in effect since the 1948 establishment of the state, requires journalists, local and foreign, to submit security-related materials for approval to the military censor's office -- a unit whose commander holds the rank of brigadier general.
To receive official press accreditation, foreign correspondents must sign a statement saying that they understand the censorship rules. It says that ``all written material, photographs and recordings dealing with security and defense matters intended for transmission abroad must be presented to the censor's office.''
HOW IT WORKS:
The question of whether specific materials require the censor's approval is generally left up to the journalists, although in some cases the decision to censor specific information is made known in various ways.
Written articles are generally faxed to the censor's office -- while other materials usually need to be viewed by a censor in person. The article is faxed back either with an ``approved'' stamp or with deletions marked.
When a story is censored, AP runs an editor's note stating that it was ``reviewed by a military censor as required by the Israeli government, and deletions were made.''
WHAT IS CENSORED:
In recent days the censor has deleted references to the size of the military buildup near the Gaza Strip -- troops and numbers of tanks; the fact of a callup, and the positioning of unspecified numbers of tanks, was not censored.
In recent months the censor has also held up for hours publication of combat deaths until the families could be notified -- arguing that the report might have caused unnecessary alarm to the families of all soldiers.
The censor also has deleted items involving security-related arrests in cases where there was a gag order, in effect enforcing the court's decision.
SANCTIONS:
The document signed by foreign correspondents states that should violations occur, ``the censor is permitted to take measures to prevent the transmission of prohibited news items.'' Violators face possible revocation of press credentials and even expulsion; although violations could be considered a criminal offense, no foreign correspondents are known to have been jailed.
In addition, a media outlet can be shut down -- as was done temporarily to the Israeli newspaper Hadashot in the 1980s.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS
INS Tracking System Set to Roll
Agency Aims to Monitor 1 Million Foreign Students in U.S.
By Cheryl W. Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 10, 2002; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62852-2002May9?language=printer
A new system that will allow the Immigration and Naturalization Service to track approximately 1 million foreign students will be up and running in the next several months, Justice Department sources said yesterday. The start-up of the Internet-based system, after years of criticism from lawmakers of the INS's antiquated tracking methods, is viewed by officials as a significant step toward monitoring foreign studentsand beefing up the country's anti-terror safeguards. The system is scheduled to be operational by July 1.
The INS was "supposed to keep up with [students], and obviously the schools were not cooperating. But the bulk of the problem was the system itself was antiquated," a Justice Department official said yesterday. "You can't push a million students through a paper system and expect to get accuracy."
The system is designed to provide up-to-date computerized information on non-immigrant foreign students, such as name changes and new dropouts, an official said. Each school will have 24 hours to record changes electronically.
Schools now maintain paper records on foreign students; the records are not kept in a central location and are not provided to the INS unless the agency requests them.
"It is the single best step the federal government can take to keep closer tabs on international students studying in the United States," said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, a trade association that represents 1,800 public and private colleges and universities.
A 1996 immigration reform law required the INS to upgrade the system by which it keeps track of the 1 million foreign students studying in the United States at any time. The system must be in place by January.
Pressure to get the system up and running has increased since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Hani Hanjour, one of the 19 hijackers, used a student visa to enter the United States, saying he wanted to study English. He never showed up for class.
INS officials have noted that they lack agents to track down and apprehend foreign students who drop out of school or fail to show up.
"This will create the possibility of monitoring international students far more carefully and in real time," Hartle said. "But INS will still have to act on the information it receives. Whether INS will have the resources to act on the information it receives remains to be seen."
The system will link every U.S. embassy and consulate abroad with every INS port of entry in the United States and all schools eligible to enroll foreign students, Hartle said.
Before foreign students can apply for a visa, they must be accepted by a school, which will enter their names and identifying information in the database. The students will pay a $95 registration fee and be issued a paper receipt. It must be presented along with the acceptance letter to a U.S. embassy or consulate to apply for a visa, he said.
Offices will be set up in schools to ensure that the institutions comply, a Justice Department official said. Repeatviolators will be ineligible for international study, Hartle said.
Victor Johnson, associate executive director for public policy with the Association of International Educators, said he supports the system but expressed concern that the schools are being rushed into compliance by Jan. 1.
"There is going to be an issue of how soon the schools are going to have to have their technology systems up and running," Johnson said. "I think the schools would like to go from a paper system to an electronic system and, in an ideal world, they'd like to do it under less scrutiny."
--------
Gooey, Smelly Weapons Under Study
May 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Messy-Weapons.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Life could suddenly become a sticky, noisy, smelly, altogether unpleasant mess for rioters or enemies that authorities want stopped but not killed.
There are proposals for microorganisms that gobble up highways and runways, sticky sprays that make floors and stairs a gummy mess and fogs that smell really, really bad -- just some of the ideas researched or proposed by the government and contractors and collected by the National Academy of Sciences in a study of non-lethal weapons technology.
Such technology has drawn a lot of interest both for crowd control by police departments and for military use in situations such as Bosnia and Somalia where soldiers may need to defuse situations without killing people.
Some examples are already in use ranging from tear gas to rubber bullets to flash-bang grenades.
Others are under study or development.
Take for example a Marine Corps proposal for ``situational control by olfactory stimuli.''
Think rotten eggs, times 10.
The idea is to combine several bad-smelling substances, largely based on sulfur, with an odor enhancer, sprayed or fogged into an area to induce nausea and cause people to flee.
The researchers would also develop an enzyme to be taken by friendly troops that would counteract the effect.
Simply using gas masks or air filters wouldn't necessarily help, thanks to another project at Los Alamos National Labs.
That research is looking at an aerosol that would form a polymer when it collects on a surface. A polymer is a large molecule formed from many small ones and in this case it would form a solid covering over such things as the filter of a gas mask, air intake of a tank engine or carburetor of a car.
Lack of air can force an enemy to take off a gas mask, halt engines and shut down an underground bunker.
Over at the Office of Naval Research they're looking at genetically modified bacteria that could be sprayed on highways and airport runways and ``eat'' the asphalt.
It's the kind of thing that could get out of hand, though, and researchers are also looking into a gene that makes the bacteria die out after a period of time. The project also includes developing a way to ``vaccinate'' roads that need to be protected.
Sometimes you want things to be slippery, sometimes you don't.
A project at Sandia National Laboratories proposes a microencapsulated lubricant that can be spread on surfaces such as roads, but remains inert.
When something heavy, like an enemy car, drives over, the tiny capsules burst, freeing the lubricant and making the road slippery and impassable.
Inside a motor, of course, lubricants are good, reducing friction so things run smoothly and don't overheat.
The Office of Naval Research has the answer for that. It's working on ways to ``poison'' lubricants in enemy machinery, making them become sticky and causing breakdowns.
Speaking of sticky, Sandia Labs has a proposal to develop weapons that dispense nontoxic sticky materials in foams or sprays.
Enemy computers could be a target and the Defense Nuclear Agency is looking at an aerosol that, once sprayed into the computer center, would short out any exposed electrical connectors and corrode insulators.
While the project to block air intakes requires polymerization, another effort at the Office of Naval Research takes the opposite tack -- depolymerization of things like rubber.
These chemicals could be dispersed by unmanned aircraft, causing enemy tires to deteriorate and fail.
ONR also is working on a type of mine that sprays enemy vehicles with a hard-to-remove, brightly colored dye that shows up on radar, making them an easy target.
Some of the reports note that research may be restricted by international treaties. The chemical weapons treaty bans weapons for use on people but allows research on weapons for use against materiel. It also allows for use of riot control agents in certain circumstances.
In addition, while the treaties apply to military use, the United States contends they do not apply to research at the Justice Department or the Department of Energy.
Other countries also have non-lethal weapons, the studies showed, including:
--France has developed acoustic weapons that emit sounds such as loud whistles.
--England used dizzying lasers in its war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands and has a microwave bomb that destroys non-reinforced circuits in electronics.
--Russia is active in developing electromagnetic pulse generators that can destroy computer circuits.
-------- death penalty
Death Penalty Is Suspended in Maryland
New York Times
May 10, 2002
By FRANCIS X. CLINES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/10/national/10DEAT.html
Citing "reasonable questions" about the fairness of Maryland's death penalty, Gov. Parris N. Glendening ordered a moratorium on executions yesterday until a special study is completed into whether minority felons are unjustly singled out for capital punishment.
"It is imperative that I, as well as our citizens, have complete confidence that the legal process involved in capital cases is fair and impartial," said Mr. Glendening, a Democrat who is in his second term and backs capital punishment.
In his decision, Mr. Glendening acceded to a request last week for a moratorium by Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Mrs. Townsend, a Democrat who is running to succeed Mr. Glendening, noted that the study on the death penalty was due to be completed in September and reviewed next year by the Legislature.
It would be "tough to have a report come out and say this wasn't fair, knowing that while the report was going on that people were executed," Mrs. Townsend said.
Mr. Glendening agreed that it would be "logically inconsistent" for the state to execute people while it studied the fairness of the process.
In announcing the moratorium, the governor issued a stay of execution to Wesley E. Baker, who had been scheduled for lethal injection next week after being convicted of murdering a woman in 1991 in a purse-snatching as she escorted her grandchildren to a shopping center.
Mr. Baker is one of nine blacks among the 13 men on Maryland's death row in cases in which all but one of the victims were white.
Critics of the death penalty in Maryland have long contended that race is a dominant factor in an unjust application of the law in capital cases that involve white victims and black criminals.
"We applaud the governor's decision," said Jane Henderson, co-director of the Quixote Center, a national organization based in Maryland that has been seeking state moratoriums on the death penalty.
"This is a good political move," said Ms. Henderson, speculating that Mrs. Townsend sensed as a candidate that the state Democratic Party's core constituency of urban and black voters had become increasingly sensitive to reports and doubts about the fairness of the death penalty in the 38 states that allow capital punishment.
Maryland is the second state to announce a moratorium on executions. Gov. George Ryan of Illinois suspended executions two years ago, citing investigative reports of multiple injustices. A study last month recommended more than 80 changes in Illinois procedures to guard against abuses.
The two-year Maryland study by specialists at the University of Maryland is focusing on several factors in researching whether racial bias affects the application of the death penalty.
Critics like the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty emphasize that although 28 percent of the Maryland population is African-American, blacks represent 70 percent of the death-row population and 80 percent of the murder victims. Yet in cases where prosecutors seek the death penalty, more than 90 percent of the victims have been white.
"Maryland has a higher concentration of African-Americans on death row than any other state in the country," Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of the coalition, said. "A system where race and geography play a vital role in who lives and who dies is a system that is irreparably broken."
In his announcement, Mr. Glendening said the state needed "absolute confidence in the integrity of the process." "My heart goes out to the families of the victims of these horrible crimes," he said. "But I must honor the responsibility I have to be absolutely certain of both the guilt of the criminal and the fairness and impartiality of the process."
Nationally, nearly 7 out of 10 death penalty verdicts have been reversed in recent appellate reviews, and more than 100 innocent people have been exonerated, according to the Justice Project, a group that lobbies against wrongful executions.
Since capital punishment was re-established in 1976, Maryland has executed three men, two of them black, in the murders of three people, all white.
"I continue to believe that there are certain crimes that are so brutal and so vile that they call for society to impose the ultimate punishment," Mr. Glendening said in his announcement of the moratorium.
--------
Maryland Second to Ban Executions
May 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Maryland-Death-Penalty.html
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- Saying he supports the death penalty but wants to make sure it's fairly applied, Gov. Parris Glendening has banned executions during his final eight months in office, making Maryland the second state with such a moratorium.
Glendening said Thursday that he would suspend all executions while a study is done on whether capital punishment is meted out in a racially discriminatory way. In announcing the moratorium, Glendening blocked next week's lethal injection of 44-year-old Wesley Baker.
Glendening's move follows the example set by Illinois: In 2000, Gov. George Ryan declared the nation's first moratorium on the death penalty, citing the release of 13 death row inmates who were found to have been unfairly convicted. Last month, a commission appointed by Ryan recommended reforms to reduce the possibility of wrongful convictions, including cutting the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty and videotaping police interrogations.
Glendening, a Democrat who is barred from seeking a third term this fall, repeated his support for the death penalty for especially heinous crimes. But he said ``reasonable questions have been raised in Maryland and across the country about the application of the death penalty.''
``It is imperative that I, as well as our citizens, have complete confidence that the legal process involved in capital cases is fair and impartial,'' he said.
The Maryland study, which is already under way, is expected to be completed in September and will then be reviewed by state lawmakers. Glendening said he expects the moratorium to remain in place for about a year. However, the next governor is free to resume executions upon taking office in January.
Nine of the 13 men on Maryland's death row are black and many of the victims were white. Glendening also noted that nine of the men on death row were convicted in Baltimore County, and said: ``Use of the death penalty ought not to be a lottery of geography.''
The governor's office said five men, including Baker, could have faced execution before Glendening's term ends.
Democratic Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who is running for governor and supports the death penalty in some cases, had asked Glendening to impose the moratorium. The governor said Townsend's request was not a significant factor in his decision.
About 3,700 people are on death row for crimes committed in the 38 states with the death penalty. Critics contend the death penalty is more likely to be imposed if the defendant is black and the victim white.
Baker, who is black, was convicted of killing a 49-year-old white grandmother at a shopping center in 1991. Baker has not denied taking part in the attempted robbery, but his lawyers say there is not enough evidence to prove that he fired the gun. A co-defendant was sentenced to life in prison.
In his 7 1/2 years in office, Glendening has allowed the executions of two men and commuted the sentence of a third, two years ago, saying he was not absolutely certain of the man's guilt.
The governor commissioned the death penalty study two years ago because of concerns that blacks were unfairly being singled out for death sentences.
The study is being done by Ray Paternoster, a criminologist at the University of Maryland. He and seven doctoral students are reviewing about 6,000 criminal cases dating to 1978 where prosecutors could have sought the death penalty. Maryland reinstated capital punishment in 1978.
In a study of South Carolina, Paternoster concluded that a key factor in death sentences there was the race of the victim.
In Maryland, Paternoster said he hopes to determine what motivates prosecutors to pursue death sentences and juries to impose them. He declined to comment on the moratorium.
Montgomery County, Md., prosecutor Doug Gansler, who rarely presses for a death sentence, predicted the Maryland study will not find significant racial bias and said the death penalty should remain the law since life without parole is also an option for prosecutors.
``Either way, the convicted murderer is coming out of prison in a box,'' Gansler said.
On the Net:
Death Penalty Info Center: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
Other links: http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
-------- terrorism
The War on Terror Flounders
New York Times
May 10, 2002
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/10/opinion/10KRIS.html
WASHINGTON - To understand why America's war on terrorism is beginning to sputter, infiltrate the Bush administration's Bat Cave at the intersection of Intelligence Way and Cryptological Court (no, I'm not making this up) at a Navy base here. This is the brand-new homeland defense center from which America will respond to anthrax, smallpox, nuclear attack, multiple hijackings or other shoes still to drop.
Tom Ridge, his chest puffed out with pride, showed off the command center on Wednesday to a group of reporters. You had to feel sorry for him, for it was a color-coded moment.
Standing in front of four 50-inch plasma television screens, Mr. Ridge hailed the super-classified capabilities of the SCIF (sensitive compartmented information facility). Unfortunately, while the television system allows simultaneous video conferencing with the White House Situation Room and the C.I.A., the huge plasma screens were devoted to television broadcasts. One of them was showing "Divorce Court."
The command center is symptomatic of something broader: After an excellent start, the war on terrorism is floundering.
It is not just that Osama bin Laden and the anthrax killer remain at large. Rather, it's that despite the buzz of activity - such as doffing our shoes at airports - we as a nation can't seem to get ahead of the curve in avoiding the next catastrophe, by taking steps such as controlling loose nukes, learning how to decontaminate after anthrax attacks, examining checked baggage, checking shipping containers and reducing the risk from states like Iraq or North Korea.
Perhaps the loss of momentum is inevitable with the passage of time, and it is true that we are registering progress in all these areas - just not fast enough. The upshot is that we lose our fingernail clippers when we board planes, but somebody could still detonate a dirty bomb in New York City and devastate the nation's economy, or send out 100 anthrax letters around the country and close down the nation's postal system.
Americans seem lulled by the calm since 9/11, by the new security measures in place. But remember that Al Qaeda typically spaces its attacks a year or more apart.
And as for the effectiveness of new security measures, I was sobered on my last major trip. My hotel in Sudan gave me a farewell gift of a pocket knife, and since I had only carry-on bags I assumed someone would find it and confiscate it. I stowed the knife with some care, and although I went through three international airports and my carry-on bag was X-rayed each time, no one found the knife.
The Afghan campaign was truly a triumph, and Mr. Bush has surpassed other recent presidents in gathering smart and experienced advisers in security matters. But he refuses to send a small number of troops for a security force to sustain peace in Afghanistan, and thus the entire investment of lives and effort could be lost. Is there any explanation other than inertia to account for the United States' maintaining 47,000 troops in Japan, despite the lack of any threat there except perhaps from extraterrestrials, yet refusing to provide a few thousand troops to keep the swamp drained in Afghanistan?
Then there's Iraq. The president's failure to engage the Arab-Israeli conflict earlier has made it much less likely that he can oust Saddam Hussein anytime soon.
On the domestic front, let's start by giving Mr. Ridge a real job! Let's pull out his gag and allow him to speak to Congress. The White House is only belatedly realizing that the homeland defense structure needs to be revised to give him the clout of the average Washington maître d'.
Mr. Ridge was so thrilled showing off his new command center (which, a bureaucratic flow chart helpfully explained, can facilitate meetings among the N.S.C. L.N.O., the D.O.J. U.S.B.P. and the D.O.T. F.R.A.) that it felt churlish to question him. He insisted he was getting cooperation from other agencies to staff the desks marked with names like C.I.A. and D.I.A.; it would have been more plausible if the staplers and scissors on those empty desks had been taken out of their packing.
He kept repeating how he would be able to monitor this and monitor that. Great, but I wish that instead of monitoring the next crisis we were doing more to prevent it from happening.
We asked Mr. Ridge if he was frustrated with his position. "I'm not authorized to be frustrated," he said gamely.
No, but we are.
--------
Feds to Track Foreign Students
May 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Tracking-Students.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government will keep better track of the estimated 1 million foreign students in the United States with a new Internet-based reporting system, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Friday. It's supposed to be in full operation by January, but some schools are doubtful.
While the Immigration and Naturalization Service has been working on the system for years, it didn't get significant funding until after the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings.
Americans ``will gain a measure of assurance that the students who are visiting our country are who they purport to be,'' Ashcroft said. He said the current paper-based reporting doesn't efficiently verify if a student is studying at an educational institution.
The INS has acknowledged major gaps in tracking foreign students. Last month it imposed new restrictions on student visas, requiring any foreigner wishing to study in the United States to have an approved student visa before taking courses. Students previously could begin classes while waiting for visa applications to be approved.
Schools will be required to notify the INS within 24 hours if a student drops out or doesn't show up and to report the student's status after each term. A student will have 30 days rather than six months to show up on campus after entering the country.
Three of the 19 hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 terror attacks were in the United States on student visas. Hani Hanjour, believed to have piloted the plane that hit the Pentagon, entered the United States on a student visa. He was enrolled at a California school for an intensive English course and failed to show.
The INS will have a partial system running in July, allowing schools to enter one student at a time online, a Justice Department official said. By Jan. 1, the agency plans to have a system that allows schools to transmit databases with many names. All schools that accept foreign students will be required to participate by Jan. 30 or will be unable to enroll foreign students.
Terry Hartle of the American Council on Education said schools' ability to meet the deadline depends on when the INS calls to tell software vendors how to link schools to the system.
``What INS is trying to do on a very compressed timetable is orders of magnitude harder than any federal agency has attempted to do before with colleges and universities and other schools,'' Hartle said.
The tracking system will link every U.S. consulate with every INS port of entry and all 74,000 educational institutions eligible to host foreign students, Hartle said.
Victor Johnson of the Association of International Educators said schools most likely to miss the deadline are those with foreign student populations too big to enter names individually, but not big enough to warrant full staffs and heavy resources.
``The schools will be the ones portrayed as dragging their feet on the war on terrorism and that's not a picture everyone relishes,'' Johnson said.
For three decades the INS has required colleges and universities to compile information on international students. But because of the volume of paper generated, the INS told schools in 1988 to keep the files on campus.
Hartle said that when the new system is operating, foreign students accepted by a U.S. school will be sent an INS form I-20. The school will enter the student's information into the INS tracking system. The student then will have to pay a $95 registration fee and will be given a paper receipt.
The student must show that receipt and a completed I-20 form to apply for a visa at a consulate. If the visa is granted, the consulate will note it in the INS tracking system. When the student arrives in America, INS will note that in the database and notify the school to expect the student on campus within 30 days. If the student doesn't show, the campus must contact INS within 24 hours.
On the Net:
Student and Exchange Visitor Information System: http://www.ins.gov/graphics/services/tempbenefits/sevp.html
---------
Feds Warn on 'Trucking Terrorists'
May 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Trucks.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal and state officials lack sufficient safeguards to stop would-be terrorists from illegally obtaining commercial truck driver's licenses, government investigators say.
The Transportation Department report comes amid continuing worries about terrorists using trucks loaded with gasoline, bombs or other hazardous materials in the same way that hijackers used commercial airliners to kill thousands on Sept. 11.
The federal and state agencies that oversee the trucking industry do not carry out detailed checks to make sure that driver's licenses are properly issued, the department's inspector general said in the report released Friday.
``Existing federal standards and state controls are not sufficient to defend against the alarming threat'' posed by individuals who seek to fraudulently obtain commercial driver's licenses, the report said.
Only four of 13 states examined by the inspector general's office required applicants to prove they were citizens of the United States or legally in the country, the report said.
Many states do not require applicants to prove they live in the state, do not verify Social Security numbers and do not give tests to prove whether a driver can read and speak English, it said.
Assistant Inspector General Alexis Stefani recommended new federal rules to address the problems.
Transportation Department spokesman Chet Lunner said the agency is following many of the recommendations. ``We are working diligently with the states to improve their systems,'' he said.
Joan Claybrook, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration during the Carter administration, said the shortcomings noted Friday create loopholes that can be exploited by terrorists.
``It means you can have terrorists get their hands on them and legitimately drive vehicles that have toxic chemicals and nuclear materials,'' said Claybrook, now president of the advocacy group Public Citizen.
CIA official Robert Walpole told the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in March that terrorist groups or rogue states were less likely to fire a missile at the United States and more likely to use trucks, ships or planes to deliver chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Earlier criminal investigations have found fraud in connection with the issuance of licenses in 16 states, the inspector general said. Three states -- Illinois, Florida and Georgia -- accounted for 1,400 fraudulently issued licenses, the report said.
Dave Osiecki, the American Trucking Associations' vice president for safety and operations, acknowledged problems with licensing drivers, although he said the number of fraudulent licenses was small compared to the 10 million truck and bus drivers on the road.
``The industry has seen gaps in this program for a significant period of time,'' Osiecki said. ``Federal oversight of state compliance has been one of those gaps. Most who follow the program know oversight could have been and can be improved.''
In response to the terrorist attacks, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration visited more than 38,000 trucking companies, driving schools, and truck-rental firms, asking them to identify drivers from countries that support terrorist activities, conduct background checks of employees, and try to use routes that bypass high-population areas if possible.
FBI agents investigating the terrorist attacks found that several men of Middle Eastern descent had obtained fraudulent licenses to transport hazardous materials.
In addition, the Transportation Department is writing regulations requiring Justice Department background checks before a state can issue or renew a license that allows the driver to carry hazardous materials.
On the Net:
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration: http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov
Inspector General: http://www.oig.dot.gov
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- environment
DEET Linked to Neurological Damage
May 10, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-10-09.html#anchor7
DURHAM, North Carolina, A common ingredient in mosquito and tick repellents may be linked to some neurological problems, a new study suggests.
A Duke University Medical Center pharmacologist is recommending caution when using the insecticide DEET, after his animal studies last year found the chemical causes diffuse brain cell death and behavioral changes in rats after frequent and prolonged use.
Mohamed Abou-Donia, PhD has called for further government testing of the chemical's safety in short term and occasional use, particularly in view of Health Canada's recent decision to ban products with more than 30 percent of the chemical.
Every year, about one-third of the U.S. population uses insect repellents containing DEET, available in more than 230 products with concentrations up to 100 percent. While the chemical's risks to humans are still being intensely debated, Abou-Donia says his 30 years of research on pesticides' brain effects indicate the need for caution among the general public.
His numerous studies in rats, two of them published last year, demonstrate that frequent and prolonged applications of DEET cause neurons to die in regions of the brain that control muscle movement, learning, memory and concentration. Rats treated with an average human dose of DEET - 40 milligrams per kilogram body weight - performed far worse than control rats when challenged with physical tasks requiring muscle control, strength and coordination.
Such effects are consistent with physical symptoms in humans reported in the medical literature, such as those experienced by some Gulf War veterans, said Abou-Donia.
"If used sparingly, infrequently and by itself, DEET may not have negative effects - the literature here isn't clear," Abou-Donia said. "But frequent and heavy use of DEET, especially in combination with other chemicals or medications, could cause brain deficits in vulnerable populations."
Children are at particular risk for subtle brain changes caused by chemicals in the environment, because their skin more readily absorbs them, and chemicals may affect their developing nervous systems, said Abou-Donia.
Preparations like insecticide based lice killing shampoos and insect repellents are assumed to be safe because severe consequences are rare in the medical literature. Yet subtle symptoms, such as muscle weakness, fatigue or memory lapses, might be attributed to other causes in error, Abou-Donia said.
"The take home message is to be safe and cautious when using insecticides," said Abou-Donia. "Never use insect repellents on infants, and be wary of using them on children in general. Never combine insecticides with each other or use them with other medications. Even so simple a drug as an antihistamine could interact with DEET to cause toxic side effects. Don't spray your yard for bugs and then take medications. Until we have more data on potential interactions in humans, safe is better than sorry."
----
Pollution Kills Thousands of Children
May 10, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/may2002/2002L-05-10-06.html
NEW YORK, New York, About 5,500 children die each day around the world from diseases caused by polluted air, water and food, concludes a new study released Thursday by three United Nations agencies. The report details the deadly threat that environmental degradation poses to the Earth's most vulnerable citizens.
Environmental contamination gives rise to a number of diseases, including diarrhea and acute respiratory infections - two of the leading causes of child mortality - charges the report, "Children in the New Millennium: Environmental Impact on Health."
The study notes that thousands of children continue to die every day from pollution related diseases, despite improvements made over the past 10 years in both children's well being and the environment.
"We have made great strides over the last decade," said Carol Bellamy, executive director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). "Children are healthier today. There is more access to clean water."
Carol Bellamy, executive director of UNICEF. (Photo courtesy UNICEF)
"But these disturbing figures show we have barely started to address some of the main problems," Bellamy added. "Far too many children are dying from diseases that can be prevented through access to clean water and sanitation."
The 140 page report was produced by UNICEF, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It was released in conjunction with the three day United Nations (UN) General Assembly special session on children, which opened in New York on Wednesday.
The conference, attended by more than 60 heads of state or government and 170 national delegations, aims to place children at the top of the world's agenda and foster more investment in essential social services for them. One of its main goals is to increase household access to hygienic sanitation facilities and affordable and safe drinking water.
The UN report identifies a number of environmental problems that directly affect children, such as high levels of toxic chemicals and the degradation and depletion of natural resources. For example, lead contamination in the environment - much of it from leaded gasoline - causes permanent neurological and developmental disorders in children.
A girl delegate at the Children's Forum. (Photo by Susan Markisz (c) UNICEF)
Millions of children work in agriculture, putting them at high risk of pesticide poisoning. Children are also disproportionately vulnerable to global environmental problems, such as the impact of climate change, the depletion of the ozone layer, and the loss of the planet's biological diversity, the report warns.
According to WHO, almost one third of the global disease burden can be attributed to environmental risk factors. More than 40 percent of this burden falls on children under five years of age, even though they account for just 10 percent of the world's population.
A major contributing factor to these diseases is malnutrition, which affects around 150 million children and undermines their immune systems.
Malnutrition and diarrhea form a vicious cycle. The organisms that cause diarrhea harm the walls of children's digestive tracts, which prevents them absorbing their food, causing even greater malnutrition - and vulnerability to disease.
Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, director general of WHO. (Photo courtesy WHO)
"People are most vulnerable in their youngest years," said WHO director general Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland. "This means that children must be at the center of our response to unhealthy environments."
The report warns that the public has little awareness of children's special vulnerability to environmental health risks. Klaus Töpfer, UNEP's executive director, called for international action to raise awareness of the problem.
"I am convinced that we need to elevate children's environmental health issues on the international agenda, both through the General Assembly's special session on children and then the World Summit on Sustainable Development," said Töpfer. "We should recognize that realizing children's rights and managing environmental challenges are mutually reinforcing goals."
The report calls for increased national investment in early child care, including focusing on the immediate environments of children, like homes, schools, and communities. One notable success in many countries is the transition to unleaded fuel, which helps eliminate lead from the environment.
Gabriela Azurduy Arrieta of Bolivia presents the recommendations of the Children's Forum to delegates at the UN General Assembly's Special Session on Children on Wednesday. (Photo by Susan Markisz (c) UNICEF)
Töpfer added that he hoped the new study "will inspire everyone who cares about children to take decisive action that will improve both their health and the environment."
In the United States, a new bill was introduced Thursday that would increase federal research on hormone disrupting chemicals, among the most persistent and insidious environmental pollutants. Hormone disruptors are synthetic chemicals that block, mimic or otherwise interfere with naturally produced hormones that control how an organism develops and functions.
Since the 1970s, the incidence of childhood cancers, learning disabilities, autism, diabetes, early puberty, and abnormal penile development has skyrocketed. Evidence linking these disorders with exposure to hormone disrupting chemicals has continued to mount.
"What is especially troubling is that children are exposed to these chemicals in the womb and shortly after birth - periods of rapid development," said Dr. Theo Colborn, director of the World Wildlife Fund's wildlife and contaminants program.
Representative Louise Slaughter introduced a bill Thursday to fund studies of hormone disrupting chemicals. (Photo courtesy Office of the Representative)
Representative Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat, has sponsored the Hormone Disruption Research Act of 2002, which would authorize up to $500 million for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to conduct a five year research program on hormone disruption.
NIEHS would also be required to provide public reports on the extent to which hormone disrupting chemicals pose a threat to human health and the environment.
"This legislation is long overdue. Not one chemical in use today has been adequately tested for its ability to undermine the construction of children's bodies and brains," said Dr. Colborn. "There is an urgent need to support innovative research designed to identify hazards that traditional toxicology has missed."
----
Ruling on Dumping of Mine Waste Stuns Coal Industry
By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 10, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62730-2002May9?language=printer
The coal industry was reeling yesterday from a federal court ruling that would end a long-standing practice of filling rivers and streams with waste rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations.
The ruling, issued Wednesday by Chief U.S. District Judge Charles H. Haden II in West Virginia, immediately blocked the Army Corps of Engineers from issuing new permits to mining companies that dump waste in Appalachian waterways and valleys. Mining officials warned that if the ruling stands, it will seriously harm the region's economy, forcing utility costs up and possibly eliminating 15,000 mining jobs in the next five years.
"It has the potential impact to shut down the majority of coal mining operations in Appalachia," said Bill K. Caylor of the Kentucky Coal Association, an industry group that intervened in the suit in Haden's court. "It applies to all surface and underground operations, and it stops them from having [valley] fills -- and you can't mine without putting that fill somewhere."
The 47-page ruling also rebuked the Bush administration, which last week issued rules removing a legal impediment to mining companies dumping dirt and rock waste into waterways. Officials of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, who jointly regulate the dumping of dredge spoil and other materials into waterways, had characterized the rule changes as largely a technical matter that would not significantly alter current practices.
However, since 1977, the Army Corps' own regulations have prohibited mining companies from disposing of materials considered waste, including rock and dirt, in nearby waterways. Haden described the government rule change as a special favor to the mining industry that effectively would codify what he characterized as nearly 20 years of illegal dumping condoned by the Army Corps of Engineers.
"The final rule for 'discharge of fill material' highlights that the rule change was designed simply for the benefit of the mining industry and its employees," Haden wrote. "The agencies' attempt to legalize their long-standing illegal regulatory practice must fail. . . . The regulators' practice is illegal because it is contrary to the spirit and the letter of the Clean Water Act."
A Justice Department spokesman said yesterday the government would petition the court for a stay of the injunction pending an appeal of Haden's ruling.
"We are surprised at the judge's ruling . . . and believe the court misinterpreted the Corps of Engineers' authority to issue permits under the Clean Water Act," Charles Miller, the spokesman, said. "We also believe the court erred when it seemingly invalidated -- without briefing by the parties -- a new Clean Water Act rule . . . to address the definition of fill material."
Jack Gerard, president of the National Mining Association, said that "we are startled by the scope of this decision, which appears to call into question" the Army Corps' permitting activities under the Clean Water Act.
Haden ruled in 1999 in a similar case that dumping mine waste in streams violated federal law. But the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling, saying Haden lacked jurisdiction because the underlying lawsuit involved a state agency.
This time, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a group of environmentalists and community activists, sued the Army Corps' Huntington, W.Va., district office, which has been responsible for approving the vast majority of the nation's "valley fills" in West Virginia and portions of Ohio, eastern Kentucky and western Virginia.
Modern mining techniques make it possible to shear off the tops of mountains to reach veins of valuable, low-sulfur coal and bulldoze the leftover rock and dirt into nearby valleys. It is a profitable, if ecologically controversial, venture.
In the past decade, mining companies have obtained permits resulting in the leveling of hundreds of square miles of Appalachia and the covering of more than 1,000 miles of streams, according to environmental groups. Caylor said most of the waterways covered were dry drainage channels, not free-flowing streams.
Environmentalists hailed Haden's ruling as a lethal blow to mountaintop mining. "This is a great victory for citizens living in the shadow of these huge mines," said Joseph M. Lovett, a lawyer in Lewisburg, W.Va., and executive director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment.
According to detailed March 5 EPA briefing material obtained by Lovett and James M. Hecker of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, the administration has been considering further steps to expedite mountaintop mining -- including shifting all permitting responsibility to the states -- despite clear evidence of environmental damage.
The EPA documents and consultant analyses showed, for example, that 1 percent of all streams in the four-state Appalachian region studied have been eliminated by valley fill; that mining operations have harmed downstream aquatic life and boosted the levels of sulfates and other pollutants; and that land restoration activities promised by the mining companies were "not occurring as envisioned."
An EPA consultant's report also concluded that the economic effects of restricting mining would not be as severe as claimed by industry.
The Huntington office issued 257 of the 306 valley fill permits issued nationwide in 2000. Ten federal permit applications are pending in the Appalachian region. The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection also has put on hold 87 state-issued permits that require federal approval.
-------- health
Family Gets Chips Implant in Study
May 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Implantable-Chip.html
BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) -- With a painless syringe-prick in their upper arms, a Florida family on Friday became the first recipients of tiny, computer chip implants that store medical information.
Jeff and Leslie Jacobs, along with their 14-year-old son, Derek, had the chips, about the size of a grain of rice, implanted in about a minute under local anesthesia.
The family wanted the implants in case of future medical emergencies.
The implant, called the VeriChip, were designed by Palm Beach-based Applied Digital Solutions Inc. The chips are similar to chips implanted in pets to identify them if they are lost.
Jeff Jacobs is a 48-year-old dentist who has suffered through cancer, a car crash, a degenerative spinal condition, chronic eye disease and abdominal operations. He is on 10 medications and doctors have told him they are not sure how long he will live.
``We're doing this as a security for us, because we've worked so hard to save my husband's life,'' said Leslie Jacobs, 46.
The Jacobs family's chips contain only telephone numbers and information about previous medications.
The VeriChip doesn't require batteries and its data is read by a scanning device which can be Internet-connected to access a medical record database. Patients would pay a fee to keep private medical information in the database, but would be able to update and manage their own records.
For now, patients or their families would have to tell emergency medical workers that a chip had been implanted, VeriChip officials said. If the use of such chips ever become commonplace, emergency workers might automatically scan for the devices.
The Food and Drug Administration said in April that it would not regulate the implant as long as it contains no medical data.
The FDA did not consider the implant to be a medical device, company officials said. An FDA spokeswoman in Miami did not return a phone call Friday.
Company officials hope to eventually include more extensive information. The company says it would be particularly valuable for those who suffer from Alzheimer's disease or others with difficulty providing medical information on their own.
VeriChip, which does not require batteries, is expected to sell for about $200. A scanner used to read its information would cost between $1,000 and $3,000.
The chip, which could also be used as a security tool, has stirred debate over its potential use as a ``Big Brother'' device to track people or invade the privacy of their homes or workplaces.
Jacobs and his family brushed aside those arguments, saying anyone can be tracked through the Internet and e-mail, credit cards and cellular phones.
-------- human rights
Women Vote in Bahrain for First Time
May 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Bahrain-Elections.html
MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) -- Bahrain's first free and fair elections in nearly 30 years drew praise and a good turnout, but also disappointment that no women were elected to the island's municipal councils.
Justice Minister Sheik Khalid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa said Friday that 28 of the 50 council seats had been decided in Thursday's voting, but all the winners were men.
The remaining 22 seats would be decided in runoffs on May 16. None of their candidates were women.
The political character of the successful candidates was not immediately apparent as they were all political unknowns. Some of the winners are known in their communities for charity work.
The polls, the first since legislative elections in 1973, had given Bahraini women their first chance to vote and run for office.
``I am personally very sad (that no women were elected). The government and king will also be very disappointed because they (the female candidates) have run very aggressive election campaigns,'' Information Minister Nabeel Al Hamer told The Associated Press.
Of the 306 candidates contesting the elections, 30 had been women.
However, the elections were seen as a successful step in the process of transforming Bahrain from a traditional emirate where the ruler wields absolute power to a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. Legislative elections are due in October.
``This is the starting point for democracy,'' said former dissident and Shiite leader Mansoor al-Jamri after voting Thursday in Saar.
``This is the first light and we hope that it leads us to a brighter future,'' said Hassan Mushaima, another former dissident who voted in Daih, south of the capital. ``It was a great experience and we are eagerly looking forward to the parliamentary elections.''
Men and women voters stood Thursday in long, separate lines in keeping with the country's conservative Islamic traditions.
``Let me in, let me in!'' shouted a bespectacled Maryam Mohammed Yousuf, 80, at a polling center in Manama that failed to open on time. She was supported by a metal walking stick and a female relative. As with most women voters, she wore a black chador -- a head-to-toe robe.
``As a loyal citizen I've been waiting for this opportunity all my life,'' Yousuf said after she voted. ``This is a new birth for the nation, this is very, very, very, good.''
Officials said the voting was heavier than expected, but had not released turnout figures by Friday morning.
More than 200,000 residents were eligible to vote, including citizens of neighboring Gulf Cooperation Council states and foreigners owning property in the kingdom. Bahrain has a population of about 650,000 people.
The polls were closely watched by Gulf Arab states, most of whom have autocratic systems of government. Bahrain's eastern neighbor, Qatar, is the only other Gulf Arab state that allows women to run for office. Kuwait holds elections, but bars women from running.
The municipal elections are part of a process initiated by the king, Sheik Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, to transform the island's political system since he took power after the death of his father in 1999.
During the mid-1990s, Shiite Muslims, who form a slight majority in Bahrain, staged a violent campaign for political reform and the restoration of parliament, which was dissolved in 1975. More than 40 people were killed in the unrest. The ruling Al Khalifa family hails from the mainstream Sunni branch of Islam.
Last year, Bahrainis approved a reformist national charter in a referendum. In February this year, Sheik Hamed declared a constitutional monarchy and scheduled legislative elections for Oct. 24.
However, he plans to appoint one of the houses of the bicameral legislature, allowing him to control lawmaking. Shiite Muslim political activists have expressed reservations to this move.
Bahrain became independent from Britain in 1971. It is aligned with the West and is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.
-------- ACTIVISTS
A Vibrant Battler of Apartheid Keeps Her Vibrancy
New York Times
May 10, 2002
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/10/international/africa/10GORD.html
JOHANNESBURG - Behind the wooden gate, past the skittering dog, inside the rambling old house, plastered on the door of Nadine Gordimer's office is an African National Congress poster that proclaims, "Freedom Now!"
The poster may raise an eyebrow. Just last year, it seemed that some black leaders of the governing African National Congress and Ms. Gordimer, the pre-eminent author and white anti-apartheid activist, had fallen out after local officials deemed one of her books racist and tried to ban it from high schools.
The officials backtracked after a furious outcry, but the poster still prompts the question: has Ms. Gordimer wavered in her longstanding support for the African National Congress?
To raise the question is to risk the wrath of Ms. Gordimer, a Nobel laureate who is slight but imposing with her silver hair and fierce eyes. "This is so distressing and so annoying," she snapped. "The A.N.C. did nothing to Nadine Gordimer."
With that, she ticked off a few things she would like the world to know.
One: This was not some tragic tale of a white supporter of the struggle being betrayed by black allies. The members of the local panel that proposed banning her book were white, not black.
Two: The nation's minister of education called her immediately to say the idea of banning the book, "July's People," was ludicrous and would never happen under an A.N.C. government.
Three: Nadine Gordimer is still a loyal member of the African National Congress, a supporter of President Thabo Mbeki and an optimist about South Africa and its future, eight years after the end of apartheid.
"People like myself, who identify with the freedom struggle, we see so many good changes that have occurred, so many true signs of freedom," Ms. Gordimer said in an interview this week. "It's certainly not the majority of whites who feel pessimistic about the future here; there are many people who feel as I do."
She continued: "The laws have changed; this is a tremendous thing in itself. A large amount of people who never had running water now have it. The same thing applies to electrification. Many people take this for granted, but black South Africans never had these things available to them during the apartheid era."
At a time when many whites grumble openly about their anxieties under black rule, Ms. Gordimer offers a striking counterpoint. In her sprawling house, with its crowded bookshelves, she is still celebrating South Africa's hard-fought freedom, even as she acknowledges the difficulties and challenges ahead.
Some whites roll their eyes at her talk. They dismiss her as a hopeless romantic, an idealist who has closed her ears to the everyday concerns of whites, who make up about 13 percent of the population.
Ms. Gordimer, who at 78 seems tough as nails, says she is no dreamer. She has watched the giddy euphoria fade in the years since Nelson Mandela was elected the first black president in 1994. She hears the complaints from prominent white politicians about crime and affirmative action. She has her own worries about unemployment, AIDS and corruption.
But it should not be forgotten, she emphasizes, that blacks and whites are now treated equally under the law, or that the A.N.C. government brought houses to more than a million poor blacks for the first time.
"I'm a realistic optimist," said Ms. Gordimer, who spoke to a reporter in a series of interviews, once at her home several months ago and then again this week. "I know how huge the problems are. I know the big mistakes that have been made. But the problems are being tackled. They cannot be solved in seven or eight years. What is seven years?"
Ms. Gordiner is one of South Africa's literary giants. She chronicled the injustices of apartheid in novels and short stories along with other white artists, including the playwright Athol Fugard and the novelist J. M. Coetzee.
The white government banned several of her books, but she won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991 and she is still writing, still exploring this changing world.
On cold winter afternoons, she climbs the stairs to her attic office, where the sun streams through the windows. An Olivetti typewriter sits on her desk along with a copy of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary and a bottle of Wite-Out correction fluid that has toppled over.
Her most recent novel, "The Pick-Up," explores the relationship between a wealthy white South African woman and a working-class Arab immigrant. Ms. Gordimer does not like to talk about her works in progress, but she enjoys describing the changes around her.
She pours a cup of hot tea, sinks into her chair and marvels at South Africa, post-apartheid. There are poor blacks becoming first-time homeowners. White and black teenagers teetering on platform shoes at the malls. Whites learning to work for black bosses. Multiracial professionals becoming neighbors in some prosperous suburbs.
But Ms. Gordimer quickly bristles at questions she considers irrelevant. Do not, for instance, ask about how white liberals are feeling these days. ("I happen to be white, but I'm not a liberal, my dear," she said sharply. "I'm a leftist.")
In fact, she has grown quite weary of all the questions she gets from Americans and Europeans who worry about the plight of whites in the new South Africa.
"It is a stock question that I'm asked whenever I travel: `What is happening to whites?' " Ms. Gordimer said. "Whites in Europe and America, they identify very strongly with whites in a minority situation and they project their own fears onto our situation.
"But I say: `Do you never think about what is happening to blacks? Do you think it's all rosy? That the transition is not difficult for all people?' "
Ms. Gordimer praises Mr. Mandela for his leadership and for setting a positive example in this new democracy by stepping down after one term. But she also supports Mr. Mbeki, who is often criticized by whites for his strong support of affirmative action and black empowerment.
She says she sometimes disagrees with him, particularly with his stance that the cause of AIDS is still debatable. But she notes that he reversed course last month and agreed to distribute AIDS drugs to pregnant women infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.
It only takes a drive from Ms. Gordimer's prosperous, tree-lined street to the ramshackle black townships to see that true equality is still out of reach for most people. She acknowledges that her party has yet to accomplish many of its cherished goals, like free health care.
But she and others argue that the A.N.C. should not be written off because it has sometimes failed to transform its dreams into reality. Falling short, she says, will not stop South Africans from moving forward.
----
Saturday night: Massive Tel-Aviv peace rally
From: Gush Shalom <adam@gush-shalom.org>
[1] Gush Shalom at tommorow evening's rally
Gush Shalom activists will participate actively at tomorow's rally in the Rabin Square, Tel- Aviv. At 7.00 PM we will meet at the mid-way entry to the sqaure from the west (opposite Gordon Street) and we will distribute our stickers - one with the Israeli and Palestinian flgs, andother with the slogan "Arafat is the partner" and the picture of Yitchak Rabin, the man who recognised him as a partner and siad so half an hour before he was murdered. Gush Shalom will also maintain an information table on that spot, througout the rally.
Note: we hope to have your help, but if you don't want to help Gush Shalom on this particular evening, then JUST COME TO THE RALLY. It is very very important, even if you have some reservations about some of the orgainsers' slogans or their speakers. In years to come nobody will remember the exact slogans or the exact speakers - but they will remember that it was the biggest peace rally since the intifada broke out, and that tens of thousands came to say a big tringing NO! when Sharon & Mofaz were taking us on an express ride to hell with the active participation of Ben Eliezer & Peres. You will never forgive yourself afterwards for missing it!
--
[2] Peace Now's announcement of tomorrow's rally
From: Didi Remez <ddremez@netvision.net.il> Subject: MASSIVE RALLY IN RABIN SQUARE
[Transport timetable at bottom of this message]
Hebrew version: www.peace-now.org/ReleasesHeb/May9-2002.rtf
MASSIVE RALLY IN RABIN SQUARE
This Saturday night, May 11th, at 7:30 PM, at Rabin Sq., Tel-Aviv, a massive rally, organized by Peace Now and the Peace Coalition, will call "GET OUT OF THE TERRITORIES - FOR THE SAKE OF ISRAEL."
Among the many musicians: YAFFA YARKONI
Transportation will depart from 65 places throughout the country.
The streets around the square will be guarded by 1,400 policemen and security guards.
The Peace Coalition includes: Peace Now, Meretz, Labour doves, the Kibbutz Artzi movement, Hashomer Hatzair, Netivot Shalom, the Bereaved Parents Forum, The Green Line, and The Democratic Choice.
Peace Now and the Peace Coalition thank Gush Shalom, the Coalition of Women for Just Peace, Taayush and many other organizations for their cooperation.
Activists - download this effective internet flier and e-mail it far and wide: www.peace-now.org/Campaign2002/HowToGetPeopleToCome.rtf
Further Information:
Press: Didi Remez, Peace Now Spokesman, 054-302796 or didi@peacenow.org.il
Activists - to get involved in planning and organization of activities contact: [In Tel-Aviv] Ori Ginat, 054-405157 or ori@peacenow.org.il [In Jerusalem] Shiri Iram, 054-687539 or shiri@peacenow.org.il [Everywhere else] Noa Millman, 054-556052 or noa@peacenow.org.il
[3] Ha'ir editorial supporting the rally
HA'IR EDITORIAL SUPPORTS RALLY [Ha'ir is leading Tel-Aviv weekly]
"The Time is Right"
(Translation of an editorial in "Ha'ir" newspaper May 9th, by Uri Misgav)
Hebrew version: www.peace-now.org/HairEditorialMay9-2002.rtf
On Saturday night, a demonstration by the Peace Coalition is due to take place in Rabin Square, under the banner "Out of the territories for Israel's sake." The organizers, who have been making preparations for the gathering for many weeks, expect a large number of participants. This is the first time in four years that the moderate camp has pro-actively returned to the great square for a political demonstration (the previous celebration for the election of Barak in 1999 was spontaneous, the memorial gatherings for Rabin lost all ideas a long time ago.) 24 years ago, Menachem Begin admitted that the voices that came out of the huge Peace Now demonstration strengthened his spirit for the negotiations at Camp David. Ariel Sharon - whose promise to bring peace and security has once again been proven false with the terrorist attacks in Rishon Le'Tsion and Megiddo - is no Begin, and he has no credible diplomatic plan. But the planned demonstration can serve as symbolic starting point for the re-political awakening of the Israeli left and the beginning of preparation for meaningful opposition.
The failure of the second Camp David, together with the terror of suicide bombers, has created embarrassment and confusion in the peace camp; and the Labor Party's participation in the Sharon government totally paralyzed most of them. It's impossible to exaggerate the seriousness of the political help and ideological legitimacy that Peres and Ben Eliezer have given to Sharon. But it seems as if the time has come to stop urging them to leave the coalition; events of the last year have denied them the right and the ability to serve as an opposition. The moderate camp has no choice but to say goodbye, finally, from its political world picture that we have got used to in the last few decades, to give up on the Labor Party and to prepare an alternative to the current administration, whose basis would be a call to withdraw from the territories and to strive towards a comprehensive solution along the lines of the Saudi initiative. Overground and underground, many civil activities are bubbling away involving a not insignificant public that is anxious, and is rising up against the wave of aggression and nationalism. The only thing missing is someone to unify these forces under one umbrella. A series of potential leaders - starting with Dan Meridor, continuing with Ami Ayalon and including Yossi Beilin - continue to hesitate to take responsibility, to ignore their conscience, and to leave the country in the hands of the forces of darkness.
For more than a year, Ariel Sharon and Shaul Mofaz have been leading the State of Israel, systematically and with determination - and virtually without opposition - to strategic collapse, moral crisis and diplomatic isolation. In light of the scale and strength of the misdeeds being done on their behalf, it's not out of the questions to assume that, in the future, the international community might settle their scores with them. History will judge their stupidity. But it won't make do just with them - nor with their helpers from the Labor Party: the finger of accusation will also be pointed at those who stood by and watched the destruction of the third sovereignity.
[4] New poll: majority of Israeli support withdrawal
NEW POLL: MAJORITY OF ISRAELIS FAVOR WITHDRAWAL FROM THE TERRITORIES AND A POLITICAL SOLUTION
Result Supports Message of This Saturday's Mass Demonstration in Rabin Square.
A large majority of Israelis support evacuation of most of the settlements and deployment of the IDF along the Green Line and see no solution to terrorism without negotiations for a political solution.
In a Dahaf (Mina Zemah) poll, commissioned by the Peace Coalition and conducted 5-6 May, 2002, the possibility of unilateral withdrawal of the IDF from the territories with redeployment along the Green Line (pre-1967 border) was the formula which most raises the hopes of close to 67% of the public. Some 59% believe that a withdrawal which includes evacuation of most of the settlements will lead to a renewed peace process.
Thus, of all the various plans for unilateral withdrawal, the Peace Coalition's call for withdrawal from the territories and a return to the Green Line receives the greatest amount of support.
In this survey, conducted before the terror attack in Rishon Letzion, 63% said they did not believe that the problem of terrorism could be resolved without political negotiations 61% thought even then that terrorist attacks would resume. According to 60% of the public, a withdrawal that was not acceptable to both sides would not lead to a peace accord with the Palestinians. And 62% of the respondents said that for them peace negotiations with the Palestinians would inspire hope or very much hope.
A majority of the respondents (59%) would support American guarantees for a withdrawal to the 1967 lines with minor mutual and agreed upon adjustments, evacuation of most of the settlements, compromise in Jerusalem and abandonment of the demand for right of return of the refugees. The poll demonstrates for the first time majority support for the introduction of an international force, under the U.S., into the occupied territories. 56% of the public said that such an international force would raise their hopes -- a much higher percentage than those who said that their hopes would be raised by IDF responsibility for security in Palestinian cities.
The results of the poll clearly indicate that a large majority of the Israeli public support the positions of the Peace Coalition. In fact, today these positions unite the left, the center and even many of those who identify themselves as right-wing. These findings confirm the Peace Coalition's expectations that Saturday night's mass demonstration in Rabin Square will express the aspirations of the majority of Israelis.
Full results: www.peace-now.org/Campaign2002/PollMay2002.rtf
Further information: Prof. Galia Golan, Peace Now, 054 794 298 or ggolan@attglobal.net
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Activists Removed From Church
May 10, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Bethlehem-Foreigners.html
BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) -- Ten foreign activists, including four Americans, who spent a week with armed Palestinians holed up inside the Church of the Nativity claimed they were pushed and shoved by clergy who locked them in a room Friday, just before Israeli police removed them from the sanctuary.
Priests said they didn't know anything about the claims, and one accused the activists of desecrating the holy site by smoking and drinking alcohol.
Members of the International Solidarity Movement -- dedicated to bringing international attention to the plight of the Palestinians -- had refused to leave the church early Friday, delaying an end to a 39-day standoff and an Israeli troop withdrawal from a city that had been under curfew for more than five weeks.
After several hours, Israeli police in riot gear went into the church and forced them out. All 10 activists, including four Americans, were being questioned by police and will be deported, according to police spokesman Rafi Yaffe.
U.S. Embassy officials said the Americans detained Friday were receiving consular services. They were identified as Nauman Zaidi, 26, of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.; Robert O'Neill, 21, of Claremont, Calif.,; Larry Hales, 26, of Denver, and Kristen Schurr, 33, of New York City.
The activists had slipped into the church on May 2 in a show of solidarity with the Palestinians and to deliver food. Once inside, they reported that people were suffering from hunger. But reporters who entered the church Friday found a large cabinet full of food, including more than 20 bags of lentils and rice, canned goods and cooking oil. Lemons from the church garden were piled on a blanket.
The International Solidarity Movement said in a statement that the activists were surrounded by priests Friday who ``insulted them, pushed and shoved several of the internationals and locked all of them into one room.''
Allegra Pachecco, an American-Israeli human rights lawyer who was representing them, said the group had wanted guarantees that they could hold a news conference and exit the church with their lawyer.
Father Gustavo, a Franciscan priest who was in the church during the standoff, said the activists had spent the entire time in a room in the Greek-Orthodox section of the church and were there when police came to arrest them.
One priest, who asked not to be identified, said the activists desecrated the holy site built over the traditional birthplace of Jesus by smoking and drinking.
Pachecco denied the allegations. During their stay in the church, the activists ``received constant support and appreciation for their efforts and at no time did anyone ever raise any complaints against them,'' she said.
Before leaving the church they had ``pleaded with the priests to let them clean up the entire church'' but were told to leave immediately and turn themselves in to the Israelis, Pachecco said. They had the ``utmost respect for the church as a holy place,'' she added.
In addition to the four Americans, those arrested Friday include a British citizen, two Swedes, a Canadian, an Irish citizen and an activist from Denmark.
They emerged hours after the Palestinians had left, waving V-signs at bystanders before they were taken away by police.
The 39 Palestinian militiamen walked out of the compound at sunrise Friday in a deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Thirteen of the gunmen were deported to Cyprus, a first stopover to exile in various European countries, and 26 were released in the Gaza Strip.
Georgina Reeves, a member of International Solidarity Movement, said earlier Friday the group had hoped for the same terms granted to their colleagues who had been holed up in Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah.
Adam Shapiro, 30, from New York, and Caoimhe Butterly from Dublin, Ireland, were allowed to walk out without consequence after they spent a night under fire in Arafat's offices.
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Peace activists to be deported: Israeli police
AFP
FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2002
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=9480744
BETHLEHEM, West Bank: Ten foreign peace activists who left the Church of the Nativity here Friday afternoon, after initially refusing to do so, are to be deported for entering a closed military zone, a police spokesman said.
The group had initially refused to leave the church following the exit of the Palestinians who had been trapped there since April 2.
Police spokesman Rafi Yafe told AFP the activists "were going to be expelled as soon as possible for entering a closed military zone".
Following their departure from the church, the 10 were immediately arrested, army spokesman Captain Maurice Glick earlier told AFP.
He had said they could be charged with "entering a closed military zone" and could face expulsion from Israel.
Israeli police entered the church and the activists left, not wanting to give the army an excuse to prolong the siege.
The international activists, from a number of different countries, are mostly members of the International Solidarity Movement which supports the Palestinian people.
Members of the same group managed to break into the Ramallah headquarters of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat while it was also surrounded by Israeli troops.
Their departure brings to an end the siege of the Basilica and, according to Israel, could allow the army to pull out of Bethlehem and the nearby town of Beit Jala, occupied since April 1 and subjected since then to an almost continuous curfew.
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