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NUCLEAR
UK mulls extending loan to crisis-hit nuclear firm
Children the chief victims of UN sanctions
Where and how much depleted uranium has been fired?
N.Korea Daily Spurns Guns-For-Butter Nuke Solution
White House Rejects North Korean Offer for Talks
7.9 Quake Rocks Rural Alaska
White House to Offer New Iraq Text
MILITARY
Asymmetric warfare and Iraq
Karzai Fires Corrupt Afghan Warlords
U.S. - Afghan Raids Uncover Weapons
Sudan guilty of genocide
ASEAN to Jointly Fight Terrorism
US Fears Iraq Has Smallpox Samples
Blair Says No Plans Yet to Call Up Troops for Iraq
UK-based mafia gangs a legacy of intake of refugees
FEDERAL CONTRACTS
Colombia Takes Aim at Rebels in Its Cities
Victors in Turkey Pledge Big Effort to Join E.U.
Iran Says Not Sure Bin Laden Son Among Deportees
Iraq War Could Unleash Oil Spills, Toxins - Experts
Saddam Hints at Flexibility, U.S. Ships Set Sail
Iraqis: U.N. Sanctions Hurt Children
Saddam Said to Consider Resolution
Saddam Hints at Flexibility; U.N. Deal Close
Israel Committed War Crimes in West Bank, Rights Group Says
Amnesty Accuses Israel of War Crimes in West Bank
Sharon Government Survives No-Confidence Votes
Blast Kills Militant; Palestinians Blame Israel
Saudi Says U.S. Can't Use Facilities for War
After NATO's Year of Identity Crisis, a Defining Meeting
Russians Announce Chechnya Crackdown
As Russia Renews Crackdown, Chechen Fighters Down Copter
Russians Hunt 'Suicide Squads' in Chechnya
CIA Killed Al Qaeda Suspects in Yemen, Official Says
U.S. Missile Kills Al Qaeda Suspects in Yemen
Report Says Terrorism Threats Go Unaddressed
Ex - Spy Convicted of Selling Secrets
Research on Nonlethal Weapons Urged
Russia Sets Media Guidelines After Hostage Siege
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Vandals target SUVs in Virginia
Interior Department Struggles to Upgrade Its Police Forces
General Takes Control of Cuba Prison
Trio put cash into marijuana initiatives
Bin Laden Associate Is Killed in Yemen
ENERGY AND OTHER
US scientists say fossil fuel alternatives lacking
Pollution-eating microbe may help clean up - US study
World plants near extinction close to 50 pct - study
Mexican agency sues Pemex over toxic waste
ACTIVISTS
Venezuela Marchers Demand Elections
Activist Reported Missing in China
Ex-Sheriff in Calif. Can Be Sued for Pepper Spray
Top Court: Protesters Can Sue over Pepper Spray
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- britain
UK mulls extending loan to crisis-hit nuclear firm
Story by Andrew Callus
REUTERS UK:
November 4, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18427/story.htm
LONDON - The UK government was considering this week whether to extend its emergency loan to stricken nuclear firm British Energy for a second time as a four-week countdown began to deciding the company's future.
A 650 million-pound ($1.02 billion) state-bailout loan to the producer of a fifth of Britain's power is due to expire on November 29.
Privatised British Energy cannot make money at current electricity prices, which have dropped below its cost of production after market reforms exposed industry overcapacity.
Other British power generators are in financial trouble too, but ministers happy to let market forces do their work elsewhere have acknowledged that they cannot walk away from British Energy for reasons of safety and security of supply.
Forcing the firm into administration and potential insolvency by withdrawing support at the end of this month will not make the problem go away. Analysts said it could prove even costlier in the long run because the state's own loss-making nuclear fuels arm BNFL depends on British Energy.
But propping it up indefinitely with taxpayers' money is not an easy option either. EU rules against state subsidy are getting stricter and other power producers would have a case for subsidy as well. Meanwhile environmentalists and supporters of renewable energy who want to phase out nuclear power are planning court action against the current loan.
"They (the government) just don't want this thing on their balance sheet," said a senior industry executive involved in wide-ranging talks about the future of the UK's power industry.
"Next year's energy policy review is the key to resolving this whole thing. A debt rollover until the government is clear about where this (policy) is going is where I think things are heading."
A source close to the government said a decision on whether to roll over the loan - extended and increased once already in September - would be taken "very close indeed to November 29".
Ministerial minds have not been made up, he said. "But if there is an extension on November 29 the decision will have been taken that British Energy should survive."
CAPACITY PAYMENTS
According to the industry source, one likely change to energy legislation next year that could alleviate British Energy's difficulties is a return to "capacity payments" - where wholesale power prices include a fee paid to generators for making capacity available.
Capacity payments were abolished with the reforms that introduced New Electricity Arrangements (NETA) last year.
Although regulator Ofgem and many customers are happy with the 40 percent slide in wholesale prices since 1998, generating firms say a power market needs spare capacity, and that there is no longer any incentive to own capacity that is not in use.
They say the situation could end in a capacity shortage. Capacity payment would apply to all types of power producer, so discrimination in favour of nuclear energy would not be an issue.
Another key element to the British Energy puzzle is the future of BNFL, whose contract to recycle fuel costs British Energy 300 million pounds ($469 million) a year.
One neat way to cut the cost of that contract might involve BNFL, which has its own privatisation plans, taking an equity stake in British Energy, possibly swapped for easier contract terms.
Sources have said this is also among the ideas on the table in ongoing talks between industry and government.
Industry sources said Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who runs the nation's finances, will have the final say on November 29 even though the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is officially in charge.
The DTI said talks were continuing, and the Treasury said British Energy was a matter for the DTI.
-------- depleted uranium
Children the chief victims of UN sanctions; many orphaned, malnourished
DUSAN STOJANOVIC
Canadian Press
Monday, November 04, 2002
http://www.canada.com/news/story.asp?id=%7BF5D39FA3-510C-43DA-92D3-D0188A2CFF65%7D
BAGHDAD (AP) - Emira was a day old when she was abandoned by her parents, who couldn't afford to keep her. She is one of tens of thousands of Iraqi children suffering under UN sanctions and the Arab country's general downslide amid fears of a new war.
Emira was taken from the hospital where she was born Saturday and placed in a drab Baghdad orphanage, one of four in the Iraqi capital which house thousands of children. Many of the orphans have been abandoned by their families while others have lost both their parents, some during the Gulf War.
"We have a dramatic increase in orphans here," said Aneeba Jabar, the director of the Al-Najat orphanage on the garbage-strewn banks of the Tigris River on the outskirts of Baghdad.
She blamed it on United Nations sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990, speaking as a government official monitored the interview.
"We had two orphanages in Baghdad before the sanctions and the war," Jabar said. "Now, we have four because the old ones became too crowded."
"Emira's mother simply fled the hospital because the family has no money to feed her," Jabar added. She would not provide the exact number of orphans in Baghdad "because their number is soaring daily."
U.S. and UN officials have repeatedly rejected complaints about the humanitarian impact of the sanctions, saying the sanctions could be eliminated if Iraq complies with demands that it prove it has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction.
The United Nations has also criticized Iraq for reportedly spending only a tiny fraction of its UN-approved oil revenues on improving nutrition for children.
However, there was never free and unrestricted purchase of any goods under the oil-for-food program, and the sanctions committee has at times denied or delayed delivery of some foods and medicines sought by Iraq.
Many people in Iraq live below the poverty line, and as a result, families who cannot afford to feed and clothe their children are forced to give them up.
Since 1990, when Iraq was one of the most prosperous Arab countries because of huge oil reserves, living standards have plummeted, and average monthly salaries have dropped from the equivalent of $800 Cdn to $16.
Washington has renewed accusations that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction in violation of UN orders and of sponsoring terrorists. President George W. Bush is pushing the United Nations for a tough resolution that would allow an attack on Iraq, but has threatened to act alone if the Security Council doesn't go along.
That is why the basement at Baghdad's Al-Mansour Teaching Hospital for Children is being prepared to shelter 200 young cancer patients, their families and medical staff in case of a new war.
The hospital took similar precautions during the 1991 Gulf War that was launched by a U.S.-led coalition to drive Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The hospital was not hit during that war and is not near any military installations.
But fears of American strikes are not the only problems the Iraqi health system faces.
The hospital's director, Dr. Luay Kasha, said that since the sanctions were introduced, 1.6 million Iraqi children have died, up to seven times more than in the same period before the sanctions. This corresponds with UN figures, which also mention that more than a million Iraqi children are malnourished.
Kasha said the American use of depleted uranium in its munitions during the Gulf War was probably to blame.
"After that there was shortage in supply of proper food and medicines," Kasha said. ". . . After that, epidemics flared up, cholera, virus infections, tuberculosis, chest infections, skin infections, water-borne diseases."
"We are now reporting five to seven times increase of cancer cases among children than before 1990," Kasha said. "Most of the cases were caused by radiation . . . like leukemia."
Washington insists there is no proven link between use of depleted uranium munitions and the diseases.
Emin Fellah, 5, is dying of leukemia, and his mother Fatima watches him with teary eyes.
"If we had proper medicines, he might have had a chance," said Dr. Lana Ahmed. "But with the situation like this, we had to abandon his therapy."
--------
Where and how much depleted uranium has been fired?
March 2001 update of a workshop held at the CADU conference,
Manchester, 4 November, 2000 by:
Henk van der Keur
Laka Foundation, Amsterdam
http://www.laka.org/teksten/Vu/where-how-much-01/main.html
Nuclear fuel chain Depleted uranium (DU) is the by-product of the enrichment of natural uranium. 'Natural uranium' is the concentrated product after mining and refining uranium ore. One kilogram of 'natural uranium' is obtained from 1000 kg of uranium ore. Only half of this one kilogram is actually released for use. The remaining 999.5 kg is considered as radioactive waste.
DU stockpiles United States : 700,000 metric tonnes Currently stored in the form of UF6, stored in cylinders at Paducah, Kentucky, and Portsmouth, Ohio. 160,000 metric tonnes, stored in the form of UO2 and metal Urenco (UK, FRG, NL) : 38,000 metric tonnes Currently stored in the form of UF6 Cogema (France) : 119,900 metric tonnes (dUF6) Stored at Bessines-sur-Gartempe (Haute Vienne) near Limoges
US Proving Grounds with DU Test Firing Ranges
DU Testing Amount of DU
Ethan Allen Firing Range (Vermont) 1969 - 1973 4,500 kg
Lake City Ammunition Plant (Missouri) until 1985 3,500 kg
China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center (California) 10 years 11,300 kg
NM Institute of Mining & Technology (New Mexico) since 1972 ---
Los Alamos National Laboratory (New Mexico) 100,000 kg
Jefferson Proving Ground (Indiana) 1982 - 1988 69,000 kg
Aberdeen Proving Ground (Maryland) 70,000 kg
Eglin Air Force Base (Florida)
- Gunnery Ballistic Facility
- High Explosive Test Area 1973 - 1978 at present 100,000 kg
Nellis Air Force Base (Nevada) since 1982 27,800 kg
Total (known) amount DU fired 386,100 kg
Other test-fires with DU ammunition
???? Panama There are strong appointments that the US Army has trained with DU rounds along the sides of the Panama Channel. No data available.
1995/1996 Japan From December '95 - January '96 the US Navy AV-8B Harriers (aircraft) test-fired 1,520 25mm PGU/20 API rounds 100 km west of the main island of Okinawa. Total amount of DU: 251 kg.
1999 Puerto Rico (Vieques) On 19 February, 1999, two US Marine Corps AV-8B Harriers expended 263 25mm PGU/20 API rounds at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, North Convoy Site. Between March 10 and 19, 1999, 57 round were recovered. 263 Rounds is equal to 34 kg of DU.
The British Army fired/fires DU ammunition at their test sites near Eskmeals and Kirkcudbright. Recently (f.e.: Independent, 12 Jan. 2001) the British MoD acknowledged that about 6,000 120 mm shells have been fired into the Scottish Solway Firth, close to the village Dundrennan, since 1982. Around 60 will be fired until October. About the French tests there are no data available. US and British tank divisions have trained in Central Europe. There are no data available about firing of DU ammunition.
Taiwanese Navy has used some 60,000 DU rounds in maneuvers over the past years (BBC Monitoring, Jan.17, 2001). The type of these munitions is not mentioned.
Greece has decided to take off all DU shells from their inventory. The Greek Navy has in all about 15,000 shells, which are used in the air defense system Phalanx (Close-In Weapons System). During exercises since 1990, 30,000 rounds of 20mm ammunition were fired. It is not clear where they have been fired. In the nineties Greece rejected a US offer of 100,000 DU tank shells after which they were exported to Turkey. (Associated Press, 8 January, 2001)
DU weaponry used in wars
1973 Yom Kippur War Probably the first war with DU ammunition (prototypes) Probably fired by the M60A1 MBT No data available
1982 Falklands War Possible use of Phalanx CIWS missile defense gun No data available
1982 Israeli Invasion of South Lebanon Use of modified / upgraded M60 (series) M60 MBT No data available
1989 US Invasion of Panama Possible use of DU ammunition No data available
1991 Operation Desert Storm
1994 Bosnia In August US A-10s destroyed a Bosnian Serb mobile 'tank buster'. No data available.
1999 Kosov@ On 7 February 2000 NATO confirmed the use of 31,000 30mm PGU/14A API rounds. Total amount: 8401 kg of DU.
!! When there is solid evidence about the use of DU in (Tomahawk) cruise missiles, the amounts of DU left behind in Iraq and Yugoslavia will be considerably higher. !!
[Charts in original document at http://www.laka.org/teksten/Vu/where-how-much-01/main.html not reproduced here.]
Accidents with DU weaponry
1998 Great Britain On 8 February there was a fire at the Royal Ordnance Special Metal factory at Featherstone in Staffordshire. No data available about the amount of DU which has been released.
1991 Kuwait Munitions fire US Army base Doha, Kuwait (July 1991). Around 3,500 kg of DU was released.
Developments in Israel and Turkey
Outside the US, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) is the largest user of the M60 series. As of 1993, they probably had about 1000 M60/M60A1 tanks and about 600 M60A3s. The Israeli designation of the M60 is the Megach-7. Israel has undertaken several upgrades of its Magach-7 fleet, which includes M60/M60A1s and the M60A3s. The 105 mm M68 rifled tank gun, made by Israel Military Industries (IMI), also fitted to most other Israeli tanks, like the Merkava Mk1. The Israeli made 105 mm tungsten APFSDS-T M111 round is claimed to be superior to the US M735.
The M68 main 105 mm gun is standard on all M60s, but also on the Centurions, and Merkavas Mk I and II of the Israeli tank fleet. Military analysts remarks that although the 105 mm main gun on the M60s was much smaller than the 155-mm gun on the T-62, and the 125-mm gun on the T-72, it was very effective against these targets at both long and short ranges. The M68 gun is locally produced by Israeli Military Industries (IMI), formerly TAAS Israel Industries Ltd.
The Israelis still retain the 105 mm main gun on the M60 series tank, but the turret is modified to be able to take the 120 mm gun if needed. The Israelis have been constantly improving their 105 mm rounds, so they are now almost as deadly as most 120mm rounds. The M111 "arrow " round is constantly being upgraded, and Israel has shown a third generation M111 round recently. Panzergruppe, the monthly newsletter of the Washington Armour Club stated in their first issue of 1996: "Israelis are reported developing a depleted uranium round which will probably be able to defeat the armour of almost any vehicle in any service in the Middle East. To accompany this new and improved gun, a new fire control system has been installed for greater accuracy at both shorter and longer ranges."
On 3 September, 1999, IMI unveiled the "SABRA" - an upgraded M60A3 tank developed for the Israeli Army. The modernisation programme, includes, among others, the following systems:
- 120 mm gun system interoperable with NATO weapon systems and ammunition.
- Passive add-on ballistic protection, providing level against shape charges and kinetic energy projectiles.
On 26 June 2000 Jane's Defence Weekly's correspondent in Ankara reports Turkeys decision to open negotiations with Israel Military Industries (IMI) for the modernisation of its US-made M60A1 MBTs. Which brought Washington to propose that the project could be done by US companies under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme.
"US Deputy Under-secretary of the Army for International Affairs Gayden Thompson has written to Ankara asking that US companies should be able to compete for the project. The Turkish Land Forces Command has also been urged to reconsider the long-standing US government offer to lease 96 General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) M1A1 MBTs." A senior GDLS source said "linking the modernisation project with an M1A1 lease would offer training and logistics benefits as its M60-2000 modernisation proposal involves the installation of M1A1 turrets." On 2 June 2000 the Turkish Defence Industries Under-secretariat (SSM) decided that IMI would be the sole source for the M60 modernisation programme. An SSM official stated that although the committee had decided to ask IMI to build a prototype, it did not mean that a decision to award the full contract to the Israeli firm had been made. Besides GDLS, also German firms like Krauss-Maffei Wegmann are competing in the M60 modernisation programme. The requests for proposals call for four prototypes and an initial production batch of 250 vehicles out of a planned total of 1,000.
-------- korea
N.Korea Daily Spurns Guns-For-Butter Nuke Solution
Reuters
Monday, November 4, 2002; 5:49 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A501-2002Nov4?language=printer
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's ruling party newspaper said on Monday international talk of economic benefits in exchange for scrapping Pyongyang's nuclear arms program were an "unbearable insult" to the reclusive communist state.
The Rodong Sinmun daily attacked the United States for bringing pressure to bear on North Korea after the shock October revelation that Pyongyang had been pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons programme.
The Workers' Party organ took special umbrage at statements by Washington and other Asia-Pacific states that Pyongyang would secure economic benefits if it abandoned the arms project.
"This means that if the DPRK puts down arms, it will receive sugar. This is an unbearable insult to the DPRK," the daily said, using the acronym of the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"It is the faith and will of the Korean people that they can survive without sugar but not without arms. The DPRK cannot sacrifice its army for a piece of gold," it said.
The editorial repeated Pyongyang's demand, first aired on October 25, that to solve the nuclear weapons problem, the United States must sign a non-aggression treaty with North Korea and guarantee the sovereignty of the isolated state.
In Phnom Penh on Monday, the leaders of Japan, South Korea and China held talks on how to tackle the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear programme, stressing that regional stability and good behavior would benefit Pyongyang.
On Sunday, the White House dismissed a report in the New York Times that carried statements by a North Korean diplomat calling for talks on its uranium reprocessing scheme and offering to consider international inspections of the nuclear facilities.
North Korea admitted on October 4 it had a clandestine weapons programme, putting Pyongyang in violation of at least four international commitments, including the 1994 Agreed Framework under which it promised to halt its nuclear efforts.
--------
White House Rejects North Korean Offer for Talks
November 4, 2002
New York Times
By PHILIP SHENON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/04/international/asia/04DIPL.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 - The White House today rejected an offer from North Korea to open negotiations over the North's newly disclosed nuclear weapons program, with its spokesman saying there could be no talks until the program was dismantled.
"North Korea knows what it needs to do," said the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer. "It needs to dismantle its nuclear program and honor its treaty obligations."
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as President Bush headed to Illinois on a pre-election political trip, Mr. Fleischer was responding to statements made through the North Korean Mission to the United Nations in which the North called for talks on its nuclear program, and said it was open to meeting the Bush administration's demand for an end to the uranium-enrichment program.
In the statements, the North Koreans said they would also be willing to consider international inspections of the uranium facilities.
But Mr. Fleischer suggested that the United States was unwavering in its demand that North Korea must dismantle the program first, before any talks could occur.
"It's not a question of talking," he said. "It's a question of action."
He continued, "North Korea should not have abandoned its obligations, and that's what they've done."
North Korea has acknowledged that the uranium-enrichment program is a violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States, but it has insisted that it was the United States that first violated the accord through a series of actions, including its failure to deliver two civilian nuclear power plants that were promised under the accord.
Mr. Fleischer said today that the United States would continue to try to pressure North Korea through American allies.
"We continue to talk to our allies about the approach to take, so North Korea will proceed to honor their word," he said. "North Korea in 1994 entered into a quid pro quo, and it's inappropriate for North Korea to say that we will walk away from our quid and ask for more quo. They entered into an agreement, they should abide by the agreement, and that's why we're working in concert with our allies."
The North Korean Mission to the United Nations, the North's sole diplomatic post in the United States, had no immediate comment in response to Mr. Fleischer's remarks.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
[Grant said he received calls from nuclear power facilities in various states -- including Minnesota and Washington -- that reported unusual water movement.]
7.9 Quake Rocks Rural Alaska;
Pipeline Shuts Down
Associated Press
Monday, November 4, 2002; Page A07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64061-2002Nov3?language=printer
ANCHORAGE, Nov. 3 -- A major earthquake rocked a sparsely populated area of interior Alaska early this afternoon, triggering an automatic shutdown of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and cracking highways and roads.
The quake, a magnitude 7.9, centered 90 miles south of Fairbanks and was strongly felt in Anchorage, about 270 miles to the south. It hit at 1:13 p.m., said Bruce Turner of the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center.
One injury was reported; a man in Mentasta broke his arm after slipping on stairs during the quake, officials said. Support structures were damaged on the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, but the pipeline was intact, said Mike Heatwole, spokesman for the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.
In five locations, vertical support members, the H-shape devices that hold the aboveground portions of the pipeline, were damaged. In eight locations, the "shoes" that connect the pipeline to the vertical support members were on the ground, leaving the pipeline suspended, Heatwole said.
Heatwole said company officials may know by midmorning Monday how long it will take to restart the pipeline.
The earthquake occurred on the Denali Fault and had a shallow depth, said John Lahr, geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo. Shallow earthquakes generally are felt over a wider area.
Numerous roads developed wide cracks, including the Alaska Highway near Northway, 256 miles southeast of Fairbanks.
The Richardson Highway, which parallels the trans-Alaska pipeline between Valdez and Fairbanks, was closed near Paxson after gaps opened that were 2 to 6 feet wide and 5 feet deep, officials said. About 20 miles north, the ground on one side of the highway had dropped more than 2 feet.
The worst reports of damage were along a two-mile stretch of the Tok Cutoff, which leads from the Alaska Highway to Southcentral highways connected to Anchorage. There were hundreds of yards of 6-foot openings in the road and numerous rock slides.
The Alaska Railroad halted trains immediately after the earthquake. Trains were delayed about three hours until track and bridges were inspected.
Fuel tanks were knocked over in Slana, a village with no electric utility; families use diesel fuel to power generators.
Jay Capps, who owns a small grocery store midway between Tok and Glennallen, said he felt a low-level shaking for 15 or 20 seconds before the quake hit.
"It shook so bad you could not stand up on the front porch," Capps said. "It sounded like the trees were breaking roots under the ground." He said nearly everything fell off store shelves.
"My store smells like liquid smoke, picante sauce and mayonnaise," he said.
Effects were felt all over the continent, from Seattle to New Orleans, where boats rocked on Lake Pontchartrain.
"This earthquake was shallow and the energy went directly into the surface, and that is what causes these effects so far away," said Dale Grant, a geophysicist at the earthquake information center.
Grant said he received calls from nuclear power facilities in various states -- including Minnesota and Washington -- that reported unusual water movement.
-------- us politics
White House to Offer New Iraq Text
November 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Iraq.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration has completed a new round of negotiations with critics of its tough stand on Iraq and plans to give the U.N. Security Council a revised resolution this week.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday the administration hoped for council approval within two days after the resolution is submitted.
At a one-hour White House meeting, Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed the planned revisions with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security assistant.
A senior administration official said the votes of Russia and France remained uncertain. He also said he did not know that anyone was doing a victory dance, yet.
The revisions go a long way toward taking into account the views of other countries, Boucher said. He added that the ``bottom line'' of the U.S.-British draft under discussion for two months had been retained.
France, Russia, China, Mexico and other members objected to threatening Iraq with war at least until after U.N. weapons inspectors have been dispatched to conduct new searches for hidden caches of chemical and biological arms in Iraq.
``We think there's general agreement that there needs to be a strong resolution,'' Boucher said. ``We adhere to our core position that there must be a clear statement of Iraq's failure to comply with its obligations. There has to be a tough inspection regime, and there have to be serious consequences in the event of new Iraqi violations.''
``Serious consequences'' has been a stumbling block so far. France, Russia and some other members fear that the United States would consider the phrase an automatic trigger for military action if Iraq resisted inspections.
The proposed resolution would make clear that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's palaces would not be exempt from the inspection.
At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld said preparations for war could begin soon. He told reporters he met recently with top personnel and military officials to plan for military manpower needs.
``I would expect that there would be guard and reserve call-ups in the immediate period ahead,'' Rumsfeld said. ``It could be any time.''
Meantime, President Bush spoke of war again while campaigning for Republican candidates in Tuesday's elections.
Evidently convinced that threatening Iraq was a winning issue, Bush said in St. Charles, Mo., speaking about the United Nations: ``You have a choice to show the world whether you have the capacity to work together to disarm Saddam Hussein to keep the peace or whether you will be like one of your forerunners, an empty debating society.''
Bush also said again that ``for the sake of world peace, if the United Nations will not act, and if Saddam Hussein will not disarm, the United States will lead a coalition of nations to disarm him.''
At the last of his four campaign rallies Monday -- this one in Dallas -- protesters hoisted a banner that read ``No War in Iraq,'' and shouted at Bush as he spoke. GOP supporters tore the banner from their hands and shouted the demonstrators down with chants of ``USA! USA!''
Boucher did not say how the revisions might be received at the Security Council. He said Powell had engaged in intensive telephone diplomacy over the weekend, conferring with Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin of France twice and with Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda of Mexico.
Permanent council members China, France and Russia could kill a tough resolution with their veto powers. Mexico, not a permanent member, is aligned with the other three in objecting to threatening force.
In a sign skepticism had not been overcome, Mexican President Vicente Fox called Bush over the weekend and told him the Security Council should look first for diplomatic solutions to the disagreement with Iraq over weapons.
According to a statement by the Mexican government, Fox advocated a two-phase approach in which the council would consider force only after the conclusion of new weapons searches.
In developments Sunday, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia said the Arab kingdom would not allow its bases to be used to attack Iraq, and Turkey, which also hosts American warplanes, elected a government with an Islamic party at its core.
Rumsfeld brushed off Saud's statement. He said he had not read it and did not ``find it notable in any way.''
On Turkey, a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he would be surprised if Turkey, a NATO ally, were to scale back its close relationship with the United States.
In Baghdad, Saddam indicated he would not reject outright a new U.N. resolution proposed by the United States but said Iraq would await details and examine the requirements it imposes on Baghdad, Iraqi TV reported.
Saddam's remarks in Baghdad appeared to mark a shift in position by the Iraqi leader, who has maintained that he would accept weapons inspectors only on terms laid down in previous resolutions.
Meanwhile, three large Navy transport ships are on the way to the Persian Gulf, region loaded with equipment that could be used in any possible war with Iraq.
The USNS Bellatrix left San Diego last week loaded with trucks, Humvees and bridging equipment used by Marine combat engineers to clear the way for armored ground forces. Bridging units would be key to an invasion of Iraq because U.S. troops would have to cross the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, perhaps more than once. The Bellatrix, one of the Navy's fastest large cargo vessles, can reach the Persian Gulf in less than 20 days.
The USNS Bob Hope and the USNS Fisher left Charleston, S.C., in the past two weeks. They carried gear such as tanker trucks and bridge sections but not combat vehicles such as tanks, said Marge Holtz, a spokeswoman for the Military Sealift Command.
-------- MILITARY
Asymmetric warfare and Iraq
David C. Isby
November 4, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20021104-92597034.htm
Asymmetric warfare is a concept - rapidly becoming a buzz word - that describes how the weak can defeat the strong.
The United States, though its statecraft and armed forces are organized to deal with "peer competitors" - countries like us with similar if opposed statecraft and forces - now finds itself having to look at having to deal with a range of potential asymmetric threats that Saddam Hussein will enlist.
In the past, an asymmetric or unconventional threat would often become a conventional one. The victorious Continental Army of 1781, the Chinese People's Liberation Army of 1948, the Viet Minh of 1954 and the North Vietnamese of 1975 had all originated as ragged militias, but used foreign support to become better at conventional conflict than their enemies.
But others saw asymmetric warfare as not a stage in conflict but as its end. Che Guevara became the theorist of Marxist-Leninist asymmetric warfare, believing conventional warfare unnecessary as capitalist states worldwide were ripe for defeat. Che's lack of success and ultimate demise underlines the difficulty of implementing asymmetric strategies. Osama bin Laden tried to apply Che's tactics to an Islamic fundamentalist ideology. Bin Laden did not bring down his enemies, but instead provoked retaliation that defeated his own al Qaeda and sympathizers in Afghanistan, Central Asia, Yemen and elsewhere.
Saddam turned to asymmetric warfare after he failed at conventional conflict in 1991. Asymmetric warfare provided new value to weapons of mass destruction for Saddam (or others that share his goals). Such weapons are intended to deter and prevent regional coalitions being formed to use conventional force against an asymmetric threat. Weapons of mass destruction are thus redefined as those that keep the state supporters of terrorism safe from a conventional challenge (as defeated al Qaeda in Afghanistan), providing the shield while some of the unattributable (and relatively low cost) elements of asymmetric warfare provide the sword. Support for terror, false-flag operations, covert biological warfare release, attempts to use third parties to attack computer and communications networks, internal penetration in the region or even classic guerrilla warfare cannot be cleanly removed by even the most skillful military operations. But while they have the potential to inflict painful losses, it is hard to see how these actions can defeat the United States.
Saddam has demonstrated few successes at asymmetric warfare. The assassination plots in the Gulf, the attempts at political penetration in Jordan both predate 1991. Even if hindsight ascribes what we now see as natural disasters to Saddam, they have all combined done him little good. Yet, Saddam appears to retain an unshakable Osama-like view of the irresolution of his opponents and their fundamental weakness. The Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon is seen as more recent evidence that Saddam's enemies will not stand up to asymmetric warfare backed up by guerrilla action.
Saddam has embraced the rhetoric of popular resistance to direct the nationalist feeling he rallied during the 1980s war with Iran to this new cause. He reviews parades brandishing a symbolic Lee Enfield rifle - one captured from a British battalion defeated by Iraqi rebels in 1920. Saddam will use his own population as hostages - staging a massive "siege of Baghdad" is seen as a likely goal - increasing their own suffering and loss of life in the hope that this will force opponents to change their policies. He will also likely aim to make an invaded Iraq ungovernable, destroying oil and infrastructure as in his retreat from Kuwait in 1991.
Saddam will try and create symbols for resistance and create self-images for his adversaries they will find unacceptable. Eight-year-old boys are likely to be given small-caliber handguns and plastic charms that they will be told will make them bullet-proof. He will only need a few to succeed in using them to produce new hero-martyrs and disturbing images for the television news.
It is hard to see Saddam's asymmetric warfare strategy as more than desperation. Yet, the United States had a difficult time adapting to unconventional opponents in conflicts such as Vietnam and Somalia. Now, we can expect the threat to possess greater sophistication, to use increased sensitivity to casualties - friendly, civilian and enemy alike - and the realities of the globalized economy and its 24-hour news cycle.
The asymmetric warfare challenge remains a real one.
David Isby is a Washington-based author and national security consultant.
-------- afghanistan
Karzai Fires Corrupt Afghan Warlords
November 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghanistan-Asserting-Control.html
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- President Hamid Karzai has begun purging high-ranking officials and powerful security and intelligence chiefs across Afghanistan, accusing them of corruption, drug trafficking and abuse of power.
The dismissals are intended as a clear warning to warlords to shape up, but enforcing the orders could be difficult for Karzai, whose government has limited power beyond the capital, Kabul, where security is bolstered by the presence of 4,800 international peacekeepers.
The campaign began Sunday when officials announced as many as 20 civil and military chiefs would be dismissed. On Monday, government officials said more provincial authorities would be fired if they did not fall in line.
``There's been some cleaning up going on, and it will continue as long as it's needed,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Omar Samad told The Associated Press.
He said the dismissals were not political, but a matter of getting rid of ``bad apples'' and creating a transparent and accountable government.
Stamping out corruption and creating a clean government were key demands of international donors, who in January pledged $4.5 billion to rebuild Afghanistan over the next five years.
About $800 million of the $900 million delivered so far has gone to the United Nations and aid agencies because donors believed the government did not have the ability to use it responsibly. More recently, donors have praised Karzai's government, saying they will route some future aid through his administration.
One of those dismissed was Gen. Sayed Kamel, commander of four northern provinces, whose job was abolished to streamline military administration, presidential spokesman Sayed Fazel Akbar said. Kamel, loyal to warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, is currently receiving medical treatment in Uzbekistan.
In the southern province of Kandahar, provincial intelligence chief Kamaluddin Gulalai also was dismissed -- welcome news to one warlord.
``It's a very good move. He was a very corrupt man,'' said Mullah Naqib, a rival of Gulalai. ``It's very good that Karzai is switching around the people. If he didn't, it would mean he was not in control.''
A Western diplomat, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said the firings would send a warning to warlords to change their behavior and root out corruption. But enforcing the orders will not be easy, the diplomat said.
Powerful warlords, most with big private militias, control most of the country. Many are tenuously allied to Karzai, who is protected by American bodyguards.
As long as the most powerful warlords -- like Dostum and Ismail Khan in the western Herat province -- keep their jobs, it's doubtful Karzai's government will face any serious problems from the 20 or so officials who were ousted.
``These people are smaller fry. They have some power, but they're not the main culprits,'' the diplomat said.
Karzai's government had exhibited ``a certain amount of muscle flexing, but they're not going after people that can present an existential challenge'' to the central government, the diplomat said.
Samad said the dismissals did not target any particular region or group. Some commanders and security chiefs were in the shakeup.
--------
U.S. - Afghan Raids Uncover Weapons
November 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-The-Mission.html
NARAY, Afghanistan (AP) -- It was almost dark, and after a day of turning up weapons caches despite denials by villagers, the U.S. Army interrogator was losing his cool.
``Who put this AK in the well?'' he shouted at the assembled men of Naray in eastern Afghanistan, throwing an AK-47 assault rifle in the dust.
``You can hide stuff and you might get away with it, but let me tell you something -- we'll find it and we'll find you. I spit on you and your AK-47.''
Such search and seizure operations are the front line of the war against al-Qaida and the Taliban -- a place where emotions run high, the Afghan government is fighting to maintain control and frustrated U.S. troops play cat-and-mouse with an enemy that lobs rockets at U.S. bases, then dissolves into the hills and villages of Khost province.
Some 400 U.S. troops raided Naray and nearby Kot Kalay over the weekend, acting on tips they are transit points for weapons and pro-Taliban fighters moving across the Pakistani border, just 1 1/2 miles away.
They found 115 107 mm rockets -- the same kind fired almost daily at U.S. bases -- in a stable. They also found 14 rocket-propelled grenades, land mines, detonators and thousands of rounds of ammunition, some of it armor-piercing. Five people were detained for questioning.
Villagers said everyone owns an automatic rifle and the rockets are used in disputes that date back centuries. They denied they were weapons stored by the Taliban or al-Qaida.
``We don't know who has what in this village,'' said Dauli Khan, 60. ``All over Afghanistan, you will find weapons like this. They're all left over from the mujahedeen times,'' he said, referring to the guerrilla war against the Soviets in the 1980s.
Other villagers noted AK-47s are used for household protection in Afghanistan.
``The people who have the rockets have disputes with the Shia, the people across the (Pakistani) border,'' said Soorat Gul, 28. ``The people on the other side have rockets and grenades, too. But never, never would we use them against the Americans.''
He said U.S. troops had passed through the village before and never been attacked.
The raid began with Black Hawk helicopters that thundered into the two mountain towns. In Naray, villagers put up no resistance as troops from the 82nd Airborne Division rounded up men and women, putting them in separate compounds near the mosque.
One boy was found cowering under a bed. An entire wedding party, decked in their best clothes, arrived at the mosque and were told to sit outside. If they moved, the soldiers warned, the Apache gunship helicopters would kill them.
Everyone was frisked. The female soldier assigned to search the women stripped down to her sports bra to prove she was a woman to Afghans unused to seeing a woman in men's clothing.
Teams then moved through homes, pulling clothing from trunks, opening bins of flour and cutting plaster from walls to look for hidden compartments. A trunk of AK-47s and ``toe-popper'' land mines were found under a haystack; other weapons were discovered under beds or wrapped in rugs.
``I hate doing this to their houses, but then you turn a corner and you find AK-47s, or the rockets they keep firing at our bases,'' said Staff Sgt. Matt Chambers, 27, of Spokane, Wash.
Cash, passports and pictures of anyone with a gun were collected in a trash bag.
The village elder and other residents denied having any weapons or links to militant groups, said Col. David Gerard. Some residents said pro-Taliban groups travel the road near the village, but the villagers were not involved.
U.S. commanders were unconvinced, saying some weapons looked new.
``There's no reason for these guys to have this kind of stuff, and when people deliberately conceal things, they're up to something,'' said Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth White, 33, of Atlanta.
Troops found AK-47s in the second town, Kot Kalay, but little else.
As night fell, temperatures dropped and the children detained in Naray began shivering. They looked over the compound wall and watched hungrily as the soldiers ate pre-packaged meals.
Eventually the soldiers moved the villagers into buildings, gave them blankets and food found in the homes.
To discourage attacks, every few hours mortar teams fired illumination rounds over the village or sent explosive shells crashing into an uninhabited mountainside.
Five suspects -- including the village elder -- were kept awake all night and interrogated.
``They talk a lot better after some sleep deprivation; makes them feel sorry for themselves,'' Gerard said.
After a freezing night, bomb disposal experts destroyed the rockets and other munitions in three huge blasts on Sunday morning. Then Gerard told the men of the village:
``We know your history; we know many people came and fought in Afghanistan,'' he said. ``Our goal is peace in Afghanistan, so all these young boys don't have to grow up and carry weapons.''
He urged them to support President Hamid Karzai and Gov. Hakim Taniwal, who is fighting a renegade warlord, Bacha Khan Zadran, for control of the province.
The villagers were then freed, except for the five detainees, who were taken to helicopters with bags over their heads. The troops left the shotguns and long rifles they found, but kept the AK-47s. Gerard warned that if anyone picked up a gun while U.S. troops were on the ground, the helicopters would attack.
Then the troops left in the Black Hawks.
In the village, there was anger. ``They came rushing into our homes, they kept us prisoner all night, and we were cold and hungry,'' said Noorbad Shah, 22. ``We had no bad will against the Americans, but now how are we supposed to feel?''
-------- africa
Sudan guilty of genocide
Nat Hentoff
November 4, 2002
Washington times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20021104-26222734.htm
On Oct. 21, President George W. Bush signed into law the Sudan Peace Act, which the Senate had unanimously passed, and the House approved 359-8.
More than 2 million black, non-Muslim civilians in the South have died from an ongoing civil war since 1983 in that country. The United States now declares in a law that "the acts of the government of Sudan . . . constitute genocide as defined by the (1948 United Nations) Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."
The northern National Islamic Front government in Khartoum has enslaved women and children in the south of Sudan; engaged in ethnic cleansing; bombed churches and schools; and prevented food from humanitarian agencies from reaching the black Christians and animists trying to withstand the armed "jihad" forces of the north.
It has taken years of organized pressure to move the Congress and White House. The extraordinary coalition of the New Abolitionists includes black churches around America, white evangelicals, Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship, the Hudson Institute, Freedom House, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Boston-based American Anti-Slavery Group and determined civil rights leaders Joe Madison and the Rev. Walter Fauntroy.
Among other crucial people involved is Barbara Vogel, a fifth-grade teacher in Denver, who told her class that slavery still exists. The children raised money to redeem Sudanese slaves through the Swiss-based Christian Solidarity International. Also pivotal were Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and U.S. Reps. Donald Payne, Frank Wolf and Tom Tancredo. Eric Reeves, who teaches Shakespeare and Milton at Smith College, took a two-year leave to focus entirely on valuable research and advocacy to illuminate the atrocities in Sudan.
The Sudan Peace Act authorizes $300 million to aid the blacks in the south over the next three years for humanitarian purposes and "to prepare the population for peace and democratic governance." Under the law, the president is to certify every six months that the Khartoum government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army are negotiating in good faith. If he finds that they are not, sanctions go into effect.
As described, for example, by the Freedom House, if there is evidence of "continued bombing of civilians, slave raids, and bans on relief flights," the United States will oppose "international loans and credits to Khartoum," and among other punitive actions, seek "a U.N. Security Council Resolution to impose an arms embargo on Khartoum." The Sudan People's Liberation Army in the south must also not unilaterally subvert peace negotiations.
What gives the Sudan Peace Act particular force is the finding by the United States that the government in Khartoum is guilty of actual genocide. The International Convention on Genocide states unequivocally that the countries signing the convention "confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and punish."
If evidence were to mount that slave raids from the north, accompanied by gang rapes of captured women, have not stopped, and that shipments of food continue to be blocked by Khartoum, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Bashir and his chief subordinates in the northern National Islamic Front could be brought before the International War Crimes Tribunal.
I have talked to a number of the principals in the New Abolitionist coalition, and they intend to keep the pressure on the president and Congress to ensure that the provisions of the Sudan Peace Act are carefully and continually monitored. Also, the Africa desk of the State Department must be held accountable for documenting and reporting all violations of the Sudan Peace Act.
According to a report by Christian Solidarity International, quoting the news service Al-Anbara, "the Sudanese charge d'affaires in Washington, Dr. Harun Khidir, blamed 'members of the extremist Christian rights groups, and a group of the black masses' for pushing the Sudan Peace Act through Congress."
And, on Oct. 16, Agence France Presse reported that after passage of the Sudan Peace Act, "Islamist officials organized a mass demonstration in Khartoum in support of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, during which an effigy of President Bush, wrapped in American and Israeli flags and labeled 'the corpse of imperialism,' was torn to shreds and burned."
The Khartoum government will certainly require close watching, and by the press, too. The story of the signing of the Sudan Peace Act was only minimally reported in the New York Times and The Washington Post the next day. A longer piece was published in The Washington Times. None of the pieces mentioned the formal declaration of genocide, the core of the new law. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch did include that news.
Nat Hentoff is a columnist for The Washington Times. His column runs on Mondays.
-------- asia
ASEAN to Jointly Fight Terrorism
November 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-ASEAN.html
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) -- Southeast Asian leaders agreed Monday to jointly fight terrorism after deadly bombings in Indonesia and the Philippines, but complained that travel warnings issued by many nations were scaring away tourists and hurting their economies.
Instead of the usual genteel rounds of golf and trade talk at their annual summits, the 10 leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations dealt with the seriousness of new terrorist and nuclear threats.
They agreed with leaders of China, Japan and South Korea -- who also joined the two-day conference in Phnom Penh -- that North Korea should scrap its recently revealed nuclear weapons program.
``The fact that everyone shared the same understanding will be a big help in settling the issue in the future,'' Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said.
Security is the tightest ever for an ASEAN conference, with 5,000 military and police deployed. Streets were barricaded around the conference site, a glitzy hotel, to protect the 1,000 delegates -- the largest international meeting in modern Cambodian history.
ASEAN leaders hope to convince the world that they are serious about protecting the region from a growing terrorist threat. The bombings last month on the Indonesian resort of Bali killed nearly 200 people. Separate attacks in the Philippines soon after killed 22.
``We must take joint measures to fight terrorism,'' Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said. ``We cannot allow the evil of terrorism to prevail.''
Wealthy nations, including Australia and the United States, have responded with travel advisories, infuriating many Asian countries who charge they're scaring people away from safe destinations and setting the region up for more losses.
``True, they were a reminder for people to be cautious, but one should not jeopardize the good image of the entire region or country,'' Hun Sen said.
The leaders acknowledged it will be difficult to curtail terrorist activity.
``We have been living in such an easy, comfortable climate for so many years,'' said Ong Keng Yong, the incoming ASEAN secretary-general. ``To get someone to suddenly switch and get very strict and look at every dustbin and parked car is a different culture for us.''
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri told leaders about steps her government has taken to solve the Bali blasts, diplomats said.
The ASEAN leaders urged Iraq to comply with U.N. resolutions and said the United Nations should have the central role in deciding on any enforcement action.
ASEAN and China signed a nonbinding declaration aimed at preventing armed conflicts in disputed areas of the South China Sea, after failing for three years to agree on a legally binding ``code of conduct.''
They also signed a framework for future talks on an ASEAN-China free trade area that would have a combined market of 1.8 billion people and a gross domestic product of at least $2 trillion.
Earlier Monday, China suggested to Japan and South Korea that they also establish a three-way free-trade zone, and possibility the three agreed to consider.
As the summit opened Monday, military police blocked a dozen activists who wanted to hand a statement to the delegates expressing concerns about human rights. The protesters were forced from the scene and their banners confiscated.
``We are extremely disappointed,'' said Malaysian Irene Xavier, chair of the Committee for Asian Women. ``Definitely they are not interested in what we have to say.''
ASEAN, founded in 1967 to strengthen regional economic cooperation, is made up of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.
-------- biological weapons
US Fears Iraq Has Smallpox Samples
November 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/health/AP-US-Smallpox.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. intelligence has concluded that four nations outside of the United States -- Iraq, North Korea, Russia and France -- probably possess hidden samples of the smallpox virus, a U.S. official said Monday.
Al-Qaida is also believed to have sought samples of smallpox for weaponization, but U.S. officials don't believe the terror network is capable of mounting an attack with smallpox. Evidence recovered in Afghanistan pointed to Osama bin Laden's interest in the disease, the U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
U.S. officials worry that Iraq and North Korea could develop potent biological weapons with their samples, and Russian laxity could allow other nations to obtain the deadly disease for use as a weapon.
The fears that smallpox, declared eradicated in 1980, could again be loose on the world have driven the Bush administration to consider vaccinations for the American populace and prepare emergency plans should an outbreak be detected.
Smallpox kills about one-third of its victims and can be transmitted from person to person, unlike other biological weapons such as anthrax.
Many experts suspected North Korea had samples of the smallpox virus. A Russian intelligence report made public in 1993 accused Pyongyang of having a smallpox weapon, though that has not been publicly corroborated.
A declassified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report from May 1994 also quotes an unnamed source saying Russian scientists gave North Korea smallpox samples. That report had not been confirmed either.
Before 1998, U.N. weapons inspectors discovered limited evidence of a smallpox program in Iraq. They found a machine labeled ``smallpox'' and Iraq's experimenting with a related virus that infects camels.
Russia maintains acknowledge samples of the virus, as does the United States. But Ken Alibek, a former top scientist in the Soviet biological weapons program who came to the United States in 1992, claimed the Soviets covertly developed smallpox as a weapon in the 1980s.
The Washington Post, which first reported the intelligence finding on its Web site late Monday, said France's samples are believed to be for defensive research programs aimed at limiting casualties from a smallpox outbreak.
Routine smallpox vaccinations ended in the United States in 1972, and experts believe that those last vaccinated more than three decades ago have little residual immunity remaining. Only Russia and the United States overtly kept samples of the virus.
But the decision to offer the vaccine is a difficult one because the vaccine itself is so dangerous. It is made with a live virus called vaccinia that can cause serious damage both to people vaccinated and to those with whom they come into close contact.
-------- britain
Blair Says No Plans Yet to Call Up Troops for Iraq
November 4, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-britain.html
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair denied Monday that a decision had been taken to mobilize forces for possible war on Iraq, after a newspaper reported that thousands of reservists were about to be called up.
Blair also said he expected the United Nations Security Council to pass a new resolution on arms inspections soon, although he declined to predict a date for a council vote.
Britain, like the United States, believes Iraq is hiding chemical and biological weapons. Both countries say they would like to see a U.N. response but are willing to wage war to disarm Baghdad without a new resolution if necessary.
London has been reluctant to openly signal war plans as long as diplomatic wrangling continues. But it faces a deadline to begin calling up reservists if it wants to be ready to fight early in the new year, when the weather is best for combat.
The Daily Telegraph newspaper said Defense Minister Geoff Hoon might announce the call-up of about 10,000 reserves later Monday, but when Hoon appeared in parliament he had no announcement to make. Blair said no decision had been taken.
``There are no proposals as yet to call up reservists. If there are any we will announce them in the proper way,'' Blair said in response to a question at a news conference.
The Telegraph said the heads of military units involved in the call-up had been summoned to a meeting Monday at the Ministry of Defense, but a ministry spokeswoman said she knew of no such meeting.
As the window for optimum fighting weather draws near, both Washington and London have signaled impatience with weeks of drawn-out negotiations at the Security Council.
Veto-wielding members Russia and France have so far blocked a tough-worded draft resolution threatening Iraq with ``serious consequences'' if it thwarted inspections, although there were signs last week that Washington and Paris were closer to a deal.
Blair said he was ``reasonably confident'' a resolution would be agreed.
``We are reaching the point of closure, I think,'' he said. ``I don't want to prejudge the negotiations but they are proceeding satisfactorily. The absolutely critical issue for us is that we get an inspection regime in there that doesn't have the problems the last one had.''
The United States and Britain have said they would make several changes in a revised draft resolution this week, taking on board suggestions of other Security Council members.
But diplomats say differences among the five veto-holding members -- the United States, Britain, Russia, China and France -- could still delay a vote until after Tuesday's key mid-term U.S. elections.
CLEAREST SIGN
Britain has already announced plans to prepare Challenger II heavy tanks for desert combat, but an announcement of a British call-up would be by far the clearest sign yet of preparations for war to emerge on either side of the Atlantic.
The Telegraph said the initial call-up would include logistics staff, signals reservists and special forces, followed by up to 10,000 other troops.
It said the government would issue a rare ``Queen's Order'' -- a measure not taken since the Korean War a half century ago -- which limits the rights of reservists and their employers to appeal to avoid the call-up.
Normally reservists are not required to serve more than six months in a two-year period, but the Queen's Order overrides this policy, allowing Britain to recall reservists who were already summoned over the past year for war in Afghanistan.
Britain was the only country other than the United States to contribute a fully-fledged armored division to the 1991 Gulf War, and military experts say it could send about 20,000 men to fight in a second Gulf conflict.
--------
UK-based mafia gangs a legacy of intake of refugees
IAN BRUCE and VICKY COLLINS
Nov 4, 2002
UK Herald
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/4-11-19102-0-27-34.html
WHEN Britain first agreed to receive up to 1000 Kosovans every week in 1999, Balkans experts warned that it might find itself taking in more than just refugees fleeing the war.
Strong mafia gangs originating in Albania had already established bases in Greece, Germany and Italy and used those bases to strengthen existing people and drug-trafficking routes and establish new ones.
The British Helsinki Human Rights Group predicted that UK support for Kosovan refugees would also open it up to offshoots of these criminal gangs and, within two years, that prediction had shown itself to be true.
By 2001, the Albanian mafia had seized the Soho vice trade, according to a Home Office report which said that it controlled 70% of saunas and massage parlours in London.
The sheer scale of the alleged plan to kidnap Victoria Beckham for a ransom of £5m suggests it may be further proof of the strength of such gangs in Britain.
Mafia syndicates from Romania and Albania control the crossroads of crime via the Balkans into western Europe, running Colombian cartel-style empires which are the main conduit for heroin processed in Turkey.
Between four and six tonnes a month is sold on the streets of European cities from Berlin to Glasgow.
The Balkan godfathers also operate the biggest people-smuggling ring in the world, moving illegal immigrants, weapons, drugs and women destined for the sex trade along the same route through to central Europe.
Last year, police estimated that up to 75% of women working in brothels across the UK were either from Albania or were Kosovan Albanians, and that the vast majority were controlled by the Albanian mafia.
Although the alleged plot to kidnap Victoria Beckham would be the first time British-based Albanian gangs had been known to become involved in abductions, they are a very popular means of raising a supplementary income among the mafia and political groups in Kosovo.
The Kosovan Liberation Army, also known to orchestrate kidnappings, has strong links with these criminal gangs.
However, it is unlikely that a plot to kidnap the Beckhams was aimed at raising money for a political resistance in eastern Europe.
There is still an international peacekeeping force patrolling Kosovo, making resistance of a scale that would require such large amounts of money difficult, but not impossible.
But it seems likely that the chance to make money from a couple whose wealth is regularly splashed across the tabloids, rather than politics, was the driving force.
-------- business
FEDERAL CONTRACTS
States News Service
Monday, November 4, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64414-2002Nov3?language=printer
Zodiac of North America of Stevensville, Md., won a $145 million contract from the Coast Guard for boats.
Brown and Root Services of Arlington won a $114.99 million contract from the State Department for design and construction of an embassy.
Bionetics Corp. of Newport News, Va., won a contract worth up to $75 million from the Air Force for maintenance, repair and rebuilding of equipment at a precision measurement equipment lab.
Information Management Services of Silver Spring won a $53.33 million base contract with options from the Health and Human Services Department for biomedical computing support of cancer control and surveillance.
Automated Sciences Group of Dahlgren, Va., won a $48.56 million contract from the Naval Seas Systems Command for technical and engineering support for the Submarine Launched Ballistics Missile program.
Network Designs of Vienna won a $33 million contract from the Navy to integrate a primary technology solution for increased security of naval assets.
SURVICE Engineering Co. of Belcamp, Md., won a $25 million contract from the Army Materiel Command for analytical and engineering support services.
Rosettex Technology and Venture Group of Arlington won a contract worth up to $24 million from the Army Communications-Electronic Command to develop advanced communication, command, intelligence and surveillance technologies and systems.
Brown and Root Services of Arlington won a $15 million multiple award task order contract from the Army Corps of Engineers for construction services for projects within the geographic boundaries.
Forrester Construction of Rockville won a $15 million contract from the Army Corps of Engineers for construction services for projects within the geographic boundaries of the Army Corps of Engineers' North Atlantic Division.
Northrop Grumman Information Technology's Defense Mission Systems of Reston won a $9.65 million contract from the Naval Undersea Warfare Center for technical services relative to Naval Undersea Warfare Center analyses.
Executive Personnel Services of Washington won a $9.5 million contract from the General Services Administration for professional, administrative and management support services.
Anteon International of Fairfax won a $9.1 million contract from the Navy for information technology and analytical support services to support warfare analysis.
National Associates of Washington won a $9 million contract from the General Services Administration for professional, administrative and management support services.
Raven Inc . of Alexandria won a $7.84 million contract from the Navy for research and development services related to integrated optical techniques and applications.
IQ Solutions of Rockville won a $7.82 million dollar contract from the Health and Human Services Department for technical support services for research and development activities in technology assessment and technology transfer.
Premier Technology Group of Springfield won a $7.5 million contract from the General Service Administration for logistics worldwide.
Waynesboro Construction of Frederick won a $6.96 million contract from the Army for construction of a pre-engineered metal building to serve as a non-human primate facility at Fort Detrick.
Oracle Corp. of Reston won a $6 million contract from the Defense Energy Support Center for implementation of the fuels automated system Oracle Enterprise architectural platforms.
Quotient Inc. of Columbia won a $6 million contract from the Federal Aviation Administration to provide integrated project management support to the Office of Innovations and Solutions.
Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock of Newport News, Va., won a $5.88 million contract from the Naval Sea Systems Command for aircraft carrier engineering support services.
Advanced Systems Technology and Management of Fairfax won a $5 million contract from the General Services Administration for management, organizational, and business improvement services.
Computer and Hi-tech Management of McLean won a $4.3 million contract from the Commerce Department for network and help desk support services.
Communication Technologies of Chantilly won a contract worth up to $3.92 million from the Agriculture Department for laser printer maintenance.
Duane Morris LLP of Washington won a $3.73 million contract from the Agriculture Department for legal services.
McNeil Technologies of Springfield won a $3.5 million contract from the State Department to expedite Freedom of Information Act requests.
University of Virginia Office of Sponsored Programs of Charlottesville won a $2.63 million contract from NASA for aeronautical safety analytical software tools.
Parking Authority of Baltimore City of Baltimore won a $1.8 million contract from the Treasury Department for lease of parking facilities.
KAIS E Systems of Burke won a $1.5 million contract from the General Services Administration for management, organizational, and business improvement services.
Kenney and Company Staffing of Clinton won a $1.5 million contract from the General Services Administration for professional, administrative and management support services.
Northrop Grumman Information Technology's Government Solutions of Falls Church won a $1.4 million contract from the Health and Human Services Department for research and development services related to phase I of a BioInformatics Integration Support contract.
Global Initiatives of Annandale won a $1.25 million contract from the General Services Administration for management, organizational, and business improvement services.
Puritan Research of Vienna won a $1.18 million contract from the General Services Administration for management, organizational, and business improvement services.
FandM Electrical Services of Upper Marlboro won a $934,750 contract from the Army National Guard Bureau to renovate the D.C. Armory Fitness and the Distance Learning Centers.
Turnaround Factor of Midlothian, Va., won a $500,000 contract from the General Services Administration for management, organizational and business improvement services.
American Technology of Baltimore won a $428,280 contract from the Army Materiel Command for safety and rescue equipment.
Northrop Grumman Systems of Linthicum Heights won a $392,112 contract from the Defense Supply Center for non-crystal oscillators.
Mobile Shelter Systems USA of Williamsburg, Va., won a $383,917 contract from the Defense Supply Center for mobile system shelters.
Intelligent Decisions of Chantilly won a $375,000 contract from the Transportation Department for information technology equipment.
Demaree Inflatable Boats of Friendsville, Md., won a $354,900 contract from the Army Materiel Command for fixed and floating bridges.
The contracts listed were awarded by the federal government to companies and other vendors in Virginia, Maryland and the District. For more information, contact states2001@aol.com, or 202-628-3100, ext. 266.
-------- colombia
Colombia Takes Aim at Rebels in Its Cities
November 4, 2002
New York Times
By JUAN FORERO
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/04/international/americas/04COLO.html
MEDELLÍN, Colombia, Oct. 29 - In Medellín, a city known the world over for its violence, the Comuna 13 district may be the epitome of urban chaos.
A generation ago, Pablo Escobar and other drug lords recruited hit men from the district's clutter of cinder-block homes and dark passageways. Later, leftist rebels established themselves here, using safe houses in Comuna 13 to stash arms, drugs and kidnapping victims.
More recent incursions by right-wing paramilitaries, the rebels' most feared adversaries, helped give Comuna 13 and its 130,000 people a homicide rate 55 times that of New York City.
"The kids were always terrorized," said Gloria Zapata, 37, pointing to bullet holes in the door and walls of the day care center she runs. "Look, shots came through here. Shots would come through the roof."
But now, Colombia's new law-and-order president, Álvaro Uribe, has embarked on a pacification of Comuna 13 that officials say could become a model for other big cities hard hit by a 38-year-old conflict. The operation began on Oct. 16 when 3,000 troops, in what was called the largest urban offensive in Colombia's history, launched an assault that brought Comuna 13 under control in 48 hours.
Days later, with guerrillas striking back with car bombs here and in Bogotá, the army raided poor neighborhoods in Bogotá and in the nation's third largest city, Cali. Similar raids, searching for guns, explosives and rebels melding into the civilian population, continued here this week with the help of paid informants. The United States-backed army, which is receiving training and intelligence information from American forces, is promising future operations.
"This signifies we are conscious of the threats in the cities, where there are militiamen from all the armed groups," Gen. Mario Montoya, who led the operation, said in an interview. "What can they expect now? That we will go after them."
Yet the combat in Comuna 13 raised questions about how successful the Colombian Army, stretched thin and more accustomed to rural operations, will be in rooting out well-entrenched rebels in the cities. The United Nations and human rights groups also worry that more urban combat could lead to greater civilian casualties. At least four people were killed in the operation.
"What this signifies is an urban war," said Fernando Quijano, who runs a group that helps former rebels. "It means the level of violence will step up," added Mr. Quijano, a former rebel himself. "People will not need to see it on television anymore. It will be in front of their doorstep."
The attack on Comuna 13 has also cast in doubt the state's commitment to fighting paramilitary groups. Most of Medellín's slums are controlled by the paramilitaries of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, illegal antiguerrilla groups that often work with rogue military commanders.
"This army operation was not evenhanded," said Nacho Arango of the Popular Institute for Capacitation, a human rights group here. "Everybody says everything is fine. We do not see it that way."
Indeed, high-ranking paramilitary commanders from two different groups said in interviews that they welcomed the operation. The absence of the rebels could allow the paramilitaries to control drugs, extortion rackets and corrupt politicians in Comuna 13.
"If the state takes them off our back, we welcome that," said a commander who uses the alias Piolín and controls 300 men. "Let us be frank. For the state, the Self-Defense Forces are not an enemy. We are a friend."
Military officials shrugged off such comments, explaining that the persistent violence and brutality in Comuna 13 made it a natural target. They also pledged a crackdown on paramilitaries.
Before the military incursion, Comuna 13 had grown so violent that taxi drivers who ventured in were often forced, at gunpoint, to take out the bodies of people shot by rebels. Outsiders, residents said, could be killed on sight. Meanwhile, rebels from two insurgencies found Comuna 13 fertile ground for recruiting new fighters, among them children.
"There was gunfire all the time," said Nelly Betancourt, 57. "You had to make sure not to get hit."
Though the presence of soldiers has now given Comuna 13 the feel of a district still at war, there is a sense of tranquillity. Children kick soccer balls in the narrow streets, many residents have put up the Colombian flag and schools have reopened.
Still, worries persist. Rebels continue to hide in the warren of hovels, the military acknowledges. Residents wonder whether the violence will return if soldiers leave, as several army officers acknowledged was possible.
-------- europe
Victors in Turkey Pledge Big Effort to Join E.U.
November 4, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-turkey.html
ANKARA, Turkey (Reuters) - A new and untested conservative party with Islamist roots pledged to speed economic reform and moves to join the EU Monday after a spectacular victory in Turkey's general election which swept out the old order.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP), which vehemently rejects the Islamist label but whose victory raised deep concerns in Turkey's secularist establishment, sought to play up its pro-Western, pro-market policies, vowing to send envoys to the European Union and safeguard an economic reform package.
Turkey's closest ally, the United States, will be eager to see a new cabinet in office in about two weeks, the minimum time it will take to form a government. Washington would look to NATO-member Turkey for support in providing air bases and other facilities for any attack on neighboring Iraq.
``We are bound by the U.N.'s decision, we cannot say anything before seeing the U.N.'s attitude toward the issue,'' AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in the early hours of Monday, referring to moves in the U.N. Security Council to try to agree a tough new resolution on disarming Iraq.
``We don't want blood, tears and death. We hope the issue will be solved peacefully.''
The unexpected scale of the AKP's victory, routing parties blamed by voters for a grueling economic crisis, will test the fabric of the AKP itself. Founded only a year ago, the party has little experience of power, faces a court case to outlaw it and has a leader banned from taking up any government post because of a past conviction for Islamist sedition.
``LIQUIDATION OPERATION''
The Sabah daily called the AKP victory a revolt by Turkey's increasingly impoverished Anatolian heartland. ``Politics has never seen such a widespread liquidation operation,'' it said.
Provisional results gave the party more than 360 seats in a 550-seat assembly. Only one other party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), mustered the 10 percent needed to enter parliament.
Veteran Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, his fifth term in office drawing to a close, saw his party's vote sink from 22 percent in 1999 to little over 1 percent.
Former Economy Minister Kemal Dervis, architect of Turkey's $16 billion rescue program and a CHP deputy, said the election result could provide Turkey with much-needed stability.
``If we can create a constructive, tolerant working environment and if there is respect for the constitution and clear respect for the concept of the secular republic then I think this election will be useful for Turkey,'' he said.
While many were euphoric over the demise of the old order, there were also misgivings.
``The AKP isn't ready to govern Turkey alone and I'm not sure even they wanted that,'' said Rusen Cakir, author of a book on Erdogan, a former Islamist firebrand. ``To govern alone they really need time to prepare, gain legitimacy and stature on the domestic and international stage.''
But the AKP does not have the luxury of time.
Turkey needs to quickly establish market confidence and safeguard the IMF pact. Urgent issues must be tackled in the coming month in pursuit of Turkey's EU membership ambitions.
Erdogan was quoted by one daily Monday as saying he would send envoys to the EU immediately, before forming a government.
The EU welcomed Erdogan's enthusiasm but stressed the AKP would be judged on its actions.
``There is clearly a will to pursue rapprochement with the European Union,'' EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told the French daily Le Monde. ``We will have to judge the next Turkish government by its acts.''
Ali Coskun, tipped as a possible economy minister, told Reuters an AKP government would complete reforms needed to earn the next $1.6 billion IMF loan payment before discussing possible revisions to the program.
STRAIGHT TO WORK
Party sources said the AKP was drawing up a cabinet list to present to President Ahmet Necdet Sezer as soon as possible. Sezer must await official results in four days before formally inviting the AKP to form a government.
The Turkish lira, down more than 50 percent against the dollar since a 2001 crisis, sank to all time lows of over 1.7 million in early trading Monday before bouncing back, reassured by comments from AKP officials on the IMF program.
The main stock index soared 7 percent in the morning session on optimism a one-party government would be more effective than a string of bickering coalitions in recent years.
``The issue of confidence is going to be a problem,'' said Philip Poole, senior emerging markets economist at ING Barings investment bank in London. ``The issue of bringing down interest rates and attracting investment will be key.''
Kasper Bartholdy, senior emerging markets economist at CSFB, said of the AKP: ``They've made all the right noises to the market in terms of what they had promised to the international community beforehand, that they would give priority to keeping the IMF program going in particular.''
Erdogan will chair a meeting Tuesday to agree a candidate for prime minister, meanwhile Ecevit will lead a caretaker cabinet.
The secularist establishment -- the army, state apparatus and judiciary -- will watch Erdogan's progress keenly for any sign of Islamist tendencies. But the generals, a force in Turkish politics, are unlikely to make any public declarations.
``This result will worry a lot of people. The army will wait and see,'' said one Western diplomat.
The AKP was formed from the ``modern'' wing of a party banned last year for Islamist militancy.
Erdogan has learned from the fate of Turkey's first Islamist government, forced out after a year by an army-led pressure campaign.
The constitutional court is weighing a case to outlaw the AKP on grounds it breached laws on forming parties. Erdogan also faces trial on charges of illegal earnings dating from his days as Istanbul mayor.
-------- iran
Iran Says Not Sure Bin Laden Son Among Deportees
November 4, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-binladen.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian officials said on Monday they could not be sure that one of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's sons was among 20 people arrested and deported from Iran two months ago, contradicting previous statements that he was.
Government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh said the illegal immigrants had been detained in a border security operation in eastern Iran and sent back from where they entered.
``Later we heard gossip that bin Laden's son was among them,'' he told the student news agency ISNA.
``But none of the people who entered the country had identification papers with them... So from our point of view, recognizing their identities was impossible.''
The same spokesman on Sunday had told reporters that bin Laden's son was among the group of 20, although Iran had not been aware of his identity at the time. A government source said the group had been sent back to Pakistan from where they had entered.
Pakistan's Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said on Monday he had no knowledge of Iran returning one of bin Laden's sons to the country.
One of the sons, Sa'ad bin Laden, who is in his 20s, would be of interest to U.S. authorities, who believe he is active in the al Qaeda organization.
Iran is highly sensitive to allegations that it has harbored fleeing al Qaeda fighters escaping over its eastern borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan.
President Mohammad Khatami has said the Islamic Republic has arrested and deported 250 people with suspected links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban and al Qaeda. All were sent to their countries of origin, he said.
-------- iraq
Iraq War Could Unleash Oil Spills, Toxins - Experts
By Katherine Stapp
IPS Article
The Black World Today.
11/4/2002
http://athena.tbwt.com/content/article.asp?articleid=1887
NEW YORK - Major casualties of a war with Iraq would be the region's fragile environment and the health of its inhabitants and combatants, if the last Persian Gulf conflict is anything to judge by, arms experts and activists say.
Eleven years ago, both sides in the Gulf War left Kuwait's ecosystems in chaos - Iraq by torching oil wells as its soldiers retreated, and the United States by littering the desert with thousands of rounds of depleted uranium (DU) munitions.
DU is the trace element left over when uranium is enriched; most of the highly radioactive types of uranium are removed for use as nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons.
Deployed in the Persian Gulf in 1991 and in Kosovo in 1999, DU munitions are prized for their high density and ability to punch through walls and armoured vehicles.
According to the Washington-based Centre for Defence Information, the U.S. has four weapons that rely on DU and that could be used in a future war with Iraq: the A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft, the Apache and Cobra helicopters, and the M1A1 Abrams Tank.
''These types of weapons will undoubtedly be used as Washington has made it clear it wants to bomb bunkers and kill as many of the Iraqi government leaders as possible,'' said John Catalinotto of the New York-based International Action Center, a leading critic of DU.
''This would lead to an even greater amount of DU being spread around Baghdad, this time, a city of five million people,'' he said.
Although the Pentagon insists that DU is not toxic or radioactive, many Iraqi survivors of the Gulf War believe differently. The World Health Organisation (WHO) notes that those most likely to be exposed to DU are aid workers and local populations living and working in contaminated areas.
''The Gulf War is the only indicator for the increase of cancer in Iraq,'' Loua'i Latif Kasha, a pathologist and director of Baghdad's Mansour Hospital, told Reuters news agency last week. ''The rate of cancer has risen five- to seven-fold more than before 1991.''
''Radiation pollution from depleted uranium bombs by itself causes cancer like leukaemia and thyroid,'' said Kasha.
Some Desert Storm veterans, who now suffer from disabilities and mysterious illnesses, are leery of sending troops back to the region.
''Science has absolutely shown that the illnesses Gulf War veterans face are not as a result of the stressors of war but as a result of exposures, unapproved vaccines, unapproved pills and a myriad of other things that have not yet been researched,'' said Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Centre in Washington.
''Our government has ignored the Gulf War veteran experience of 1991. Will America stand by and watch another tragic event occur that could be avoided?'' he asked.
The Pentagon carried out numerous studies on DU, and concluded that it poses no significant health threat. It has not changed its stance, despite years of complaints from veterans groups.
Other independent experts also believe DU's toxicity has been exaggerated.
''In general, I think that these munitions are dangerous, but not for the reasons many opponents have argued,'' said Stephen Schwartz, editor of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. ''They're not harmless, but the health and environmental consequences of their use in the Gulf War and in Kosovo have been overstated.''
Still, peace groups and veterans' associations point out that no adequate explanation has ever been offered for the cluster of symptoms known as 'Gulf War Syndrome'.
In April, the Veterans Administration released a report that found that one-third of all troops sent to the Persian Gulf in 1991 have filed claims for medical problems. About 9,600 Desert Storm veterans, of a total of 200,000, have died since the end of the war.
''While we were never sure which combination of factors caused the illness of over 100,000 U.S. service people in the Gulf in 1991, many of the same suspected factors will be present (in a future war),'' Catalinotto said.
''DU, widespread vaccinations, exposures to toxic materials destroyed by U.S. bombs will all be there again.''
Aside from DU - and possibly the use of biological and chemical weapons - environmentalists warn of more oil spills should U.S. forces invade Iraq, which is sitting on at least 112 billion barrels.
When Iraqi forces pulled out of Kuwait in 1991, they ignited more than 700 oil wells. Eight months elapsed before the fires could be put out. The resulting 10,000-square-mile cloud of soot darkened the sky to the point that cars had to use their headlights in the daytime.
About 11 million barrels of oil were also deliberately dumped by Iraq into the Arabian Gulf. A decade later, scientists assessing the damage found that while ocean ecosystems had mostly recovered, 40 percent of Kuwait's fresh water reserves were permanently ruined by lakes of oil that had seeped through the sand.
Green Cross International estimated the total environmental damage suffered by Kuwait at 40 billion dollars.
Environmental Media Services, which put out a fact sheet on the subject, says it is unlikely that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would torch his own wells.
But the group notes that the size of the country and its oil wells would make it much more difficult to extinguish burning oil fields there, should they be ignited by a bombing campaign or for other reasons.
Some of the wells contain a significant amount of gas, and fire-fighters have much more difficulty controlling and capping these types of high-pressure wells, the group says.
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----
Saddam Hints at Flexibility, U.S. Ships Set Sail
Reuters
Monday, November 4, 2002
By Samia Nakhoul and Evelyn Leopold
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3620-2002Nov4?language=printer
BAGHDAD/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said Monday he would consider cooperating with a new U.N. resolution on arms inspections provided it was not merely a pretext for the United States to attack Iraq.
As intense diplomatic wrangling went on among major powers over how to deal with Iraq, there were growing signs that Washington was preparing for possible war. U.S. officials told Reuters three U.S. military cargo ships capable of carrying tanks had left U.S. shores.
"If a resolution is issued which respects the U.N. charter, international law and Iraq's sovereignty, security and independence, and does not provide a cover for America's ill intentions, we will view it in a way that makes us deal with it," official Iraqi television quoted Saddam as telling visiting far-right Austrian politician Joerg Haider.
In separate talks with South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad, Saddam said however: "If American pressures, temptations and threats led to resolutions that contradict the interests of Iraq, its security and independence, we will defend our people."
The first comment appeared to mark a possible shift in Baghdad's stance. Iraqi officials have previously been hostile to the idea of a new resolution governing U.N. inspections of its alleged programs to develop nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
The United States and Britain say they will make changes this week to a tough draft resolution intended to give inspectors unfettered access to sites in Iraq. The inspectors left Baghdad in 1998 complaining Iraqi authorities had consistently obstructed their work.
"HIDDEN TRIGGERS"
At issue is suspicion by France, Russia and China of "hidden triggers" in the wording of the resolution that would allow Washington to launch a military strike, overthrow Saddam and argue afterwards it had U.N. authorization.
France is lobbying hard to amend the draft resolution.
Diplomats say the differences among the five veto-holding permanent members of the Security Council -- the United States, Britain, Russia, China and France -- could delay a vote until after Tuesday's key mid-term U.S. elections.
Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, the most steadfast of Washington's military allies, said on Monday the five were converging on agreement.
"We are reaching the point of closure, I think," Blair told a news conference. "The absolutely critical issue for us is that we get an inspection regime in there that doesn't have the problems the last one had," he said.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other officials were meeting in Washington on Monday to go over the draft and decide which changes were acceptable.
The United States expected to submit an amended resolution to the Security Council this week, the State Department said. President Bush on Monday lobbied President Vicente Fox of Mexico, considered a key voter on the council.
Leaders of 13 Asian countries, including China, called on Iraq to "fully comply" with U.N. resolutions after meeting in Phnom Penh, the Japanese news agency Kyodo reported.
U.S. SHIPS SET SAIL
The U.S. military cargo vessels, USNS Bellatrix, USNS Bob Hope and USNS Fisher, left U.S. shores in recent days, officials said.
The ships are just short of the length of aircraft carriers, and among the largest transport ships in the U.S. military's inventory. Two have seven decks capable of carrying tanks, helicopters and other heavy armor.
The deployment occurred as the aircraft carrier USS Constellation set sail for the Gulf from San Diego, California at the weekend.
Marge Holtz, director of Military Sealift Command, a branch of the U.S. Navy, declined to comment on the exact destination of the cargo vessels. "It is part of the repositioning of forces and equipment in support of the war on terror. They are en route," she told Reuters.
Iraq applauded key U.S. ally Saudi Arabia on Monday for forbidding U.S. forces to use its soil as a launchpad to attack Baghdad, saying it was "in line with Arab solidarity."
Saudi Arabia said it would not allow the United States to use its facilities to attack Iraq, even if a strike had U.N. sanction -- a pointed sign of how little enthusiasm frontline U.S. allies appear to feel for war.
Kuwait, delivered from Iraqi occupation 11 years ago by U.S.-led forces, said on Monday its bases would be used if a U.N. resolution was issued, but not its own troops.
In Turkey, a member of the NATO military alliance, the seismic election victory of a party with Islamist roots at the weekend added to doubts over how Turkish bases might be used by U.S. and British warplanes stationed there in the event of war.
The U.S. military has already moved large quantities of ammunition, armored vehicles, troops and command facilities to the Gulf region, where Western forces have land bases in several countries. A number of huge U.S. aircraft carriers are in striking distance of Iraq.
The practical support of Saudi Arabia or other individual U.S. allies in the region is not vital to that military buildup, but the lack of it could undermine Washington's claims to international legitimacy for attacking Iraq.
In secretive Iraq there were few visible signs of military activity, but there was other evidence the government was girding itself to deal with a possible attack.
Saddam has ordered double food rations to be provided for the population for two months in the event of war, his trade minister announced this week. Fuel dumps are being restocked and air raid warning sirens tested.
Diplomats say he has also made plans to nip any unrest in the bud to avoid a repeat of the 1991 post-Gulf War revolts by Shi'ite Muslims in the south and Kurds in the north. Saddam has appointed loyal army commanders as provincial governors with orders to respond swiftly to any trouble, the diplomats say.
--------
Iraqis: U.N. Sanctions Hurt Children
November 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Suffering-Children.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Emira was a day old when she was abandoned by her parents, who couldn't afford to keep her. She is one of tens of thousands of Iraqi children suffering under U.N. sanctions and the Arab country's general downslide amid fears of a new war.
Emira was taken from the hospital where she was born Saturday and placed in a drab Baghdad orphanage, one of Iraqi capital's four which house thousands of children. Many were abandoned by their families while others lost both their parents, some during the Gulf War.
``We have a dramatic increase in orphans here,'' said Aneeba Jabar, the director of the Al-Najat orphanage on the garbage-strewn banks of the Tigris River on the outskirts of Baghdad.
She blamed it on United Nations sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990, speaking as a government minder monitored an interview.
``We had two orphanages in Baghdad before the sanctions and the (Gulf) war. Now, we have four because the old ones became too crowded,'' Jabar said, as Emira sucked formula from a bottle. She shared her small bed with another, pale-looking infant.
``Emira's mother simply fled the hospital because the family has no money to feed her,'' Jabar said. She would not provide the exact number of orphans in Baghdad ``because their number is soaring daily.''
U.S. and United Nations officials have repeatedly rejected complaints about the humanitarian impact of the sanctions, saying the sanctions could be eliminated if Iraq complies with demands that it prove it has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction.
The United Nations has also criticized Iraq for spending only a tiny fraction of its U.N.-approved oil proceeds on improving nutrition for children. However, there was never free and unrestricted purchase of any goods under the oil-for-food program, and the sanctions committee has at times denied or delayed delivery on some foods and medicines sought by Iraq.
Many people in Iraq live below the poverty line, and as a result, families who cannot afford to feed and clothe their children are forced to give them up.
Since 1990, when Iraq was one of the most prosperous Arab nations because of huge oil reserves, living standards have plummeted, and average monthly salaries dropped from the equivalent of $500 to $10.
Washington has renewed accusations that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction in violation of U.N. orders and of sponsoring terrorists. President Bush is pushing the United Nations for a tough resolution that would allow an attack on Iraq, but has threatened to act alone if the Security Council doesn't go along.
That is why the basement at Baghdad's Al-Mansour Teaching Hospital for Children is being prepared to shelter 200 young cancer patients, their families and medical staff in case of a new war.
The hospital took similar precautions during the 1991 Gulf War that was launched by a U.S.-led coalition to drive Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The hospital was not hit during that war and is not near any military installations, but is preparing for a hit by a stray missile.
But fears of American strikes are not the only problems the Iraqi health system faces.
The hospital's director, Dr. Luay Kasha, said that since the sanctions were introduced, 1.6 million Iraqi children have died, up to seven times more than in the same period before the sanctions. This corresponds with U.N. figures, which also mention that more than a million Iraqi children are malnourished.
Kasha said the American use of depleted uranium in its munitions during the Gulf War was probably to blame. ``After that there was shortage in supply of proper food and medicines ... after that, epidemics flared up, cholera, virus infections, tuberculosis, chest infections, skin infections, water-borne diseases.''
``We are now reporting five to seven times increase of cancer cases among children than before 1990,'' Kasha said, an Iraqi government minder also present as she spoke. ``Most of the cases were caused by radiation ... like leukemia.''
The Americans have challenged such claims and insist that there is no proven link between use of depleted uranium munitions and the diseases.
Emin Fellah, a 5-year-boy pale boy of bare bones and skin, is dying of leukemia, and his mother Fatima watches him with teary eyes.
``If we had proper medicines, he might have had a chance,'' said Dr. Lana Ahmed. ``But with the situation like this, we had to abandon his therapy.''
--------
Saddam Said to Consider Resolution
November 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-UN.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- President Saddam Hussein indicated Monday he would not reject outright a new U.N. resolution on weapons inspections, saying Iraq would examine the conditions it imposes before deciding on compliance, Iraqi TV reported.
Saddam's remarks appeared to mark a shift by the Iraqi leader, who had maintained he would only accept weapons inspectors on terms laid down in previous resolutions.
The comments appeared aimed at preparing the Iraqi people for acceptance of a new resolution and at buying time to stave off any American attack.
``Iraq will look into whether it will deal with a resolution after it is issued by the Security Council,'' state-run television quoted Saddam as saying during a meeting with Austrian far-right politician Joerg Haider.
In a separate meeting Monday with South African envoy Aziz Behad, Iraqi television quoted Saddam as saying that ``Iraq will respect any behavior or decision that is issued in accordance with the U.N. Charter and international law.''
However, Saddam made clear he wasn't accepting any resolution unseen.
``If the American pressure, enticements and threats lead to decisions that contradict with the interests, security and independence of Iraq, we will defend our people, Iraq's interests and its security,'' Iraqi television quoted him as saying.
``The most important thing is that we don't let America get the international cover for its aggression. If it unilaterally launches an aggression against us, we will confront it, God willing, although the Iraqis will be subjected to harm because America does not stop at anything,'' Saddam was quoted as telling Behad.
As recently as Sunday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri suggested Baghdad would reject a draft U.S. resolution on U.N. weapons inspections, calling it ``an evil American resolution,'' and that Iraq would not be alone in doing so.
``This resolution is rejected by the international community, and it will never be accepted by anybody,'' Sabri said.
The United States has proposed a new resolution which would strengthen U.N. weapons inspections, declare Iraq in ``material breach'' of its obligations to destroy weapons of mass destruction and threaten ``serious consequences,'' presumably military action, if Baghdad fails to cooperate with inspectors.
Russia, France and China contend the United States could use the resolution to launch an attack on Iraq without getting Security Council approval. They want the possibility of force to be considered in a second resolution only if Iraq obstructs the inspectors. Council members expect a revised American text this week.
The U.S. draft resolution now gives Iraq seven days to accept terms from the day of passage. Iraq would then have 30 days to declare its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs plus another 20 days to declare additional chemical stocks.
The resolution has been in the works since Iraq announced Sept. 16 that weapons inspectors would be welcome to return unconditionally after nearly four years.
Saddam also repeated past pledges that Iraq was free of chemical, nuclear and biological weapons and that his country would resist strongly any American strike.
``Iraq will defend itself if attacked by the United States of America,'' Iraqi television quoted him as saying.
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Saddam Hints at Flexibility; U.N. Deal Close
November 4, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq.html
BAGHDAD/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - President Saddam Hussein said on Monday Iraq would consider cooperating with a U.N. resolution on arms inspections if it was not just a pretext for a U.S. attack.
At the United Nations, after weeks of wrangling, signs emerged that a compromise resolution may be agreed this week.
``If a resolution is issued which respects the U.N. charter, international law and Iraq's sovereignty, security and independence, and does not provide a cover for America's ill intentions, we will view it in a way that makes us deal with it,'' official Iraqi television quoted Saddam as telling visiting far-right Austrian politician Joerg Haider.
The comment appeared to mark a shift in Baghdad's stance. Its officials have repeatedly insisted there is no need for a new resolution governing inspections of its alleged programs to develop nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
But diplomats noted the reference to respecting Iraq's ``sovereignty, security and independence,'' saying in the past this meant restrictions on where U.N. arms inspectors can go.
The United States has made several changes in the last week to a tough resolution intended to give unfettered access to the inspectors, who left in 1998 complaining Iraqi authorities had consistently obstructed their work.
The U.S. draft resolution warns that failure by Iraq to make a full declaration of its weapons of mass destruction and related materials or interference in the inspections could amount to a ``material breach'' of the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire pact, a legal basis for war.
Washington was now offering to wait until chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix reported any major problems and then discuss them with the council before determining a ``further material breach'' or launching any military strike.
But the United States still opposed allowing the council to authorize the use of force or to determine what would constitute a ``further material breach'' of U.N. resolutions.
U.S. CONCESSIONS
France, backed by Russia and China, fears ``hidden triggers'' in the wording of the resolution that would allow Washington to launch a military strike, overthrow Saddam and argue afterwards it had U.N. authorization.
In new language, Washington was also ready to give Iraq up to 50 days to prepare parts of a declaration Baghdad has to give on industry-related chemical or biological materials that may have military applications, the diplomats said.
Diplomats say because of differences among the five veto-holding permanent members of the Security Council -- the United States, Britain, Russia, China and France -- the revised resolution was not expected to be presented until late Tuesday or Wednesday.
The United States and Britain hope for a vote by Friday.
Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, the most steadfast of Washington's military allies, said Monday the five permanent members were converging on agreement.
``We are reaching the point of closure, I think,'' Blair told a news conference. ``I don't want to prejudge the negotiations but they are proceeding satisfactorily.
``The absolutely critical issue for us is that we get an inspection regime in there that doesn't have the problems the last one had,'' he said.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other officials were meeting in Washington to decide on the modifications, administration officials said.
U.S. officials said that despite remarks by Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal at the weekend they did not believe that that Riyadh had ruled out the use of Saudi bases in any eventual attack on Iraq.
In an interview broadcast by CNN on Sunday the minister said, ``We will abide by the decision of the United Nations Security Council and we will cooperate with the Security Council. But as to entering the conflict or using facilities ... that is something else.''
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters, ``We looked at the remarks and we talked to the Saudis about the remarks, and I didn't take them, frankly, to be quite as definitive as the way they've been reported.''
MILITARY PREPARATIONS
Kuwait, delivered from Iraqi occupation 11 years ago by U.S.-led forces, said Monday its military bases could be used in the threatened conflict but not its own troops. ``If a (U.N. Security Council) resolution is issued, the bases will be used (by Western forces), but not the Kuwaiti military,'' said Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah.
In Turkey, a member of the NATO military alliance, the weekend election victory of a party with Islamist roots fueled doubts over how Turkish bases might be used by U.S. and British warplanes stationed there in the event of war.
Although the White House insists President Bush has not decided on war against Iraq, the U.S. has been building up its forces and equipment in the Gulf region.
A number of U.S. aircraft carriers are within striking distance of Iraq and a U.S. Navy official said three huge U.S. military cargo vessels capable of carrying tanks left U.S. shores in recent days. The official did not disclose where they were headed.
The ships are among the largest transport ships in the U.S. military's inventory. Two have seven decks capable of carrying tanks, helicopters and other heavy armor.
In Iraq, there were few signs of a military buildup, troop movements or anti-aircraft activity, but there was evidence the government is girding itself for attack.
Saddam has ordered double food rations to be provided for the population for two months in the event of war, his trade minister announced. Fuel dumps were being restocked and air-raid warning sirens tested.
Saddam has also made plans to nip any unrest in the bud to avoid a repeat of the 1991 post-Gulf War revolts by Shi'ite Muslims in the south and Kurds in the north. He has appointed loyal army commanders as provincial governors with orders to respond swiftly to any trouble, diplomats say.
Sunday, Saddam told his air force commanders and pilots that Iraq was ready for war. ``If God wants us to fight, and imposes it on us, we will fight, though we hate it,'' he said.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel Committed War Crimes in West Bank, Rights Group Says
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 4, 2002; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64269-2002Nov3?language=printer
JERUSALEM, Nov. 3 -- There is "clear evidence" that Israeli soldiers and their commanders committed war crimes against Palestinian civilians -- including unlawful killings and torture -- during a three-month campaign last spring in two Palestinian cities in the West Bank, the human rights group Amnesty International charges in a report to be released Monday.
In a study of Israeli army operations in the cities of Jenin and Nablus from April to June, the human rights group cites the killing of Palestinian women and children, the "wanton" destruction of houses, the torture of Palestinian prisoners and the use of Palestinian civilians by Israeli soldiers as "human shields" during military operations. The group says in the report these constitute violations of the Geneva Conventions.
The report is the most recent of several new studies by human rights organizations on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Human Rights Watch last week issued a report calling Palestinian suicide bombings against Israeli civilians "crimes against humanity" and asserting that the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, bore "significant political responsibility" for not stopping them. Amnesty, in a July report, also described the Palestinian suicide attacks as crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The incidents investigated for the latest report occurred during Operation Defensive Shield, an Israeli military incursion into Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank that Israel said was aimed at uprooting an infrastructure of Palestinian terrorism. The Israeli offensive began March 29, two days after a suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in the resort of Netanya, in which 29 Israelis were killed during a Passover celebration.
A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry tonight rejected the report as "one-sided," saying it "ignores the fact that Israel is in the midst of an armed conflict that was imposed on her."
"Israel is struggling to defend her citizens against the Palestinian terror campaign, which is deliberately being conducted behind the back of the civilian population, including the use of children and the use of ambulances to smuggle arms and explosives," the spokesman said.
The 76-page Amnesty report says that the Israeli government prevented reporters, diplomats and others from visiting Jenin and Nablus to investigate charges of unlawful killings during the first weeks of the military campaign, and that Israel never adequately investigated the charges itself.
"This failure on the part of the Israeli authorities has helped create a climate where some members of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], aware that no action will be taken against them, continue to carry out unlawful killings," Amnesty International said in a statement.
The report found that more than half of the 54 people killed in Jenin in the opening two weeks of the Israeli campaign were not involved in fighting. They included seven women, four children and six men over the age of 55. In the first three weeks of the Nablus offensive, it says, at least 80 Palestinians were killed, including seven women and nine children.
At least 16 people died when Israeli bulldozers razed their homes without giving them enough time to evacuate, and they were crushed by rubble, according to the report. In the Jenin refugee camp, the homes of 800 families were destroyed -- most after the fighting had stopped -- leaving 4,000 people homeless, the report says.
In August, the United Nations published a report on operations in Jenin, saying that it uncovered no evidence to support Palestinian charges that Israel massacred civilians, but cited allegations that Israeli forces used excessive force and prevented sick and wounded Palestinians from obtaining medical treatment. Twenty-three Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting in Jenin. Human Rights Watch put the Palestinian death toll in Jenin at 52, including 22 civilians.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today continued to attempt to reassemble a governing coalition. Former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a leading hawk in Sharon's Likud Party who has been a tough critic of the Sharon government, agreed today to serve as Sharon's foreign minister, on the condition that new elections are called as soon as possible, which could be by January. Sharon's office said it was studying Netanyahu's terms.
If he assumes the post, Netanyahu would replace Shimon Peres, an architect of the 1993 Olso peace accords with the Palestinians. Peres had served in Sharon's cabinet, but resigned with five other Labor Party ministers on Wednesday.
Sharon has appointed Shaul Mofaz, the army chief of staff during the spring offensive in the Palestinian territories, to be the new defense minister. Officials said they expect Mofaz's appointment to be approved by Israel's parliament on Monday.
The parliament, or Knesset, is also scheduled to vote Monday on three motions of no confidence in Sharon's government. Ultra-nationalist and Orthodox parties in the opposition, whose support is necessary to approve the motions, are not expected to back them. That may provide the parties a week or two to negotiate over joining Sharon in a new, right-wing coalition to replace the government that collapsed last week when the Labor Party quit, leaving Sharon six votes short of a majority in parliament.
---
Amnesty Accuses Israel of War Crimes in West Bank
Reuters
Monday, November 4, 2002
By Mark Heinrich
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1335-2002Nov4?language=printer
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The human rights group Amnesty International accused Israel on Monday of war crimes, saying there had been unjustified killings and maltreatment of Palestinians during an army offensive in the West Bank.
The London-based group said few of the abuses reported last spring had been impartially investigated.
The army reoccupied Palestinian West Bank cities in April with the declared aim of rooting out militants behind a campaign of suicide bombings that have killed scores of Israelis.
"The relationship of the conflict to the deteriorating human rights situation has led to a growing understanding that there can be no peace in the region until human rights are respected," Amnesty International said in a 76-page report.
The report detailed what Amnesty called unlawful killings and abusive treatment of detainees in two West Bank cities where Palestinian militants put up the fiercest resistance to the army crackdown on their two-year-old uprising for statehood.
Cases described included a paralyzed detainee beaten by soldiers, demolitions of homes in which a family of eight and a wheelchair-bound man died, and a woman in labor struggling to walk to hospital after troops stopped her ambulance.
Other incidents reported included released detainees forced to walk home through a battle zone, using civilians as human shields, blocking of ambulances and humanitarian aid even where fighting had ceased, and the destruction of commercial, religious and residential buildings without military necessity.
Amnesty has previously accused Israel of brutalizing Palestinians under occupation, but in July condemned Palestinian suicide attacks on Israeli civilians as crimes against humanity. It has denied Israeli accusations of pro-Palestinian bias.
"Amnesty believes some acts by the Israeli army described (here) amount to grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are war crimes," said the report, entitled "Shielded From Scrutiny: Israeli Violations in Jenin and Nablus."
'LACK OF IMPARTIAL INVESTIGATIONS'
"Virtually none of these (civilian) killings has been thoroughly and impartially investigated. The failure to (do so) in disputed circumstances and those that were clearly unlawful has created a climate where members of the Israeli army believe they may carry out such killings with impunity," it said.
The Israeli army said it would comment on specifics of the report after examining them.
But it said its operations aimed to pre-empt attacks from "terror infrastructures situated in the heart of the innocent Palestinian population, which is used as cover for them."
It said 646 Israeli soldiers and civilians had died in more than 14,000 "terrorist attacks" since the uprising began.
"The state of Israel is exercising its basic right to defend its inhabitants," an army statement said.
In the past six months, Israel has denied a barrage of accusations by the United Nations and humanitarian activist groups that it had trampled on human rights in the West Bank.
It has voiced regret for civilian deaths but said they occurred during combat or operations to destroy buildings believed to be booby-trapped or serving as cover for militants.
The army has further denied accusations that houses were razed without adequate checks that occupants were not inside.
The army has said some ambulances were held up because of suspicions they were transporting militants or weapons, or because they refused to be searched. In September, the army said it was prosecuting 18 soldiers for plundering homes.
Amnesty based its new report on petitions to Israeli courts by rights groups, medical files, and interviews with Palestinian victims and their families and local and international officials, with testimony cross-checked for accuracy.
Over four months ending June 30, the period of two army offensives and reoccupation of cities given self-rule under interim peace deals in 1994-95, the Israeli army killed nearly 500 Palestinians, according to Amnesty.
"While many Palestinians died during armed confrontations, many of these Israeli army killings appeared to be unlawful and over 70 of the victims were children," it said.
Amnesty cited cases of several civilians killed when the army used explosives to blast open doors of buildings without adequate warning -- "disproportionate use of force or gross negligence in protecting those not involved in fighting."
It quoted U.N. refugee agency figures that 2,629 homes housing 13,145 people were battered, sometimes by tank shells or helicopter missiles, in a one-month period. This did not include demolished homes of Palestinians not registered as refugees.
-----
Sharon Government Survives No-Confidence Votes
November 4, 2002
New York Times
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/04/international/middleeast/04CND-ISRA.html
JERUSALEM, Nov. 4 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's fragile coalition weathered its first test in Parliament today, winning no-confidence votes.
Legislators voted down three motions brought by left wing and other opposition parties that could have toppled the government and led to new elections.
Parliament voted minutes after a suicide bomber struck in a shopping mall in central Israel, leaving himself and two other people dead and at least 12 people wounded.
Later, in a 69-39 vote, legislators approved the nomination of Shaul Mofaz as defense minister and he was sworn into office. He replaces Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the chairman of the Labor Party, who is now the leader of the opposition in Parliament.
Some members of Parliament had expressed the concern that Mr. Mofaz was too recently out of the army to serve as its civilian master and watchdog.
Earlier, in a first response to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conditional agreement to become Israel's foreign minister, Mr. Sharon seemed to dismiss suggestions to hold early elections, as Mr. Netanyahu had proposed.
"Taking the nation to immediate elections would be irresponsible," he said. "I hope everyone acts responsibly and doesn't try to make it difficult for a stable government to function."
But Mr. Sharon's statement, made to legislators from his Likud Party, was not considered the last word on the approach made to Mr. Netanyahu, and negotiations were expected to continue.
The prime minister's approach to Mr. Netanyahu was the latest move in Israel's suddenly dynamic politics, as Mr. Sharon has worked to recruit allies and box in rivals in order to shore up his minority government now that the Labor Party has walked out.
Like Mr. Mofaz, a former army chief of staff, Mr. Netanyahu favors exiling Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader. He opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.
In a television interview on Sunday night after meeting with Mr. Sharon, Mr. Netanyahu said that if he joined the government, it would have to move quickly to address three issues. He said he wanted to reach understandings with the prime minister on exile for Mr. Arafat, statehood for the Palestinians, and the location of a new fence along the boundary of the West Bank. Mr. Sharon, Mr. Netanyahu said, also supported exile.
Mr. Sharon tried and failed to persuade his previous government to support exiling Mr. Arafat. He has said he has also been restrained by a promise to President Bush not to harm the Palestinian leader.
As foreign minister, Mr. Netanyahu would replace Shimon Peres, an architect of the Oslo accords and a supporter of a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians.
After 19 months of unity government, Mr. Peres departed the coalition last week, along with other ministers from the left-of-center Labor Party, over a budget dispute. On Sunday Mr. Sharon's representatives began negotiations to bring far-right parties into the coalition.
Mr. Sharon has assured the Bush administration that his new government will not depart from the policies of the old one. But rightist factions are demanding as the price of their support that the government oppose some of Mr. Bush's stated goals, including the eventual creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Without Labor's 25 seats, Mr. Sharon, who has endorsed the eventual creation of a Palestinian state, now controls only 55 seats in the 120-seat Parliament.
If the government had fallen in today's no-confidence vote, Mr. Sharon would have been required to call new elections to be held within 90 days. Under the electoral calendar, elections are not scheduled until October.
If Mr. Sharon accepts Mr. Netanyahu's proposals, elections could come as soon as February, politicians here said.
An adept debater who speaks American-accented English, Mr. Netanyahu, who served as prime minister from 1996 until 1999, is widely seen inside Israel as one of its best spokesmen abroad. He is a member of Mr. Sharon's party, and so might seem an obvious choice for foreign minister. But the offer, like Mr. Netanyahu's conditional acceptance of it, was double-edged.
In offering the Foreign Ministry to Mr. Netanyahu, his chief Likud rival, Mr. Sharon tried to corner him politically, Israeli politicians said. Mr. Netanyahu was faced with the choice of becoming Mr. Sharon's subordinate or appearing to favor his own ambition over the good of the country in a time of crisis.
But Mr. Netanyahu invented a third option, essentially throwing a similar dilemma back at Mr. Sharon. Mr. Sharon must now choose whether to accept early elections or risk looking like the self-interested one.
"They are playing chess with each other," said one member of Parliament from the Likud, clearly relishing the exchange.
In a statement from the prime minister's office on Sunday night, Mr. Sharon "praised the decision in principle by Mr. Netanyahu to join his government." The statement said Mr. Netanyahu's demand for early elections was "being examined."
In the television interview on Israel's Channel 1, Mr. Netanyahu made no secret of his ambitions, describing himself as "a former prime minister, and as one planning on becoming prime minister."
Mr. Netanyahu said he told Mr. Sharon he would be "glad to serve as foreign minister in a government going to early elections."
"If we don't go to early elections," he said, "the Likud will fidget, the government will fidget, it will be subjected to endless blackmailing, and the economic collapse - which is happening before our eyes - will only worsen. I told him that we both must do the right thing, and the right thing is to immediately go to new elections."
In forgoing a run for prime minister two years ago, Mr. Netanyahu argued that no Likud prime minister could govern effectively, because there was no clear right-wing majority in Parliament. Now, the right is seen as likely to gain seats in a general election.
In the television interview, Mr. Netanyahu said he had a "clear objection to a Palestinian state, which in my opinion will be a state of terror led by Arafat with an ability to threaten our existence."
Mr. Netanyahu, 53, has been a persistent critic of Mr. Sharon from the right. Even as Israeli forces seized West Bank cities and towns in reprisal for Palestinian violence, he has repeatedly criticized Mr. Sharon as not going far enough in battling Mr. Arafat and his Palestinian Authority.
In a statement, Mr. Netanyahu said he "agreed to accept the position of Israel's foreign minister provided the government goes to early elections to salvage Israel's ailing economy."
Mr. Peres confirmed on Sunday that Mr. Sharon had offered him the chance to break with his party's decision and remain foreign minister. "They personally offered me the chance to be foreign minister, but I refused," he told Israeli radio.
"I am a member of the party, and not a conditional member. All my life I have been a member of the movement. I do not belong to the breed of person that thinks he is the torch-bearer, the great leader." He predicted that a narrow, right-wing coalition would not survive.
--------
Blast Kills Militant; Palestinians Blame Israel
November 4, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast-explosion.html
NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - An explosion killed two people, one a Hamas militant wanted by Israel, in a van in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday, and Palestinian security officials called it an Israeli strike.
Palestinian witnesses first said an Israeli helicopter fired a missile at the vehicle, but an official later said an Israeli aircraft flying overhead detonated a bomb inside the vehicle by remote control.
The blast in the Palestinian-ruled city destroyed the van and scattered debris and body parts over a wide area.
Palestinian security sources said one of the dead was Hamad Saddar, 32, a prominent member of the militant Islamic group Hamas, wanted by Israel for alleged involvement in attacks on Israelis.
The other victim was not immediately identified. Four passersby were wounded, hospital officials said.
The Israeli army, which has occupied Nablus and most other West Bank cities since June following a series of suicide bombings, had no immediate comment.
Israel has tracked and killed scores of militants it accused of mounting attacks on Israelis since the start of a Palestinian uprising against Israel occupation in September, 2000.
Such Israeli strikes have often triggered revenge attacks by militants inside the Jewish state. Hamas is one of the main groups behind suicide bombings that have killed scores of Israelis during two years of conflict.
-------- mideast
Saudi Says U.S. Can't Use Facilities for War
Reuters
Monday, November 4, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64175-2002Nov3?language=printer
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Nov. 3 -- Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. regional ally, said today that it would not allow the United States to use its facilities for an attack against Iraq, even if a strike were sanctioned by the United Nations.
"We will abide by the decision of the United Nations Security Council and we will cooperate with the Security Council. But as to entering the conflict or using facilities . . . that is something else," Prince Saud Faisal, the Foreign Minister, told CNN.
"Our policy is that if the United Nations takes a decision on Chapter 7, it is obligatory on all signatories to cooperate but that is not to the extent of using facilities in the country or the military forces of the country," he added, referring to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which makes it mandatory for U.N. member countries to implement any measure immediately.
The prince's remarks were the strongest Saudi rejection of any assistance to a possible U.S. attack on Iraq.
In response to Saud's comments, Mary Matalin, an adviser to Vice President Cheney, said on CNN's "Late Edition" program that the United States had many other allies it could depend on.
Asked if the Saudi position marked a serious setback to any U.S.-led effort against Iraq, she said: "We have many friends and allies in the region and we have many friends and allies around the world. . . . We would never engage unless we were sure that we could get the job done well."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as President Bush flew to Springfield, Ill., on a political trip, said, "I don't talk about operational issues or basing issues," and declined to comment further.
In the past, Saud has indicated the United States could use bases in Saudi Arabia for an attack on Iraq if the strike were sanctioned by the United Nations. It was not clear what prompted the apparent shift in the Saudi position.
-------- nato
After NATO's Year of Identity Crisis, a Defining Meeting
November 4, 2002
New York Times
By STEVEN ERLANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/04/international/europe/04NATO.html
BRUSSELS, Nov. 1 - Stung by charges of irrelevance after the Sept. 11 attacks, NATO is making a serious effort at transformation to match the needs of a new age and an aggressive United States. It is undertaking a historic enlargement, to 26 members, and making plans to create a strike force able to wage offensive operations alongside the Americans anywhere in the world.
But if the alliance fails at this task, senior American and British officials warn, NATO will be increasingly sidelined as a political talking shop, useful in bringing along the nations of the former Soviet Union but no one's first resort in time of crisis.
Now the prospect of a new war in Iraq looms over NATO's summit meeting, three weeks from now in Prague, with Washington undecided how hard to press its allies for a joint statement supporting the need for Iraq to comply with United Nations resolutions or face the consequences.
Washington is insisting that the Prague meeting produce a unified statement on Iraq, but with significant opposition to a war from Germany and other NATO allies, the statement, not yet drafted, may have to be limited to a general endorsement of Iraq's obligation to comply with the resolutions and to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction.
"In Prague, we need to declare unity, or NATO implodes," a senior alliance official said.
Prague will also be the first opportunity for President Bush to meet with Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, since Mr. Schröder's harsh criticism of the Bush administration's campaign against Iraq. American officials say they doubt that Mr. Bush, who is still angry, will grant him a one-on-one dialogue.
But also looming over Prague is a potential competition with the ambitions of the European Union. Not only is the union enlarging, it is also trying to construct a collective defense identity that could one day rival NATO itself.
Many NATO officials believe that France in particular sees the American call for a NATO rapid reaction force to be a prototype for a future European army. While a senior French official here said he regarded such a supposition as "paranoid," he argued that history - and perceived American unilateralism - are leading eventually toward a Europe that could go its own way and support its policies with credible force.
The French official said NATO must transform or sink into irrelevance. "The problem is that NATO wants to show that it's not a creaky old lady, but a fresh young maiden, and that requires a lot of plastic surgery, with all the risks and pain," the official said. "But there is no longer a monopoly in the security field. There will be NATO and the European Union."
As NATO tries to redesign itself, the French official said, there is a serious question: "Is there Europe in the future of NATO? For me, that's the issue."
This will be NATO's first summit meeting since April 1999, when the alliance was torn over the prosecution of its first war, against Serbia over Kosovo.
That war overshadowed NATO's first post-Soviet enlargement, inviting in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, in a dramatic change for an alliance that was founded as a collective defense against Soviet expansionism.
This time, NATO will invite seven more nations, including the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - which were annexed by the Soviet Union after World War II - as well as Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and even Romania. The size and variety of this enlargement is breathtaking, but it is also a reflection of a much calmer post-Soviet world, with a weak Russia eager to enhance its growing ties to NATO. But the alliance also is reorganizing under pressure from a new set of threats stemming less from nation-states than from globalized terrorist groups like Al Qaeda.
"We want the Prague summit to launch a whole-scale transformation of the NATO alliance for the 21st century," said Nicholas Burns, the American ambassador to the alliance, in a speech this week. "Threats to peace come not from strong states within Europe, but from unstable failed states and terrorist organizations far from Europe's borders." The most dangerous of those threats, he asserted, is "the toxic mix of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, aimed not just at our militaries but at our civilian populations as well."
Prague is about "deconstructing the old rigid NATO and building a new one, able to fight the wars of the future," said an American official. "If NATO can do it, it has a whole new history before it. And if it can't, NATO simply won't be as useful or important. Members have to implement these changes and come up with the money. A year from now, we'll know."
Kosovo and Afghanistan have shown that NATO, devised as a static defense against Soviet invasion, is incapable as of yet of quickly moving combat troops anywhere. Its other members lack the sophisticated encrypted communications, precision-guided weapons and all-weather capacity of American troops and have difficulty fighting efficiently alongside the Americans.
With Afghanistan in mind, the Bush administration has challenged the allies to come up with a NATO rapid reaction force of 5,000 to 20,000 people that would be able to get to a battle anywhere within 7 to 30 days, sustain itself in the field for a month, and cooperate effectively with American troops. Such a force would require NATO to buy or lease heavy-lift transport planes and to improve its abilities on the American model.
While the allies are expected to agree to the idea in principle in Prague, the details - and the necessary commitment to greater defense spending - will be fought over later.
The NATO secretary general, Lord Robertson, has been touring member states to get specific commitments on higher defense spending to enhance NATO capabilities. He is asking the Spaniards to lead a coalition to secure tankers to improve in-flight refueling; the Dutch to head up securing more smart weapons; the Germans, who had wanted to get troops to Afghanistan by train, to lead a group to lease existing heavy transport planes; the Norwegians to do more with special operations forces; the Czechs to improve defenses against nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
"We're committed to revamping NATO to make it more flexible, adaptable and mobile," Lord Robertson said in an interview. "If the Europeans want influence over what the U.S. is doing or planning or thinking, then they've got to be able to be there with them when the time is right."
Lord Robertson has been quietly criticized as carrying too much American water. But part of the problem, senior NATO officials say, is widespread doubt that Washington is truly committed to using a new NATO, as an alliance, to combat modern threats. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's philosophy that the "mission defines the coalition" and not the other way around has shaken NATO and strengthened support for the French view that Europe must become a counterbalance to American power.
Mr. Rumsfeld, for that reason, is waiting to see what the European allies offer for the new rapid reaction force before making an American contribution. "He wants to be sure that this is not a new way for the U.S. to carry Europe," one official said.
There is another criticism of the force, which is that it does not answer the question of what NATO is really for. "The response force is a technical military answer, a kind of tool in the toolbox, to what NATO should become," said Ronald D. Asmus, a former State Department official and the author of the new book "Opening NATO's Door," on its 1999 enlargement. "But it's a tool without a context or a vision, and they need to lay out that vision."
Jeffrey Gedmin, a conservative who runs Aspen Institute Berlin, likes the idea of a transformed and flexible NATO, but he has doubts it will happen. "More likely, NATO will become ever more political as it becomes bigger, and there's nothing wrong with that. It may not be the first military instrument of choice for the United States, but that may not matter."
NATO remains, one alliance official said, "the only place where Washington must talk to its allies about security issues regardless of whether Cheney or Rumsfeld deign to take their calls."
-------- russia / chechnya
Russians Announce Chechnya Crackdown
Rebels Shoot Down Helicopter, Killing 9
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 4, 2002; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64161-2002Nov3?language=printer
MOSCOW, Nov. 3 -- Russia launched what it called a massive retaliatory military operation in Chechnya today to avenge the seizure of a Moscow theater, and Chechen guerrillas responded by shooting down another Russian military helicopter in the breakaway republic.
Sergei Ivanov, the Russian defense minister, announced that he had suspended long-planned troop withdrawals from Chechnya after reports that more "suicide terrorists" were being trained for strikes against civilians similar to the theater siege that led to the deaths of at least 119 hostages just over a week ago.
"In recent days, we have been receiving more and more information about preparations for perpetrating new terrorist actions underway in the territory of the Chechen republic -- and not just there," Ivanov said in televised remarks. "In some settlements, mercenaries, including suicide bombers, are being recruited -- being turned into zombies, I would say. As of today, the forces of all the power structures quartered in Chechnya are carrying out a large-scale, tough but targeted special operation in all the regions of Chechnya."
What that meant on the ground was difficult to determine. Russia has about 80,000 troops deployed in Chechnya and despite periodic claims of victory has not established uncontested control over the republic. Ivanov's decision to suspend troop pullouts, however, represented a departure for a government that until recently had insisted it no longer needed as many forces to keep order.
The escalation of fighting could mark a new phase in a conflict that has raged off and on for the past eight years. It underscored the dramatically fading prospects for peace since several dozen Chechen guerrillas seized the Moscow theater on Oct. 23.
Holding more than 800 people hostage, the guerrillas demanded an end to the war in Chechnya. Russian commandos stormed the theater after pumping a gas into the ventilation system intended to put the hostages and their captors to sleep. The commandos recaptured the building and killed nearly all of the guerrillas, but 117 hostages died from the gas, since identified as a derivative of the opiate fentanyl. The estimate of the number of guerrillas killed has been lowered to 41 or 42 from 50.
Ivanov's announcement today drew a prompt response from rebels in Chechnya. Within hours, they shot down an Mi-8 helicopter flying outside Grozny, the capital, killing nine men, including a deputy commander. It was the second helicopter shot down in a week and the latest of a half-dozen blown out of the sky in the last three months. The deadliest incident was in August, when 119 soldiers and crew members aboard an overcrowded transport helicopter were killed.
Military authorities told Russian television that the helicopter that was hit today was struck by a rocket launched from a ruined five-story building on the outskirts of Grozny. Authorities reported cordoning off the area and killing two Chechen fighters in the area afterward.
In the days after the hostage crisis, President Vladimir Putin promised a broader, U.S.-style war on terrorism that could extend beyond Russia's borders. But Ivanov's statement indicated that attention first would be paid to Chechnya. Russian officials have ruled out any peace talks since the theater siege.
The claim of a new, tougher operation in Chechnya, however, left some analysts baffled. "The statement suggests that there had been self-imposed constraints they've been operating under before in terms of military targets," said Robert Nurick, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, a research organization. "They've never suggested that before. I can't imagine what they are. If what it means is they're going to be less careful than before in who they go after, it's hard to believe this is going to be any more successful than what they'd been doing."
A pro-Chechen Web site made a similar point, detailing the bombing raids, cleansing operations against civilians and other harsh tactics used by Russian troops over the years. "After all this, Ivanov says it's possible to be tougher?" the Web site said. "If so, that means only the application of nuclear weapons."
Andrei Piontkovsky, an analyst with the Center for Strategic Studies here, said the new operation would only perpetuate a vicious cycle of terror and retaliation that would beget more terror. "It's a tragedy," he said. "Today's statement finally confirms this president is not able to solve the Chechnya problem. Just as President [Lyndon B.] Johnson could not finish the Vietnam War, President Putin is not able to finish the war in Chechnya. . . . We are repeating the same mistakes again and again and again. This president is doomed to repeat these mistakes again and again as long as he is president."
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As Russia Renews Crackdown, Chechen Fighters Down Copter
November 4, 2002
New York Times
By MICHAEL WINES
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/04/international/europe/04RUSS.html
MOSCOW, Nov. 3 - Russia's defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, announced a new crackdown on Chechen militants today to thwart "new acts of terror" planned for the region, but he had barely spoken before guerrillas shot down a Russian MI-8 helicopter near Grozny, Chechnya's capital, killing nine soldiers.
It was the fifth Russian military copter downed in 10 weeks in Chechnya and surrounding areas, and it raised further questions about the extent of Russian military control in an area where its political foothold is already in serious question.
The deputy commander of Russian forces in Chechnya, Col. Boris Podoprigora, told the Interfax news service that guerrillas had downed the helicopter about 5 p.m. today with a rocket fired from an abandoned five-story building on the outskirts of Grozny. He said troops had sealed off the area and had killed two guerrillas, but whether those responsible for the shooting had been captured was unclear.
President Vladimir V. Putin had insisted as recently as this past summer that Russia's three-year war in Chechnya was essentially won and that the government could soon begin turning over peacekeeping duties to local forces. But the surprise takeover last month by Chechen guerrillas of a Moscow theater with more than 750 hostages, combined with the helicopter attack today, appears to have laid that argument to rest.
Speaking today in Khabarovsk, in Russia's Far East, Mr. Ivanov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that the government had called off the long-promised reduction of forces in Chechnya because of the increased threat of hostilities.
By most estimates, 75,000 to 80,000 Russian forces are in Chechnya, facing a guerrilla army estimated at 2,000 or more. The Kremlin has announced plans to withdraw so-called surplus troops at least three times in the last two years.
"These days, we have been getting more and more information about militants being trained across Chechnya and beyond for new acts of terror," Mr. Ivanov said.
He said Russian troops had begun today to carry out "broad-scale, tough and targeted special operations in all Chechnya's regions." That appeared to support unconfirmed reports that government forces were locking down villages, some urban neighborhoods and even refugee camps in an effort to round up suspected militants.
Similar mopping-up operations have long been condemned by Chechen civilians and human rights activists, who charge that soldiers use them as a pretext for extortion, torture and, occasionally, for killing Chechen men. Russian officials largely deny those charges. In Chechnya itself, which appeared to be under unusually tight military control, there were no reports of large-scale sweeps today.
For most of the last three years, since Russian jets in effect leveled Grozny and sent most of its 500,000 citizens fleeing, the war in Chechnya has run like a low-grade fever, with Russians controlling the region by day and guerrillas by night.
Seldom has the war claimed more than 20 or 30 lives in any week, and even in Russia, it has only occasionally moved beyond the inside pages of newspapers.
But the recent actions on both sides seem to suggest that the war is entering a new phase.
An oft-quoted Russian military analyst, Pavel Felgenhauer, said in an interview this evening that the downing of six Russian helicopters since mid-August suggested that the guerrillas either had acquired a supply of surface-to-air missiles, or had figured out how to rewire an old stash that had been programmed by Russian manufacturers to swerve clear of Russian aircraft.
Either development is a potentially ominous change for the Russian forces, which claim to have scored significant victories over the guerrillas in recent months in part because they have ruled the air.
"Pilots will be reluctant to fly over certain areas, and they will be forced to fly at very low heights, which increases the risks of running into something," Mr. Felgenhauer said. "That decreases the effectiveness of the Russian supply system using helicopters, which gives the Chechens the possibility of planting more mines."
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Russians Hunt 'Suicide Squads' in Chechnya
November 4, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-russia-chechnya.html
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian forces hunted ``suicide fighters'' in Chechnya on Monday as they broadened a drive to smash guerrilla resistance in response to the bloody Moscow theater siege.
Interfax quoted unnamed police sources in Chechnya as saying officials expected car bombs and suicide attacks in the regional capital Grozny and the second city Gudermes.
The news agency gave no further details, but its report followed Sunday's warning by Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov that intelligence reports suggested suicide fighters were being trained in a number of Chechen settlements.
Ivanov also said he had halted the withdrawal of army troops from the region, the centerpiece of the Kremlin's strategy to portray the three-year conflict as an ``anti-terrorist'' operation run by police and Interior Ministry troops.
Russia tightened security in Chechnya 10 days ago, after special forces ended a three-day siege which began when Chechen separatists took some 800 people hostage.
Medical officials said on Monday the hostage death toll had now risen to 120. Almost all have died from a gas designed to knock out the Chechen guerrillas, who had been demanding Russian troops quit their southern Muslim homeland.
Few details of the ongoing security sweeps in Chechnya have filtered out, but they usually involve sealing off villages and checking identity papers, notably of men of fighting age.
The operations are frequently accompanied by complaints of human rights abuses. The United Nations has expressed concern about increased security at refugee camps which the authorities suspect provide a support network to the rebels.
Itar-Tass quoted military officials as saying 25 rebels had been killed in the current crackdown, which nevertheless failed to prevent guerrillas from shooting down a military helicopter on the edge of Grozny on Sunday, killing nine.
Police said 32 people were arrested in the past 24 hours.
MEDIA CONTROL
Few independent reports have emerged from Chechnya due to the Kremlin's tight control over media access to the region. The Media Ministry issued draft guidelines on Monday on reporting crises which could make covering Chechnya even more difficult.
President Vladimir Putin forged his political career on his handling of Chechnya and is acutely sensitive to criticism of his policies in the province.
He has refused to deal with the Chechens' elected leader Aslan Maskhadov, accused by Moscow of direct involvement in the theater siege. Maskhadov denies any role.
To deflate Western calls for dialogue, Putin has appointed pro-Moscow Chechens to run Chechnya and suggested normal life is slowly returning. Before the siege he had floated plans for a referendum on a new constitution and fresh presidential polls.
But the hostage crisis and Sunday's rebel strike -- the 40th army helicopter downed since hostilities resumed in 1999 after a three-year break -- has forced a U-turn.
``The president's sharp change of position is explained by the fact that (FSB director Nikolai) Patrushev seems to have convinced him that the fighters in the republic, despite the death of (leading rebel commander) Khattab, continue to represent a serious threat, which the Interior Ministry is unlikely to be able to counter,'' the Gazeta newspaper said.
Patrushev, a Putin loyalist, has been in charge of the Chechnya operation since January 2001.
``It's probable there won't be a referendum on a local constitution, or elections for a president of Chechnya, which were planned for next year,'' the Kommersant daily commented.
The new security operations, which Ivanov stressed would be carefully targeted, appeared to confirm the Kremlin has slammed the door on peace talks with the rebels.
The arrest in Denmark last week at Moscow's request of Akhmed Zakayev, an aide to fugitive Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov, was seen as a calculated blow at hopes for peace. Denmark wants more evidence before extraditing Zakayev.
Russian human rights activists called on the Kremlin on Monday to hold peace talks with Chechen separatists, despite public outrage over the Moscow theater siege.
``Peace talks would be a better way for the organs of state to show their greatness and bravery,'' said Sergei Kovalyov, a liberal parliamentarian and Soviet-era political prisoner.
-------- spy agencies
[Does the concept of unmanned CIA drones shooting missiles at cars strike anyone else as chilling? et]
CIA Killed Al Qaeda Suspects in Yemen, Official Says
Reuters
Monday, November 4, 2002
By Charles Aldinger
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4175-2002Nov4?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A missile fired by an unmanned CIA drone aircraft hit a car believed to be carrying suspected al Qaeda members in Yemen Sunday and killed several occupants, a U.S. official said Monday.
The official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters the American military was not involved in the attack, which reports from the capital Sanaa said killed six alleged al Qaeda members. They included Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, a key suspect in a bombing attack on the U.S. warship Cole in Aden two years ago, according to Yemen's news agency.
"As I understand it, it was an agency drone" that conducted the weekend strike in the oil-producing Marib province east of the capital Sanaa, said the U.S. official, who did not provide any details.
The CIA previously has used remote-controlled "Predator" drones to fire missiles at suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
The Defense Department and CIA refused to comment on the incident, but Yemen's news agency reported in Sanaa that a car explosion had killed the members of al Qaeda. The radical Muslim group led by fugitive Osama bin Laden is blamed by Washington for the devastating attacks on America in September of last year. In Bentonville, Arkansas, President Bush did not comment directly on the Yemen incident, but reiterated Monday that he was determined to break up al Qaeda.
"The only way to treat them is (for) what they are -- international killers. And the only way to find them is to be patient, and steadfast, and hunt them down. And the United States of America is doing just that," Bush said. "We're in it for the long haul."
SIX TRAVELING IN AUTOMOBILE
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon briefing on Monday, praised the anti-terrorism cooperation between Washington and Yemen. Elite U.S. military trainers were sent there this year to advise Yemeni troops on striking al Qaeda guerrillas believed hiding in remote parts of the country.
An Interior Ministry official told Yemen's Saba news agency that arms, traces of explosives and communications equipment were found in the car, in which the six suspected al Qaeda members were traveling.
He said one of the dead men was believed to be al-Harthi, also known as Abu Ali, one of two key suspects hunted by security forces since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington that killed about 3,000 people.
Al-Harthi was the senior al Qaeda representative in Yemen and among the top dozen al Qaeda leaders worldwide, a U.S. official said. A former bin Laden bodyguard, he was "known to be involved in planning terrorist attacks in and around Yemen," the official said.
Al-Harthi is suspected of involvement in the 2000 suicide bombing on the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen's Aden harbor that killed 17 U.S. sailors. Washington also blames that attack on the Saudi-born bin Laden, whose ancestral home is in Yemen.
U.S. officials believe al-Harthi may have also been involved in the recent French tanker explosion off the coast of Yemen.
The U.S. military has 800 or more Marines and elite Special Operations troops and, according to published reports, some CIA paramilitary personnel in the Horn of Africa. Most of the troops are at a French military base in Djibouti.
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U.S. Missile Kills Al Qaeda Suspects in Yemen
November 4, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-yemen-blast.html
SANAA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A missile fired by an unmanned U.S. aircraft has killed six alleged members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network in Yemen, including a key suspect in an attack on a U.S. warship two years ago, a U.S. official said on Monday.
The official told Reuters in Washington that a Central Intelligence Agency drone carried out Sunday's attack on a car carrying the six which Yemen said included one of two key suspects sought as leading al Qaeda operatives in the Arab country.
The dead man, Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, also known as Abu Ali, was suspected of involvement in the 2000 suicide bombing of the U.S. warship Cole in a Yemeni port that killed 17 U.S. sailors.
Washington blames that blast in Aden and the September 11 attacks in the United States on the Saudi-born bin Laden, whose ancestral home is Yemen.
The U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, said the American military was not involved in Sunday's attack.
``As I understand it, it was an agency drone'' that conducted the strike, said the U.S. official, who did not give details.
The CIA previously has used remote-controlled ``Predator'' drones to fire missiles at suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
The Defense Department and CIA refused to comment.
A Yemeni Interior Ministry official told Yemen's Saba news agency that arms, traces of explosives and communications equipment were found in the car in which the six suspected al Qaeda members were traveling in eastern Marib province.
Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Arab world, is keen to shake off its image as a haven for Muslim militants and says it is holding 85 suspected members of al Qaeda.
ANTI-TERROR COOPERATION WITH YEMEN PRAISED
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had earlier refused to say whether U.S. forces or CIA agents had any part in the blast, but he praised anti-al Qaeda cooperation with Yemen.
``There is no question but that there are al Qaeda in Yemen,'' Rumsfeld told reporters. ``The (U.S.-Yemen) arrangement has been a good one and it is ongoing.''
U.S. military trainers were sent this year to advise Yemeni troops on striking al Qaeda guerrillas believed hiding there.
``It would be a very good thing if he were out of business,'' he added of reports that one of the six people killed was wanted in connection with the attack on the Cole.
President Bush did not comment directly on the Yemen incident, but reiterated he was determined to break up al Qaeda.
``The only way to treat them is (for) what they are -- international killers. And the only way to find them is to be patient, and steadfast, and hunt them down. And the United States of America is doing just that,'' Bush said. ``We're in it for the long haul.''
Yemeni authorities have been hunting militants believed to be sheltering in the rugged mountains between Sanaa and Marib, a stronghold for disgruntled tribesmen who have often kidnapped tourists and foreigners in Yemen in recent years.
Saba news agency said police arrested two people suspected of a separate attack on Sunday on a helicopter of Hunt Oil, a U.S. firm working in Yemen. One person was slightly hurt when gunmen fired at the helicopter after it took off from Sanaa for Marib.
The attack on the car coincided with a visit to Marib by the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, but a source close to the embassy told Reuters that there was no link between the visit and the blast or the attack on the helicopter.
A French supertanker was also holed in an apparent attack off the Yemeni coast last month, almost two years after the Cole attack.
The U.S. military has 800 or more Marines and elite Special Operations troops and, according to published reports, some CIA paramilitary personnel in the Horn of Africa. Many of the troops are at a French military base in Djibouti and aboard U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea.
----
Report Says Terrorism Threats Go Unaddressed
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 4, 2002; 9:16 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1245-2002Nov4?language=printer
The CIA's recent responses to four dozen questions posed by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence are not particularly confidence inspiring when it comes to the global war on terrorism, concluding at one point that the forces fueling hatred of the United States and al Qaeda recruiting are not being addressed by U.S. military forces or the nation's intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
"While we are striking blow against al Qaeda-the preeminent global terrorist threat-the underlying causes that drive terrorists will persist," the CIA says in a 27-page document which was quietly released by the SSCI last month. "Several troublesome global trends-especially the growing demographic youth bulge in developing nations whose economic systems and political ideologies are under enormous stress-will fuel the rise of more disaffected groups willing to use violence to address their perceived grievances."
The CIA does not say what those grievances are. But even a partial listing-the presence of U.S. military forces in the Middle East, U.S. support for authoritarian regimes in the region like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and the on-going violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories-suggests that in the long run political solutions must count for as much, if not more, than either military or intelligence activities.
Indeed, the CIA cited a recent poll of nearly 10,000 Muslims in nine countries in which respondents described the United States as "ruthless, aggressive, conceited, arrogant, easily provoked, and biased," with respondents in Saudi Arabia offering the most negative views.
"Saudi citizens also view the United States through the optic of the Arab-Israeli relationship and see the United States as one-sided in its support for Israel," the CIA notes. "This view contributes to anti-U.S. sentiment as much as public resentment of the U.S. troop presence."
The CIA also cited Palestinian polling data from December 2001 that showed 80 percent of respondents favoring a continuation of the violent "intifadah" against Israel as a means of pressing Palestinian demands for an independent state, and that 92 percent armed attacks against Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"The war on terrorism is not yet won, but we have made significant progress during this first stage of the fight," the CIA says. "The al Qaeda leadership is on the run, command and control are more difficult, and the Afghan safe haven is no longer available for large-scale training and support activities. We have delivered a message to state supporters of anti-U.S. terrorism that such activity would carry a heavy price. However, rebel groups around the world that account for the vast majority of terrorist incidents generally are continuing their activities with little or no change." Lawyers Willing to Take on the Agency
In a city known for lots of lawyers and niche law firms in all aspects of government practice, Washington now has a firm that specializes in suing the CIA and other intelligence agencies on behalf of disgruntled employees and the media.
Roy Kreiger, 48, a former Justice Department litigator, and Mark Zaid, 35, a jack-of-all-trades national security litigator, joined forces several months back on the theory that their experience would be mutually reinforcing.
Krieger is currently representing 15 current and former CIA employees who claim the agency has systematically interfered with their right to retain counsel in security investigations and employment disputes. He is hoping to get the case certified in U.S. District Court as a class action suit seeking remedies on behalf of all CIA employees.
Zaid, meanwhile, is scheduled to argue the case of Danny B. Stillman, the former intelligence chief at Los Alamos National Laboratory, next week before the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District. Zaid filed suit on Stillman's behalf last year alleging that the Department of Energy, the Pentagon and the CIA were blocking publication of a 500-page manuscript about his meetings with Chinese nuclear weapons scientists.
In litigating the case, a District Court judge ordered the government to give Zaid, who has a security clearance, access to information in Stillman's manuscript the government considers classified. The government refused-and Zaid took the matter to the Court of Appeals.
Krieger and Zaid followed similar paths to national security law. After leaving the Justice Department and joining a firm in Northern Virginia, Krieger was approached in late 1996 by a CIA operations officer who just walked into his office and said he needed a lawyer.
While the exact nature of the case is still a closely guarded secret, Krieger obtained what he describes only as a "favorable settlement" for the officer. "After that, our name apparently became known at the CIA as lawyers who are willing to take on the agency-and the floodgates have opened," Krieger said.
Zaid filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit on behalf of Michael Scott, the son of the late Winston Scott, CIA station chief in Mexico who died in 1971. Winston Scott had written his memoirs shortly before his death.
When he died, his manuscript was confiscated by James Jesus Angleton, the legendary CIA counterintelligence chief. Zaid's quest to obtain the manuscript for Michael Scott led to other FOIA cases. And after Zaid represented an employee at the Defense Intelligence Agency in an employment discrimination case, other DIA clients soon followed.
"I admire and respect the intelligence community a great deal, and the men and women who work within it," Zaid said. "At the same time, I see numerous abuses in the intelligence community that require a remedy. And I firmly believe the intelligence community needs to be held accountable." Corrosive Codewords
Jeffrey Richelson, a leading intelligence scholar and author who works at the National Security Archive, last month obtained through the declassification process a formerly top secret "critique" written in 1977 of the CIA's use of so-called "codeword compartments" to protect particularly sensitive information. Once a "codeword compartment" is created for, say, satellite imagery or signals intelligence, a special codeword clearance beyond top secret is needed for someone at the agency or in the government to gain access to information inside that compartment.
"Despite the relatively large access of Agency employees to compartmented information," the document says, "complaints are still heard from analysts and others of production difficulties caused by denial of codeword information. At least in the minds of many analysts, the problem posed by Pearl Harbor is still with us: How do we reconcile the protection of highly sensitive information with its optimum use?"
The document says that "secrecy, by its very nature," affects the personality of those at the CIA, causing them to attribute greater importance to information found inside codeword compartments, and to equate professional status with access to those compartments.
A codeword compartment thus becomes similar to a "primitive secret society," the document says. "It has the aura of a secret society. It has its initiation, its oaths, its esoteric phrases, its sequestered areas, and its secrets within secrets."
And on balance, the document says, "the psychological side effects of the codeword compartment seem to diminish rather than enhance security."
The document's bottom line seems as relevant today, with both the CIA and the FBI under the gun for not sharing intelligence, as it was 25 years ago: "It is arguable that all intelligence failures, starting with that of Pearl Harbor, are attributable in some degree to abuses of compartmentation, to a failure to integrate information."
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Ex - Spy Convicted of Selling Secrets
November 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Spy-Trial.html
LONDON (AP) -- A former agent of Britain's domestic intelligence agency MI5 was convicted Monday of selling classified documents to a British newspaper, including a report detailing alleged financial links between Libya and the Irish Republican Army.
David Shayler, 36, who left MI5 in 1996, was found guilty of three counts of breaking the Official Secrets Act by selling the 28 documents -- four of them top secret -- to the tabloid Mail on Sunday for about $60,000.
The documents, which included the names of British undercover agents and other sensitive information, placed the lives of spies at risk, prosecutors said
``If the service is not secure, there are likely to be adverse consequences,'' prosecutor Nigel Sweeney said. ``For example, those working against the interests of state, whether terrorists or other criminals or foreign agents, will be alerted and take evasive action.''
At an earlier hearing in the House of Lords, the prosecution said Shayler's actions potentially could have led to the deaths of 50 agents. The Lords denied Shayler permission to argue his case with a ``public interest defense'' under the European Charter of Human Rights.
Shayler, who defended himself during his weeklong trial at the Old Bailey courthouse in London, denied placing the lives of agents at risk. He claimed that he sold the documents to expose mismanagement in Britain's security services.
``I was seeking to expose the truth,'' he told the court. ``I'm not the first person in history to stand up and tell the truth and be persecuted, and I doubt I'll be the last.''
Repeatedly, he called himself a whistleblower, not a traitor.
Looking grim-faced as the jury of five men and seven women returned their guilty verdict, Shayler was released on bail and ordered to return to court Tuesday for sentencing. He could receive a six-year prison sentence.
The money he received allegedly was paid into a bank account in the name of Shayler and his girlfriend, Annie Machon, also a former MI5 officer. No charges were filed against Machon, who sat with Shayler during the trial and who later criticized the verdict.
Sweeney said Shayler fled Britain on Aug. 26, 1997, the day before the Mail on Sunday used his files to publish articles about alleged inefficiencies and mismanagement at MI5, without disclosing the names of agents. Shayler, who lived in Paris for three years, was arrested when he returned to England in August 2000.
During the trial, four undercover agents testified against Shayler without giving their names and while speaking from behind a screen. Prosecutors showed the jury the 28 sensitive documents, some of them censored to protect identities.
Shayler, who worked in an MI5 section that investigated terrorism, sold classified documents detailing links between the Irish Republican Army and Libya, prosecutors said.
He also provided the newspaper with secret files on the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland and an internal history of the domestic intelligence agency. One document dated 1992 was an investigation of ``subversive organizations'' in Britain.
Another paper marked ``secret'' was a report on Soviet funding of the Communist Party of Great Britain, written by Shayler, prosecutors said.
Shayler also has claimed that the MI5 secretly spied on British politicians with alleged communist links in the 1960s and 1970s, and that the MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence service, paid an Arab agent to plant a bomb that exploded beneath Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's motorcade in 1996, killing several bystanders. The British government denied both claims.
------- us
Research on Nonlethal Weapons Urged
November 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nonlethal-Weapons.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Development of nonlethal weapons such as bad smelling chemicals to control crowds or psychological methods to calm them, energy beams to stop vehicles and underwater barrier systems should be given a high priority by the Navy and Marine Corps, the National Research Council recommended Monday.
``In particular, nonlethal weapons are an additional way to provide greater security for military bases and protect our security,'' said Miriam E. John of Sandia National Laboratories, chair of the committee that prepared the report.
The recommendation comes just over a week after about 120 captives died when Russian forces pumped incapacitating gas into a theater where about 40 Chechen separatists had taken more than 750 people hostage. Russian officials said the gas was not supposed to cause deaths.
The goal of nonlethal weapons is to incapacitate people or equipment while minimizing unintended fatalities and damage, the Research Council said.
``What we're saying is that we're putting our soldiers in harm's way, doing humanitarian and peacekeeping missions, without the tools to deal with these large crowds that can turn on them in a minute,'' John said in a telephone interview.
She said calming methods that would have a psychological impact on people -- perhaps using music or speaking to crowds appropriately in their language -- have not been well studied.
As for using chemicals to calm crowds, she said international treaties are complicated. ``The lawyers have got to get together on this. There is so much latitude for interpretation, it needs a very, very careful look.''
The report noted that while chemicals that have a physical effect, such as putting people to sleep, may be banned under treaties, materials that have a psychological impact, calming people down, may be legal.
Marine Capt. Shawn Turner, spokesman for the military's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, said he has not yet seen a copy of the study and could not comment on it.
Edward Hammond of the Sunshine Project, a chemical and biological weapons monitoring group that is the chief critic of nonlethal weapons programs, called the council's report ``terribly, terribly irresponsible.''
``The panel's findings will be used by the Pentagon to redouble their chemical weapons development efforts with potentially disastrous results for arms control,'' he said. ``Other countries will follow suit and controls on chemical weapons could quickly destabilize.''
The armed services have operated a joint nonlethal research program since 1996 and the committee urged that it be sped up.
The study was done after the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, although it was requested before then, John said. Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed when a dinghy loaded with explosives rammed the destroyer as it was refueling in Aden.
Taking that into account, the report stressed the need for accelerated research into barrier and entanglement systems that could be deployed to stop vessel movement.
Other possibilities suggested were solid-state lasers, chemicals that stop engines and calmatives to stop such attackers.
The report recommended that:
--The Defense Department's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate focus on stimulating and exploring new ideas and improving the ability to study such weapons' effectiveness.
--The directorate should establish special centers to study the effects of nonlethal weapons on people and equipment and establish a ``seal of approval'' process.
--Working with the directorate, the Office of Naval Research should increase nonlethal weapons research and development.
--The Navy and Marine Corps should establish a senior-level working group to actively oversee nonlethal weapons development and its blending into naval warfare.
Among nonlethal weapons the U.S. military is already investigating are the possible use of drugs such as Valium in a spray form to calm rioting crowds. Some critics contend the effort violates international treaties and federal laws against chemical weapons, an allegation the military denies.
Researchers at a Pentagon-funded institute at Pennsylvania State University prepared a 50-page report in 2000 saying that developing calmative weapons ``is achievable and desirable'' and suggesting drugs like Valium for further research.
One hurdle for using such drugs for riot control, the researchers wrote, is finding a way to deliver the substances to large groups, such as in a spray or mist.
Other problems are figuring out how to prevent other injuries, such as from people falling down if they are knocked unconscious, as well as determining the proper strength of a spray depending on whether it is to be used indoors or outside.
Material collected by the National Research Council disclosed a wide range of proposed nonlethal weapons ranging from liquid projectiles to microorganisms that gobble up highways and runways, making them unusable, sticky sprays that make floors and stairs a gummy mess and foul-smelling fogs.
Some examples are already in use, including tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades.
The National Research Council is an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, an independent organization chartered by Congress to provide scientific advice to the government.
On the Net:
National Academy of Sciences: http://www.nationalacademies.org/
-------- propaganda wars
Russia Sets Media Guidelines After Hostage Siege
November 4, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-russia-siege-media.html
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia announced new guidelines for journalists on Monday asking the media to do everything possible to starve militants of publicity during hostage seizures.
The press ministry issued the draft guidelines 10 days after a Chechen hostage siege in a Moscow theater came to a bloody end. It asked the media not to interview militants involved in such attacks or allow them airtime to voice their grievances.
``Saving people is more important than society's right to information,'' the ministry said in guidelines for covering emergencies.
The guidelines are not binding on the press, but were issued after the lower house of parliament passed tough new laws limiting how journalists write about militant groups.
The Kremlin has been angered by media reports suggesting it failed to pursue talks with the guerrillas before launching a raid which left 118 hostages and up to 50 rebels dead. The hostages were killed by a gas intended to knock out the rebels.
The guidelines did not say whether they were aimed at foreign journalists as well. The press ministry was not immediately available for comment.
The ministry urged journalists not to indulge in speculation or make their own analysis of such situations without ``professional consultation'' -- a euphemism for relying on the official version of events.
They also warned journalists that militant statements on television and radio could contain secret messages.
During the three-day siege which ended on October 26, authorities banned the NTV channel from publishing a statement from guerrilla leader Movsar Barayev.
Journalists should also avoid publishing confidential information on special forces or information that could help guerrillas, the guidelines said.
Oleg Panfilov, director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, said the guidelines could become the de-facto legal framework for journalists even though they were not legally enforceable.
``Journalists' work will now be harder, because in Russia no one has ever respected the law, and now the print ministry is setting out its new position,'' he said.
Russia has had a patchy record on media freedom since President Vladimir Putin came to power. The few remaining private television channels were effectively neutered after they criticized the government.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Vandals target SUVs in Virginia
By Jon Ward
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 4, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20021104-32966950.htm
A radical environmental group is believed to be responsible for a recent vandalism spree that has damaged more than 25 sport utility vehicles and construction sites in central Virginia, according to police.
The Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, is known nationwide for using destructive methods to draw attention to its political ideology. The group has claimed responsibility for 35 acts of vandalism since 1996, including arson and the destruction of homes, offices, crops, logging equipment and SUVs. Members say they have done more than $30 million in damages.
However, if the group is responsible for the estimated $45,000 worth of damage in at least four incidents in Henrico and Goochland counties over the past five weeks, it would be its deepest foray into the Southeast. Most of their activity during the past six years has focused on the Western United States.
"We definitely feel like it's the ELF, based on the identifiers that were left on notes," said Sgt. Tom Shumate, Henrico Police Department spokesman.
In an e-mail to The Washington Times, the group declined to claim responsibility for the recent vandalism in Virginia but said it was "consistent with actions done by ELF members."
No arrests had been made.
According to the ELF Web site, the group wants to "inflict economic damage on those profiting from the destruction and exploitation of the natural environment." The site also states that members "take all necessary precautions" against harming humans and animals.
Police became aware of the problem in the area Sept. 28 when 25 Ford and Mercury SUVs at an Henrico County car dealership were permanently damaged with glass-etching cream. One vehicle had the word "ELF" sprayed on it, said Sgt. Shumate. The damage was estimated at $25,000.
Also that morning, vandals used the cream to spray the word "ELF" on the windows of one Burger King and two McDonald's restaurants in Henrico County.
On Oct. 6, two vehicles in residential areas were severely damaged by vandals using an ax. They caused about $9,000 worth of damage to a 1996 Toyota SUV and about $5,000 to a 1995 Ford SUV. Notes at the crime scenes stated ELF members were responsible.
In Goochland County, about two months ago, vandals opposed to an upscale neighborhood burned a house under construction and damaged construction equipment, Goochland Sheriff James Agnew told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
The FBI is working with Henrico and Goochland county police to investigate the incidents, said Lawrence Barry, spokesman for the FBI's Richmond office.
ELF has roots in a group known as Earth First! and in 1992 began ecoterrorism in Oregon.
In 1998, an ELF fire at a ski resort in Colorado caused $12 million in damage. ELF has also claimed responsibility for an April 2000 fire at a Eugene, Ore., auto dealership that destroyed 30 SUVs.
Several ELF members, including four New York teenagers and one Indiana man, have been arrested since 2001. But authorities have had difficulty apprehending other "elves," who operate in cells independent of hierarchy or leadership.
--------
Interior Department Struggles to Upgrade Its Police Forces
November 4, 2002
New York Times
By JOEL BRINKLEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/04/politics/04POLI.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 - The Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, the Hoover Dam and half of the Alaska pipeline are all protected against terrorist attack and other threats by police forces that auditors have long described as ill trained, poorly managed, dysfunctional and, in some instances, corrupt.
These forces are in the Department of the Interior, which has the third-largest law enforcement contingent in the federal government. This summer, the department moved to address the problems after decades of damning reports. One of the most recent, a government audit published early this year, said that the department's police forces were so badly managed that it was unable to provide even "the number and location of law enforcement personnel that could assist" after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The department has more than 4,300 officers in seven agencies, including the United States Park Police, the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management. They are responsible for protecting most of the nation's historic icons, like Mount Rushmore and the Washington Monument, some of which have been the target of terrorist threats in the last year. But few of the agencies have intelligence or terrorism offices, or the ability to gather crime and enforcement statistics.
In July, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, a former Colorado state attorney general, directed an internal panel to assess the problems once again and proposed a list of law enforcement reforms. She also appointed Larry R. Parkinson, a former senior F.B.I. official, to a new position, director of law enforcement and security, to put the proposals into effect.
Mr. Parkinson's top priority, he said in an interview, is to ensure that the agencies take on domestic security responsibilities. His long-term goal is to see "that anyone with law enforcement authority is well trained, well supervised and understands law enforcement."
But Mr. Parkinson, who has been in office only three months, has a skeletal staff and meager resources, and his ability to clean up the problems remains uncertain - particularly in the face of internal resistance. Donald W. Murphy, deputy director of the Park Service, said that when he tried this year to appoint a manager in charge of law enforcement, "We were fought tooth and nail to prevent that from happening."
In a letter to Secretary Norton last month, Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican, said he had learned that "high-level managers" in the police forces were trying to "thwart your reform efforts" and in some cases were shirking their domestic security responsibilities.
Most of the territory the department must protect is uninhabited wilderness in national parks, preserves and other lands controlled by the federal government. But among the department's charges are nearly all of the major federal monuments, as well as the Hoover Dam in Nevada, the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington and almost 350 other dams.
Officials view some of these sites as ideal targets for terrorists - particularly the dams.
"Taking out a dam is not an insignificant act," said Stephen Flynn, executive director of the panel that issued a report on domestic security, sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, last month. "But the destructive impact is tremendous, with cascading consequences on the energy side," for hydroelectric dams and "of course for people downstream."
The Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation, responsible for dam security, has only 13 officers. Until last year they had no law enforcement authority. After Sept. 11, Congress gave the bureau that authority. Now, a spokesman said, it contracts dam security out to other Interior Department forces or local police.
The Park Police is the nation's oldest uniformed law enforcement agency. The force originated in George Washington's presidency, when he created park watchmen to patrol the Capitol grounds.
Since the early 1970's, the Park Police and the department's other police agencies have been the subject of highly critical auditors' reports, describing the forces as unsupervised, underperforming and, until this year, recalcitrant in the face of decades of bitter criticism. In defense, the department notes that officers in some of the agencies have other responsibilities besides policing; Fish and Wildlife Service officers, for example, are also endangered species specialists.
Still, last year Congress ordered yet another study, by the National Academy of Public Administration, an independent organization chartered to work with government agencies to improve their efficiency.
That report concluded that the police force "faces difficulties" in "management, leadership, accountability and communications." Its conclusions echoed others in reports by the International Association of Chiefs of Police in 2000 and the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton the same year. The police chiefs' 115-page report called "the total absence of field training" a "glaring deficiency" and noted that in recent years the Park Service had been able to solve only about 14 percent of crimes - about half the national average.
The National Academy of Public Administration's report was the one that caught Secretary Norton's eye. She asked the department's inspector general to carry out his own study. When it was completed early this year, it found "a disquieting state of disorder in the structure and operation of law enforcement throughout the department."
In May, 15 United States attorneys met with the inspector general and several Interior Department officials to say they were having trouble prosecuting cases brought by department officers because of deficiencies in management.
The inspector general's report found that the police agencies were receiving little or no direction from the department. More than half of the agencies' supervisors had no law enforcement training or experience, the report said, and while the department offered training, there was little incentive to take it and no penalty for choosing not to.
The report says special agents told of "countless instances in which they were precluded, by their nonlaw enforcement managers, from pursuing potentially serious crimes," indicating possible "cover-up of potential criminal conduct." It also spoke of cronyism in hiring.
Several of the agencies have no intelligence, terrorism or domestic security offices, according to the report. Several have no internal affairs units. They have no capability to gather crime and enforcement statistics, and "therefore they cannot be held accountable for the crime rate, investigative clearance or response to calls for service."
Some of the services have set no "goals or measures for their law enforcement components whatsoever," the report says. Some officers reported that they never filed reports on their police work because, as one told the auditors, "nobody ever asked for them."
The National Park Service, the report concluded, "suffers from extreme organizational dysfunction."
With the appointment of Mr. Parkinson, the police forces do now at least have leadership at headquarters. Since taking office July 22, Mr. Parkinson said, his top priority has been to ensure that the agencies take on domestic security responsibilities. Training for that, he acknowledged, has been "fairly ad hoc." But, he added, "They did step up and agree to take this on."
Mr. Parkinson now has the authority to redeploy officers between agencies, something that could not be done before - but only if the secretary declares an emergency. His office, he said, remains "extraordinarily leanly staffed." About 10 people work there now, up from six last year. In the coming year, he said, he has authority to hire two or three more and to bring officers in from the field.
A central mission, Mr. Parkinson said, is to implement the changes recommended by the secretary's internal panel in July, which generally mirror the inspector general's findings. Most of the changes are still in the planning stages.
--------
General Takes Control of Cuba Prison
November 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Guantanamo-Changing-Command.html
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- A general previously based in South Korea took command Monday of the U.S. military's mission overseeing the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay.
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller took over from Army Maj. Gen. Michael Dunlavey, who was ending his tour at the base in Cuba, the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command said.
Miller leads a task force overseeing the detention of about 625 detainees suspected of links to Afghanistan's fallen Taliban regime or the al-Qaida terrorist network.
The operation has been criticized by human rights groups because detainees are held without charges and are not allowed access to lawyers. The captives began arriving at Guantanamo in January.
A week ago, four detainees -- including three Afghans and a Pakistani -- were released. Military officials said they no longer posed a threat.
Miller had been assistant chief of staff at the U.N. Command in Seoul, South Korea.
Dunlavey was originally assigned to oversee interrogations, but in October took over detention operations when the units were streamlined.
On his departure, Dunlavey received the Defense Superior Service Medal for services to his country. He will return to his previous assignment as assistant to the director at the National Security Agency in Washington, D.C.
On the Net:
Naval Base Guantanamo Bay: http://www.nsgtmo.navy.mil/
Joint Task Force GTMO: http://www.nsgtmo.navy.mil/JTF-160/index.htm
-------- drug war
Trio put cash into marijuana initiatives
11/04/2002
By Donna Leinwand,
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-11-04-marijuana-usat_x.htm
Two billionaires and a multimillionaire are bankrolling campaigns to legalize marijuana in three states and Washington, D.C.
Purported grassroots campaigns in Nevada, Ohio, Arizona and Washington are being run by political advocacy firms in New York and Washington, D.C., with money from financier George Soros and University of Phoenix founder John Sperling, billionaires both, and multimillionaire Peter Lewis, retired CEO of Progressive Insurance.
Opponents say their posse of soccer moms, anti-drug groups and police officials cannot raise the money to counter the proponents' professional media campaign. "It could be Nevada today and Anytown, USA, tomorrow," says Sandy Heverly, director of STOP DUI, the main opposition group in Nevada. "Their ultimate goal is to legalize drugs everywhere."
Recent polls indicate the ballot measures, to be decided today, are a tossup in Arizona, Ohio and Nevada. In Washington polls show voters favor the measure.
- Arizona's ballot measure asks whether to require state police to distribute up to 2 ounces of marijuana per month to people with a registration card for medical marijuana and whether to remove criminal penalties for possession of up to 2 ounces. - Nevada's measure asks whether to make it legal for adults to possess as much as 3 ounces of marijuana and require a legally regulated marijuana market. - Ohio and Washington ballot measures call for treatment instead of jail for people arrested for marijuana possession.
The ballot initiatives are part of a nationwide strategy essentially run by two groups, the Drug Policy Alliance in New York and the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., and funded by the three men. Although they have chosen local battlegrounds, the larger enemy is the federal "war on drugs."
"We're trying to do this on a state level to put pressure on Congress to do something," says Bill Zimmerman, executive director for the Campaign for New Drug Policies, which funds and advises the Ohio and Washington initiatives. "Drug policy is not a local issue. It's a national issue."
Drug Policy Alliance, a group funded heavily by Soros, and the Marijuana Policy Project, funded by Lewis, say they are merely giving a helping hand to popular movements. To jump-start the campaigns, the groups form a political action organization and hire a professional firm that drafts the petition and deploys paid workers to collect signatures.
In Ohio, Soros, Sperling and Lewis each donated $271,276 and Richard M. Wolfe, a media mogul from Los Angeles, donated $200,000 toward the initial petition drive to get the question on the ballot, state records show. The money went to Progressive Campaigns Inc. of Santa Monica, Calif., a professional political campaign and petition management group. Zimmerman says getting signatures in populous states is far too difficult to do with volunteers.
"It takes dozens of people working full-time to get the signatures," he says.
Of $1.6 million raised by the initiative group Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement, just $184,000 came from 4,000 small donors, the group's Web site shows. In Arizona, Soros donated $406,467 and Sperling, who lives in Phoenix, donated $590,383.
The organizations do not apologize for their big money backers.
"These are three guys who believe the war on drugs is a gross human rights abuse in the United States," says Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance.
Despite their cash, the pro-marijuana groups say they are the underdogs. Their opponent, they say, is not local parent groups but a U.S. government that funds hundreds of anti-drug TV messages.
In Nevada, where the anti-marijuana group has raised $150,000, the groups vow to prevail despite being massively outspent. Using parsley, the opponents have rolled fake marijuana cigarettes to give voters a sense of 3 ounces.
"For every dollar they have, we can match it with passion and parsley and people, real people," Heverly says.
-------- terrorism
Bin Laden Associate Is Killed in Yemen
November 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Yemen-Explosion.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. forces killed a top associate of Osama bin Laden in Yemen in a missile strike, expanding the war on terror with America's first overt attack on suspected al-Qaida operatives outside of Afghanistan, a U.S. official said Monday.
Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi was one of several al-Qaida members traveling by car in northwest Yemen when a Hellfire missile struck it Sunday, killing him and five others. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the attack was believed to have been conducted by a CIA aircraft, possibly a missile-carrying Predator drone.
The official Yemeni news agency, local tribesmen and the U.S. official confirmed the strike killed al-Harethi. Witnesses said they saw an aircraft, possibly a helicopter, in the area. Hellfires can also be launched by attack helicopters.
The others killed were believed to be low-level operatives. The attack occurred in the northern province of Marib, about 100 miles east of Yemen's capital of San`a, where al-Qaida is considered active.
U.S. counterterrorism officials have said al-Harethi, also known as Abu Ali, was al-Qaida's chief operative in Yemen and a top target of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts. An associate of bin Laden since the early 1990s in Sudan, al-Harethi is a suspect in the bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, on Oct. 12, 2000.
The CIA declined comment. On Monday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a Pentagon press conference, ``It would be a very good thing if he were out of business.''
A Yemeni official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, ``Authorities have been monitoring this particular car for a while and we believe those men belonged to the al-Qaida terror network.''
Many al-Qaida operatives fleeing the U.S.-led war on Afghanistan have joined comrades in Yemen. After the United States detected growth in al-Qaida presence there this spring, hundreds of U.S. troops deployed to Djibouti, the tiny African nation facing Yemen across the Gulf of Aden, officials said. The Marine amphibious assault ship Nassau recently replaced the USS Belleau Wood in the waters between the two nations.
Inside Yemen, U.S.-trained Yemeni troops deployed to suspected al-Qaida hotbeds in August.
Besides al-Harethi, at least one more Yemeni al-Qaida operative linked to the Cole attack, Mohammad Hamdi al-Ahdal, is thought to be in Yemen, U.S. officials say. In the Cole attack, two suicide bombers slammed an explosives-laden boat into the hull of the ship, killing 17 U.S. sailors and disabling the vessel.
Also believed to be in Yemen are Shaykh Dabwan and Suwaid, described as al-Qaida operatives who plan and provide support to terror operations, and an al-Qaida communications expert known as Miqdad, said a U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Many al-Qaida followers in Yemen, bin Laden's ancestral homeland, are led by Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, bin Laden's Persian Gulf operations chief, U.S. counterterrorism officials said.
U.S. intelligence believes Yemeni-based terrorists linked to al-Qaida carried out the Oct. 6 attack on a French oil tanker, the Limburg. A small boat apparently crashed into the ship and exploded, blowing a hole in its hull and spilling 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden. One crewman was killed.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the CIA has used remotely operated Predator drone aircraft to make pinpoint strikes on al-Qaida leaders and do reconnaissance.
Mohammed Atef, bin Laden's military chief and a Sept. 11 organizer, was killed in November near Kabul in a joint airstrike by a Predator and U.S. military aircraft.
A Predator targeted Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar at the start of the war on Afghanistan, but military lawyers could not decide whether he could be struck, officials have said. Its missiles were ultimately fired near him, but not to kill him.
In May, a CIA Predator attacked Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar near Kabul, missing him but killing some followers. Hekmatyar had offered rewards for those who kill U.S. troops. The former Afghan prime minister is said by U.S. counterterrorism officials to be loosely associated with al-Qaida.
Besides Yemen, other concentrations of al-Qaida operatives have emerged since the war in Pakistani cities and along a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistani border.
Of those, the only previously acknowledged U.S. successes against al-Qaida were in Pakistani cities. This year, al-Qaida's operations chief, Abu Zubaydah, and a Sept. 11 planner, Ramzi Binalshibh, were taken in raids conducted jointly by U.S. and Pakistani authorities. Both are in U.S. custody.
Associated Press writers Robert Burns in Washington and Ahmed al-Haj in Marib, Yemen, contributed to this story.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
US scientists say fossil fuel alternatives lacking
REUTERS USA:
November 4, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18435/story.htm
WASHINGTON - U.S. scientists called for a major investment into research and development of alternative energy sources, saying no current technology provides an adequate replacement for the the fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.
The scientists said they evaluated possible future energy sources, including wind and solar power, nuclear fission and nuclear fusion, that do not produce carbon dioxide, one of the gases believed to be trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere.
Writing in the journal Science, they said they had identified several promising technologies, but none presently are a suitable alternative that could meet growing energy needs around the world. They called for a broad range of investment in research and development of those and other technologies.
"What our research clearly shows is that scientific innovation can only reverse this trend if we adopt an aggressive, global strategy for developing alternative fuel sources that can produce up to three times the amount of power we use today," New York University physicist Martin Hoffert said.
"Currently, these technologies simply don't exist, either operationally or as pilot projects," Hoffert said.
The energy alternatives were evaluated for the ability to supply mass amounts of carbon-emission-free energy and their potential for large-scale commercialization.
The study noted several limitations of current technology. For example, replacing combustion engines with fuel cell engines may cut carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. But the current process of producing the hydrogen required to power fuel cells actually generates more carbon dioxide emissions than the combustion engines would create, Hoffert said.
"We conclude that a broad range of intensive research and development is urgently needed to produce technological options that can allow both climate stabilization and economic development," the scientists said.
-------- environment
Pollution-eating microbe may help clean up - US study
REUTERS USA:
November 4, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18436/story.htm
WASHINGTON - A bacterium that thrives by feeding on a common pollutant may provide a means to help clean up contaminated soil and ground water, scientists reported.
The newly discovered microbe derives energy by degrading trichloroethane, or TCA, a widely used industrial solvent found at half of the contaminated U.S. Superfund sites, Michigan State University researchers reported in the journal Science.
The microbe, dubbed TCA1, breaks down trichloroethane to a less-toxic substance, said Baolin Sun, a postdoctoral researcher and a co-author of the study.
Testing so far has found TCA is the only substance the new bacterium targets, Sun said.
Bacteria that consume other toxins have been discovered previously, but the search for one that goes after TCA had been fruitless. "For a while, people didn't think this bug existed. Now we've solved it," Sun said.
Trichloroethane contaminates ground water and also erodes the ozone layer when released into the atmosphere.
The TCA1 bacterium uses and hydrogen to produce energy in the absence of oxygen, the researchers reported.
"The only way we know how to grow the bacteria is to feed it TCA," Michigan State doctoral student Benjamin Griffin said.
TCA1 was isolated from sediment dredged from the bottom of New York's Hudson River and also occurs naturally in Michigan's Kalamazoo River.
The discovery of the bacterium "suggests a strategy for bioremediation of TCA in soils and ground water, thereby aiding in the attenuation of this ozone-depleting compound," the study said.
----
World plants near extinction close to 50 pct - study
REUTERS USA:
November 4, 2002
Story by Christopher Doering
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18423/story.htm
WASHINGTON - The percentage of the world's plants threatened with extinction is much larger than commonly believed, and could be as high as 47 percent if tropical species are included, researchers said.
The study, published in the November issue of Science, challenges earlier research that estimated the number of species in danger of extinction was about 13 percent.
Previous studies of extinct plants underestimated the numbers because they failed to include many plants growing in tropical countries such as Ecuador and Colombia.
Plants are becoming extinct for many reasons, including global warming and human encroachment into area habitats, said Peter Jorgensen, a researcher at the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis who coauthored the new study.
For example, scientists discovered a single collection of the passion flower, a light purple flower found only in southern Ecuador, during the 1970s, Jorgensen said. But recent trips to the region have found the species has since disappeared.
Jorgensen reviewed data from 189 countries and territories and determined that between 310,000 and 422,000 plants - or 22 to 47 percent - could be threatened.
In previous studies "if you can't evaluate a species you basically don't include it," Jorgensen said in a telephone interview.
"Still, we don't know enough ... to go out and do something active on the ground to save them," he said. "Just because there are more of them doesn't mean it's easier."
Identifying threatened species is a crucial step toward developing better management plans to protect them, but Jorgensen conceded it will take a large amount of money to develop such projects.
Maintaining a global database of threatened plants would cost an estimated $12.1 million annually, the researchers said.
The vast majority of plants that are threatened in tropical areas are those located with a wide variety of plant life or where habitat loss is rapidly occurring.
As a model for their research, Jorgensen and his coauthor, Nigel Pitman from Duke University, analyzed more than 4,000 species that are native to Ecuador.
After sifting through data and determining those that could be on the verge of extinction - such as plants with small populations or which are located only in a small geographical area - they determined that 83 percent of all plants in the country are threatened.
The findings for Ecuador are important, Jorgensen said, because the country has one of the most complete databases of plant species. Such results also can be applied to neighboring countries such as Peru and Colombia where data are scarce.
"We know so little about plants in tropical regions," said Jorgensen. "And what really bothers me is we have to guess so much because we don't have enough manpower to go through all the countries."
----
Mexican agency sues Pemex over toxic waste
REUTERS MEXICO:
November 5, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18451/story.htm
MEXICO CITY - Mexico's environmental watchdog agency said on the weekend it had filed a complaint against state oil monopoly Pemex for failing to remove containers of toxic chemicals from a customs warehouse at the port of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico.
The Federal Environmental Protection Prosecutor said its complaint to the attorney general's office accused Pemex of failing to comply with order in August to remove the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from the warehouse.
Profepa said the violation carried a possible sentence of one to four years in prison.
Mexico does not have facilities to destroy PCB chemicals, which is why they are often found stored in ports awaiting shipment to Germany, France or Spain for incineration in special high-temperature ovens.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Venezuela Marchers Demand Elections
November 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Venezuela-Chavez.html
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- An opposition march demanding an early vote on Hugo Chavez's presidency erupted in chaos Monday as government supporters attacked the marchers and police tried to break it up with tear gas and rubber bullets. At least 16 people were wounded, including three police officers.
More than 60 others sustained minor injuries in a series of running street battles between police protecting the tens of thousands of marchers and the hundreds of Chavez backers, known as Chavistas, authorities said.
The others wounded during the fracas were 13 civilians, said Pedro Aristimuno, heath secretary of the Caracas city government. Among them was Associated Press Television News cameraman Mauricio Munoz, 37, who had been protected by a flak vest and suffered a minor chest injury.
The march was aimed at delivering more than 2 million signatures demanding a vote on Chavez's presidency.
Venezuela's opposition, determined to oust Chavez for allegedly creating a totalitarian regime, has threatened to start an indefinite general strike that could affect oil processing in the world's fifth largest producer.
Monday's violence underscored Venezuela's deepening political impasse between the leftist Chavez government and a burgeoning opposition intent on ousting the president. It also highlighted international concern over the stability of the oil producer.
Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States, is to resume an urgent peacemaking mission this week.
The impasse over the vote has convulsed Venezuela and raised the specter of a second military coup since April -- or even civil war.
Venezuela is a major U.S. oil supplier. Chavez has irked the Bush administration in the past with his suspected ties with leftist Colombian rebels, his close friendship with Cuba's Fidel Castro, his opposition to hemispheric free trade. Throughout, however, Chavez has insisted Venezuela will remain a reliable supplier of crude oil to the United States.
Chavez supporters threw rocks and bottles at the marchers and set fire to roadblocks. One group tried to hijack a bus to block the route; others threw rocks at reporters and the council building.
Thick clouds of tear gas drifted around the National Elections Council building as ``Chavistas,'' or government supporters, skirmished with National Guardsmen and city police. Several officers, reporters and Chavistas were felled by the gas.
The first jubilant marchers to reach the council building celebrated their accomplishment, hugging each other and chanting ``Elections Now!''
Monday's clashes erupted despite pleas from government officials and state television to allow the tens of thousands of opposition marchers to proceed peacefully.
Chavez, pressured by a steep plunge in his popularity and a severe economic and social crisis, insists on negotiations and postponing any vote until August. If confirmed, the 2 million signatures would represent one-sixth of Venezuela's 12 million registered voters.
According to Venezuela's constitution, a nonbinding referendum on matters of national importance can be called with the support of 10 percent of the electorate, or 1.2 million people.
Chavez insists a vote can't be held until August, or halfway into his six-year term, at which point it would be binding. He could seek re-election if he loses a binding referendum.
The opposition wants a Dec. 4 nonbinding vote, saying Venezuela can't wait until next year. National Elections Council director Jose Manuel Zerpa said the council has 30 days to verify signatures and decide whether a vote can be held.
``What Venezuela is living through is tragic and pointless,'' said Julio Borges, leader of the Justice First political party. ``We can only resolve this crisis through a popular vote.
Protesters waving Venezuela's red, yellow and blue national flag and placards demanding Chavez's ouster left the opposition stronghold of eastern Caracas for the downtown National Electoral Council, where the furious crowd of red-clad Chavez supporters awaited them.
The march followed a slow-moving, flag-draped truck carrying 42 boxes of petitions and a sign reading, ``Signatures to Save Venezuela.''
Since his 1998 election and 2000 re-election, Chavez has become an increasingly divisive figure as he tries to appeal to the country's poor and while alienating the wealthy.
Rising unemployment, a collapse in the national currency, the unsolved slayings of dozens during the April coup and a paralyzed judicial system fuel opposition claims that Chavez no longer can govern.
Chavez says an oligarchy is provoking a coup so it can enrich itself as it did during a corruption-ridden democracy before his election.
--------
Activist Reported Missing in China
November 4, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-Activist-Missing.html
BEIJING (AP) -- A Japanese activist who helped establish an organization that assists North Korean refugees has been missing for five days in northeastern China, and the Chinese government said Monday it was looking for him.
But the organization, Life Funds for North Korean Refugees, suggested China was responsible for Hiroshi Kato's disappearance and urged the government to respect international rules on detained foreigners.
Kato, 57, dropped from sight Wednesday after leaving the Tianfu Hotel in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalia, the Japan-based group said. It said Kato had been telephoning at least three times daily before that.
``We have done our best to locate Mr. Kato, but we still cannot find him,'' said Kenkichi Nakadaira, a representative of Life Funds for North Korean Refugees. ``This is a matter of grave concern.''
If the Chinese government is involved, he said, ``we strongly urge the Chinese authorities to immediately investigate this matter and locate Mr. Kato, and explain in detail why he has been detained.''
Life Funds did not say why Kato was in northeastern China except ``to carry out activities for our NGO.'' The region, which borders North Korea, is brimming with refugees fleeing poverty and hunger under Kim Jong Il's repressive and insular Pyongyang regime.
Chinese authorities said Monday they were searching for Kato.
``The departments concerned in China are trying to find out the Japanese person's whereabouts,'' said a woman who answered the phone at the Chinese Foreign Ministry's press office and did not give her name. She said any matter involving a foreign national would be dealt with through international conventions.
Life Funds said Kato's interpreter, whom it identified as Masahiro Mizuta, was also missing.
Kato had been scheduled to return to Tokyo on Thursday, his organization said.
China, North Korea's major ally, views the refugee issue as particularly sensitive because it places the government in a bad position. If Beijing allows refugees to leave for third countries, it violates a treaty it has with Pyongyang; if it repatriates them, it angers the international community.
On the Net:
http://www.northkoreanrefugees.com
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Ex-Sheriff in Calif. Can Be Sued for Pepper Spray
By GINA HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer,
November 4, 2002
http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/a/w/1154/11-4-2002/20021104133005_47.html
WASHINGTON (AP) - A former California sheriff and his deputy can be sued for ordering the pepper-spraying of shackled anti-logging protesters, the Supreme Court said Monday in turning aside an appeal.
The court did not comment in refusing to hear the case, which involved the arrests of nine people who staged sit-ins at Pacific Lumber Co. headquarters and a congressman's office. They were protesting the cutting of ancient redwood trees.
When the demonstrators, who had chained themselves with a 25-pound steel device, would not leave, law officers swabbed pepper spray near the demonstrators' eyes, sometimes repeatedly. Those who refused to surrender were sprayed in their face at close range.
Attorneys for former Humboldt County Sheriff Dennis Lewis and Chief Deputy Gary Philp argued that the lawmen consulted with legal experts before using the pepper spray, and that protesters were not hurt.
Deputies' videotapes of the sit-ins show demonstrators screaming after the spray was applied.
"Our national tradition of nonviolent protests is alive and well and won't be extinguished by a police policy of torturing protesters just because that torture leaves no marks," said Mark Hughes, a professor at the University of Denver College of Law and the attorney for the protesters. "It's great when courts have a conscience."
The Supreme Court considered the case for the second time in a year. Last fall, the justices threw out a lower court ruling that ordered a trial for the protesters. The appeals court reconsidered and again said protesters were entitled to sue the sheriff and deputy.
The court could have clarified when officers have immunity for on-the-job actions, a subject of significant interest to justices in recent years.
The anti-logging protesters, part of the group EarthFirst!, demonstrated at the offices of Pacific Lumber and at the office of then-Rep. Frank Riggs, R-Calif., a logging supporter. Those were among multiple protests in the fall of 1997.
Hughes said no other American police force had a policy of using cotton swabs to apply pepper spray to the eyes of people who resisted arrest. In this case, he said the protesters were unarmed and unthreatening.
Nancy K. Delaney, an attorney for Humboldt County and the lawmen, said the force was reasonable.
"To brush aside as harmless the well-planned criminal activities of plaintiffs is to compromise allegiance to principles which permit the very existence of a society which is both democratic and ordered," she said.
Humboldt County is a coastal county in northern California known for giant redwood forests.
The case is Humboldt County v. Headwaters Forest Defense, 01-1744.
On the Net:
The Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov
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Top Court: Protesters Can Sue over Pepper Spray
By James Vicini
Reuters
Monday, Nov. 4, 2002
From: MObuszewski@afsc.org
http://news.findlaw.com http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11052002/reu_48875.asp
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for two California sheriff's officers to stand trial for using pepper spray on the eyes and faces of environmental activists at three peaceful protests in 1997.
Without any comment, the high court rejected an appeal by Humboldt County arguing that Sheriff Dennis Lewis and Chief Deputy Gary Philip were shielded from the lawsuit because they did not use unreasonable force.
The justices let stand a U.S. appeals court ruling that the case may go forward to trial because the two officers may not claim immunity from being sued.
Nine environmental activists affiliated with the groups EarthFirst! and Headwaters Forest Defense sued after the officers used pepper spray to end several nonviolent protests over the logging of ancient redwood trees in the Headwaters Forest along California's northern coast.
The officers confronted protesters who chained themselves together and refused to disperse. After several warnings, the officers applied pepper spray to the protesters' faces, using a Q-tip to swab it on the corners of their closed eyes.
In one instance, the officers sprayed the chemical into the faces of the protesters, according to the lawsuit.
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit after a jury deadlocked and a mistrial had been declared. But the appeals court reinstated the case and sent it back for another trial.
The Supreme Court last year set aside the ruling, and instructed the appeals court to reconsider its decision. But the appeals court again ruled that the jury should decide whether use of pepper spray violated the protesters' constitutional rights.
IMPLICATIONS FOR EXCESSIVE FORCE LIABILITY
Humboldt County lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court. They argued that tactical use of force, which causes no injury, to overcome resistance to a lawful arrest was reasonable under the Constitution.
The appeals court decision "has far-reaching implications concerning the boundaries of excessive force liability," they said.
They lawyers said the ruling will force officers to either abandon alternatives such as pepper spray and use "hands-on techniques" that pose risk of injury or give up their duty to make a lawful arrest and simply walk away from the scene.
Attorneys for the demonstrators replied that the appeal should be rejected, citing the extensive evidence of excruciating pain and emotional distress that the protesters suffered.
They said the case presented no important legal issues or conflict of legal authority about immunity for police officers and about what constitutes excessive force.
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