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NUCLEAR
British Nuclear Sub Suffers Damage
UK withdraws 'dirty' bomb warning
Guangdong plans third nuclear power plant-source
NRCommission Preparing to Dump More Radioactive Waste
Researchers Question Risks of Nuclear Fuel
Greens attack EU Commission's nuclear proposals
Inspectors Return to Iraq Nov. 18
U.S. Warns Japan of Missile Threat from N.Korea
Nuclear Dispute Discourages S. Korea
U.S. Studies N. Korea Sanctions
Denmark Says U.S. May Root Missile Defense in NATO
Denmark denies deal over US missile defence plan
Lugar to Pursue Weapons Elimination
'Bush's axis of evil is wild, hyperbolic and silly'
Former Secretary of the Navy James Webb: DON'T ATTACK IRAQ
Justice won't enforce Microsoft restrictions
MILITARY
US MASSACRE CLAIMS
Afghan War Faltering, Military Leader Says
U.N. Finds Novel Way to Keep an Eye on Afghans
US beefs up Horn anti-terror base
Rogue Merchants
U.S. says Baghdad is hiding anthrax
Experts Urge States to Agree on Germ Weapons Talks
Potential F/A-22 Cost Overrun Of $690 Million Is Announced
Jiang rejects Western-style politics
Drug Lord's Release Ordered
The EU and the Power of the People
Allied Planes Drop Leaflets on Iraq
War in Iraq and the economy
Iraq Calls UN Resolution Cover for U.S. Attack
Netanyahu blames boss for 'dire straits'
Peace Plan By U.S. Splits Netanyahu and Sharon
Israel, U.S. to Hold Joint Exercise
Palestinians Eager, Israel Reserved on U.S. Mission
Israel vaunts Arrow missile system
Canada Reports Chinese 'Apology'
Spy Scandal Ripples at Sweden's Ericsson
'Iraq Has Been and Remains in Material Breach'
UN Security Council Votes to Order Iraq to Disarm
Annex: Text of Blix/El-Baradei Letter
U.N. Panel's Vote Is Unanimous
Pentagon probes anonymous release of detainee photos
Plan set for GI smallpox vaccine
Speedy Military Ships Move Into Place
Chokehold on Knowledge
Cornell Ordered to Release Biotech Documents
CIA Disputes Censorship Claims
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Council Attacks D.C. Surveillance Cameras
Limits on cop cameras cleared
Protecting Cyberspace
Pentagon Seeks Source of Photos
Who is deluded about marijuana?
Bush Presses for Homeland Security
U.S. Has Jailed 179 at Borders on Sept. 11 Rules
Immigration Service Fights Release of Detained Haitians
Signals from the Predator robot hit
Qaeda Meeting in Thailand Reportedly Plotted Attacks on Tourists
U.S. Widens Anti - Terrorism Effort
ENERGY AND OTHER
FERC judge sets Nov 14 meeting on Enron wind farms
A Russian-American pipe dream
The Blot on India's Economic Map
Organic Growers Battle Proposed Rules
U.S., Pushing for Broader Ban, Blocks U.N. Anti-Cloning Move
Drug Agency Approves a Quick Test for H.I.V.
ACTIVISTS
D.C. Council Opposes Military Action in Iraq
U.S. Defends Iranian Reformer Sentenced to Death
Dominicans nuns face federal charges
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- britain
British Nuclear Sub Suffers Damage
November 8, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Nuclear-Sub.html
LONDON (AP) -- A British nuclear submarine ran aground off Scotland's Isle of Skye, suffered considerable damage to its sonar and a ballast tank and will need several months for repairs, a navy spokeswoman said Friday.
The HMS Trafalgar limped into the Clyde naval base Thursday, one day after hitting rocks while traveling underwater during a two-week training exercise with other British and NATO vessels.
Two of the 130 crewmen aboard the submarine were injured. The submarine was not carrying nuclear weapons, and its nuclear reactor suffered no damage, the official said, on customary condition of anonymity. Damaged sections included sonar and a ballast tank.
Scotland's senior naval officer, Rear Admiral Derek Anthony, has said that a trainee commander may have been at the helm of the 5,200-ton submarine when it ran aground.
The Royal Navy has 16 submarines in its fleet, 12 of which are nuclear-powered attack subs like the HMS Trafalgar.
The accident was the second this year involving Royal Navy vessels. In July, the destroyer HMS Nottingham ran into rocks off Australia. The ship, with 253 crew members aboard, nearly sank when a large gash was cut into its hull near Lord Howe Island in the Tasman Sea. None of the crew was injured.
----
UK withdraws 'dirty' bomb warning
Friday, November 8, 2002
CNN
http://europe.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/11/08/uk.alert/index.html
LONDON, England --A 'dirty bomb' terror warning issued by the British government has been withdrawn -- just 30 minutes after it was released.
The original assessment warned of terrorists plotting "something different, perhaps as surprising as the attacks on the World Trade Center" and suggested the possibility of poison gas attacks.
But 30 minutes after journalists were given the document by the Home Office they were asked to return it so it could be replaced with a blander version omitting references to a 'dirty' bomb or poison gas.
The security assessment document, and its replacement, were issued to the media by the UK's Home Office under the name of Home Secretary David Blunkett.
Both versions urged people to remain vigilant to the continuing threat of Irish and international terrorism.
The first warned: "They may attempt to use more familiar terrorist methods, such as leaving parcel or vehicle bombs in public places, to hijacking passenger aircraft.
"However, they may try something different, perhaps as surprising as the attacks on the World Trade Centre, to the theatre siege in Moscow.
"Maybe they will try to develop a so-called dirty bomb, or some kind of poison gas; maybe they will try to use boats or trains rather then planes.
"The bottom line is that we simply cannot be sure."
The replacement toned down the rhetoric and warned of "ever more dramatic and devastating" terror attacks but avoids mention of the specific threats.
"If al Qaeda could mount an attack upon key economic targets, or upon our transport infrastructure, they would," it says.
"If they could inflict damage upon the health of our population, they would."
A Home Office spokeswoman said the first version was "an early draft" that had not been authorised by Blunkett.
"We did not want to close peoples minds to other forms of risk or threat -- we didn't want to have something where the public thought `that is what we are looking for'," she told the Press Association.
"We wanted a general reminder for a general threat."
But Simon Hughes, the UK Liberal Democrat Party's homes affairs spokesman, called for the confusion to be explained.
"Home Office mistakes are frequent enough," he told PA. "Muddles in the passport office, chaos in the immigration office and record overcrowding in prisons are all recent disaster areas for this department.
"The Home Office must now give a full explanation to address the confusion caused by this document withdrawal."
The alert was issued as Blunkett met Tom Ridge, the head of United States Homeland Security, to discuss measures being taken by London and Washington to protect the public from the threat of global terrorism.
The document, Counter Terrorist Action Since 11 September, summarises progress in the war against international terrorism.
In his foreword to the document, Blunkett wrote: "Since the September 11th attacks we have had some success in damaging al Qaeda's capability, and in thwarting attacks.
"But the terrorist threat remains real, and serious. As recent events have shown, no country is immune from attack, and it simply is not possible to guarantee against more attacks in the future."
He said there was "no such thing as 100 percent fool-proof security" and described al Qaeda as "dedicated fanatical extremists who have no regard for the loss of human life, including their own."
-------- china
Guangdong plans third nuclear power plant-source
REUTERS CHINA:
November 8, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18504/story.htm
SHANGHAI - China's Guangdong Nuclear Power Group has applied to the central government for permission to set up the province's third nuclear power station, a source close to the company said.
The group, which already operates the Daya Bay nuclear plant and Ling Ao nuclear station in China's south, submitted a feasibility study to the State Development and Planning Commission (SDPC) for the third station, he told Reuters.
The plan is for the proposed station to be set up in the city of Yangjiang pending the SDPC's approval for the Guangdong Nuclear group to install four or more generating units, the source said. He did not say what their capacity was.
Approval was not likely to be issued until next year due to the upcoming 16th Communist Party Congress, during which top Chinese leaders are expected to step down from their party posts, another industry source said.
Guangdong is one of China's most vibrant economic hubs and energy demand has grown rapidly along with industrial growth.
The Daya Bay nuclear station, with designed generating capacity of 14 billion KWh, is Guangdong's largest nuclear generator.
-------- depleted uranium
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Preparing to Dump More Radioactive Waste on American Public
Stating Preference to Release and Recycle Nuclear Waste, Agency Betrays Public Trust to Support Nuclear Corporations
Public Citizen Press Release
Contact: David Ritter (202) 454-5176, Erica Hartman (202) 454-5174
From: "Piotr Bein" <piotr.bein@imag.net>
Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) recently stated preference to release and recycle radioactive wastes strongly indicates that it is more concerned with assisting the nuclear industry than protecting the public, Public Citizen said today.
In a news release issued Wednesday, the NRC announced that it will press ahead in a rulemaking that could dramatically increase the volume of radioactive waste material that is dumped in unlicensed landfills and recycled into consumer goods. The NRC's current policy allows all materials (metal, concrete, soil, etc.) to be released or recycled on a case-by-case basis. The agency is exploring allowing widespread recycling of contaminated solid materials into consumer products.
While the NRC's preference to allow the nuclear industry to disperse much of its waste has been made clear by its actions for many years, the agency is now stating it openly. In written comments submitted with his vote approving the rulemaking procedure, NRC Chairman Richard Meserve discouraged agency staff from trying to "mask the Commission's continuing support for the release" of the waste.
While the NRC's news release attempts to put a friendly face on the process, vowing that "NRC staff will seek broad public participation and engage diverse viewpoints," Meserve's guidance in his written comments that public "(w)orkshops are resource-intensive and expensive
Additionally, Public Citizen said, it is distressing to see how dismissive the NRC has been regarding the National Academies' March 2002 report on this issue, done at the NRC's request. This report, while not recommending that the NRC immediately halt the radioactive waste recycling program, did suggest that it take a very cautionary approach and seriously address public concerns on the issue, in part to overcome a "legacy of distrust." Instead of beginning a broad, deliberative process, as suggested by the Academies' report, the NRC is opting to proceed with a rulemaking and ignore public concerns.
"The Academies' report emphasized that the NRC not prescribe an outcome on the issue and that real consideration of public input was essential," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. "But in limiting public workshops and stating their preference from the get-go, it looks like they've already made a decision. The upcoming 'process' will most likely be a public relations maneuver and sham."
The NRC claims on its Web site that its "primary mission is to protect the public health and safety, and the environment from the effects of radiation from nuclear reactors, materials, and waste facilities." The agency also agrees with the firmly established scientific tenet that "any amount of radiation may pose some risk for causing cancer and hereditary effect." With this in mind, it is particularly alarming to note NRC Commissioner Jeffrey Merrifield's observation in his written comments on the rulemaking that "(r)ecycled solid material is different in that there is a potential that the radioactive component may be concentrated in the recycling process or that the material will be recycled in a form resulting in more actual contact with the general public." Incredibly, Merrifield goes on to say that "(it) would be nice to have a separate industry devoted to the recycling of radioactive material."
"One can only assume that the NRC is not concerned about abdicating its regulatory role to protect the public and making cynical calculations of how many additional cancer deaths are 'acceptable,' " said David Ritter, policy analyst with Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "The agency knows that this dumping can lead to radioactive consumer products like bicycles and belt buckles. It knows that this practice is wholly unnecessary and its sole beneficiary is the nuclear industry."
Both the NRC and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are addressing the issue of nuclear waste release and recycling. The NRC has jurisdiction over commercial nuclear reactors, while the DOE oversees waste from nuclear weapons facilities and energy research facilities. The DOE also allows case-by-case release or recycle of all materials, except metals.
"The American public has spoken loudly and clearly on this issue before, and that's why Congress banned the 'Below Regulatory Concern' policy in 1992, conceding that radiation is always a concern," Ritter said. "So now, industry and the so-called regulators are trying to come in the back door via word-play, public relations marketing and outright lies. The industry refuses to accept responsibility for proper handling and disposal of its deadly waste. The only responsible action for it to take is isolate and contain it, not try to 'dilute' it by dispersing it across the country in recycled products."
The NRC is scheduled to complete its rulemaking within three years.
----
Researchers Question Risks of Nuclear Fuel
November 8, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-08-09.asp#anchor5
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico, Spent nuclear fuel - uranium that has been used as fuel at a nuclear power plant - is less reactive than the original fresh fuel, argue researchers at by Sandia National Laboratories.
A new reactor built at the lab could mean savings in the eventual safe transport, storage, disposal of nuclear waste, the researchers said.
"The conservative view has always been to treat spent fuel like it just came out of the factory with its full reactivity," said researcher Gary Harms, the project lead. "This results in the numbers of canisters required in the handling of spent nuclear fuel to be conservatively high, driving up shipping and storage costs."
Sandia researcher Gary Harms conducts experiments with a research reactor to determine whether spent nuclear fuel is less reactive than fresh fuel. (Photo by Randy Montoya, courtesy Sandia)
The more realistic view is that as nuclear fuel is burned, the reactivity of the fuel decreases due to the consumption of some of the uranium and to the accumulation of fission products, the ash left from burning the nuclear fuel. Accounting for this reactivity decrease, called burnup credit, would allow for the spent nuclear fuel to be safely packed in more dense arrays for transportation, storage and disposal than would be possible if the composition changes were ignored, the team argues.
"Allowing such burnup credit would result in significant cost savings in the handling of spent nuclear fuel," Harms added.
But in the ultraconservative world of nuclear criticality safety, an effect must be proven before it is accepted. Before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would agree to reduce safety requirements for spent nuclear fuel, its relative safety would have to be proven in actual experiments and compared to computer models showing the same effects.
In 1999, Harms obtained a three year grant from the Department of Energy's (DOE) Nuclear Energy Research Initiative to make benchmark measurements of the reactivity effects that fission products have on a nuclear reactor. The project was called the Burnup Credit Critical Experiment (BUCCX). Rhodium, an important fission product absorber, was chosen for the first measurements.
The BUCCX team designed and built a small reactor, called a critical assembly, which uses low enriched fuel. The control system and some of the assembly hardware for the reactor came from the 1980s era Space Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (SNTP) Critical Experiment project, designed to simulate the behavior of a nuclear rocket reactor.
The reactor, which operated during the experiments at a lower power than a household light bulb, was subjected to several layers of safety reviews. During the experiments, it performed safely as predicted.
"It took us most of the three years to build the reactor and get authorization to use it. Only in the last few months have we begun actual experiments," Harms said.
The experiments were designed to show how much the presence of fission products - in this case, rhodium, would increase the amount of uranium required to cause a critical nuclear reaction in the lab system. The results showed that the presence of rhodium indeed made it harder for the same amount of uranium to go critical.
"In essence Sandia is helping pave the way for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to address the safe and cost efficient transport and storage of nuclear waste," Harms said.
-------- europe
Greens attack EU Commission's nuclear proposals
Story by Patrick Lannin
REUTERS EU:
November 8, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18506/story.htm
BRUSSELS - Europe's top energy official unveiled proposals this week to boost safety at nuclear plants and provide funds for decommissioning old reactors, sparking a furious response from foes of atomic power.
EU Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio proposed common safety standards and cross-border monitoring, timetables for European Union countries to decide on burial sites for the most radioactive waste, and talks with Russia on nuclear fuel supplies to future EU members in eastern Europe.
The Commission also said it wanted to boost the cash available to the EU nuclear authority Euratom by two billion euros ($1.99 billion) to pay for safety measures and help the decommissioning of old plants in former Soviet bloc countries, both EU candidates and others.
"It is our responsibility to ensure a common approach to nuclear safety and waste management," de Palacio said. "European citizens would never forgive us for inaction by the EU in this field," she added in a statement.
But Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and members of the European Parliament from Green parties - all hostile to nuclear power, which they regard as unsafe and a threat to the environment - strongly opposed the initiative.
"De Palacio, the pro-nuclear energy commissioner behind the nuclear package, wants to show that problems perceived by opponents of nuclear power, like safety and radioactive waste, are gone," said Claude Turmes, a Green parliament member from Luxembourg.
"But the details of the package show clearly that the only purpose is to revitalise the nuclear industry in an enlarged EU," Turmes added.
DIVERGENT POLICIES
Some EU countries, such as Sweden and Italy, bar nuclear power, while others, such as France, greatly depend on atomic energy. Finland recently decided to build the first new nuclear plant in western Europe in more than a decade.
De Palacio said she wanted an independent nuclear safety authority monitoring each EU country but opposed creating EU inspectors or conducting spot checks of nuclear plants.
The commissioner also urged EU states to decide by 2008 on a timetable for building sites to bury highly radioactive waste, which should be operational by 2018. For less radioactive waste, disposal arrangements should be ready by 2013, she said.
Because of fierce resistance by environmental groups, many EU countries lack long-term storage facilities for spent fuel and store nuclear waste at power plants or temporary sites.
De Palacio said eastern European states, many of which still run Soviet-era nuclear reactors, needed a secure supply of fissile material, which the talks with Moscow would seek.
The Commission said its proposal to raise Euratom's borrowing ceiling to six billion euros from four billion euros would cover nuclear safety and decommissioning projects.
Greens called such funding "cheap and dirty" nuclear loans.
-------- inspections
Inspectors Return to Iraq Nov. 18
November 8, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Weapons-Inspections.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- An advance team of weapons inspectors will be in Baghdad in two weeks, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix announced Friday.
`` We are planning to go to Baghdad on Monday, Nov. 18th,'' Blix said shortly after an unanimous Security Council passed a tough new resolution that expands his powers.
Blix said he was pleased with the full council support for the U.S. drafted resolution. It ``strengthens our mandate very much,'' he said.
Blix has said an advance team would be involved mostly with logistics and preparations for resuming full inspections but that some surprise checks could be done.
Under the new resolution, inspectors have 45 days from Friday to begin their work.
Inspectors from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission as well as a nuclear team from the International Atomic Energy Agency are mandated to disarm Iraq of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs.
The inspectors must report any Iraqi infraction immediately to the council for its assessment
-------- korea
U.S. Warns Japan of Missile Threat from N.Korea
November 8, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-arms-japan-usa.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - A senior U.S. defense official said Friday that Japan faced the ``danger'' of a North Korean missile attack but that Washington would not press Tokyo to build a missile defense shield.
Visiting U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith also said North Korea should pay a ``price'' for pursuing a nuclear arms program in violation of a 1994 agreement with Washington.
``One does not have to press Japan to recognize that Japan is facing a serious danger of a ballistic missile attack,'' he said.
He denied a newspaper report Friday that the United States would urge Japan to take the next step toward building a missile defense shield in response to any threat posed by North Korea.
The Yomiuri Shimbun, quoting U.S. defense officials in Washington, said Feith would convey Washington's view when he meets Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba in Tokyo Friday.
The Yomiuri said Feith would try to convince Tokyo to move closer to developing the system, highlighting the potential threat of North Korea, including its deployment of around 100 ballistic missiles capable of reaching major Japanese cities.
``We are not pressing Japan to do anything. It is not the way we deal with our allies,'' Feith told reporters in Tokyo.
``There is a common understanding that the missile threat facing Japan and the United States is serious and that cooperation between us to counter this threat and protect our people is very useful.''
Japan has conducted joint research with the United States on developing a missile defense system since North Korea's test firing of a missile which flew over Japan in 1998.
Tokyo has so far stopped short of moving the project to a development stage out of fear of angering China, which sees the system as a way of keeping its military capabilities in check.
Currently, Japan is only conducting research on the multi-billion-dollar project with Washington to develop the missile shield, or the theater missile defense system (TMD), designed to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.
NO DECISION YET
North Korea made a shock admission to the United States last month that it was enriching uranium to support a nuclear weapons program -- in breach of the 1994 Agreed Framework pact that had defused an earlier North Korean nuclear crisis.
While accusing Pyongyang of violating the nuclear deal and pursuing a nuclear arms program, Feith said the issue should be resolved ``diplomatically.''
``It is a difficult challenge. It is a matter of organizing the kind of pressure that would force the North Koreans to take seriously the concerns we have and we share with our allies about their nuclear program,'' he said.
``It is important that the North Koreans understand that there is a price to be paid for violating their commitments and pursuing a capability that threatens the peace and security of the region.''
He did not elaborate on what price North Korea should pay.
In mid-November the United States, the European Union, Japan and South Korea are to meet in New York to decide on the fate of oil shipments to North Korea under the Agreed Framework.
The 1994 deal called on North Korea to freeze its nuclear weapons programs in exchange for the delivery of 500,000 tons of fuel oil annually and the construction of two light-water nuclear reactors which cannot easily be converted to produce weapons material.
Feith said the United States did not know much about North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
``North Korea is astonishingly closed and secretive. Our knowledge of what they are doing... is sketchy,'' he said. ``But what we know is very troubling.''
Senior officials from the United States, Japan and South Korea are set to meet in Tokyo Saturday to discuss issues related to North Korea.
--------
Nuclear Dispute Discourages S. Korea
November 8, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Koreas-Talks.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Taken aback by North Korea's nuclear weapons program, South Korea on Friday rejected a request by the communist country to expand joint economic projects, South Korean pool reports said.
Delegates of the two Koreas met in the North's capital, Pyongyang, for a second straight day Friday to discuss economic cooperation, but the discussion was overshadowed by the North's nuclear issue.
Since North Korea admitted to having a secret nuclear weapons program in early October, the United States has been trying to garner international support to pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear ambitions.
A five-member South Korean delegation, led by Vice Finance and Economy Minister Yoon Jin-sik, refused to expand inter-Korean economic cooperation beyond what has already been agreed on, said pool reports.
The two-day meeting in Pyongyang, the third of its kind since 2000, was supposed to review ongoing inter-Korean projects and set new goals. But South Korea made it clear that it can't proceed unless the North promptly addresses international concerns about its nuclear program, they said.
South Korea, the reports said, turned down repeated requests by North Korea to start new joint projects in the fields of fishing and electricity. North Korea suffers an acute power shortage.
North Korea, the reports said, avoided a direct answer to the South Korean demand for scrapping its nuclear weapons program, saying only that it was ``seriously contemplating'' the issue.
Key joint economic projects include a cross-border railway under construction and an industrial park to be built on the North Korean side of the border. The park is mainly for South Korean plants.
South Korean delegates reportedly turned down a North Korean invitation to visit a candidate site for the industrial park.
In an apparent show of disappointment at the lack of progress at the talks, North Korean officials imposed tight restrictions on South Korean press coverage, the reports said. Photographers were not allowed to take pictures outside officially permitted areas.
A South Korean television crew was asked to erase a panoramic view of the North Korean capital taken from a hotel where they stayed. The pool reports did not say whether the crew complied with the North's demand.
North Korea had admitted to visiting U.S. diplomats on Oct. 3-5 that it had a program to enrich uranium, a breach of the 1994 agreement under which it pledged to abandon its nuclear ambitions in return for two light-water reactors plus 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil annually.
North Korea has complained that the reactor project, being pushed by a U.S.-led international consortium, is years behind schedule.
North Korea has expressed willingness to resolve the nuclear issue if the United States agrees to a nonaggression treaty. Washington rules out any discussions unless the North first abandons its nuclear ambitions.
The Koreas were divided in 1945.
--------
U.S. Studies N. Korea Sanctions
November 8, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-US-NKorea.html
TOKYO (AP) -- The United States is working with its allies on ways to punish North Korea for its development of nuclear weapons in violation of an international agreement, a senior U.S. defense official said Friday.
U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith said he and Japanese officials discussed halting shipments of fuel oil to the isolated communist state and stopping the construction of nuclear reactors to pressure Pyongyang. No decisions have been reached.
``It's important that the North Koreans understand that there is a price to be paid for violating their commitments and pursuing a capability that threatens the peace and security of the region,'' Feith said at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. ``The challenge is devising a way of imposing a price so that diplomacy can work.''
Feith met with Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and other top officials.
Feith offered few other details except to say the campaign must consider countries such as Japan, South Korea, Russia and China, as well as the European Union.
North Korea told U.S. officials last month that it has been secretly developing nuclear weapons in violation of a 1994 pact with Washington.
Under that agreement, North Korea promised to freeze a plutonium-based nuclear program in return for two light-water nuclear reactors to meet its energy needs. The United States also agreed to supply North Korea with heavy oil until the reactors were up and running.
Construction of the reactors is years behind schedule.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly was to continue reviewing these issues when he and his counterparts from Japan and South Korea hold a regular meeting Saturday on North Korea.
Feith also said he and Japanese officials discussed Japan's request that Washington pardon Charles Robert Jenkins, the former U.S. Army soldier who allegedly defected to North Korea. He said no decision has been made.
Jenkins, of Rich Square, N.C., is the subject of an intense tug-of-war between Tokyo and Pyongyang. He is the husband of a Japanese woman abducted by North Korea more than two decades ago.
Tokyo wants him to visit Japan so he can join his wife Hitomi Soga, who is visiting her hometown for the first time since her kidnapping. Japan is seeking the pardon so Jenkins won't risk extradition on desertion charges if he comes to Japan.
-------- missile defense
Denmark Says U.S. May Root Missile Defense in NATO
November 8, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-arms-usa-nato.html
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark said on Friday the United States was moving toward anchoring missile defense inside NATO and parliamentary sources signaled it could approve the use of a U.S. radar base in Greenland if this were agreed.
A U.S. official said talks were under way with NATO allies, but no decisions had been taken and there had been no consultations on specific issues such as missile defense bases.
``Prospects of the missile defense now being rooted in NATO...gives a considerably clearer picture of the political and strategic frames for further development of missile defense,'' the Danish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
In June the United States unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in order to build a missile defense system, prohibited under ABM, to protect itself against potential attacks.
Denmark, a NATO ally, said missile defense would be part of discussions at NATO's summit in Prague on November 21-22.
Washington has offered to share technology with allies but the idea of a joint NATO missile defense is new, sources say.
``The approach the United States has taken has been nuanced from National Missile Defense to a joint effort, including cooperation with Russia. But the U.S. doesn't have a master plan,'' a NATO diplomat said.
GREENLAND BASE
The Danish Foreign Ministry said Copenhagen had not received a request from the United States for the Thule military radar installation, in the northwest of the vast Arctic island of Greenland, to be used for missile defense.
Greenland, which belongs to Denmark, has enjoyed limited home rule since 1979 but the Danish government is responsible for foreign, security and defense policy on the island.
In 1987 the Danish parliament passed a resolution forbidding the use of the radar base at Thule for offensive purposes or in contradiction of the ABM treaty, which was seen as the foundation for international arms control.
But parliamentary sources said Denmark could be open to the prospect of extending the base for missile defense if the shield were extended to NATO allies.
A U.S. official, who asked not to be named, said Washington was in early talks with the Danish government and Greenland.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has invited Greenland's premier, Jonathan Motzfeldt, to join the Danish delegation to the NATO summit in Prague.
``The reason for the invitation is that it is expected that the U.S. wants preliminary talks about a joint NATO participation in the missile defense,'' Greenland's home rule government said in a statement.
----
Denmark denies deal over US missile defence plan
Friday, 08-Nov-2002
by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/ai/Qus-missile-denmark.RBKb_CN8.html
COPENHAGEN, Nov 8 (AFP) - The Danish government on Friday denied reports that it had agreed to play a key role in controversial US plans to create a missile defence shield, saying Washington had not even made such a request.
One of the major listening posts thought to be required for the shield to be operational is the Thule radar station on Danish-controlled Greenland, a Cold-War era US base that would require substantial modernisation.
"The United States has not asked us to use the Thule radar station in their missile defence project," said Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, reacting to the report in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
"And if such a request were made, the government would want a thorough political debate on the issue, in Denmark and in Greenland," he added.
"The government has informed the United States that it would be ready to study and consider a request if such a request were ever made," Moeller said.
Danish participation in the project -- designed to protect the United States from missile attack launched by so-called "rogue states" -- is seen as crucial.
The line of the current and former Danish administrations has always been that Denmark will only agree a policy on the US plans in the event of a formal US request for it to play a role.
The conservative-liberal coalition government plans to approach US officials on the issue at a NATO summit in Prague later this month, the report added, quoting parliamentary sources. Moeller confirmed that the suject was on the summit agenda.
"One of the main themes at the NATO summit in Prague will be establishing how to tackle the new threat of the spread of missiles and weapons of mass destruction, and missile defence will form an essential part of the talks," he said.
The head of Greenland's local government, Jonathan Motzfeldt, had been asked to attend the talks as part of the Danish delegation, he added.
Greenland residents are known generally to oppose the US plans amid concerns it will put their island at the centre of a new Cold war. Jyllands-Posten said the Danish government would present fuller details on plans for cooperation on the shield to a foreign policy committee next week.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Lugar to Pursue Weapons Elimination
November 8, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Chairman-Lugar.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Long before ``weapons of mass destruction'' became a regular phrase on the nightly news, Sen. Richard Lugar worried about them, warning that deadly arms from the former Soviet Union could fall in the hands of terrorists and other enemies.
Eleven years later, the weapons have become more widespread and Lugar is still worried. As he prepares to become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Lugar will try to ensure that the United States uses its diplomatic, economic and -- if necessary -- military might to keep those weapons from harming Americans.
The Republican takeover of the Senate, along with the retirement of Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., leaves the 70-year-old Indiana Republican poised to take over next year a committee that he last led in the mid-1980s.
Lugar is more of a centrist than Helms, the conservative who was chairman from 1995-2001. Helms was known for shooting down President Clinton's diplomatic nominees and for ridiculing international organizations including the United Nations.
``I think it's quite a change from Helms,'' said former Rep. Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat, a former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. ``Dick is an internationalist and he tries always to be constructive and supportive.''
Lugar's views are more in line with those of the current Democratic chairman, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and no major shifts are expected in the committee's work. The two worked closely together under Biden's leadership and both Democrats and Republicans say they expect that relationship to continue with Lugar in charge.
They took a common stand on the biggest foreign policy issue Congress faced this year: the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. Biden and Lugar worked together for a resolution that would have placed a greater emphasis on diplomacy, but ultimately voted for the language the White House wanted.
Some of the biggest differences between Biden may be in style. Compared to the talkative, sometimes acerbic Biden, Lugar is soft-spoken and more apt to resolve differences quietly.
``Joe Biden tends to have a more cutting edge to how he deals with people and issues. Dick Lugar is probably more of a velvet knife,'' said Jay Farrar, a former Defense Department legislative liaison, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
But friends and analysts say that behind the low-keyed political style, Lugar holds strong opinions and a passion for foreign affairs. He is widely considered the most knowledgeable senator on international matters. While loyal to the president, he is not afraid to disagree with him.
``Sometimes people confuse the style and don't see that behind the style are pretty firmly held set of views,'' said Jeff Berner, who served as Lugar's staff director in the 1980s when he was last committee chairman.
Among the issues he feels most strongly about is arms control. He lists among the top achievements of his 25-year political career a program, co-sponsored by then-Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., that has dismantled about 6,000 nuclear warheads from the former Soviet Union since 1991 and found work for weapons scientists, preventing them from offering their expertise to U.S. enemies.
Last year, he issued the ``Lugar Doctrine,'' calling on every nation to account for its weapons of mass destruction and safely secure them so they do not fall in the hands of other nations or groups.
When nations refuse, ``our nation must be prepared to use force, as well as all diplomatic and economic tools at our disposal,'' he wrote.
He said the United States shouldn't rule out improving cooperation with Iran, Syria or Libya to make sure they secure any weapons of mass destruction. The State Department considers all three to be state sponsors of terrorism.
Lugar has been a strong supporter of the ratification of NATO expansion and an advocate of free trade and promoting democracy.
His ascension to chairman could be a further setback for the ratification of a 22-year-old international treaty aimed at promoting equality for women. The committee voted in July to ratify the treaty, but the full Senate has not considered it.
Lugar and most other committee Republicans voted against the treaty, known as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. If the Senate does not approve it in the brief, postelection session, it would have to be considered again by the committee in the new Congress before the full Senate could vote on it.
On the Net:
Sen. Lugar: http://lugar.senate.gov/
-------- us politics
'Bush's axis of evil is wild, hyperbolic and silly'
David Fickling
Friday November 8, 2002
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,835857,00.html
"Nuclear proliferation still poses the single greatest threat to mankind," says Richard Butler, sipping mineral water in a pavement cafe near his home in Sydney. Much of Butler's adult life has been dedicated to limiting the spread of nuclear weapons, and since September 11 he has been wheeled out as a supporter of military action on Iraq. This has only added to his reputation - among left-wing critics, fellow weapons inspectors, and of course the Iraqi regime - as a stooge of US intelligence. When you meet him, though, he doesn't seem much of a hawk. "Whatever we do must be done for the right reasons," he says. "If the reasons are phoney or tendentious that will be found out, and I think there's been an inadequate answer to the question of 'Why now?'. I believe the case against Saddam Hussein is utterly proven. The man should be tried for crimes against humanity. But what I'm unconvinced by is the question of why it was inconvenient to deal with the problem two or three years ago and now, today, it's imperative. What actually is motivating that?"
When it comes to the question of a UN-sponsored war on Iraq he becomes oddly reticent. He prefers to talk about the security council making it clear that "the game is up", rather than alluding directly to the threat of war.
His view is that if diplomacy does not work with Saddam, we're going to be in big trouble. "I think that if Saddam felt that he was going down, his desperate action would be to attack Israel to try to bring it into the war and galvanise all Arabs against the west," he says. "And I have no doubt that if Israel looked like being seriously harmed, they would use their nuclear weapons. That would mean we'd crossed the nuclear line which we've striven for 50 years never to cross again, and the world would be changed intolerably. If the state of Israel uses those weapons, it will be the last thing it will ever do."
The claims that he was a stooge, he dismisses as a smokescreen. Unscom was compromised in many ways, he says - there were lots of spies. "I had meetings with my senior staff knowing that there were people in my office writing down every word I said, which later on that day would be given to their embassy. The Iraqis often knew we were coming to inspect the places we did, because we were penetrated by spies."
He says that he depended on intelligence from up to 40 countries to break through the "wall of deception" put up by the Iraqis. "I have no regrets whatsoever about our use of intelligence," he says. "Where do weapons experts come from? They come from defence and intelligence. The very idea that you could do something as hard-edged and as tough as that job without experts in weapons and intelligence is just a joke."
He is particularly impatient of claims that he is close to the current US administration. Most of Washington's hawks, he says, refuse to talk to him. A public discussion with Pentagon policy adviser Richard Perle earlier this year was "not exactly a shouting match, but certainly a very robust exhange of views".
Such disagreements become understandable when you hear his criticisms of American foreign policy. He describes Bush's "axis of evil" speech as "wild and hyperbolic and silly". At a Sydney university seminar last month, he said that US foreign policy ideas were fuelled by Hollywood storylines, and that the country's nuclear weapons were "just as much of a problem as those of Iraq".
Asked his views on national missile defence - which would provide America with a "son of Star Wars" shield against ballistic missile attacks - he twice describes the policy as a "disgrace" before correcting himself. "It's an illusion," he says. "It will not provide security, because whether the Americans say so or not, it clearly rests on a decision by them to rely on nuclear weapons in perpetuity.
"That utterly contradicts the solemn promise they gave the world to progressively eliminate nuclear weapons. Provided these weapons continue to remain in the hands of the US, Britain, Russia, China and France, it is folly to think that other states can be successfully told, 'These weapons are necessary for our security but not for yours.'
"It's fundamentally unfair. How can countries with nuclear weapons go somewhere like Tehran and say: 'You can't acquire a nuclear bomb of your own.'? It just won't wash. And the inevitable consequence of it will be more proliferation."
He is putting his faith in the international community. While Islamists and the American right routinely run down the UN, he is adamant that its endorsement would make the difference between an illegal American invasion of Iraq and a legitimate military enforcement of international resolutions.
"I could imagine Arab newspapers writing somewhat justifiably cynical articles about the sort of arm-twisting that's going on in the security council to get that resolution, and there will be some people in the Arab world who will say this has all been a concocted deal. But then there are people in America who think the government is controlled by people in black helicopters - you can't be led around by what these people think. If it isn't done, then the authority of the security council will be absolutely shredded."
----
Former Secretary of the Navy James Webb: DON'T ATTACK IRAQ
By ALEX FRIEDRICH afriedrich@montereyherald.com
Fri, Nov. 08, 2002
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/mcherald/news/local/4473702.htm
Former Marine urges restraint
A former Cabinet member under former President Ronald Reagan told military officers Thursday in Monterey that the United States should not invade Iraq.
Former Secretary of the Navy James Webb said the country should focus instead on eliminating international terrorism. Speaking at the Naval Postgraduate School, Webb said that without a clear understanding of consequences - or a clear exit strategy - U.S. forces face a decades-long occupation that could sap American resolve and resources.
The United States also risks inflaming Arab anger even more if it invades without first finding a solution to the Palestinian problem - which would include establishment of a Palestinian state, Webb said.
"I am very concerned with the direction this country may be going with regard to Iraq," Webb told several hundred students and faculty members. "Are we going to reshape American foreign policy to put (soldiers) on the ground in the Middle East? I think it's a mistake."
Webb, a best-selling novelist who also has written nonfiction since leaving the military, cautioned against an invasion in a Sept. 4 article in the Wall Street Journal.
He has argued against toppling the regime and rebuilding the government unless the United States is in direct danger. The evidence of such danger, he said, is not in sight.
Despite the size of the U.S. armed forces, he said, a collection of 1.5 million troops "is not that many" if it's spread out over the world.
"There are a lot of recently retired officers with experience who are concerned," he said.
The failure of the United States to solve the Palestinian problem would also complicate any invasion by inflaming Arab tension.
"I don't think we have clean hands" in the Palestinian issue, he said, and have failed "to effect a Palestinian state. Without that happening, anything we do in that region can be misconstrued to our detriment."
America must also focus on aggressively pursuing trans-national terrorist organizations, he said, "even if it means (crossing) boundaries of (host) countries not doing the policing."
The American government must tell such countries: "If you can't control them, we're going to get them."
Webb also voiced suspicions over China, which has maintained ties to Muslim countries in Southeast Asia for years. A war with Iraq would allow China to isolate the United States diplomatically and further its expansionist ambitions in the region.
Despite his concern, Webb said the recent Republican congressional sweep probably wouldn't accelerate a move against Iraq. Though Bush may find it easier to implement policy in a Republican-controlled Congress, key members of his party still have strong reservations about an invasion.
Republican senators Richard Lugar and Charles Hagel - key members of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee - share Webb's concerns of hasty action.
"I don't think the change in leadership is going to be positive for the administration on this issue," he said.
Webb was secretary of the Navy from 1987 to 1988, when he resigned over a naval reduction of forces. Before that, he was assistant secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs for three years, and counsel to the House Committee on Veterans Affairs from 1977 to 1981.
He has written six best-selling novels, one of which - "Fields of Fire" - is being made into a feature film by RKO productions. His also won an Emmy for his coverage of the U.S. Marines in Beirut for PBS.
Webb earned decorations including the Navy Cross, Silver Star and Purple Hearts while serving with the Fifth Marine Regiment in Vietnam.
Alex Friedrich can be reached at 648-1172.
----
Justice won't enforce Microsoft restrictions
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 8, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20021108-27582577.htm
The Justice Department won't enforce on Microsoft Corp. restrictions that nine states won from a federal judge in addition to those included in a settlement of the government's antitrust case, a U.S. official said yesterday.
The nine states, led by California, Connecticut and Iowa, will police Microsoft's compliance with limitations that they persuaded U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to impose, said the Justice Department's chief antitrust enforcer.
The judge imposed the additional restrictions on the world's biggest software maker last week, when she also approved Microsoft's settlement with the Bush administration.
"It's up to the state attorneys general to enforce that," Charles James told reporters after a speech to the American Bar Association's antitrust section.
Mr. James, who is leaving the Justice Department Nov. 22 to become general counsel of ChevronTexaco Corp., took some parting shots at critics who say the settlement won't restore competition in the industry. He said the Microsoft case revived questions about the participation of states in nationwide antitrust cases.
The states' role "is more a product of historical accident than a conscious effort to make antitrust enforcement effective in today's national and global marketplaces," Mr. James said in his speech. "This is not the system we would design today if we were starting all over again."
Much of the criticism over the settlement he negotiated in the 4-year-old case came "from Microsoft's competitors, because there wasn't enough gravy in the settlement," Mr. James said.
Microsoft shares, which have increased 5.8 percent since the settlement was approved, dropped 94 cents to close at $56.09 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
The settlement requires Microsoft to give personal-computer makers freedom to promote rival software products on personal computers powered by the Windows operating system.
Judge Kollar-Kotelly also barred Microsoft from retaliating against PC makers that opt to hide its programs, such as Internet Explorer or the Windows Media Player, and promote competing programs, such as the RealOne player made by RealNetworks Inc.
The Justice Department, which will enforce the settlement, lacks legal authority to police any of the extra provisions the judge granted the holdout states, Mr. James said. There shouldn't be much "friction" between separate federal and state enforcement efforts because "the ultimate state decree is enough like ours," he said.
"What a narrow view to take," said Eleanor Fox, who teaches antitrust at New York University law school. "If I were a state enforcer, I would be pretty mad."
Even without technical authority to enforce the restrictions won by the states, Mr. James or his successor "certainly has the authority to have that on his checklist and do surveillance and let Microsoft know when the Justice Department thinks they are falling short of that obligation." Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a leader of the holdout states, declined to comment on Mr. James' remarks, said spokesman Bob Brammer. Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said the company did not have an immediate comment.
Microsoft and the Justice Department negotiated their settlement last year after an appeals court held the software maker illegally protected its operating-software monopoly. The nine states that refused to sign the settlement sought tougher remedies, which were mostly rejected by the judge. Nine other states, led by New York, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, joined the settlement.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
US MASSACRE CLAIMS
Friday November 08, 2002
Sky News (UK)
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-12162886,00.html
A British documentary claims to have proof that American troops watched as Northern Alliance soldiers allegedly slaughtered thousands of captured Taliban fighters during the Afghan war.
The makers of Channel Five's Afghan Massacre say they have evidence that US special forces were present during the alleged atrocities - in which 3,000 are said to have died - but did nothing to stop it.
The US has denied the allegations and said no Americans were ever present.
But the documentary's producer, James Doran, believes witness statements and photographs in the documentary will leave the US authorities with no choice but to investigate.
Captured
The documentary centres on 8,000 Taliban soldiers who surrendered to the Northern Alliance following the bloody siege of Kunduz, Northern Afghanistan, in November last year.
The captured troops were to be taken to the Sheberghan Prison, about 120km away.
The programme claims soldiers loyal to the local Northern Alliance commander General Rashid Dostum loaded many of the captives into sealed containers for the journey, in which many suffocated.
One soldier admits in the documentary that when the prisoners called for air he and others fired in to the containers to ventilate them, killing more.
Witness
Another witness claims the Americans at the prison told the Afghans to take the dead outside the city.
It is claimed that among the dead taken to a part of the desert called Dasht Leili were injured and unconscious captives.
Human remains and clothing have since been discovered at the location, and the Afghanistan authorities announced in August that they would investigate.
Chris Shaw, senior programme controller for news and current affairs at Five, said: "We are not the first to report the allegations but we are the first to collate proper evidence from witnesses and information which, I think, points to a serious war crime."
Attacked
The main researcher for the documentary, Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi, has since had to flee to Britain after being viciously attacked during the making of the programme.
Mr Doran said he believed troops loyal to General Dostum are now targeting potential witnesses.
Afghan Massacre will be broadcast on Channel Five from Monday, November 11.
----
Afghan War Faltering, Military Leader Says
Myers Cites Al Qaeda's Ability to Adapt
By Thomas E. Ricks and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 8, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25588-2002Nov7?language=printer
The U.S. military is losing momentum in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan because the remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban have proven more successful in adapting to U.S. tactics than the U.S. military has to theirs, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said this week.
Gen. Richard B. Myers also said there is a debate taking place within the Pentagon about whether the United States needs to change its priorities in Afghanistan and de-emphasize military operations in favor of more support for reconstruction efforts.
"I think in a sense we've lost a little momentum there, to be frank," Myers said in after-dinner comments Monday night at the Brookings Institution. "They've made lots of adaptations to our tactics, and we've got to continue to think and try to out-think them and to be faster at it."
Myers, the nation's top military officer, suggested it may be time for the military to "flip" its priorities from combat operations aimed at hunting down al Qaeda and Taliban fighters to "the reconstruction piece in Afghanistan," a notable shift in priorities for an a Pentagon that has eschewed nation-building exercises.
The CIA, in a recently released assessment, called security "most precarious in smaller cities and some rural locations" and said: "Reconstruction may be the single most important factor in increasing security throughout Afghanistan and preventing it from again becoming a haven for terrorists."
Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently launched an anti-corruption campaign aimed at cracking down on provincial leaders who continue to challenge the authority of the country's central government.
Myers issued his call for faster and more flexible approaches in the counterterrorism war a day after the United States conducted its first-ever airstrike in Yemen, using an unmanned aircraft to do it. A CIA-operated Predator drone on Sunday attacked a vehicle believed to be carrying six al Qaeda members with Hellfire missiles, obliterating the vehicle and its passengers. Yemeni authorities said among the passengers was Abu Ali al-Harithi, a senior al Qaeda leader and one of the terrorist network's top figures in Yemen.
Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., a retired Army colonel and Pentagon consultant who directs the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said Monday's attack in Yemen cannot mask the continuing instability in Afghanistan and the lack of strong counterterrorism relationships between the United States and countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia.
Wayne A. Downing, a retired Army general who until June served as the White House special adviser on combating terrorism, disagreed, saying that the United States has matched al Qaeda in adjusting its operations. "Getting this guy in Yemen was huge -- and a significant escalation in a different place," he said.
Downing said he expects the military to play a smaller role in the war on terrorism, with diplomacy and intelligence cooperation becoming more important. He also predicted that actions like the one in Yemen will be more characteristic of the campaign.
Ivo H. Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, called a shift in priorities by the military in Afghanistan away from pursuing al Qaeda and toward reconstruction "noteworthy and extremely important." But Daalder said he doubted whether Myers or Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would commit U.S. forces to "tackling the fundamental security problem in Afghanistan, which is not al Qaeda, but a byproduct of the way we fought -- arming the warlords."
"What needs to be done is to take away the power of the warlords and give it to the central government, and that requires real military force," Daalder said. "Are we prepared to take on the very guys we empowered? I don't see any evidence that is the case."
In his remarks at Brookings, Myers said al Qaeda has proven to be an agile adversary, adapting its electronic communications to prevent intercepts and securing the way it passes money. His comments, released by Brookings on Wednesday, reflect a concern that many senior U.S. officials have expressed privately in recent months that the military establishment has been too slow to adapt in its response to the al Qaeda threat, both in its special operations tactics and its weapons procurement.
One official close to Rumsfeld said this week that, in his view, the military still is largely geared to changing at the glacial pace of the Cold War, during which shifts in military doctrine and weaponry in the Soviet Union occurred generationally. Al Qaeda and its allies have shown "an ability to change by the month," the official said.
A detailed analysis just released by the U.S. Army War College reported that al Qaeda fighters have been quick to adapt to the high-tech weaponry the United States used in its attack on the network. When the United States first began bombing in Afghanistan last October, the report said, Taliban and al Qaeda fighters made easy targets, even standing on ridges where they were visible to Special Operations spotters miles away.
Stephen Biddle, the report's author, wrote that by March, during the last major U.S.-led offensive against al Qaeda in southeastern Afghanistan, "Al Qaeda forces were practicing systematic communications security, dispersal, camouflage discipline, use of cover and concealment, and exploitation of dummy fighting positions to draw fire and attention from their real positions."
Added one senior officer: "It's the general consensus within the [special operations] community that al Qaeda is extremely adaptive and very cagey. These guys are not weekend terrorists."
--------
U.N. Finds Novel Way to Keep an Eye on Afghans
November 8, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-afghan-un-eyes.html
LONDON (Reuters) - United Nations officials grappling with a flood of refugees returning to Afghanistan have found a new way of keeping tabs on them -- by taking photographs of their eyes.
They are using the snapshots to build a database which enables them to prevent refugees from fraudulently claiming more than one U.N. aid package per person as they cross the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan.
Iris recognition, as the technique is known, may sound like the stuff of science fiction -- it featured prominently in the futuristic film ``Minority Report'' starring Tom Cruise.
But organizers say it is more effective than traditional methods like finger-printing and has been well received -- even by Afghan women, some of whom still wear the traditional veil and seldom show their faces in public. ``Cultural acceptance has been very high,'' said Machiel van der Harst, chief operating officer of BioID Technologies, a Swiss-based company which has pioneered the technique and is working alongside the United Nations on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
``We did everything we could to make people feel comfortable, even in difficult circumstances,'' he told Reuters at a technology conference in London.
``We used female staff and we tried to give the families privacy by dividing the enrolment centers, so a man from one family could not see a woman from another just at the moment she lifted her veil.''
The U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is using the technique at its Voluntary Repatriation Center at the Peshawar border crossing, the main gateway for Afghan refugees trudging home from Pakistan.
Every refugee who crosses the border is entitled to an aid package which includes money and tools. The U.N. wants to stop refugees from coming back to make a second claim.
The method has been used on about 12,500 people since it was launched on October 1 and, if deemed successful, may be employed elsewhere in the world.
TWELVE BILLION IRISES
Iris recognition relies on the fact that no two irises are identical -- even when they belong to the same person.
``There are six billion people in this world and therefore 12 billion different irises,'' Van der Harst said. ``For consistency, we always use the right eye for testing.''
UNHCR officials shine a special red light into the refugee's eye and take photos with a narrow-angle lens.
The image is fed into a computer which processes the information in the iris and converts it into a randomly generated number, which is assigned to that refugee.
``The computer measures the specific structure of nerves and muscles, all the things you can see in the eye,'' Van der Harst said. ``The iris is very rich in texture and very stable over time, so it's an ideal means of identification.''
The project inevitably ran into problems like cataracts and eye diseases, which prevented officials taking clear pictures.
But Van der Harst said it worked on about 99 percent of applicants and, when they ran a test by asking people to come back and try to claim a second time, the success rate was again about 99 percent.
In a region as politically sensitive as the Afghan border, refugees are often more willing to have their eyes photographed than their entire face, he said.
``The face constitutes an identity in the way that a close-up of an eye does not,'' Van der Harst said.
Nevertheless, many refugees found the experience bewildering.
``About a third of the people thought it was a medical at first,'' he said. ``We even had a couple who thought we were going to give them free spectacles.''
-------- africa
US beefs up Horn anti-terror base
Friday, 8 November, 2002
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2420443.stm
The marines will initially be based on a warship US defence officials have announced that they will be sending an extra 400 elite troops to the US base in the Horn of Africa to help in the hunt for suspected terrorists.
The Horn of Africa turns out to be a fairly busy place in terms of the flow of people and other instruments of war
US Gen. Richard Meyers
They will join 800 troops, including special operations forces, who have already been stationed at a military headquarters in Djibouti for several months.
The military HQ could also free up other military commanders to concentrate on planning for possible military action against Iraq.
The 400 marines will set up the command centre in Djibouti.
Amphibious
It will initially operate from a Navy ship in the Red Sea, the amphibious USS Mount Whitney, for the 60 to 90 days which will probably be necessary to build a command post ashore.
The ship will leave its homeport of Norfolk, Virginia, on 12 November, with a crew of 560, but it is unclear whether all the Marines will be on board next week.
More marines could be added later, according to the Associated Press news agency.
USS Princeton and helicopter The base will start off at sea
The 800 troops already in Djibouti will be folded into the new Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, along with forces expected to be contributed by coalition partners, Marine Major Steve Cox, the new unit's spokesman, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
"The Horn of Africa turns out to be a fairly busy place in terms of the flow of people and other instruments of war - weapons, explosives, perhaps weapons of mass destruction," General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The top US commander, General Tommy Franks, pointed out last week that the US had "security relationships and engagement opportunities" in countries such as Kenya, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Yemen.
Yemen is of particular interest for US defence officials.
On Sunday, six alleged members of al-Qaeda, including the organisation's top operative, Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, were killed in Yemen, reportedly by an unmanned CIA-operated aircraft.
Regional command
There has also been much speculation that al-Qaeda operatives could regroup in Somalia.
The transitional government in Somalis has promised to cooperate with the US war on terror.
Pentagon officials have said the headquarters could free up other commanders to spend more time on planning and preparation for a possible military showdown with Iraq.
The Americans could eventually have three regional headquarters, each with its own responsibilities.
As well as the new command centre in the Horn of Africa, there is one at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, and there could be a third in the Gulf.
A major command post exercise begins in Qatar in the next few weeks, and the Pentagon has left open the possibility that equipment and military staff could stay on there after the exercise is over.
Djibouti, because of its geographical location, is a strategic point in the region.
The small, mostly-deserted country of 600,000, has long been used as a military base by the former colonial power, France.
France has more than 2,000 troops based there, there are about 1,000 Germans, and a number of British forces.
Other US troops are stationed aboard navy ships in the Red Sea.
-------- arms sales
Rogue Merchants
Friday, November 8, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25768-2002Nov7?language=printer
NATO IS SOON to offer membership to seven more countries in Central and Eastern Europe, and the European Union to 10, and yet the continent continues to pose security challenges to the United States. This has been underscored by revelations that three European countries still outside the Western clubs -- Yugoslavia, Ukraine and Belarus -- have been supplying weapons and military training to Iraq, in violation of a U.N. embargo. Though the full extent of the shipments has not been disclosed, Belarus is accused of training Iraqis in the operation of air defense missiles, while a Yugoslav arms company acknowledged reconditioning engines for Iraq's fighter jets and may have been helping Baghdad develop cruise missiles. Most disturbing is the evidence that Ukraine, a country that has announced its aspiration to join NATO and is the fourth-largest U.S. aid recipient, may have accepted $100 million in cash from Saddam Hussein in exchange for four sophisticated radar systems that could help Iraq shoot down American aircraft. The Bush administration has already condemned and isolated Belarus's dictator, Alexander Lukashenko; but that still leaves it with the difficult challenge of managing relationships with Yugoslav and Ukrainian governments that are worthy neither of trust nor of rogue-state treatment.
So far the administration has suspended $54 million in aid to Ukraine and canceled a planned summit meeting next month between NATO leaders and Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma; Ukraine's foreign minister will instead be invited. Under heavy pressure from Washington, Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica has been induced to fire four senior officials involved with the Iraq deals. But these are cosmetic measures; the real question is how to respond to Mr. Kostunica and Mr. Kuchma, two politicians who say they want to lead their countries into the West yet refuse to respect its most basic norms.
There's no evidence Mr. Kostunica had anything to do with the Yugoslav-Iraq deals; yet since ousting Slobodan Milosevic as Serbian leader two years ago, he has consistently refused to purge hard-core nationalists and war criminals from the military. Mr. Kostunica attempts a remarkable straddle: He appeals to the lingering Serbian nationalism stoked by Mr. Milosevic -- thereby winning elections over his more moderate opposition -- while simultaneously demanding that his country be treated as a respectable member of the European democratic community. He cannot be allowed to succeed. Until there is a decisive break with the past, discussions of European Union concessions or of including Yugoslavia in NATO's partnership for peace should be stopped.
The heart of the Ukraine problem is not its military but Mr. Kuchma himself, who was secretly taped while plotting the radar sale to Iraq. A U.S.-British commission sent to investigate the deal was stonewalled, and the head of the arms export agency was killed in a suspicious car crash. Previously leaked tapes captured Mr. Kuchma plotting the murder of an opposition journalist. For the Bush administration and other NATO governments, Mr. Kuchma has become untouchable. Yet his struggling country of 50 million probably cannot preserve its fragile independence from Russia unless it is nourished by the West. Aid to Ukraine should not be stopped. Instead it must be carefully channeled into building the moderate political movements seeking to peacefully remove Mr. Kuchma and his cronies from power.
-------- biological weapons
U.S. says Baghdad is hiding anthrax
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 8, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021108-712686.htm
U.S. intelligence agencies have told U.N. weapons inspectors that Iraq has hidden 7,000 liters of anthrax, but chief inspector Hans Blix never reported the information to the U.N. Security Council, The Washington Times has learned.
The failure to inform the council has raised questions about whether Mr. Blix will report accurately on anticipated Iraqi obstruction of weapons inspections, which could begin again later this month, said administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The recent intelligence assessment of the anthrax - about 1,800 gallons - is based on sensitive information, including data provided by Iraqi defectors and other U.S. intelligence-gathering means, the officials said.
U.S. intelligence officials said the anthrax stockpile is believed to be part of the 8,500 liters of anthrax that Iraq's government, after initial denials, admitted in 1995 to producing but told U.N. inspectors that it destroyed.
The intelligence was reported to the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as Unmovic, within the past several months. However, Mr. Blix, the executive chairman of Unmovic, has not reported the information to the members of the Security Council, the officials said.
Ewen Buchanan, a spokesman for Mr. Blix, would not address the issue of reporting the intelligence directly.
"Anthrax production in Iraq is clearly an open question," Mr. Buchanan said. "We don't know how much they've produced and whether they've destroyed all that they claimed."
Mr. Buchanan said previous assessments by the U.N. Special Commission said the Iraqis could have produced three times the 8,500 liters they admitted to having made.
"This is just the sort of question we would pursue," Mr. Buchanan said of the Iraqi anthrax cache.
Mr. Blix could not be reached for comment, but he said in a recent television interview that although he respects U.S. and British intelligence agency reports on Iraq's weapons, Unmovic cannot report the intelligence to the Security Council because spy agencies will not disclose their sources.
Mr. Blix said in an interview with talk-show host Charlie Rose that "the problem is that they will not give you evidence."
"They will say, 'We are convinced for various reasons that they have one thing or another,' but they will not say where it is," he said on the Oct. 31 broadcast.
"They will say that, 'Well, we have to protect our sources, so we will not give you evidence,'" he said. "And if some people ask me am I sure that they have weapons of mass destruction, I say, 'If I had that, I would take it to the Security Council straight away.'"
U.S. intelligence agencies also reported unusual activity at a suspected biological-weapons facility in Iraq, the officials said.
A CIA report made public last month stated that "Iraq admitted producing thousands of liters of the [biological-warfare] agents anthrax, botulinum toxin and aflatoxin" and had prepared missile warheads and bombs to deliver the weapons.
"Baghdad did not provide persuasive evidence to support its claims that it unilaterally destroyed its [biological-warfare] agents and munitions," the report said.
U.N. weapons inspectors said Baghdad's production figures for biological-warfare agents "vastly understated" its actual production and that it could have made two to four times the amount it said it produced, the report said.
The report said that about 8,000 anthrax spores, or less than one-millionth of a gram, is enough to cause a person to become infected and that inhaled anthrax is "100 percent fatal within five to seven days, although in recent cases, aggressive medical treatment has reduced the fatality rate."
The disclosure that Unmovic has not reported the intelligence to the Security Council follows the recent approval by the United Nations of Iraq's purchase of a specialty chemical that could be used to enhance Iraq's chemical and biological arms.
The sale of a shipment of a fine powder known as colloidal silicon dioxide was approved by the U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq despite objections from the U.S. government amid concerns that the chemical could be used for weapons.
According to intelligence officials, reports about Iraq's hidden anthrax were bolstered by a former Iraqi government official who defected two years ago but only recently came forward with new information, U.S. officials said.
The former Iraqi official, who is part of an opposition group of ex-military officers, provided new details about storage sites where Iraq is keeping chemical and biological weapons, the U.S. officials said.
The defector's accounts have been verified by other intelligence, the officials said.
The failure to alert the Security Council to the anthrax stockpile has upset some Bush administration officials, who said the information might have helped persuade some members of the council to support tougher U.S. action.
"If Blix won't report this, what will he do when Iraq obstructs weapons inspectors?" one official asked.
Representatives of Russia, China and France have opposed U.S. efforts to win council approval of military action against Iraq and the ouster of dictator Saddam Hussein.
The issue of Iraq's hidden anthrax is likely to emerge in the next month as the United Nations begins a new round of inspections inside Iraq.
Weapons inspections were halted in 1998 after the Clinton administration began military strikes on Iraq aimed at knocking out suspected chemical-, biological- and nuclear-weapons development sites.
Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S. forces that would lead any attack on Iraq, said the issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is a key area of concern.
"The linkages between the government of Iraq and other transnational terrorist organizations like al Qaeda is not the issue with me," Gen. Franks told reporters Oct. 29. "The issue is the potential of a state with weapons of mass destruction passing those weapons of mass destruction to proven terrorist capability. And I believe that that risk exists."
--------
Experts Urge States to Agree on Germ Weapons Talks
November 8, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-arms-biological.html
GENEVA (Reuters) - Arms experts on Friday urged member states of a troubled international pact banning germ weapons to back a compromise plan on continued talks or risk another angry row at next week's meeting.
Experts warned the dangers posed by biological weapons had increased since last year when the United States rejected moves to tighten the pact with new legal obligations, including onsite inspections.
They pointed to the still unsolved anthrax attacks in the United States and fears that extremist religious or political groups could be trying to develop germ weapons for attacks.
``In view of all that has gone on, it would be paradoxical if the international community decided that it could find nothing to talk about,'' said Christophe Carle, deputy head of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).
Members of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) gather on Monday to pick up the pieces of the treaty's fifth review conference, suspended last December after the U.S. revolt.
Washington says it wants no further talks now on strengthening the BWC and would prefer to wrap up the conference quickly with a decision to meet in 2006 for the next five-yearly review.
But in a bid to keep states talking, conference chairman Tibor Toth has put forward a plan for annual meetings for the next three years.
These would tackle two specific topics a year such as strengthening national laws to reinforce the outlawing of biological weapons and how to react in cases of accidental release of toxins.
``It is nowhere near enough, but if the alternative is no discussion at all, what is the choice,'' UNIDIR head Patricia Lewis told a news conference.
SPYING FEARS
Washington said it continued to support the BWC, but rejected as unworkable plans for an additional protocol to the treaty, which would have included verification measures.
It said such checks would expose its facilities to spying without any guarantee that real cheats would be discovered.
Under the Toth plan, there would be no more negotiations on the protocol.
Members had spent years negotiating the protocol which was due to be approved at the review conference. Unlike other arms accords, the BWC has no mechanism for checking whether any of the 146 states to have ratified the 1972 treaty are cheating.
U.S. Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton last year accused four signatory states -- Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Libya -- of violating or probably violating the ban on producing, using or stockpiling biological or toxic weapons.U.N. Security Council could have approved a U.S.-sponsored resolution demanding Iraq give unfettered access to arms inspectors searching for signs it has been developing weapons of mass destruction, including biological weapons.
With the exception of the United States, countries belonging to the Western Group have given backing to Toth's proposal.
Diplomats said China and Russia, which had backed the protocol, also indicated they could accept the plan. But it was not clear how other protocol supporters such as Iran and Pakistan would react.
Apart from instituting checks, the protocol covered technological exchange and scientific cooperation which developing countries had been seeking.
-------- business
Potential F/A-22 Cost Overrun Of $690 Million Is Announced
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 8, 2002; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26405-2002Nov8?language=printer
The Air Force announced last night that its F/A-22 stealth fighter program has experienced a "potential cost overrun" of up to $690 million related to the aircraft's engineering, manufacturing and development phase.
While the Air Force said the overrun is unrelated to the Raptor's "superb" flight test performance, the latest financial setback is almost certain to trigger further criticism on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have been angered by the aircraft's escalating cost.
With the program already capped by Congress at $45 billion for 295 planes, the radar-evading fighter made by Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda is the most expensive jet fighter ever built.
Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, said that the first delivery of aircraft remains on schedule for 2004, with initial operational capability to come in 2005 as planned. But a $690 million cost overrun could reduce the number of aircraft the service is able to buy within the spending cap.
"The F/A-22 is essential to America's security in the 21st century, and we will get to the bottom of this issue," Jumper said.
Additional cost escalations have already reduced the total from 295 to 284 planes. Stephen Cambone, director of defense program analysis and evaluation, recently raised the possibility of reducing the F/A-22 program further, to 239 aircraft, in order to save billions for other weapons programs, but Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has yet to act on it.
Marvin Sambur, assistant Air Force secretary for acquisition, has appointed a team of technical and financial experts from the Air Force and the defense industry to investigate how the $690 million cost overrun occurred and to report back later this month.
Loren B. Thompson, a Lexington Institute defense analyst, said the cost overrun, while not trivial, should not be a major setback.
-------- china
Jiang rejects Western-style politics
From combined dispatches
November 8, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021108-29425868.htm
BEIJING - China's Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin today ruled out following Western-style multiparty democracy in a speech at the opening of the 16th National Party Congress, which is expected to focus on limited political reform within the party.
But the leader of China echoed Chairman Mao Tse-tung's refrain of "let 100 flowers bloom and 100 schools of thought contend" in an appeal for academic and political openness.
"We must keep to the orientation of serving the people, and socialism, and the principle of letting 100 flowers bloom and 100 schools of thought contend and highlight the themes of the times while encouraging diversity," Mr. Jiang said in the text of the speech prepared for delivery.
Mr. Jiang said China would push ahead with grass-roots changes that have fostered village elections.
Meanwhile, Chinese army troops moved into a Tibetan-inhabited region of western China and arrested five men after a months-long investigation into prayer ceremonies held in honor of the Dalai Lama, an overseas Tibet support group said.
The report casts doubt on what had appeared to be signs of a thaw in relations between China and the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual and temporal leader who lives in exile in India. He fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese.
The Dalai Lama denied that yesterday during his first visit in seven years to Mongolia, whose people share centuries-old religious and cultural ties with Tibet.
"I am not seeking independence. I am seeking self-rule. I think that benefits both Chinese and Tibetan people," he said in a speech yesterday at Mongolian National University. He did not elaborate, but has previously appealed for greater Tibetan cultural and political autonomy.
The five men were arrested Oct. 18 in the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province, according to the New York-based International Campaign for Tibet. Authorities have not told relatives what charges the five might face, saying only that the crimes were serious, the group said in a news release.
Others from the area fled to India after being summoned for questioning by police, the group said.
Ganzi, known in Tibetan as Kandze, was traditionally regarded as part of Tibet, but was placed under a neighboring province after Chinese troops occupied the Himalayan region in 1951.
The group said the arrests appeared to be related to a series of traditional Buddhist rituals held in Ganzi in February to pray for long life for the Dalai Lama. At the party congress in Beijing, Mr. Jiang also declared hat the ruling Communist Party wanted to fight "terrorism in all its forms" and urged international cooperation in the effort.
Addressing the party congress' opening session, held under saturation security next to Beijing's central Tiananmen Square, Mr. Jiang called for focus on both the symptoms and causes of terrorism.
"It is imperative to strengthen international cooperation in this regard, address both the symptoms and root causes of terrorism, prevent and combat terrorist activities and work hard to eliminated terrorism at root," he said.
-------- colombia
Drug Lord's Release Ordered
Colombian Authorities Seek to Hold or Extradite Cali Figure
Associated Press
Friday, November 8, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25581-2002Nov7?language=printer
TUNJA, Colombia, Nov. 7 -- A Colombian court ordered one of the country's former top drug lords released from prison today as government investigators scrambled to find evidence to support further charges and possibly his extradition to the United States.
Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela and his brother, Miguel, once controlled the Cali drug cartel, an empire that moved multi-ton shipments of cocaine across the globe, including to the United States.
Judge Luz Amanda Moncada ruled today that the government must release Gilberto Rodriguez in line with an order issued last week by Judge Pedro Jose Suarez. Suarez had also ordered Miguel Rodriguez freed, but Moncada ruled that he must stay in prison to serve an additional four-year sentence for bribery. That sentence reportedly stemmed from a 1996 attempt to buy his way out of prison.
The nation was stunned last week by Suarez's ruling that both Rodriguez brothers should be released after having served just seven years, about half their sentences, for drug trafficking. Justice Minister Fernando Londono immediately accused Suarez of falling prey to the brothers' "gigantic economic power" and began a bribery investigation.
Suarez defended his decision, saying the brothers deserved early release because they had participated in a work-study program in prison.
President Alvaro Uribe halted the release on Saturday as officials attempted to keep the brothers behind bars. After Moncada's ruling, however, Londono said the government would respect the judge's decision, even though it was "a terrible blow."
"This is a moment of mourning and pain for the country's image and for the administration of justice in Colombia," Londono told RCN Radio.
Unless U.S. and Colombian investigators file additional charges against Gilberto Rodriguez, he could leave prison soon. Dozens of police and soldiers surrounded the Combita prison, outside the town of Tunja, 60 miles northeast of Bogota, to guarantee his safety when he came out.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration was trying to link the brothers to international crimes committed after 1997, when Colombia's constitution was revised to allow the extradition of its citizens. The men were captured in 1995, so authorities would have to prove that any new crimes were committed from their cells. In the past, drug lords have been accused of continuing to run their operations from prison.
-------- europe
The EU and the Power of the People
Czech and Other Leaders Are Eager to Join, but Their Citizens Aren't So Sure
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 8, 2002; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25582-2002Nov7?language=printer
PRAGUE -- The European Union is preparing for a historic expansion east and south, with itsleaders scheduled to issue invitations at a December summit to as many as 10 countries that the group says meet its requirements for democracy, free markets, human rights and rule of law.
But while governments trumpet the benefits of EU membership and eagerly await formal invitations, most are finding their populations only lukewarm to the idea. For now, public opinion polls show that only four of the 10 countries have a clear majority of citizens in favor of joining.
The opponents include people such as Ivo Kubicek, 49, a commercial farmer in the village of Olsany, in the eastern Czech Republic. He worries that the new members would get short shrift on European farm aid and fears over-regulation from EU headquarters in Brussels. "It's bad the European Union is already imposing various quotas and regulations on us," he said. "Bureaucratic procedures, name restriction -- it's nonsense!"
Then there's Vaclav Novotny, 62, a retiree who spends most afternoons swilling pints of Pilsner Urquell at a long wooden table at the Hippopotamus Bar in Prague's historic center. He is worried about the price of his beer going up when the Czech Republic joins the union. And he, too, hates the idea of being ordered around by Brussels. "If I wanted to join anything in the West, I would have defected," he said.
And there's Barbara Bulanova, 20, a fresh-faced college student studying library science. She sees advantages in joining the EU, such as the right to move to other EU countries to work. But she has doubts as well. "Something small inside of me . . . wants to be independent," she said. "Maybe we will lose something by joining other countries. Not our generation, but the next generation, will lose some of our identity."
That kind of ambivalence underscores how the construction of a wider, unified Europe, a dream of European leaders for four decades, has been driven by the ruling class, with the public sometimes pulled along reluctantly. The skepticism comes out not only in random interviews, but in data from opinion polls.
In March, the Eurobarometer poll devised by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, showed that in the 10 countries likely to get invitations in December -- Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Malta, Cyprus, Slovenia and Slovakia -- a bare majority of 52 percent of the people thought joining was a good idea, compared with 16 percent who thought it was a bad idea. The rest were undecided or gave no opinion.
The poll results are even more striking when viewed country by country. Hungary emerges as by far the most pro-EU of the 10 aspirants, with 65 percent of those polled saying EU membership is a good thing. But the number is 52 percent in Poland, 43 percent in the Czech Republic, 41 percent in Slovenia, 38 percent in Malta, 35 percent in Estonia and 32 percent in Latvia.
This is not just of academic concern, because of the 10 countries, all but Cyprus say they will put EU membership to their citizens in referendums.
Ironically, public support for membership is higher in three countries that have no chance of joining this time around -- Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.
The new members will get aid from Brussels and international prestige. But they will also have to open their markets to competition from other EU states and abide by the group's voluminous regulations, covering things as diverse as food safety and human rights.
The reasons for ambivalence vary. Some people fear rising prices, others fear waves of foreign goods and still others fear an erosion of national sovereignty so soon after the end of Soviet domination. And 57 years the defeat of Nazi Germany, many people worry that EU membership will open the doors to Germans to dominate their countries economically.
"These are young democracies," said Daniel Keohane, a researcher with the Center for European Reform in London. "It's not that long that they've had their independence, so it's natural that some people would be fearful."
There is also a general concern that new members will have second-class status. As Kubicek, the Czech farmer, put it: "In the European Union, some countries will get more financing and some will get less. It's like a father with 15 sons, and 10 of them get a dowry and the others don't."
Kubicek runs a 400-acre farm divided among three people. His three modern tractors were purchased from Germany, and his records are kept on a computer in his office. He argues that under conditions of fairness, he can compete with any farmer in Western Europe. "But how can I compete when I don't get the financial support that they are getting?" he asked.
For now, the EU is offering new members just one-quarter of the agricultural support that current members get, with the entire farm subsidy program set to be reviewed for a possible phasing out in 2006.
"I believe all 10 candidate countries will get in 2004, but I'm not sure whether they can all stand the pressure, and whether the European Union can survive it," Kubicek said. "There could be a danger in Europe if the money is not released to the new members." Otherwise, he predicted, "the European Union will not work, it will breed bad blood, and some countries will want to get out of it."
Novotny, the retiree, also doubts the union can survive, which is why he opposes joining. "I don't see any practical advantages," he said. There have been so many unions. Other than the United States, they all fell apart and there was bloodshed. Look at the Soviet Union. It's my personal opinion -- maybe for young people, it's different."
Novotny recalled that 20 Czech korunas used to buy five beers and now won't buy even one. And he's worried that if the Czech Republic adopts the euro, the currency that 12 EU countries use, prices will soar again.
For younger people, the answers do seem different, suggesting a strong generational divide. College students in particular see EU membership as opening a continent-wide job market.
"My opinion is that Czechs are very xenophobic and very proud of their nation, and 70 percent would not want to enter the EU," said Eva Trundova, an architecture student in her twenties. "I think the accession to the EU has both pros and cons. But there are more positive things. We were told at school that with the EU, in the future it will be easier to find jobs."
Officials here say it will be difficult, but not impossible, to counter enough of the skepticism to win a referendum on membership next year.
So far, much of the Czech government's focus has been on meeting the criteria for membership -- restructuring the farm system, bringing the budget deficit into line and trying to clean up corruption that officials concede is still rampant.
Before the referendum -- planned for May or June, Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda said -- the government will launch a campaign to win over public sympathies. "We will have to be especially concentrated on the young people," he said.
With Euro-skepticism running high, EU officials have asked Hungary, the most pro-Europe of the group, to hold its referendum first, in hopes of building momentum for acceptance. "We said 'all right' because public support is very high," said Hungarian Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs in an interview in Budapest. "It's certainly around a two-thirds majority, so we are prepared to go first." The referendum is tentatively scheduled for March.
But if many Eastern countries are facing public hostility, Hungary's government faces the opposite concern: sky-high expectations. Many Hungarians seem to believe that joining the EU will cure all ills.
Robert Pap, 31, is a member of the minority Roma, or Gypsy, group. He is unemployed and lives in one of Budapest's poorest neighborhoods. "I heard there will be more jobs," he said, sitting on a stoop, "and a better life for the poor people, not just the rich. And also the housing problems for the poor will be solved." He said he was hopeful but added, "We don't believe in fairy tales."
Kovacs, the foreign minister, said the government has a selling job to do while keeping expectations in check. "People are thinking in black and white categories," he said. " . . . We want to have a campaign, to let people know what the EU is all about."
-------- iraq
Allied Planes Drop Leaflets on Iraq
November 8, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-US-Iraq-Warning.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- For the third time in six weeks, allied planes dropped hundreds of thousands of leaflets over southern Iraq urging Saddam Hussein's military not to fire on American and British warplanes.
U.S. Central Command, whose forces carried out the leaflet mission Friday, did not release the text of the message.
Besides urging the Iraqis not to fire on the fighter jets that patrol southern Iraq nearly daily, the leaflet ``emphasizes the consequences that Iraqi military actions are having on the local civilian populace,'' a brief Central Command statement said.
Lt. Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said the message contained in Friday's drop was the same as in earlier drops over two other southern Iraqi cities on Oct. 27. That time it said, ``Before you engage coalition aircraft, think about the consequences.'' The targeted cities were Basra and As Samawah, on the Euphrates River.
Another picture on the earlier leaflet depicted an Iraqi woman and children. ``Think about your family,'' said an English translation of the earlier leaflet. ``Do what you must to survive.''
In Friday's operation, 240,000 leaflets were dropped around the town of Al Amarah, which has been a frequent target of U.S. and British retaliatory strikes in recent weeks. Al Amarah is about 120 miles southeast of Baghdad.
The first in a series of leaflet drops was Oct. 3. Before that the most recent leaflet drop had been in October 2001.
U.S. and British aircraft have been patrolling two zones over Iraq for a decade in an effort to protect minority Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north from government repression. Baghdad considers the patrol flights violations of its sovereignty, and Iraqi forces regularly try to shoot the planes down. In response, coalition pilots try to bomb Iraqi air-defense systems.
The last coalition bombing reported over Iraq was Wednesday, when allied planes fired on two surface-to-air missile systems near the city of Al Kut, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, and a command and control communications facility near Tallil, about 160 miles southeast of the Iraqi capital.
On the Net:
Central Command: http://www.centcom.mil/
European Command: http://www.eucom.mil/
----
War in Iraq and the economy
Friday, 8 November, 2002
Analysis By Steve Schifferes
BBC News Online economics reporter
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2420059.stm
Will a war against Iraq cause major damage to the world economy?
Unlikely, say some economists, provided the war lasts only a short time and does not seriously disrupt oil supplies.
That is the conclusion of a study by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), and back up similar studies compiled by the US Congressional Budget Office.
However, other economists are warning that the economic effects could be vast and negative, including lower growth, higher inflation and higher unemployment in Western countries.
Indeed, the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, warned on Wednesday that "geopolitical uncertainty" was the main factor in its decision to cut US interest rates by a half-point to 1.25%.
The Fed said that uncertainty over the course of any war was already reducing business investment and consumer spending, and spooking financial markets.
Indeed, the fact that global stock markets remained nervous despite the big Fed rate cut, can partly be attributed to worries about the war.
It should not be forgotten, though, that back in 1991, during the first Gulf War, markets and investor confidence quickly recovered once the military ground campaign began.
And US consumer confidence, which has also been fragile, may be more related to the weak unemployment situation than rumours of war.
Rumours of war
Most economists agree with the EIU forecast that the world economy will recover somewhat in 2002, growing by 2.7% compared to 2.0% in 2001, and accelerating to a projected 3.6% in 2003.
The big uncertainty is what will happen to the price of oil
Oil prices are hovering around five month lows, following reports that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will not impose limits on overproduction.
The price of Brent crude oil has fallen by 25% since its September peak of $31 a barrel, because of overproduction and a belief that Saudi Arabia will make up any shortfall caused by the war.
According to the EIU, the oil market has already factored in a temporary rise in prices to around $35-$40 per barrel for a few weeks, should war break out.
But it believes that once the war starts, and it becomes clear that supplies will be maintained, prices will fall back sharply.
The think tank estimates that higher oil prices caused by the fear of war have led to a reduction of about 0.2% in the growth rate of the OECD group of industrial countries so far.
But it points out that in the long-run, the reconstruction of Iraq's oil fields - the world's second largest after Saudi Arabia - should boost world oil production and lead to lower prices.
Regional effects
However, the effect of oil prices will be felt differently around the world.
Least affected will be the United States, where the government has a huge strategic oil reserve and has been busy developing alternative supplies of oil from Africa and Latin America.
Europe, and especially Japan, are much more dependent on Middle East oil, and could suffer more.
However, all the big industrial countries have taken steps since the oil crises of the 1970s to dramatically reduce their dependence on oil.
Most developing countries, though, are not so lucky, and they would be the biggest losers if the oil prices stayed high for several months.
UK at risk?
The UK is self-sufficient in oil because of the North Sea.
But some economists argue that this will not be enough to spare the UK economy from feeling the effect of a war.
Neil Blake of Experian Business Strategies says a rise in oil prices to $40 a barrel could cost 250,000 jobs in the UK and delay economic recovery by six months.
"Consumers would cut back on spending and firms would scale back their investment plans," he said.
Experian says that it projects UK economic growth of just 1.5% this year, below the government's forecast of 2% to 2.5%, before recovering to 2.5%.
But speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, economist Doug McWilliams of the Centre for Economic Research disagreed with these projections.
He said only a few tens of thousands of jobs would be at risk, and that the UK economy could easily withstand the shock of higher oil prices.
However, the EIU points out that there will be real costs for companies, especially multinationals, who will have to increase security in the light of any attack on Iraq.
----
Iraq Calls UN Resolution Cover for U.S. Attack
November 8, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-un-resolution-minister.html
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi minister said on Friday that a new U.N. resolution was not meant to verify Baghdad's possession of weapons of mass destruction but to provide a cover for the United States to carry out military action against Iraq.
But Trade Minister Mohammad Mehdi Saleh refused to say whether Baghdad would accept the new resolution, which gives Iraq one last chance to disarm or face war and is expected to be adopted by the Security Council later on Friday.
``The objective of any draft resolution will not be to verify the situation about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction but to provide some causes for the United States to attack Iraq,'' Saleh told reporters asking about Iraq's position on the resolution.
``It is unfortunate that America and Britain have obstructed the return of U.N. weapons inspectors except with a new U.N. resolution that leads to a military aggression on Iraq under international cover,'' said Saleh, who spoke in English.
``This resolution is not meant to verify that Iraq is clear of weapons of mass destruction because Iraq has no such weapons,'' he added.
The resolution, put forward by Washington with British backing, threatens ``serious consequences'' if Iraq does not take a ``final opportunity'' to cooperate with U.N. inspectors looking for suspected chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs.
Iraq had repeatedly said in the past that the U.S. draft, which has been amended over recent weeks in negotiations with other Security Council members who have sought to water it down, amounts to a declaration of war.
Once the resolution is adopted, Iraq has seven days to accept its terms.
-------- israel / palestine
Netanyahu blames boss for 'dire straits'
By Ramit Plushnick-Masti
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 8, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021108-3407880.htm
JERUSALEM - Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized his new boss on his first full day on the job, saying Israel had fallen into "dire straits" under the leadership of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Sharon are engaged in a complex political battle - they are working together in a caretaker government, yet they are also rivals, with each man seeking to lead the Likud party into national elections in January.
In an interview yesterday in the Jerusalem Post, Mr. Netanyahu attacked Mr. Sharon's 20-month tenure as prime minister, saying he had been unable to bring an end to Palestinian attacks.
"I think one of the things we see is the tremendous escalation of terror," Mr. Netanyahu was quoted as saying. "The country is in dire straits and we have to get it out," he added.
Mr. Sharon and Mr. Netanyahu met Wednesday, shortly after Mr. Netanyahu was sworn in. They reportedly sparred over a U.S.-backed peace plan that Mr. Sharon tentatively had embraced. Mr. Netanyahu said the plan was "not relevant" as long as U.S. military action in Iraq was pending.
Mr. Netanyahu also spoke to U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer, but they did not discuss the American "road map" for peace, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ron Prosor.
He said the peace plan was clearly on hold until Israeli elections, tentatively scheduled for Jan. 28.
Nonetheless, U.S. envoy David Satterfield will visit the region next week to promote the plan, which also has the backing of the United Nations, Russia and the European Union.
A walkout by the Labor Party last week led to the collapse of Mr. Sharon's coalition government. Left without a majority, Mr. Sharon was forced to call early elections.
Yesterday, Mr. Sharon told business leaders he would not let anyone threaten Israel's relationship with the United States. Mr. Sharon has been to the White House seven times and received strong backing from President Bush.
"I would not hurt the deep strategic understandings with the United States and the special relationship that has been woven with the American government," he said.
Mr. Netanyahu said he had "semantic" differences with Mr. Bush's outline for a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005, an idea Mr. Netanyahu repeatedly has said he opposes.
"The ability to have certain sovereign powers that have nothing to do with self-determination must be withheld" from the Palestinians, Mr. Netanyahu said.
Also yesterday, a suspected Palestinian suicide bomber and an apparent accomplice were killed in an explosion at a military checkpoint near the Jewish settlement of Kedumim, near the West Bank city of Nablus, the army said.
The suspected bomber, one of three Palestinians in a taxi stopped at the checkpoint, was wearing an explosive belt and yelled "Allahu akbar" (God is great) as he ran toward the troops, who fired at the man, the army said. The belt exploded, killing the second man and injuring the third.
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Peace Plan By U.S. Splits Netanyahu and Sharon
November 8, 2002
New York Times
By JOEL GREENBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/08/international/middleeast/08ISRA.html
JERUSALEM, Nov. 7 - A dispute between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his new foreign minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over an American blueprint for peace emerged here today, reflecting the strains between them as they prepare to compete for the leadership of the Likud Party.
Mr. Netanyahu took office on Wednesday, promising to work harmoniously with Mr. Sharon, but signs of tension between the two men quickly appeared. They are to face each other in a party primary in the next few weeks that will determine the Likud's candidate for prime minister in national elections expected in January.
After a meeting between the two on Wednesday night, in which they reportedly discussed policy differences and the timing of the primary, there were public indications today that the two men did not see eye to eye.
Their policy disagreement was over a recently proposed American "road map" to peace, which envisions a Palestinian state in three years. Although Mr. Sharon has criticized the plan, he has been careful not to dismiss it out of hand, saying Israel would study it carefully before responding.
Mr. Netanyahu, in contrast, told reporters after he took office that the American road map was not on the agenda at the moment. The expected war in Iraq would put off discussion of it, he said. Mr. Netanyahu opposes a Palestinian state, while Mr. Sharon has said he accepts the idea.
According to Israeli media reports, Mr. Sharon complained to Mr. Netanyahu about his remarks in their meeting on Wednesday. Mr. Sharon made his views public today.
"I will not tolerate harm to our international relations, harm that might seriously damage our international standing and our efforts to bring economic assistance to the State of Israel," he said in a speech. "That is why I announced that I will not harm the deep strategic understandings with the United States, and the special relationship formed with the American administration."
After Mr. Sharon's coalition with the Labor Party fell apart last week, his aides gave assurances that he would keep all of his commitments to President Bush, including a pledge not to harm Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader. Mr. Sharon said he would not depart from the government's policy guidelines, adopted when he formed his coalition.
Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, said on Tuesday that an American attack on Iraq that would topple Saddam Hussein would provide a good opportunity to banish Mr. Arafat.
In the West Bank today, a Palestinian suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt and another Palestinian were killed when the device blew up under army fire at a checkpoint near Nablus.
After an alert went out for a suicide bomber heading for Israel, soldiers at the checkpoint stopped a taxi and ordered passengers out, telling them to lift their shirts, an army spokesman said. The soldiers saw that one man was wearing an explosive belt, and when he ran toward them, they opened fire, detonating the bomb, the spokesman added.
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Israel, U.S. to Hold Joint Exercise
November 8, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-US.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel and the United States plan a joint exercise in January on intercepting ballistic missiles, the Defense Ministry said Friday.
The Israeli daily Haaretz said the drill would be held in Israel unless the United States has attacked Iraq by then. Israeli officials have said there is a high probability Iraq will attack Israel with Scud missiles in response to a U.S. strike.
Rachel Ashkenazi, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Defense Ministry, said the exercise is part of ongoing cooperation between armed forces from both countries.
Haaretz said large air defense units from both countries would participate in the exercise, and that the United States would leave behind three upgraded Patriot missile batteries to help boost Israel's anti-missile defenses.
Ashkenazi confirmed that Israel's test-firing of two Patriots earlier this week was successful.
On Thursday, Israel's air force presented Arrow anti-missile batteries to reporters as part of a public relations blitz aimed at discouraging Saddam Hussein from firing his Scuds.
The Arrow system is the most advanced in the world currently deployed, and the air force says it has closed a window of vulnerability that allowed Iraq to rain 39 missiles on Israel during the 1991 Gulf War.
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Palestinians Eager, Israel Reserved on U.S. Mission
November 8, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian officials said on Friday they would formally respond to a U.S.-sponsored peace plan within days, but Israelis indicated their response would be delayed by the collapse of their coalition government.
U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield is due in the Middle East on Monday to renew Washington's efforts to calm a Palestinian independence uprising ahead of a possible U.S. war on Iraq.
Israeli government sources said there would be ``very little movement'' on the internationally backed ``roadmap'' to peace until the rightist Likud party of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had decided who would lead the party in coming elections.
``We are almost done with formulating our response,'' Palestinian Planning and International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath told Reuters. ``We might send it earlier so he (Satterfield) can come with an idea of our position.''
During his week-long mission, Satterfield will travel to the Jordanian capital Amman for international talks on Palestinian reforms, a key element of the roadmap, U.S. officials said.
Other elements of the peace plan include an end to armed attacks, Israeli army withdrawals from occupied Palestinian cities, mutual efforts toward a final peace settlement, and a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by 2005.
Israel and the Palestinians have both expressed misgivings about the roadmap -- the former concerned that its security will not be sufficiently safeguarded, the latter irked at the lack of a strict timetable for implementation.
The ``Quartet'' of Middle East mediators -- the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia -- hopes to adopt a final version of the roadmap once Israel and the Palestinians give their official response.
LIKUD PRIMARY TAKES PRIORITY
A source in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said Israel was still formulating its response to the roadmap but that it would not be ready for submission to Satterfield.
``We do not expect to move on the roadmap until the political situation is clearer,'' the source said, referring to the collapse of Sharon's ruling coalition last week.
Sharon opted for a national ballot nine months early after his main coalition partner, the center-left Labor Party, bolted his 20-month-old government in a dispute over funding for Jewish settlements in territories the Palestinians want for a state.
Sharon has made his Likud party rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, foreign minister in Israel's caretaker government. The two will face off in a primary that will choose a leader to take Likud into general elections expected to be held in January.
The source saw the primary coming in late November. ``Until then, there will be very little movement on the roadmap.''
An Israeli opinion poll on Friday indicated Sharon, a longtime hawk who shuns dealing with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, would survive the electoral turmoil.
The survey in the mass circulation Maariv daily said 48 percent of Likud voters would cast their ballots for Sharon in the primary, compared with 38 percent for Netanyahu, who was prime minister from 1996 to 1999.
In violence in the West Bank on Friday, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian policeman while dispersing stone-throwers in Tel village, Palestinian witnesses and security sources said. Israeli military sources said soldiers did not use live ammunition in the clash.
Earlier, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian during a raid of Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank, Palestinian security officials said. Israeli security sources said two members of the militant Hamas group were detained.
Israeli forces in the town of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip dynamited the family home of a Palestinian who killed two Jewish settlers on Wednesday. Israel calls such demolitions a last-ditch effort to deter future attacks on its citizens.
At least 1,650 Palestinians and 625 Israelis have died in violence which erupted in September 2000, after talks stalled.
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Israel vaunts Arrow missile system, says prepared for Iraqi missile threat
Nov 08, 2002
Agence France-Presse
AFP
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/021108105251.f3dfjvlz.html
PALMAHIM AIR BASE, Israel- Israel has upgraded and improved its double-layer anti-ballistic missile defence system, based on the state-of-the-art Arrow interceptor, and says it is ready for any hostile missile attack coming from Iraq.
"The Arrow will intercept any missile that will threaten Israel or the borders of Israel," Brigadier General Yair Dori said.
"Since 1991 we have built a huge active defence system that will give Israel the ability to survive and make civilians feel safe in the next conflict," he said at a rare demonstration of the Arrow system on Thursday.
"The system can differentiate any kind of tactical ballistic missileand can intercept it," he said.
"We have all heard Saddam Hussein's declarations about Israel and Zionism; I am sure he wants to bring Israel into the conflict," Dori said. "We are sure we are better prepared."
With the deployment of the first battery of Arrows in March 2000, Israel became the first country in the world to have a purpose-built anti-ballistic missile capability.
The Arrow can fly at an altitude of 50 kilometres (31 miles) and has a range of 100 kilometres (62 miles), giving it a "footprint" which far outstrips the US Patriot missile, which was used with limited success during the 1991 Gulf War.
But since then, when 39 Iraqi Scud missiles struck Israel, killing one and causing widespread damage, the Patriot has been significantly upgraded and improved.
According to senior airforce sources, Israel successfully launched two Patriot missiles in its southern desert region earlier this week following a complex software upgrade that improves the link between the missile and the radar.
And now, by interfacing the Arrow and Patriot missile systems and making them interoperable, Israel has constructed a multi-layer defence system, the general said.
"The Arrow is a system for weapons which come into the atmosphere. The Patriot is the second layer, which will deal with TBMs that come into an altitude of 15 to 20 kilometres (nine to 12 miles)," Dori said. "We're talking about two layers ... which is all the defence we need to confront the threat."
Israel claims the system can knock out a ballistic missile some two to three minutes after it is launched from a hostile territory. A missile launched from western Iraq would take seven to eight minutes to reach Israel.
The Arrow is part of Israel's Homa project, which is designed to counter missiles capable of striking Israel from hostile states such as Iran, Iraq and Syria.
From its start in 1988 to its deployment in March 2000, the programme has cost more than 2.2 billion dollars, over half of which was paid for by the United States.
The system is based on two elements -- the Citron Tree battle management command and control communications centre and the Green Pine radar system.
The Citron Tree centre guides the launch and calculates the firing data of the Arrow interceptor, while the Green Pine multi-tasking radar incorporates an early warning system, and manages the search, detection, tracking and classification of the target.
The Arrow system, which is deployed at two locations in Israel, can be operated locally or remotely, and each launcher unit can hold up to six missiles, officials said, without specifying how many Israel has.
A senior air force source said Israel had improved its capability of detecting incoming ballistic missiles by more than 70 percent since the 1991 Gulf War.
"In 1991 we had almost nothing, so we started building an active defence, and after 10 years we're got a very robust two-layer defence," he said. "I'm sure that less missiles will fall into Israel. I want to believe that nothing will fall here."
Back then, there were problems with the early warning system, which was slow because it was routed through US satellite systems.
Now, with its own upgraded radar system, Israel does not have to rely on the US satellite, significantly cutting the early warning time, he said.
"We've taken a huge step from 1991. The technology is very good and has been robust in all the tests, but our main test will be on the first night when TBMs are launched towards Israel," he said.
The missile defence system is built to defend all areas of Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip, he stressed.
"Whatever political terminology you put it in, we are looking at the defence area as a whole ... including the West Bank and Gaza Strip."
-------- spies
Canada Reports Chinese 'Apology'
Reuters
Friday, November 8, 2002; Page A32
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25570-2002Nov7?language=printer
OTTAWA, Nov. 7 -- The Canadian government said today that China had apologized for sending secret agents to Canada under false pretenses in a bid to contact alleged smuggling kingpin Lai Changxing.
Lai, who is attempting to remain in Canada as a political refugee, is currently under house arrest in British Columbia.
China has accused Lai of running a smuggling ring that brought billions of dollars of goods into that country in the mid-1990s and bribed dozens of government officials to avoid paying taxes and duties.
A spokeswoman for Canada's Foreign Ministry said it had protested to Beijing after learning that the Chinese secret agents obtained visas with the help of China's Foreign Trade Ministry.
"The Chinese authorities have expressed regret over the incident," said the spokeswoman, Kimberly Phillips. "This can be characterized as an apology." She did not say how Canada had discovered the Chinese agents had been in the country.
The Vancouver Province newspaper said two Chinese government firms based in Vancouver had been used as cover for the failed mission, which took place in May 2000.
It said three agents from a clandestine anti-corruption team traveled to Canada with Lai's brother, who was taken out of jail to help lure Lai back to China. The brother died last month in a labor camp.
Lai, who fled to Canada with his family in 1999, has denied criminal wrongdoing.
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Spy Scandal Ripples at Sweden's Ericsson
November 8, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-tech-ericsson-suspension.html
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A spying scandal at Sweden's flagship telecoms company Ericsson widened Friday as the firm suspended two more employees who it believes may have contributed to leaking company secrets to a foreign intelligence service.
A senior Ericsson source said Russia was the foreign power involved.
Loss-making Telefon AB LM Ericsson is the world's biggest producer of mobile phone networks and is also involved in developing radar and missile guiding systems for the high-tech JAS 39 Gripen fighter plane, Sweden's main strike warplane.
The suspension of the two, whom Ericsson identified only as working in development units, follows Wednesday's detention by the police of two employees, also from development units, and one former employee on suspicion of industrial espionage.
``At this time the two are not suspected of any crime, but they could have broken Ericsson's internal security or secrecy rules,'' the company said in a statement.
The main suspect, the former employee, was taken into custody as he was meeting a foreign intelligence officer.
A Russian diplomat is likely to be expelled from Sweden as a result, an intelligence source said, but a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Friday no one had been expelled so far.
Ericsson spokesman Henry Stenson said the involvement of the two people suspended Friday had been discovered Wednesday, but Ericsson waited until Friday before taking action to underline their different status in the case.
``They are not suspected of espionage ... (but) we have reason to believe they may have handed over information to the main suspect,'' Stenson told a news conference.
``If our suspicions turn out to be correct, in all likelihood there will be grounds for them to be sacked.''
NOT MILITARY SECRETS
A prosecutor was asking Stockholm district court later on Friday for the first three Swedes caught Wednesday to be detained until police complete investigations, because they might escape.
Prosecutor Tomas Lindstrand said in a court application, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, that the three were suspected of serious espionage or serious industrial espionage.
Ericsson would not say what documents had been leaked, but a senior company source said they did not appear to have been linked to any military projects.
Sweden's Justice Ministry declined to comment Friday. No one was available for comment at the Russian embassy or in Moscow because of a public holiday in Russia.
Ericsson has recently laid off staff as part of a cost-cutting package designed to put it back in the black some time in 2003.
Stenson reiterated Friday that to the company's best knowledge the leaking of the documents had caused limited damage, even though it had been going on for some time.
The Ericsson affair is the biggest industrial espionage case in Sweden since a Swedish worker of Swiss-Swedish engineering group ABB was detained in Feburary, 2001, on suspicion of spying for Russia.
The man was released after two days for lack of evidence and given back his old job at ABB Power Systems.
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[UN Resolution 1441 passed at 11/8/02 at 10:16 am EST, unanimously by all members of UN Security Council.]
'Iraq Has Been and Remains in Material Breach'
Text of the U.N. Resolution [1441] on Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Friday, November 8, 2002
Washington Post Newsweek Interactive
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27505-2002Nov8?language=printer
The Security Council,
Recalling all its previous relevant resolutions, in particular its resolutions 661 (1990) of 6 August 1990, 678 (1990) of 29 November 1990, 686 (1991) of 2 March 1991, 687 (1991) of 3 April 1991, 688 (1991) of 5 April 1991, 707 (1991) of 15 August 1991, 715 (1991) of 11 October 1991, 986 (1995) of 14 April 1995, and 1284 (1999) of 17 December 1999, and all the relevant statements of its President,
Recalling also its resolution 1382 (2001) of 29 November 2001 and its intention to implement it fully,
Recognizing the threat Iraq's noncompliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security,
Recalling that its resolution 678 (1990) authorized Member States to use all necessary means to uphold and implement its resolution 660 (1990) of 2 August 1990 and all relevant resolutions subsequent to Resolution 660 (1990) and to restore international peace and security in the area,
Further recalling that its resolution 687 (1991) imposed obligations on Iraq as a necessary step for achievement of its stated objective of restoring international peace and security in the area,
Deploring the fact that Iraq has not provided an accurate, full, final, and complete disclosure, as required by resolution 687 (1991), of all aspects of its programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles with a range greater than one hundred and fifty kilometres, and of all holdings of such weapons, their components and production facilities and locations, as well as all other nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to nuclear-weapons-usable material,
Deploring further that Iraq repeatedly obstructed immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to sites designated by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), failed to cooperate fully and unconditionally with UNSCOM and IAEA weapons inspectors, as required by resolution 687 (1991), and ultimately ceased all cooperation with UNSCOM and the IAEA in 1998,
Deploring the absence, since December 1998, in Iraq of international monitoring, inspection, and verification, as required by relevant resolutions, of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, in spite of the Council's repeated demands that Iraq provide immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), established in resolution 1284 (1999) as the successor organization to UNSCOM, and the IAEA, and regretting the consequent prolonging of the crisis in the region and the suffering of the Iraqi people,
Deploring also that the Government of Iraq has failed to comply with its commitments pursuant to resolution 687 (1991) with regard to terrorism, pursuant to resolution 688 (1991) to end repression of its civilian population and to provide access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in Iraq, and pursuant to resolutions 686 (1991), 687 (1991), and 1284 (1999) to return or cooperate in accounting for Kuwaiti and third country nationals wrongfully detained by Iraq, or to return Kuwaiti property wrongfully seized by Iraq,
Recalling that in its resolution 687 (1991) the Council declared that a ceasefire would be based on acceptance by Iraq of the provisions of that resolution, including the obligations on Iraq contained therein,
Determined to ensure full and immediate compliance by Iraq without conditions or restrictions with its obligations under resolution 687 (1991) and other relevant resolutions and recalling that the resolutions of the Council constitute the governing standard of Iraqi compliance,
Recalling that the effective operation of UNMOVIC, as the successor organization to the Special Commission, and the IAEA is essential for the implementation of resolution 687 (1991) and other relevant resolutions,
Noting the letter dated 16 September 2002 from the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Iraq addressed to the Secretary General is a necessary first step toward rectifying Iraq's continued failure to comply with relevant Council resolutions,
Noting further the letter dated 8 October 2002 from the Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC and the Director General of the IAEA to General Al-Saadi of the Government of Iraq laying out the practical arrangements, as a follow-up to their meeting in Vienna, that are prerequisites for the resumption of inspections in Iraq by UNMOVIC and the IAEA, and expressing the gravest concern at the continued failure by the Government of Iraq to provide confirmation of the arrangements as laid out in that letter,
Reaffirming the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq, Kuwait, and the neighbouring States,
Commending the Secretary General and members of the League of Arab States and its Secretary General for their efforts in this regard,
Determined to secure full compliance with its decisions,
Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations,
1. Decides that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions, including resolution 687 (1991), in particular through Iraq's failure to cooperate with United Nations inspectors and the IAEA, and to complete the actions required under paragraphs 8 to 13 of resolution 687 (1991);
2. Decides, while acknowledging paragraph 1 above, to afford Iraq, by this resolution, a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council; and accordingly decides to set up an enhanced inspection regime with the aim of bringing to full and verified completion the disarmament process established by resolution 687 (1991) and subsequent resolutions of the Council;
3. Decides that, in order to begin to comply with its disarmament obligations, in addition to submitting the required biannual declarations, the Government of Iraq shall provide to UNMOVIC, the IAEA, and the Council, not later than 30 days from the date of this resolution, a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects of its programmes to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles and dispersal systems designed for use on aircraft, including any holdings and precise locations of such weapons, components, sub-components, stocks of agents, and related material and equipment, the locations and work of its research, development and production facilities, as well as all other chemical, biological, and nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to weapon production or material;
4. Decides that false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations and will be reported to the Council for assessment in accordance with paragraphs 11 and or 12 below;
5. Decides that Iraq shall provide UNMOVIC and the IAEA immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access to any and all, including underground, areas, facilities, buildings, equipment, records, and means of transport which they wish to inspect, as well as immediate, unimpeded, unrestricted, and private access to all officials and other persons whom UNMOVIC or the IAEA wish to interview in the mode or location of UNMOVIC's or the IAEA's choice pursuant to any aspect of their mandates; further decides that UNMOVIC and the IAEA may at their discretion conduct interviews inside or outside of Iraq, may facilitate the travel of those interviewed and family members outside of Iraq, and that, at the sole discretion of UNMOVIC and the IAEA, such interviews may occur without the presence of observers from the Iraqi government; and instructs UNMOVIC and requests the IAEA to resume inspections no later than 45 days following adoption of this resolution and to update the Council 60 days thereafter;
6. Endorses the 8 October 2002 letter from the Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC and the Director General of the IAEA to General Al-Saadi of the Government of Iraq, which is annexed hereto, and decides that the contents of the letter shall be binding upon Iraq;
7. Decides further that, in view of the prolonged interruption by Iraq of the presence of UNMOVIC and the IAEA and in order for them to accomplish the tasks set forth in this resolution and all previous relevant resolutions and notwithstanding prior understandings, the Council hereby establishes the following revised or additional authorities, which shall be binding upon Iraq , to facilitate their work in Iraq:
-- UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall determine the composition of their inspection teams and ensure that these teams are composed of the most qualified and experienced experts available;
-- All UNMOVIC and IAEA personnel shall enjoy the privileges and immunities, corresponding to those of experts on mission, provided in the Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations and the Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the IAEA ;
-- UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have unrestricted rights of entry into and out of Iraq, the right to free, unrestricted, and immediate movement to and from inspection sites, and the right to inspect any sites and buildings, including immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access to Presidential Sites equal to that at other sites, notwithstanding the provisions of resolution 1154 (1998);
-- UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right to be provided by Iraq the names of all personnel currently and formerly associated with Iraq's chemical, biological, nuclear, and ballistic missile programmes and the associated research, development, and production facilities;
-- Security of UNMOVIC and IAEA facilities shall be ensured by sufficient UN security guards;
-- UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right to declare, for the purposes of freezing a site to be inspected, exclusion zones, including surrounding areas and transit corridors, in which Iraq will suspend ground and aerial movement so that nothing is changed in or taken out of a site being inspected;
-- UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the free and unrestricted use and landing of fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft, including manned and unmanned reconnaissance vehicles;
-- UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right at their sole discretion verifiably to remove, destroy, or render harmless all prohibited weapons, subsystems, components, records, materials, and other related items, and the right to impound or close any facilities or equipment for the production thereof; and
-- UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right to free import and use of equipment or materials for inspections and to seize and export any equipment, materials, or documents taken during inspections, without search of UNMOVIC or IAEA personnel or official or personal baggage;
8. Decides further that Iraq shall not take or threaten hostile acts directed against any representative or personnel of the United Nations or the IAEA or of any Member State taking action to uphold any Council resolution;
9. Requests the Secretary General immediately to notify Iraq of this resolution, which is binding on Iraq; demands that Iraq confirm within seven days of that notification its intention to comply fully with this resolution; and demands further that Iraq cooperate immediately, unconditionally, and actively with UNMOVIC and the IAEA;
10. Requests all Member States to give full support to UNMOVIC and the IAEA in the discharge of their mandates, including by providing any information related to prohibited programmes or other aspects of their mandates, including on Iraqi attempts since 1998 to acquire prohibited items, and by recommending sites to be inspected, persons to be interviewed, conditions of such interviews, and data to be collected, the results of which shall be reported to the Council by UNMOVIC and the IAEA;
11. Directs the Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC and the Director General of the IAEA to report immediately to the Council any interference by Iraq with inspection activities, as well as any failure by Iraq to comply with its disarmament obligations, including its obligations regarding inspections under this resolution;
12. Decides to convene immediately upon receipt of a report in accordance with paragraphs 4 or 11 above, in order to consider the situation and the need for full compliance with all of the relevant Council resolutions in order to secure international peace and security;
13. Recalls, in that context, that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations;
14. Decides to remain seized of the matter.
----
UN Security Council Votes to Order Iraq to Disarm
By Edith Lederer
The Associated Press
Friday, November 8, 2002; 10:44 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27444-2002Nov8?language=printer
UNITED NATIONS -- The Security Council unanimously approved a tough new Iraq resolution Friday, forcing Saddam Hussein to disarm or face "serious consequences" that would almost certainly mean war.
The vote came after eight weeks of tumultuous negotiations and was seen as a victory for the United States, which drafted the resolution together with Britain.
"This resolution is designed to test Iraq's intentions," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Negroponte, said in remarks after the vote.
The broad support sends a strong message to Baghdad that the Security Council - divided for years over Iraq - expects full compliance with all U.N. resolutions.
"Iraq has a new opportunity to comply with all these relevant resolutions of the Security Council. I urge the Iraqi leadership for sake of its own people...to seize this opportunity and thereby begin to end the isolation and suffering of the Iraqi people," said U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Iraqi television did not broadcast the Security Council meeting live and there was no immediate reaction from Baghdad.
A breakthrough in negotiations came Thursday when France and the United States reached a critical agreement to address French concerns that the resolution could automatically trigger an attack on Iraq.
Negroponte said the resolution gives international inspectors broad authority to look for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction - to check "anyone, anywhere, anytime."
There are "no hidden triggers" for the automatic use of force against Iraq if it does not comply with the resolution, Negroponte said, emphasizing that should the inspectors report Iraqi violations, the matter would return to the Security Council. The resolution, he said, is "a new powerful mandate" for the weapons inspectors.
"This resolution does not constrain any member state from acting to defend itself from the threat posed by Iraq.... to the government of Iraq our message is simple: non-compliance is no longer an option.
President Bush, who spurred the council to action with a Sept. 12 speech to the U.N. General Assembly, said it was up to Saddam to cooperate with inspectors.
"When this resolution passes, I will be able to say that the United Nations has recognized the threat and now we're going to work together to disarm him," Bush said Thursday. "And he must be cooperative in the disarmament."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that the resolution's wording about the United Nations reconvening for "assessment" of any Iraqi violation "does not handcuff the United States from going with our friends and acting to disarm Saddam Hussein if he continues to defy the international community."
Chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, was preparing to send an advance team to Iraq within two weeks, after a nearly four-year absence.
While the United States made some major concessions to critics, the final draft still meets the Bush administration's key demands: toughening U.N. weapons inspections and leaving the United States free to take military action against Iraq if inspectors say Baghdad isn't complying.
At the same time, it gives Saddam "a final opportunity" to cooperate with weapons inspectors, holds out the possibility of lifting 12-year-old sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and reaffirms the country's sovereignty.
Washington and London spent eight weeks trying to get all 15 Security Council members to approve the resolution to send a united message to Saddam.
But Syria, Iraq's Arab neighbor, had been out of reach until Friday.
Syria had wanted the vote delayed until after an Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo this weekend. But the United States won in the end, convincing the council to vote Friday.
Russia too had remained a holdout, but only in an effort to obtain U.S. concessions.
Russia is Iraq's closest ally on the council.
The United States had tweaked its draft several times to account for French and Russian concerns over hidden triggers that could automatically launch an attack on Iraq.
In a key provision that would declare Iraq in "material breach" of its U.N. obligations, the United States changed wording that would have let Washington determine on its own whether Iraq had committed an infraction.
The new wording requires U.N. weapons inspectors to make an assessment of any Iraqi violations.
Iraqi state media called the draft resolution a pretext for war and urged the Security Council Thursday not to bow to American demands.
"America wants to use this resolution as a pretext and a cover for its aggression on Iraq and the whole Arab nation," the ruling Baath Party newspaper Al-Thawra said Thursday.
According to a strict timeline in the resolution, Iraq would have seven days to accept the resolution's terms and 30 days to declare all its chemical, biological and nuclear programs. Blix, the chief weapons inspector, said Iraq might have difficulty making a declaration of its large petrochemical industry in that time, but the United States decided against giving Baghdad more time.
Blix has said an advance team of inspectors would be on the ground within 10 days. Inspectors would have up to 45 days to actually begin work, and must report to the council 60 days later on Iraq's performance.
Inspectors will have "unconditional and unrestricted access" to all sites, including eight presidential compounds where surprise inspections have been barred.
----
Annex: Text of Blix/El-Baradei Letter
'The IAEA will be granted immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to sites ...'
Friday, November 8, 2002
Washington Post Newsweek Interactive
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27544-2002Nov8?language=printer
Attached to the U.N. Security Council Resolution on Iraq is an annex consisting of a letter from the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency to the Iraqi government outlining the the prerequisites for the resumption of U.N. weapons inspections.
8 October 2002
H.E. General Amir H. Al-Saadi Advisor Presidential Office Baghdad Iraq
Dear General Al-Saadi,
During our recent meeting in Vienna, we discussed practical arrangements that are prerequisites for the resumption of inspections in Iraq by UNMOVIC and the IAEA. As you recall, at the end of our meeting in Vienna we agreed on a statement which listed some of the principal results achieved, particularly Iraq's acceptance of all the rights of inspection provided for in all of the relevant Security Council resolutions. This acceptance was stated to be without any conditions attached.
During our 3 October 2002 briefing to the Security Council, members of the Council suggested that we prepare a written document on all of the conclusions we reached in Vienna. This letter lists those conclusions and seeks your confirmation thereof. We shall report accordingly to the Security Council.
In the statement at the end of the meeting, it was clarified that UNMOVIC and the IAEA will be granted immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to sites, including what was termed "sensitive sites" in the past. As we noted, however, eight presidential sites have been the subject of special procedures under a Memorandum of Understanding of 1998. Should these sites be subject, as all other sites, to immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access, UNMOVIC and the IAEA would conduct inspections there with the same professionalism.
We confirm our understanding that UNMOVIC and the IAEA have the right to determine the number of inspectors required for access to any particular site. This determination will be made on the basis of the size and complexity of the site being inspected. We also confirm that Iraq will be informed of the designation of additional sites, i.e. sites not declared by Iraq or previously inspected by either UNSCOM or the IAEA, through a Notification of Inspection (NIS) provided upon arrival of the inspectors at such sites.
Iraq will ensure that no proscribed material, equipment, records or other relevant items will be destroyed except in the presence of UNMOVIC and/or IAEA inspectors, as appropriate, and at their request.
UNMOVIC and the IAEA may conduct interviews with any person in Iraq whom they believe may have information relevant to their mandate. Iraq will facilitate such interviews. It is for UNMOVIC and the IAEA to choose the mode and location for interviews.
The National Monitoring Directorate (NMD) will, as in the past, serve as the Iraqi counterpart for the inspectors. The Baghdad Ongoing Monitoring and Verification Centre (BOMVIC) will be maintained on the same premises and under the same conditions as was the former Baghdad Monitoring and Verification Centre. The NMD will make available services as before, cost free, for the refurbishment of the premises.
The NMD will provide free of cost: (a) escorts to facilitate access to sites to be inspected and communication with personnel to be interviewed; (b) a hotline for BOMVIC which will be staffed by an English speaking person on a 24 hour a day/seven days a week basis; (c) support in terms of personnel and ground transportation within the country, as requested; and (d) assistance in the movement of materials and equipment at Inspectors' request (construction, excavation equipment, etc.). NMD will also ensure that escorts are available in the event of inspections outside normal working hours, including at night and on holidays.
Regional UNMOVIC/IAEA offices may be established, for example, in Basra and Mosul, for the use of their inspectors. For this purpose, Iraq will provide, without cost, adequate office buildings, staff accommodation, and appropriate escort personnel.
UNMOVIC and the IAEA may use any type of voice or data transmission, including satellite and/or inland networks, with or without encryption capability. UNMOVIC and the IAEA may also install equipment in the field with the capability for transmission of data directly to the BOMVIC, New York and Vienna (e.g. sensors, surveillance cameras). This will be facilitated by Iraq and there will be no interference by Iraq with UNMOVIC or IAEA communications.
Iraq will provide, without cost, physical protection of all surveillance equipment, and construct antennae for remote transmission of data, at the request of UNMOVIC and the IAEA. Upon request by UNMOVIC through the NMD, Iraq will allocate frequencies for communications equipment.
Iraq will provide security for all UNMOVIC and IAEA personnel. Secure and suitable accommodations will be designated at normal rates by Iraq for these personnel. For their part, UNMOVIC and the IAEA will require that their staff not stay at any accommodation other than those identified in consultation with Iraq.
On the use of fixed-wing aircraft for transport of personnel and equipment and for inspection purposes, it was clarified that aircraft used by UNMOVIC and IAEA staff arriving in Baghdad may land at Saddam International Airport. The points of departure of incoming aircraft will be decided by UNMOVIC. The Rasheed airbase will continue to be used for UNMOVIC and IAEA helicopter operations. UNMOVIC and Iraq will establish air liaison offices at the airbase. At both Saddam International Airport and Rasheed airbase, Iraq will provide the necessary support premises and facilities. Aircraft fuel will be provided by Iraq, as before, free of charge.
On the wider issue of air operations in Iraq, both fixed-wing and rotary, Iraq will guarantee the safety of air operations in its air space outside the no-fly zones. With regard to air operations in the no-fly zones, Iraq will take all steps within its control to ensure the safety of such operations.
Helicopter flights may be used, as needed, during inspections and for technical activities, such as gamma detection, without limitation in all parts of Iraq and without any area excluded. Helicopters may also be used for medical evacuation.
On the question of aerial imagery, UNMOVIC may wish to resume the use of U-2 or Mirage overflights. The relevant practical arrangements would be similar to those implemented in the past.
As before, visas for all arriving staff will be issued at the point of entry on the basis of the UN Laissez-Passer or UN Certificate; no other entry or exit formalities will be required. The aircraft passenger manifest will be provided one hour in advance of the arrival of the aircraft in Baghdad. There will be no searching of UNMOVIC or IAEA personnel or of official or personal baggage. UNMOVIC and the IAEA will ensure that their personnel respect the laws of Iraq restricting the export of certain items, for example, those related to Iraq's national cultural heritage. UNMOVIC and the IAEA may bring into, and remove from, Iraq all of the items and materials they require, including satellite phones and other equipment. With respect to samples, UNMOVIC and IAEA will, where feasible, split samples so that Iraq may receive a portion while another portion is kept for reference purposes. Where appropriate, the organizations will send the samples to more than one laboratory for analysis.
We would appreciate your confirmation of the above as a correct reflection of our talks in Vienna.
Naturally, we may need other practical arrangements when proceeding with inspections. We would expect in such matters, as with the above, Iraq's co-operation in all respect.
Yours sincerely,
Hans Blix Executive Chairman
United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission
Mohamed ElBaradei Director General
International Atomic Energy Commission
--------
U.N. Panel's Vote Is Unanimous
November 8, 2002
New York Times
By TERENCE NEILAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/08/international/08CND-NATI.html
After more than seven weeks of diplomatic wrangling and finessing, the United Nations Security Council unanimously agreed today on a resolution requiring that Iraq show that it has abandoned its weapons of mass destruction, or face "serious consequences."
The 15 to 0 vote came as something of a surprise, because Syria had been widely expected to abstain and earlier today the Russians were still expressing some doubts about the measure.
The resolution, sponsored jointly by the United States and Britain, gives United Nations arms inspectors "immediate, unimpeded and unconditional" rights to search anywhere, including President Saddam Hussein's palaces, for chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
It goes on to threaten Iraq with "serious consequences" if it fails to cooperate, a clear allusion to the use of force by the United States.
An advance team of arms inspectors is expected to arrive in Baghdad on Nov. 18. Passage of the resolution brought almost immediate congratulations to the United Nations - and unambiguous warnings to Mr. Hussein - from President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain.
Iraq has seven days to indicate whether it will accept the terms of the resolution and 30 days to reveal all its chemical, biological and nuclear programs.
The new measure still leaves the United States free to attack Iraq without a formal second United Nations resolution authorizing the use of force. But it requires the Security Council to assess any serious violation that could lead to war.
President Bush welcomed passage of the resolution and called it an opportunity for Mr. Hussein to disarm peacefully, a move that could mean the end of sanctions imposed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
"The resolution approved today presents the Iraqi regime with a test - a final test. Iraq must now, without delay or negotiations, fully disarm, welcome full inspections and fundamentally change the approach it has taken for more than a decade," Mr. Bush said in the White House Rose Garden.
"He must submit to any and all methods to verify his compliance. His cooperation must be prompt and unconditional or he will face the severest consequences.
"The world has now come together to say that the outlaw regime in Iraq will not be permitted to build or possess chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
"That is the judgment of the United States Congress. That is the judgment of the United Nations Security Council. Now that world must insist that that judgment be enforced."
With Secretary of State Colin L. Powell standing beside him, the president sent a message to the people under Mr. Hussein's rule. "All patriotic Iraqis should embrace this opportunity to avoid war," Mr. Bush said, urging them to cooperate with weapons inspectors.
Disarmament in Iraq is a certainty, Mr. Bush said, adding, "The only question for the Iraqi regime is to determine how."
Mr. Blair addressed a personal message to Mr. Hussein.
"Cooperate fully, and despite the terrible injustices you have often perpetrated on others. we will be just with you.
"But defy the United Nations' will, and we will disarm you by force. Be under no doubt, whatever, of that," he said in London at No. 10 Downing Street.
"Conflict is not inevitable, but disarmament is," he said.
Syria's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Fayssal Mekdad, said Damascus voted for the resolution after receiving assurances from key nations "that this resolution would not be used as a pretext to strike Iraq" and "reaffirms the central role of the Security Council," The Associated Press reported.
Senior administration officials in Washington said the negotiations that led to unanimity amounted to "an excruciatingly difficult task," as one of them put it, and that the United States ambassador to the United Nations, John D. Negroponte, did not receive word of Syria's agreement until he was walking into the Council chamber. Mr. Negroponte quickly relayed the news to the White House.
Asked who lobbied the Syrians and what had been said to them, a senior official said, "I think Syria just ultimately saw where their interests were in this matter." The official noted that Secretary General Kofi Annan himself had spoken to delegates from Syria, a neighbor of Iraq, just before the vote.
"The key to this resolution," one official said, "is to give this regime one last chance to comply. Of course, there is always that chance."
After the vote Mr. Negroponte said the resolution "affords Iraq a final opportunity."
"To the Government of Iraq, our message is simple: non-compliance no longer is an option," he said.
Mr. Negroponte reminded delegates that Mr. Annan said on Sept. 12, and again today, that the Council "must face its responsibilities."
In his own remarks, Mr. Annan said: "I urge the Iraqi leadership for the sake of its own people to seize this opportunity and thereby begin to end the isolation and suffering of the Iraqi people."
The chief arms inspector of the United Nations, Hans Blix, said an advance team of inspectors was planning to go to Baghdad on Monday, Nov. 18. He added that he was pleased with the full Council support for the resolution, which "strengthens our mandate very much."
An advance team would be involved mostly with logistics and preparations for resuming full inspections, but Mr. Blix has said that some surprise checks could be done.
Inspectors will have up to 45 days to begin work, and must report to the Council 60 days later on Iraq's compliance.
Russia said today that the new resolution had removed any automatic resort to force against Iraq if Baghdad was considered to be impeding the work of the arms inspectors.
But Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov, one of Moscow's main spokesmen on the Iraq issue, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency, "Moscow still has some concerns on the issue, and consultations of some sort will have to take place before the vote."
France said on Thursday that it would vote in favor of the resolution after Mr. Bush spoke by telephone with President Jacques Chirac. The conversation resolved the sparring between Paris and Washington over whether the resolution would allow Mr. Bush to order an attack on Iraq without returning to the United Nations for specific authorization.
Mr. Hussein urged the world on Thursday to take a "just" position to stop the United States and Britain from achieving their "evil" schemes in the resolution.
The two countries were "exerting pressure on the Security Council to take resolutions that contradict international law and the United Nations Charter," he was quoted as saying on Iraqi television.
-------- us
Pentagon probes anonymous release of detainee photos
Pictures show restrained men in military transport
Friday, November 8, 2002
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/11/08/detainees.pictures
WASHINGTON --The Pentagon is investigating an apparently unauthorized release of photographs of detainees on a U.S. military transport plane out of Afghanistan.
Several electronic images were e-mailed to news organizations, including CNN. A Pentagon spokesman says the photographs appear to be genuine. It is not known who took or e-mailed the pictures.
The images show men wearing hoods and headphone-type ear protection. The men are held to the floor of what appears to be an open interior area of a C-130 transport by chains, leg cuffs and other restraints. A large U.S. flag hangs from the ceiling.
The men are under heavy guard. In one shot, a military police officer is shown addressing a restrained and blindfolded man seated with his arms behind him. Other men in uniform are shown relaxed and seated along the sides of the cargo area.
Military sources familiar with Defense Department aircraft say they think the images show the interior of a C-130, a four-engine turboprop. The type of aircraft could indicate a flight from Afghanistan to Turkey, where detainees have typically been transferred to other types of aircraft for the trans-Atlantic haul to U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The U.S. military has previously taken pictures of its transport missions to document conditions of the detainees, but in this case, it is not known whether the pictures were taken for official purposes by U.S. personnel aboard the aircraft.
----
Plan set for GI smallpox vaccine
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 8, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021108-26842808.htm
The Pentagon has readied a plan for vaccinating some U.S. troops against smallpox and is awaiting White House approval before giving the first shots, said a senior defense official.
Amid heightened concerns about biological warfare, the Pentagon is pushing to provide every available form of protection for troops who may be exposed to germ weapons in Iraq or elsewhere. U.S. officials said this week that they believe Iraq is among four nations that have unauthorized samples of smallpox; the others are Russia, North Korea and France.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has not yet given the go-ahead to implement the smallpox-inoculation plan, said the defense official, who discussed it on condition of anonymity. Mr. Rumsfeld met with President Bush yesterday morning and planned separate discussions with other members of the president's national security team.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Mr. Bush has not made a decision. Another adviser said a decision does not appear imminent.
The Health and Human Services Department has set aside about 1 million doses of smallpox vaccine for the military. Those doses are expected to be provided from the 1.7 million that have been licensed by the Food and Drug Administration.
The federal government has tens of millions more doses on hand, but those have not yet been licensed and would have to be administered as an experimental drug.
Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops have received vaccines to protect them against anthrax, and after a long pause in that inoculation program, the pace of vaccinations was accelerated in September, officials said. It is believed that Iraq has substantial amounts of anthrax that it could use against invading U.S. troops.
Smallpox vaccinations for troops could begin as early as this month, officials said, depending on the pace of coordination with the White House and other government agencies.
First to receive the vaccine would be those whom the Pentagon calls "first responders" - troops responsible for assisting in domestic disasters, such as a biological-weapons attack. They include medical specialists. Next to be inoculated probably would be troops in combat units designated to deploy first in a major military crisis abroad, such as an invasion of Iraq.
As many as 500,000 troops eventually may be inoculated, said another senior defense official. Of the 1.4 million men and women in the active-duty military, fewer than half have received a smallpox vaccine, the official said.
For the civilian population, top federal health officials have recommended making the vaccine available in stages, beginning with people who work in hospital emergency rooms, then other health care workers and emergency responders, and finally the general public.
The White House still is considering how quickly to move - specifically, whether to wait until the vaccine is licensed or to offer it more quickly.
Smallpox was declared eradicated from Earth in 1980, and routine vaccinations in the United States ended in 1972. All stocks of the virus, except those stored at official labs in Atlanta and Moscow, were supposed to have been destroyed.
The virus is a powerful weapon: It kills 30 percent of its victims, is highly contagious and has no known treatment.
But while the disease is frightening, so is the vaccine. It is made with a live virus called vaccinia that can cause serious damage to people vaccinated and those with whom they come into close contact.
----
THE WORLD
Speedy Military Ships Move Into Place
Three cargo vessels, with weapons and supplies needed for any move against Iraq, are en route to the region, defense officials say.
November 8, 2002
Los Angeles Times,
By Esther Schrader, Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-sealift8nov08,0,4075480.story
WASHINGTON -- Three of the Pentagon's fastest cargo ships have left U.S. shores for Southwest Asian ports, carrying weapons and supplies that would be critical for any move against Iraq, defense officials said Thursday.
Two of the ships, the Bob Hope and the Fisher, are carrying state-of-the-art portable bridges capable of moving large numbers of troops and heavy equipment across the Euphrates River quickly. The other, the Bellatrix, a smaller ship that travels even faster, left San Diego with a vast array of electronics, survival equipment, vehicles and supplies in its holds to support a Marine Corps expeditionary headquarters unit deploying this week from Camp Pendleton to the Persian Gulf.
The Bob Hope passed through the Suez Canal today. The Fisher is expected to do so in a few days.
The deployment of the ships, all part of the Pentagon's "surge fleet" designed to deliver military equipment rapidly in a crisis, significantly boosts the amount of military hardware the Pentagon has positioned within striking distance of Iraq.
Military officials also said this week that they had chartered two commercial vessels to move ammunition and a tank from Germany to the Gulf.
"We're repositioning equipment to support forces that are engaged in the war on terrorism," said Marge Holtz, a spokeswoman for the Navy's Military Sealift Command, which moved the bulk of the equipment used during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
The Bob Hope departed Charleston, S.C., on Oct. 24 and the Fisher left there four days later. Both were loaded with oil tanker trucks and the "ribbon bridges" that Army engineering battalions would need to cross the wide Euphrates, which flows the breadth of Iraq and passes near Baghdad, the capital.
Military officials say it would be impossible to gain control of Iraq using airstrikes alone. Ground forces, however, would need to cross the Euphrates. The rapidly deployed bridges could play a crucial role, minimizing U.S. casualties by speeding large numbers of soldiers and heavy equipment across the river.
The bridging equipment and tankers are for use by the Army's 34th Mechanized Infantry Division, according to a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
He would not confirm whether elements of the division had been ordered to deploy to the Middle East from their base at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Ga.
The Bob Hope and the Fisher are part of a fleet of 19 ships acquired and refitted by the military during the past decade at a cost of $6 billion to improve the way the Pentagon equips U.S. troops abroad.
The ships are outfitted with huge ramps designed to allow massive artillery pieces, Humvees and trucks to roll on and off. The design allows them to be unloaded much more rapidly than the cargo ships that were used to equip troops during the Gulf War. Those ships required giant cranes to painstakingly lift tanks and other heavy gear out of their holds. With the new ships, the ramps come down, and workers drive the vehicles ashore.
More than 900 feet long and 100 feet wide, each of the ships has a hold capacity of 380,000 square feet--equivalent to eight soccer fields.
Though the Bob Hope and Fisher are capable of carrying tanks, helicopters and other heavy artillery, neither is doing so this time.
In 1991, the Pentagon relied on slow, hulking commercial cargo ships conscripted into service to move massive amounts of ammunition, artillery pieces, fuel trucks and an array of supplies to Gulf ports.
Some of those ships were barely seaworthy. Others had to be taken out of river berths where they had sat for years. None had the ferry-like ramps and holds of the new fleet.
"We got it there by hook and by crook, and the reality is we weren't able to get stuff in here as quickly as we wanted to kick off the ground war," said former Marine Col. Jay Farrar, who worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the military was working to procure the new fleet.
The need for the ships "became very apparent from that experience," Farrar said.
"They are something that's tailor-made to haul your equipment and get it there in good shape and that is dedicated to do that."
Seven more of the new ships and six more fast sealift ships are berthed at U.S. ports. The ships are prepped to be ready to leave for anywhere in the world within four days of receiving orders.
-------- propaganda wars
Chokehold on Knowledge
EDITORIAL
November 8, 2002
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/la-ed-info8nov08,0,7711960.story
Since it's the threat of obscurantism we're hoping to thwart, let's be blunt: The Bush administration's plan to strip the Government Printing Office's authority is a threat to democracy.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels wants to transfer control of information management from the printing office to individual Cabinet agencies. That would spell the end of the current system, in place since the Jeffersonian era, which requires executive branch agencies to send their documents and reports to neutral librarians, who then make them available to the public both online and in 1,300 public reading rooms nationwide.
Daniels would replace that system with a more secretive one in which individual agencies would manage -- and possibly sanitize -- their own electronic databases.
Currently, a federal agency such as the Pentagon can't delete an embarrassing passage from a historical document without first going through the hassle of asking each reading room to obscure the passage with a black marker.
If Daniels gets his way, all an agency will have to do is call up the document in Microsoft Word and quietly hit Control X to delete the passage for eternity.
Daniels says he's only trying to save taxpayer money. Giving Cabinet-level agencies the ability to select printing services on the basis of "quality, cost and time of delivery," he wrote, could save up to $70 million a year. That's a dubious claim, however, because the printing office already sends nearly two-thirds of its work to the private contractor with the lowest bid.
As library experts have recently pointed out, privatization might or might not save money, but it certainly would diminish the public's access to information needed to make informed decisions.
As Barbara Quint, Information Today's usually dispassionate columnist, fumed in September, Daniel's current push "threatens to gut federal document dissemination -- and fast."
In his 1644 pamphlet "Areopagitica," the English poet John Milton (reacting to how the Catholic Church had arrested and silenced Galileo simply because the astronomer's views on the universe conflicted with its doctrines) warned that citizens who didn't know what their government was doing couldn't hold it accountable.
In the late 18th century the words of an American lawyer, Patrick Henry, helped persuade Congress to pass legislation protecting the public's right to know. "The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure," Henry said, "when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."
In deciding whether to keep the library system that works to keep executive branch agencies honest, Congress has a choice: trust the upstarts in the Bush administration or heed the wisdom that has guided the country for more than two centuries.
----
Cornell Ordered to Release Biotech Documents
November 8, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-08-09.asp#anchor4
ITHACA, New York, The New York Supreme Court has ruled that Cornell University must turn over documents about its biotechnology research to a former talk show host who is seeking the material through the state's Freedom of Information law.
A panel of five judges in the New York State Appellate Division Third Department ruled unanimously that Cornell University is subject to the Freedom Of Information Law, and must turn over documents pertaining to its biotech research.
"We still have another round to go, and no one can predict what the final outcome will be, but we're getting closer to the day when we may get a look inside the academic-industrial complex," said Jeremy Alderson, who brought the suit against Cornell.
Alderson, a former public radio talk show host, filed suit in December 2000 against Cornell, its New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva.
He asked for a variety of documents, including financial information, corporate contracts and risk assessments on biotech research conducted at the university. He is also seeking information on field tests of genetically engineered crops, and potential tenants of a new agriculture and technology park.
Alderson says he fears that biotechnology research and field tests conducted by Cornell have not undergone stringent risk assessments, and could threaten the local environment, agriculture and public health.
Cornell's attorneys have argued that Cornell's four contract colleges, including the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Agricultural Experiment Station, are private institutions, not subject to the state's Freedom of Information Law, which provides public access to most public records and meetings.
But Alderson's lawyers say that because the contract colleges receive state funds, they should be covered by the law. So far, New York's courts have agreed.
"Notably, Cornell, the private institution legislatively charged with the operation of the statutory colleges on behalf of SUNY, is authorized to publicly disseminate the results of any scientific investigation or experiments conducted by the Ag station," said Justice Carl Mugglin, who wrote Thursday's court decision.
Cornell officials say they will not release the records to Alderson until all appeals are exhausted.
"Cornell has put out PR saying that they know their work is safe because they've conducted risk assessments," Alderson said. "But when you ask to see them, they say no. Makes you wonder what they're hiding, doesn't it?"
----
CIA Disputes Censorship Claims
November 8, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CIA-Undercover-Officer.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- CIA officials, in an unusual public statement Friday, disputed an author's accusation that they attempted to censor elements of a recent book on spy Robert Hanssen.
At issue is author David Wise's publication of the name of an undercover CIA counterintelligence officer, which the CIA says it asked Wise not to reveal. The FBI had incorrectly identified the man as a Russian spy until one of their own, Hanssen, was uncovered as a mole spying for Russia.
The officer's name was published last month in Wise's book, ``Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America.''
Wise, in an opinion piece in Thursday's New York Times, said the CIA ``attempted to censor the book to avoid embarrassing publicity.''
On Friday, CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, in a statement, called Wise's accusation ``complete and utter nonsense.''
``No doubt he will take our response as an opportunity to try to get himself booked on television shows to talk about his otherwise unremarkable book,'' Harlow said.
In June, CIA Director George J. Tenet asked Wise's publisher, Random House, to withhold the officer's name to protect his undercover status, according to a letter provided by the CIA. Several other journalists had previously obtained the officer's name but complied with the agency's requests to keep it secret, Harlow said.
The officer had already been through an intense investigation by the FBI but returned to work after Hanssen was exposed. CIA officials suggested he may not be able to do his job now that his identity has been revealed.
``His cover status, that is, remaining unidentified to potential adversaries, is key to his continued effectiveness and travel overseas,'' Tenet wrote in June.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Council Attacks D.C. Surveillance Cameras
By David A. Fahrenthold and David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 8, 2002; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25506-2002Nov7?language=printer
The D.C. Council yesterday lambasted the city police department's system of surveillance cameras, with several members saying vehemently that they did not want the technology -- now an entrenched part of D.C. police operations -- to be used at all.
The sudden and impassioned objections, with several council members talking about the Orwellian potential of the cameras, could have serious consequences. After months of hearings and debate about the cameras -- which were installed without notice to Congress or the council -- yesterday was the first sign that legislators might consider killing the surveillance program altogether.
The council's concerns were aired in a debate over municipal regulations that would limit the use of the cameras to certain places and situations. The council initially voted to reject the regulations by a 7 to 6 vote but then reconsidered. Council member Sandy Allen (D-Ward 8) changed her vote to yes, allowing the measure to pass by one vote, but she made it clear that she was hardly endorsing the surveillance network.
Allen explained her switch by saying that if no regulations were passed, police would be free to do whatever they wanted -- including video surveillance in poor neighborhoods. Several other members said they were concerned that approving any regulations might be construed as an implicit approval of the cameras in general.
"At first, I thought Washington, because it's prone to more terrorist attacks, would be a place where visitors would want cameras," Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4) said. "But I agree now with my colleagues who say Washington should be a beacon of freedom."
Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) expressed a similar view, declaring: "These cameras have been set up to deal with demonstrations and dissent. This will have a chilling effect and discourage citizens from demonstrating openly here in the capital of the United States of America."
Graham's remarks drew an ovation from interns and staff members of the American Civil Liberties Union, who were reprimanded for the outburst by council Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D). Later, council member Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3) urged her colleagues to draft and submit a bill to kill the camera program outright, so that the issue could be debated explicitly. Patterson added that she would also like "the public's perspective."
Fourteen D.C. police cameras are stationed across the city, with most positioned in the downtown area and Dupont Circle. They feed images into a high-tech operations center, a mission control-like room at police headquarters, but they also can transmit to the department's mobile command bus, and hand-held computers given to police brass.
The camera network was first used on Sept. 11, 2001, but was not publicly discussed until it was described in news accounts early this year. Then, after criticism and expressions of concern from Congress and the D.C. Council, police officials promised to prepare a set of guidelines to ensure privacy rights would not be abused.
Those guidelines were tightened after council hearings that highlighted additional worries from the ACLU and others about how the cameras would be used. In the final draft considered by the council yesterday, police were not allowed to put up cameras to look for street crime and instead were limited to using the cameras to monitor traffic, large demonstrations and city emergencies.
Police say that they already comply with the limits and that the cameras have been used appropriately. In recent months, the cameras aided security efforts on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, during protests against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and in the aftermath of the sniper attacks.
D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey -- speaking before the regulations came to a vote -- said yesterday that he believes cameras deter crime but that police had no plans to use cameras as they are used in Great Britain, where public places are heavily surveilled.
"I'm not proposing that," Ramsey said yesterday. "I think you use what you need."
The U.S. Park Police also revealed plans this year for a system of cameras around the Mall. Sgt. Scott Fear, a Park Police spokesman, said yesterday that the cameras were up and were being tested but that plans for their use were still being developed.
The regulations for D.C. police that were considered yesterday will be among the strictest in the country, experts said. One recent survey found that 47 percent of large law enforcement agencies used fixed surveillance cameras like those in the District.
----
Limits on cop cameras cleared
By Brian DeBose
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 8, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20021108-10433368.htm
The D.C. Council yesterday passed legislation to regulate the police department's use of surveillance cameras to monitor the city's monuments, federal buildings and public venues downtown.
The council initially opposed the legislation on a 7-6 vote. But late into the evening it reversed its position and voted 7-6 to allow the Metropolitan Police Department to use its 14 closed-circuit television cameras but with legislative restrictions.
Council member Sandy Allen, Ward 8 Democrat, changed her mind and moved to reconsider the original vote.
"I came to feel that if we didn't do something today, we would have cameras in our back yard," Mrs. Allen said.
Several members had strong reservations about the restrictions and the cameras themselves. Some, referring to protests, special events and marches downtown, said the surveillance invaded people's right to privacy and freedom of speech. Others said the regulations were suspect and didn't sufficiently limit installation of additional cameras.
Council member Kathy Patterson, Ward 3 Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary Committee that has oversight of the police, insisted that her colleagues pass the restrictions she sponsored.
"I urge you all to take this opportunity now to put some restrictions on the police," Mrs. Patterson said. "If any members want to draft legislation to outlaw the cameras, please do so in the future but do not leave the police department unregulated today."
The regulations allow the cameras to be used only for special events, such as scheduled rallies, protests and marches. The cameras cannot be used to target any individual, unless an individual is seen committing a crime. In addition, the system will be used only to observe locations that are in public view and where there is no general expectation of privacy.
No recordings are to be made without public knowledge or without a court order. Any recordings made will be stored for only 72 hours, unless the tape is needed as evidence.
The addition of new cameras was the council's greatest concern. The regulations say the police must give the public notice if any new cameras are installed. Additions may be made only under "exigent circumstances," a stipulation most members said was too vague.
The issue split the council down the middle.
At noon, Mrs. Patterson had enough votes to pass the regulations, said council member Phil Mendelson, at-large Democrat, who led the charge against them.
By 4 p.m., six members had changed their minds, refusing to make the cameras a matter of law. But by 7 p.m., a second and final vote was taken and the legislation passed.
"These regulations are unclear, vague and, if passed, the police will be given regulations that can be interpreted in many ways," Mr. Mendelson said.
D.C. Council member Carol Schwartz, an at-large Republican who opposed the measure, said the fact that the police department had agreed to operate the cameras using the regulations made them moot, and that it was not imperative to make them law.
The Washington Times first reported on the use of surveillance cameras in February.
The department at that time announced plans to link hundreds of cameras already in use by various agencies to the Joint Operations Command Center at its headquarters on Indiana Avenue NW in addition to the 14 that police had been using since September 11, 2001.
The report prompted civil liberties groups to raise concerns that the vast surveillance was an invasion of privacy and a Big Brotherlike encroachment on personal freedoms.
Council member Kevin Chavous, Ward 7 Democrat, who initially said he would vote to pass the regulations, said he wanted to send a message to the police department and the mayor that their activation of the cameras without public knowledge would not be tolerated.
"I think you will see a group of us introduce a companion piece saying we want no cameras," Mr. Chavous told The Times.
----
Protecting Cyberspace
Friday, November 8, 2002
Washington Post; Page A30
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25769-2002Nov7?language=printer
LAST MONTH, while millions of people all over the world were working online, shopping online and surfing online, the Internet sustained, and repelled, a massive cyberattack, probably the worst ever. For about an hour, the 13 servers that manage the Internet's addressing system were bombarded by millions of bogus requests for information, all coming from personal computers that had been "occupied" by alien software and turned into cyberweapons. With the help of the Internet's many hosts in academia, the private sector and the government, the attack was thwarted, and no one was affected. By coincidence, this attack took place about a month after the White House released its draft National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace. The nature of last month's incident, and the nature of the response, help to explain why cybersecurity is different from other forms of homeland security, what is so unusual about the National Strategy, and why its authors are -- even more unusually -- actively seeking public comment and participation in the drafting process.
Look, for a start, at the terrorists' weapon: Personal computers are not, like nuclear devices, something the government can reasonably be expected to control. The safety of cyberspace therefore depends not just on the actions of public officials, but also on the behavior of millions of people. For that reason, the National Strategy addresses itself specifically to individuals and businesses that use computers, recommending that they buy anti-virus software, open e-mail with care, put up firewalls that prevent others from gaining access to their computers, and even e-mail the White House with other ideas if they have them.
If the weapon is unusual, so is the victim. The Internet is not, like a chemical plant, controlled by a single company or agency: It is "owned," if that is the word, by the federal government, academic institutions and the private sector. Nor is it a physical entity, like a power plant, that can be protected: Both the Internet and the software that could destroy it constantly evolve. For that reason, the National Strategy is short on regulations (which would be instantly outdated) and long on public-private cooperation, oversight committees and educational Web sites.
True, a few harder steps can be taken. The federal government can continue to fund groups such as Carnegie Mellon's Computer Emergency Response Team. Public utilities such as dams and power plants can be told to find ways of sealing their operating software from the Internet altogether. The private sector already has plenty of incentive to install more secure systems: Last year, American businesses are thought to have lost as much as $13 billion as a result of computer viruses alone. But the real challenge is to involve and educate the public. The Internet, and the utilities and businesses that depend on it, will be safe only when all Americans feel the same responsibility for their corner of cyberspace that they feel for their front lawn.
----
Pentagon Seeks Source of Photos
November 8, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Guantanamo-Prisoners.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon was investigating Friday to find out who took and released photographs of terror suspects as they were being transported in heavy restraints aboard a U.S. military plane.
Four photographs of prisoners -- handcuffed, heads covered with black hoods and bound with straps on the floor of a plane -- appeared overnight on the Web site of radio talk show host Art Bell.
``Anonymous mailer sends us photos taken inside a military C-130 transporting POWS,'' the headline said.
The photos are the first giving a glimpse into security measures aboard any of the airplanes used over the past year as prisoners were transferred to prisons in and around Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world, including to the high-security prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
It has long been known that prisoners were heavily restrained, and photos of prisoners bound and kneeling after arrival in Cuba early this year created a stir among human and prison rights groups.
The plane in the latest photos was a C-130, said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Lapan. But it wasn't yet determined Friday where it was going or when the photos were taken. Officials believe it was not an authorized photo and know it's release was unauthorized, he said.
The Air Force and U.S. Central Command were investigating the breach, said Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke.
``We have very very tight restrictions on any images of the detainees for security purposes and because we have no interest in potentially holding detainees up for any kind of public ridicule,'' she told a Pentagon press conference.
It is at least the third time prisoner photos have troubled the Pentagon.
Though the Defense Department has limited the news media in the kind of photos it can take of prisoners from the counter-terror war, officials discovered that troops posed for photos with American Taliban captive, John Walker Lindh, as he was handcuffed and wearing a blindfold carrying an obscenity they had apparently scrawled across it.
The military itself takes photos for documentation and individual soldiers often take their own photos as souvenirs of deployments.
In a court motion, Lindh's lawyers also said earlier this year that unofficial photos and videos of Lindh were taken aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu, where he was confined. Officials said an officer confiscated cameras and film and erased digital images.
Also as part of a court filing, Lindh's lawyers released a picture of him in Afghanistan, blindfolded, strapped to a stretcher and naked. Defense officials have said that while that photo may have appeared shocking, he was naked as part of his preparation for medical treatment.
On the Net:
Art Bell: http://www.artbell.com/letters88.html
-------- drug war
Who is deluded about marijuana?
Washington Times
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
November 8, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20021108-85991627.htm#2
To hear it from William Bennett ("Marijuana delusions," Commentary, Tuesday), the number of Americans "seeking" treatment for marijuana is rising. The former drug czar is deliberately misrepresenting government data in an effort to justify the war on some drugs.
Record numbers of Americans arrested for marijuana possession have been forced into treatment by the criminal justice system. The resulting distortion of treatment statistics is then used to make the claim that marijuana is "addictive."
There is a big difference between voluntary treatment and government-coerced treatment. Zero-tolerance drug laws do not distinguish between occasional use and chronic abuse. The coercion of Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis into taxpayer-funded treatment centers says a lot about U.S. government priorities, but absolutely nothing about the relative harm of marijuana. For an objective take on marijuana, look to Canada.
After months of research, the Canadian Senate recently concluded that marijuana is relatively harmless, marijuana prohibition contributes to organized crime and law-enforcement efforts have little impact on patterns of use. In the words of Sen. Pierre Claude Nolin, "Scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that cannabis is substantially less harmful than alcohol and should be treated not as a criminal issue but as a social and public health issue."
ROBERT SHARPE
Program officer Drug Policy Alliance Washington
-------- homeland security
Bush Presses for Homeland Security
November 8, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush summoned GOP congressional leaders Friday to press for swift passage of his proposed Department of Homeland Security, trying to erase doubts by the incoming Senate Republican leader that a ``lame-duck'' session can accomplish that.
Bush was sitting down to a working lunch with incoming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Bush planned to press his demand that the postelection congressional session beginning Tuesday approve the new homeland security department. The Democratic-run Senate had refused to embrace the proposal because of concerns over union protections for the new agency's workers.
Bush was going into the meeting after scoring a substantial victory in his campaign to disarm Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Appearing in the White House Rose Garden, Bush hailed a unanimous vote in the U.N. Security Council approving a new resolution aimed at forcing Saddam to get rid of weapons of mass destruction.
``If Iraq fails to comply, the United States and other nations will disarm Saddam Hussein,'' the president said.
On Thursday, he used a news conference to jawbone the Senate to finish the homeland security bill.
``They got a few days to get some big things done, and the most important thing to get done, I want to emphasize, is to get a Department of Homeland Security finished,'' Bush said. ``It doesn't matter how long it takes, they need to get it done.''
Lott had earlier said that he is ``not an advocate of lame-duck sessions.'' He is eager to end the session within a few days. ``I've never seen one that served the American people well, and I've been through a lot of them,'' Lott said.
The remarks irritated the White House, which is eager to prove it can govern in a bipartisan fashion following Tuesday's sweeping Republican gains. Bush was likely to give Lott an earful on the matter, a senior administration official said.
Lott said after Bush's remarks Thursday that if he has any power during the lame-duck, ``it would be a big leap, but I'll make a huge effort to get it done.'' Lott doesn't take over as majority leader until the next Congress, in January.
Bush, holding his first formal news conference in four months, made clear he has two other priorities: passage of the 11 remaining spending bills; and approval of government-backed terrorism insurance for businesses, which the administration says will create hundreds of thousands of jobs.
He also renewed his call that lawmakers make key elements of last year's tax cuts permanent. They are scheduled to expire after 10 years.
Bush sidestepped questions about a new round of tax cuts. The administration is studying an economic package that would cut taxes on dividends and capital gains, increase the amount of stock-market losses that individuals can deduct from one year's taxable income and speed up increases in the amounts people can contribute to their 401(k) retirement accounts.
Bush steered clear of other specific plans once the GOP-led Senate clears the backlog left by Democrats. ``There's going to be a huge laundry list of things people want to get done, and my job is to set priorities and get them done,'' he said.
He didn't address a question about whether he would press for legislation restricting abortions, as conservatives hope he will.
Nor did he say whether he would renominate conservative judges blocked by Democrats in the Senate, though he went out of his way to say those nominees would not have to be renominated during the lame-duck session. A senior administration official said the rejected nominees have been made aware of that situation.
Bush insisted that although Republicans will control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, he would not be beholden to conservatives. ``I don't take cues from anybody, I just do what I think is right,'' Bush said.
-------- immigration
U.S. Has Jailed 179 at Borders on Sept. 11 Rules
Reuters
Friday, November 8, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25801-2002Nov7?language=printer
BUFFALO, Nov. 7 -- U.S. border agents have arrested 179 people under rules adopted on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks that mandate the fingerprinting of travelers requiring visas, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said today.
Ashcroft told reporters at the U.S.-Canada crossing point overlooking Niagara Falls that those arrested were felons who fled the United States after committing an offense on a previous visit, people with a serious criminal record or those attempting to enter the country under false pretenses.
He said that before Sept. 11, "our borders did not have an efficient system to protect us from enemies treading on American soil" and that the new program tracked the whereabouts of people going in and out of the United States.
Under the system, a visitor is fingerprinted when he arrives at a land, air or sea port. The print is then matched against the FBI's criminal and other wanted-persons databases and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service database of suspected terrorists.
"For the first time we have an understanding of when people enter or exit," Ashcroft said. He said the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System could be applied to find nonresidents "who may pose an elevated security risk" and register them.
Ashcroft said that, of 14,000 people checked under the new system throughout the United States, 179 from 112 countries had been arrested.
The system has been controversial in Canada, where the government pressured Washington to exempt Canadians born in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Sudan from being fingerprinted and photographed before entering.
Washington has placed those five countries on a list of those it accuses of supporting terrorism.
The new fingerprinting system was primarily designed to keep track of the movements of people from those five countries, but Ashcroft said today that in terms of the origin of visitors, no country was exempt.
--------
Immigration Service Fights Release of Detained Haitians
November 8, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/08/national/08HAIT.html
MIAMI, Nov. 7 - The Immigration and Naturalization Service has appealed a bail ruling that could grant the release of some detained Haitians, arguing that it could prompt a mass exodus from Haiti, an agency spokesman said today.
Such a migration would endanger the lives of Haitians at sea and tie up Coast Guard resources that should be committed to domestic security and the war on terrorism, the spokesman, Mario Ortiz, said.
"We believe that if this group was to be released, it would send a signal back to Haiti saying, `Hey we got in,' and it would trigger a mass migration that would be a threat to our national security," Mr. Ortiz said.
About 200 Haitians waded ashore on Oct. 29 near Key Biscayne, Fla., after their boat ran aground. On Wednesday, an immigration judge granted 40 of them bonds as high as $4,500 on charges that they illegally entered the United States.
More bond hearings were set for Friday and next week.
Immigrants who post bond will be free until their asylum hearings, which have not been scheduled.
The immigration service appealed every bond granted on Wednesday and will continue to do so, Mr. Ortiz said. The Haitians granted bond will remain in detention until the Board of Immigration Appeals rules on their status.
Advocates for immigrants said that releasing the Haitians would not pose a security threat.
Dina Paul Parks, the executive director of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights in New York, said releasing Haitians would not fuel a mass migration.
"Folks know that the waters are patrolled," Ms. Parks said. "They know what their chances are. If someone decides to leave Haiti, it's for a desperate reason, and I'm not sure the thought of being detained in the U.S. is worse."
The immigration service did not appeal the bond given today to three pregnant Haitians, an immigration advocate, Cheryl Little, said.
Illegal immigrants from other countries who are found on American soil are usually released after several days, given more time to prepare for asylum hearings and have better access to lawyers, Ms. Little said.
The immigration service changed its policy toward Haitians after a large boatload of Haitians arrived in December, detaining them and expediting their asylum hearings.
Ms. Little said the government was discriminating against Haitians.
Mr. Ortiz said the new policy was a response to growing concern of an extensive migration from Haiti.
-------- terrorism
Signals from the Predator robot hit
Austin Bay,
Washington Times
November 8, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20021108-99676556.htm
Al Qaeda's zealots never thought they would be fighting American robots - and losing. America's "Predator" drone aircraft is a robot of sorts, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with an extremely small radar and political signature. This past week, a Hellfire missile launched from a CIA-operated Predator hit a car on a road in Yemen's Marib Province and killed six suspected al Qaeda members. U.S. sources identified Qaed Senyan al-Harthi as one of the dead. Allegedly, al-Harthi orchestrated the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen American sailors died. One source says al-Harthi also acted as "communications coordinator" for the September 11 attacks. In other words, he linked the terror cells whose hijacked planes struck the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
The Hellfire was originally designed for launch from a helicopter, with Soviet armor the quarry. A Hellfire savages heavy tanks. As a result, a Toyota truck, a Mercedes or a house, or a foxhole, or a rathole doesn't give an al Qaeda jihadi much protection.
Sophisticated technology, like the Predator, is part of a symmetric power's answer to asymmetric warfare. A common fret among the many uninformed critics of America's counterterror war is that "asymmetric attacks," like those on September 11, can't be foiled and, moreover, the perpetrators can't be found. The whine is, "The world's too big."
To be sure, combating global terror is a huge, difficult, bloody task, like fighting Nazis and Japan's bushido-fired warlords. Adolf Hitler, Hideki Tojo and Osama bin Laden all made the mistake of underestimating U.S. capabilities, as do current domestic doubters.
Al Qaeda's terrorists thought they could hide en masse in Afghanistan. They were wrong. We can debate the success of the battle of Tora Bora, but for the first time in 25 years, Kabul has no curfew. Al Qaeda's latest gambit is to lie low in Earth's alleys and dark corners. All politics is local? American counterterror warfare can be extraordinarily local. The United States is demonstrating even isolated, tribal locales where everyone's a cousin aren't hermetic.
Al Qaeda pledged a global battle without borders, and it's getting one. The Predator attack shows that U.S. counterterror intelligence has improved. Satellites, UAVs and other cutting-edge technologies extend U.S. military presence in ways bin Laden failed to anticipate. Hellfire's laser-light can illuminate a terrorist's darkest corner.
This isn't the first time a Predator has blasted al Qaeda. The CIA used the Predator in Afghanistan. This is, however, the first known counterstrike - by Predator or any U.S. forces - against al Qaeda outside of Afghanistan.
The terrorists have made Yemen a battlefield. While the Cole attack sticks in American minds, a month ago a terrorist boat attacked a French oil tanker off Yemen.
But the United States isn't operating unilaterally in Yemen. The Predator attack illustrates the kind of high-quality, though quiet, cooperation America is receiving from nations around the globe. Yemeni forces have been looking for al Qaeda operatives for several months. The Yemeni government permits CIA operations. This kind of State Department diplomatic success doesn't draw loud touts - which is one reason it's successful.
A counterterror war necessarily plays out in cruel shadows, where targets may be poorly defined and mistakes a certainty. It's a gray war, always on a slope toward darkness. The Predator attack in Yemen verges on assassination, echoing the U.S. Army Air Corps ambush of Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto in 1943. US P-38s flew 415 miles to intercept a bomber carrying Yamamoto. Intercepting bombers is a military mission, but killing Yamamoto - the architect of Pearl Harbor - was the goal.
Technically, al-Harthi died in an air attack. His convoy can certainly be construed as a "command and control center," but that becomes a word game. The United States bans political assassinations, but the U.N. charter permits military defense against attack. Al Qaeda wages a war without limits. Its operatives define themselves as holy warriors. Every American, in al Qaeda's war doctrine, is a permissible target. Al Qaeda's own decentralized organization is part of its offensive and defensive strategy. Individual al Qaeda members - its suicidal terrorists - are indeed its military weapons. Bin Laden praised his "asymmetric" warriors of September 11 for their "unstoppable" dedication.
But now a fearful symmetry appears. CIA's robots are more relentless than bin Laden's most committed zealots.
Austin Bay is a nationally syndicated columnist
--------
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Qaeda Meeting in Thailand Reportedly Plotted Attacks on Tourists
November 8, 2002
New York Times
By RAYMOND BONNER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/08/international/asia/08QAED.html
BANGKOK, Nov. 7 - A group of Al Qaeda operatives met in Thailand and discussed plans to attack bars, nightclubs and tourist resorts throughout the region months before the October bombing in Bali killed more than 190 people, Asian and Western officials said this week.
The group was led by a senior lieutenant of Osama bin Laden and included a Qaeda explosives expert, who was later arrested and told American officials of the January meeting during his interrogation.
"They talked about hitting soft Western targets throughout Southeast Asia," an American official said. The blast at an Indonesian resort area in Bali may have been the first such attack, Western diplomats said.
"Is Thailand next?" is the question being asked by seemingly everyone here, from bartenders to hotel owners, to businessmen and diplomats, as well by many Thai officials when they are speaking privately.
The presence of Al Qaeda in Thailand, with its free-wheeling culture, chaotic cities and porous borders, is greater than the Thai government has been willing to acknowledge, or than Western governments, including the United States, were aware of, diplomats from several countries said in interviews.
An attack here could further unsettle a region where Thailand serves as the economic engine and the hub of tourist industry that draws more than 10 million visitors a year to this country alone.
A Western intelligence analyst said Thailand was a vital link in the "international terrorist's underground railroad."
Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers traveled from Afghanistan to Malaysia and then in effect laundered themselves through Thailand before entering the United States, Western officials said this week.
Last month, a dozen suspected Qaeda operatives fled to Thailand from Malaysia and Singapore, and then disappeared, to the embarrassment of the Thai government, Asian and Western officials said.
A Thai government spokesman, Sita Divari, said today that the government was certain that there was no Qaeda network in Thailand and that there was no serious threat of a terrorist attack.
It is an assertion that diplomats here have been hearing for months and which they do not take seriously. "People who claim this country is devoid of any prospects of terrorism are naïve," one ambassador said.
Officials investigating the Bali attack are now looking closely at Thailand and suspect that the plan to set off a car bomb in front of a popular nightclub on Oct. 12 was hatched during the meeting in January.
The meeting, these officials said, was called by a man who has become the most wanted terrorist in the region, Al Qaeda's top man in Southeast Asia, Riadun Isamuddin, known as Hambali.
Also attending, they said, was a Qaeda explosives expert, Mohamed Mansour Jabara, a Kuwaiti national with a Canadian passport who was picked up in Oman in March and is now in American custody. Precisely when he told American officials about the January meeting is not clear.
Mr. Jabara was one of the main planners in a plot to blow up the American, Australian and Israeli embassies in Singapore last December. When the plot was uncovered, he and several others fled undetected to Thailand, Asian and Western officials said.
Counterterrorism experts say Al Qaeda, no longer dependent on camps for its operations, is probably working in small groups, much like the one that met here. The Bali operation, an American official said, may have been the work of cells in several countries, none of them larger than six or eight men.
The fear now is that Thailand will not only provide an easy base of operation for terrorists working in smaller cells, but also that the country itself is high on the list of potential targets as Al Qaeda shifts its focus to tourist sites.
"We have already seen in recent months more and more information that tourist centers are under threat," the chief of German intelligence, August Hanning, said this week. "It is because tourist centers cannot be guarded."
He named the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand as the likely next targets.
Thailand has long been a route for drug traffickers and people smugglers, a country where guns and explosives are readily available and where preparing fraudulent documents is a developed industry.
"It is easy to get a false passport in Thailand," a European ambassador said. adding, "A professional terrorist can enter this country and leave quite easily, after having launched an attack."
Even a Thai intelligence official acknowledged that it would be relatively easy for a terrorist "to hibernate" in Bangkok, a teeming city of 12 million people, thousands of whom are tourists or transients.
Western diplomats agreed. Until recently, visas were not required here for citizens of most countries, including those from the Middle East. The government did not ask a lot of questions of visitors, especially of the foreign men who patronize the bars and nightclubs that form the center of Bangkok's tourist industry.
"Who knows who's here," an ambassador said.
Deepening worries is the relative inexperience and disorganization of Thai intelligence agencies, which are short on manpower, training and resources, officials from several countries said. Generally speaking, they are considered better than the intelligence services in Indonesia, the officials said, but not in league with a country like Singapore.
"I don't think anyone's intelligence here is terrific," a Western ambassador said.
But diplomats and others also said the Qaeda presence in Thailand, a largely Buddhist country of 62 million people, is not as big as in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
Nonetheless, in recent weeks Germany, several other European nations and Australia have issued warnings to their citizens to exercise extreme caution in certain popular tourist areas in Thailand. The United States has issued a new travel advisory covering all of Southeast Asia.
The Western intelligence analyst summed up the reactions here since the Bali blasts as "hysteria, and a false sense of confidence." Western governments have overreacted with their travel warnings, he said, while the Thai government has refused to face up to terrorist threat it faces.
It is not clear why the travel warnings vary from country to country, since they are sharing intelligence, diplomats said. "We interpreted it differently," an American diplomat said.
But several ambassadors acknowledged that the warnings were heavily influenced by the domestic political concerns of governments seeking to protect themselves against charges, in case of another attack, that they did not take all precautions.
--------
U.S. Widens Anti - Terrorism Effort
November 8, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Terror-War.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Even if local governments don't agree, American forces may launch assaults into lawless or poorly governed areas around the world to go after terrorists hiding there.
``We make every, every effort to work with countries, most of whom are very eager to get rid of the al-Qaida,'' Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told a press conference Friday.
``But ... without speculating where, there may be circumstances when we go into an ungoverned area in pursuit of al-Qaida,'' she said on the question of getting local permission first. ``I'll just leave it at that.''
In the year-old war on terror, there have been no known instances of the U.S. military capturing or killing a terrorist suspect without the prior consent of the government where the operation occurred.
It also is not known if such operations have been performed by the CIA, which works under different rules and greater secrecy than the military.
The question arose as officials talked about stepping up counter-terror efforts around the Horn of Africa, where there are vast lawless or poorly governed regions in a number of countries.
Countries and waterways in and around the Horn of Africa long have been plagued by homegrown terrorists, those passing through and those using the area to ship weapons or plan operations, U.S. intelligence and defense officials say.
The region has porous borders, as well as harsh terrain and a lack of resources, making it difficult for even willing governments to tackle a terrorist problem.
Somalia has had no effective central government since opposition leaders ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, and the country turned into a patchwork of battling warlords ruled by heavily armed militias. Officials no longer assert that there are terrorist training camps in Somalia, as feared after the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States.
Across the Gulf of Aden is Yemen, where vast tribal areas also are beyond government control and where al-Qaida members are believed to be hiding.
Sudan became a haven in the 1990s for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and Muslim extremists.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
FERC judge sets Nov 14 meeting on Enron wind farms
REUTERS USA:
November 8, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18505/story.htm
WASHINGTON - An administrative law judge will hold a Nov. 14 conference to set deadlines for evidence on whether a former Enron Corp. executive created special partnerships to hide the company's stake in three wind power farms.
Peter Young, an administrative law judge with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, announced late on Tuesday the conference would be held at FERC headquarters in Washington and would establish a schedule for hearings and evidence in the case.
Last month, FERC launched an investigation into whether Andrew Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer created special partnerships so Enron could keep control of the three small power producers.
A 1978 federal law requires U.S. electric utilities to buy renewable wholesale electricity at premium prices from so-called "qualifying facilities," which must be owned by independent power producers.
A few months after Enron acquired Portland General Electric utility in February 1997, Enron's three wind farms - Zond Windsystems, Victory GArden and Sky River - applied to FERC for recertification as qualifying facilities. Each promised Enron would transfer ownership to partnerships that would not be affiliated with Enron.
However, civil and criminal lawsuits recently filed against Fastow in federal court in Houston alleged that he and other Enron executives created special partnerships to hide the company's stake in the three wind farms.
FERC ordered Judge Young to schedule hearings to determine if the three wind farms should be stripped of their certification as qualifying facilities.
The case is pending before FERC in docket EL03-17.
-------- energy
A Russian-American pipe dream
Volatile Mideast oil supply shifts U.S. focus toward Moscow
After 9/11, Washington and Moscow have joined together to get Russia's vast oil reserves to the U.S. market.
By Preston Mendenhall
MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/news/824242.asp?0cb=-212114700
MURMANSK, Russia, Nov. 8 - Surveying the Arctic reaches of this shabby port city, Yuri Yevdokimov's enthusiasm is irrepressible. The regional governor vividly recalls the Nazi advance on Murmansk during World War II when American ships delivered "lend-lease" war materiel to Russia through this frozen gateway. Lend-lease was a pipeline of goods key to Russia's survival. Today, Washington is looking to forge a relationship with Moscow based on a new pipeline, this time carrying oil. Sixty years after America's lend- lease program, Yevdokimov says, "Murmansk is ready to return the favor."
WITH ITS DECAYING naval fleet, crippled fishing industry and frigid polar nights, this isolated northern Russian port has seen its younger generation flee the region in search of opportunity elsewhere for more than a decade now. That may soon change. In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Murmansk could become a key transit point for Russian oil destined for the United States, oil free of the political price tag attached to Middle East petrol.
Last month, President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin brought together top oil executives from both countries to meet in the U.S. oil capital, Houston, whose gleaming coastal skyscrapers stand in dramatic contrast to the drab Soviet-era structures dominating Murmansk's skyline. One oil executive attending the energy summit said the potentates of American and Russian oil politely listened to speeches, then quickly retreated to their hotel suites to negotiate the beginnings of real deals - like the Murmansk deep-sea port.
Some Russian oil companies aren't even waiting for the pipeline, which would bring down the cost of getting Kremlin crude to the United States. The Tyumen Oil Co., Russia's fourth-largest, has even proposed that the United States use Russian oil to replenish its strategic oil reserve. Yukos, another Russian oil firm, has started delivering tanker loads of crude to the Texas Gulf Coast. With a Murmansk pipeline not yet in place, the possible mega deals are still in their infancy - but the potential for a fundamental economic realignment is clear.
SHORT-TERM DEAL
The convergence of Russian and American oil interests comes at a crucial time: As Washington seeks international approval for a war with Iraq, Russia has positioned itself as a pivotal ally for the Bush administration's goals in the Middle East.
The Kremlin fears that if Washington successfully topples the Iraqi dictator, American companies will take over the world's second-largest oil reserves, and billions of dollars worth of contracts that Russian oil companies have signed with the current Iraqi regime will be annulled. Russia is also seeking Baghdad's repayment of some $8 billion in leftover Soviet debt.
Analysts say Russia's decision not to veto Friday's U.N. Security Council vote on a new resolution to strip Saddam of his weapons was influenced by pure economics. Moscow's vote for the Iraq resolution, experts say, is likely the result of U.S. assurances to the Kremlin that Russian IOUs will be honored and that future Iraqi oil deals will include the Kremlin as a key player.
The Soviet Union led the world in oil production at 11.4 million barrels of oil per day during the 1980s. Oil field mismanagement in the years following the breakup of the USSR led to a decade of decline, during which production in Russia - the largest of the former republics - scarcely topped 6.1 million barrels per day. But since Russia opened the industry to competition in 1993, oil production has soared, rivaling that of Saudi Arabia.
Russia's oil production and consumption (1992-2002)
Russia reorganized its state-owned enterprises as joint-stock companies in 1993. Today, more than 130 companies produce oil in Russia, with 11 companies controlling 90 percent of crude production and 80 percent of refining. The largest companies include Lukoil, Yukos, Surgutneftegaz, Tyumen Oil, Tatneft and Sibneft. Lukoil established a beachhead in the U.S. recently when it purchased the Getty chain of service stations. Russia's net oil exports (1992-2002)
Russia's net oil exports rebounded from a meager 3.16 million barrels per day in 1994 after the government began selling its shares of the business to hungry investors. When world oil prices declined in September 2001, Russia agreed to OPEC demands to restrict exports. Regardless, Russian oil companies have been aggressive in increasing their crude oil exports as world oil prices have climbed.
Russia's rate of oil production has now exceeded its rate of discovering and harnessing new reserves, so the industry is looking to explore more fields in West Siberia -- the source of most of Russia's oil -- as well as in the Russian sector of the Caspian Sea, the Arctic region, eastern Siberia and the Sakhalin Islands. The challenge beyond building an infrastructure to support exploration in remote and often inhospitable climates will be to build pipelines to transport newly dscovered oil to foreign markets. In the works so far are plans for a new pipeline to Europe -- the Baltic Pipeline System -- as well as pipelines to Korea, China and Japan.
In February 2002, Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia as the largest oil producer for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union. In the next couple of years Russia's aggressive production could push oil prices below the break-even point for many nations heavily dependent on oil revenue. Such a scenario could be a disaster for the governments of OPEC-member countries. By 2006, Russia may regain its Soviet-era production level of 9 million barrels per day.
[View a chart of 2001's top oil producers and exporters.]
2001's leading oil producers and exporters
LONG-TERM GAIN
Beyond the current Iraq chess game, analysts say, Russia and the United States have much to gain in the long term from an oil alliance.
Washington's energy security has been tied for decades to Mideast oil dictatorships that have become increasingly unpopular among their own citizens. U.S. standing also has been damaged by what some nations in the region say is Washington's biased support of Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians.
U.S. vulnerability to perennial Mideast instability could be tempered by a steady Russian oil supply, analysts say, and a Russian-U.S. oil alliance could break the stranglehold of the OPEC oil cartel, led by Saudi Arabia.
Russia's oil output was cut in half after the fall of the Soviet Union, so becoming a regular supplier to the United States is a lucrative opportunity for Moscow.
Experts conclude such an alliance is inevitable.
"Sept. 11 consolidated and maybe a little bit accelerated the improvement of bilateral relations," said former Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, who was fired by Putin's predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, for pushing many of Putin's policies nearly a decade ago. "In the end, it's in the best national interest of both sides to cooperate, like in the oil and gas fields."
GREAT ANTICIPATIONS
With many of Russia's regions still waiting for foreign investment more than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the American-Russian oil rush couldn't come a moment too soon.
In Russia's Far North, Gov. Yevdokimov has watched 25 percent of Murmansk's 600,000 residents abandon their dreary lives in a desperate search for work elsewhere. A Russo-American oil pipeline could stem the flow of the region's best and brightest.
"Quite simply, it will be a new lease on life for Murmansk," Yevdokimov said.
Sixty-one years after America's lend-lease act saved Murmansk - and much of the country - from the Nazis, the United States could be coming to the rescue once again.
Preston Mendenhall is MSNBC.com's international editor.
----
The Blot on India's Economic Map
Stalled Reforms Reflected in Problems With Allocation of Electricity
By John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 8, 2002; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25351-2002Nov7?language=printer
CHANDIGARH, India -- To much of the world's population, the monthly electric bill is one of life's little annoyances. But not for farmers in the state of Punjab. For them, at least until this month, electricity has been as free as air.
As a populist gesture in 1997, Punjab's government ordered the state-owned utility to stop charging farmers for the power that runs their irrigation pumps. Now, with the utility teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, the government has been forced to reinstate the charges, triggering angry protests.
"This house, these buildings, everything you see is pledged to the bank," complained Baldev Singh Mianpur, 50, who runs one of Punjab's farm unions and also grows wheat, rice and vegetables on 25 carefully tended acres near here. Besides, he added, "We were paying for electricity before, but neither the quality nor the supply was reliable."
Punjab's quirky approach to allocating power is typical of the challenges still confronting India more than a decade after it initiated economic reforms aimed at attracting foreign investment and igniting the kind of rapid growth that has transformed China and the rest of the "Asian tigers."
While India's liberalization efforts have spurred some success stories, notably in the software industry, its economy continues to be hobbled by trade barriers, poor infrastructure, interest-group politics and bureaucratic resistance.
Economic growth, though forecast at a respectable 5.5 percent this year, is well short of the 8 percent annual rate that Indian officials say is needed to make lasting improvements in the lives of India's billion-plus people, about 300 million of whom subsist on less than a dollar a day.
In a blunt speech to Indian businessmen this week, U.S. Ambassador Robert Blackwill observed that 10 years ago, annual per capita income in China and India was roughly equal. Today, he noted, it is roughly $900 in China, about double the amount of India. Similarly, China attracted $47 billion in foreign investment last year, compared with $4 billion in India, which is only slightly smaller in population.
"Americans hesitate to invest in India because of uncertainty over India's economic reforms," said Blackwill, who has described American exports and investment flows to India as "flat as a chapati," a kind of bread.
He cited, among other things, high taxes and tariffs, "too much government interference over business decisions," "an erosion of confidence" in legal protections for investors and continuing worries about communal violence and the potential for war with Pakistan.
Many Indian officials say essentially the same thing. "Labor reforms, privatization, reforms of the power sector. . . . What have we not announced in the last decade?" Arun Shourie, the minister in charge of selling state-owned industries, lamented recently. "For which of them have we not in the last decade pledged ourselves to time-bound targets? Yet on everything -- a 20-meter sprint, and inertia overwhelms us."
Because it touches virtually every aspect of the economy, India's creaky power system was one of the first areas targeted for reform. State electric boards, as India's public power utilities are known, invited foreign companies to build generating plants on highly favorable terms, and some took them up on the offer. But the utilities, it turned out, did not have the money to meet their obligations. For political reasons, the state-run companies could not raise electricity rates, and they also failed to address shortcomings in the distribution of power, which is plagued by technical losses and theft that runs as high as 50 percent in some areas. Foreign investors lost interest.
"Distribution is like a leaking bucket," said Urjit Patel, executive vice president of Infrastructure Development Finance Co., a public-private partnership that is pursuing private investment in India's infrastructure. "There's widespread agreement that unless the distribution segment of the sector is privatized, you're not going to generate enough cash flow to support more privatization of the system. . . . India's reforms started at the wrong end."
India's national electric grid can be likened to a screen door with many holes. About 60 percent of rural households are still without electricity, according to the World Bank, and blackouts are common even in the wealthiest neighborhoods of New Delhi, the capital. Factories rely heavily on backup generators.
In 2000, meanwhile, power subsidies reached $5.8 billion, 1.3 percent of India's gross domestic product or nearly twice the amount that India spends on health care, according to the World Bank. "For historical reasons in India, power is perceived as the ultimate public good, like oxygen," a Western diplomat said. "What that's resulted in is a complete deterioration" of the system.
Part of the government's resistance to market-oriented reforms of the power system stems from genuine concern about the effect of higher electricity rates on the poor. But it also reflects the clout of key constituencies, notably farmers, who are among the largest beneficiaries of power subsidies.
Perhaps nowhere else in India do farmers wield as much influence as in Punjab, in northwestern India on the border with Pakistan. Thanks to an elaborate system of irrigation canals left by the British, Punjab is India's breadbasket, a vast expanse of wheat and rice fields lapping at the foothills of the Himalayas. It is administered here in Chandigarh, a pleasant, park-like city 70 miles northwest of New Delhi that was designed a half-century ago by the Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier.
Agriculture is already heavily subsidized in India, but five years ago the Punjab government, then headed by the Akali Dal party, added another layer of largess, ending electricity charges for irrigation. Starved of income, the utility slid deeply into debt, with roughly a third of its operating costs now consumed by interest payments, according to K.R. Lakhanpal, Punjab's finance secretary.
The decision also proved damaging to the environment. With no incentive to curb power use, farmers expanded the acreage devoted to water-intensive crops, especially rice, and ran their pumps indiscriminately, seriously depleting groundwater reserves.
"You don't value something you get for free," Lakhanpal said.
As things turned out, the giveaway also harmed farmers by making it even harder for the utility to provide reliable service. Frequent voltage fluctuations ruined the motors of irrigation pumps. And farmers often found themselves working all night, because that was the only time electricity was available to run water through their fields.
"The power supply is not regular," said Malkiat Singh, 51, a slight, bearded man who grows wheat and rice on six acres in Mianpur, a village about an hour's drive from here. "Whenever we sit down to dinner the lights go out, and they don't come back on until 9 p.m. If they're going to charge for electricity, it should be on for a minimum of 14 hours a day, and it should be stable."
In September, the state regulatory commission ruled that farmers should once again be charged for electricity, albeit at heavily subsidized rates. Punjab's newly elected Congress party government, reversing a campaign pledge, reluctantly went along, angering farmers, who recently blocked highways and paraded through Chandigarh in their underwear to emphasize their claims of penury. The farmers say that government-set prices for staple crops do not reflect the cost of production and that monthly electric bills will force them deeper into debt.
Singh said production costs last year consumed about $625 of his gross annual income of about $1,000. The annual cost of running his 5-horsepower electric irrigation pump, he added, will reduce his profit by another $75. "It is not economically viable," he said.
-------- environment
Organic Growers Battle Proposed Rules
By PAUL NOWELL
AP Business Writer
Nov 8, 2002
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FARM_SCENE?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Tom Elmore wants to keep supplying the nation's booming organic foods industry with tomatoes, okra, blueberries and other pesticide-free crops he raises on his small farm near Asheville.
But, like many of his peers, Elmore is concerned about fallout - the economic kind that may come from a proposal to relax North Carolina regulations that bar crop-dusters from allowing even tiny amounts of pesticide to drift where they were not intended to go.
Under the proposed revisions before the North Carolina Department of Agriculture's pesticide board, there would no longer be any pesticide-free zones around homes, schools, hospitals, nursing homes and churches.
Instead, buffer areas between "spray" zones and "no-spray" zones could have pesticide residue of 6 parts per million without being a violation and triggering sanctions against the applicator.
The pesticide board is conducting public hearings on the revisions.
Organic growers fear they have much more to lose because small amounts of pesticides and herbicides could drift onto their farms. That could cause them to lose their designation as a "certified organic grower" for up to three years.
"This could take away our livelihood," said Elmore, who operates a 10-acre farm northwest of Asheville. Advertisement
Georgia's regulations on aerial spraying were beefed up after a 1982 incident in Chatham County. A potent herbicide that locals dubbed "white rain" was accidentally sprayed onto homes, gardens, farm animals and pets.
Boyd Respess, a Beaufort County crop-duster who helped draft the rule changes, said the proposed limits are reasonable and fair to applicators who do the best they can to keep pesticides only where they're intended to go.
"I have children and I have eight grandchildren and I feel comfortable with this level," he said. "We have to get away from zero and I feel 6 parts per million is reasonable."
But Fawn Pattison of the Agricultural Resources Center, a group that opposes pesticide spraying, said the proposed penalties - $500 for private sprayers and $2,000 for commercial sprayers - are too lenient. Elmore agreed.
"We're talking about a maximum of $2,000 for them and a loss of a couple of hundred thousand dollars to me if I go out of business," he said.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has left pesticide spraying regulations up to the states, Pattison said, because of the topographical differences between mountainous states like Vermont and ones with generally flat terrain such as Nebraska.
Some states have quarter-mile buffers for all pesticide spraying and others, like Vermont, do not allow any spraying over mountains, she said.
On the Net:
Agricultural Resources Center: http://www.ibiblio.org/arc/
Carolina Organic Growers: http://www.carolinaorganicgrowers.com/
N.C. Agriculture Department pesticide information: http://www.ncagr.com/fooddrug/pesticid/authorit.htm
-------- genetics
U.S., Pushing for Broader Ban, Blocks U.N. Anti-Cloning Move
November 8, 2002
New York Times
By JULIA PRESTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/08/international/08CLON.html
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 7 - The United States, supported by 36 other nations, blocked an initiative by Germany and France today for a worldwide ban on cloning to create human beings, insisting that the ban should include all forms of human cloning.
The Bush administration made its move in a procedural motion in a committee of the General Assembly, diplomats said. Rather than move ahead with negotiations on the German and French proposal, the Assembly's Sixth Committee, which deals with international legal matters, decided by consensus to postpone the cloning debate until September 2003.
The diplomats said that the committee acted after it was clear that no general accord would be reached on either the French and German proposal for a treaty banning only "reproductive cloning of human beings," or on a competing resolution by the United States and Spain calling for a ban on "human cloning" across the board.
The ban proposed by the Bush administration would include cloning of human embryos for medical research or therapy.
Germany made plain its frustration with the outcome.
"This leaves the field wide open to those working towards giving birth to a cloned human being," said Christian Walter Much, who read the German statement, which was also endorsed by France. "It underlines that insisting upon far-reaching principles sometimes leads to a situation which makes it impossible to act effectively."
Berlin had hoped to move quickly, as a first step, to bar cloning to create human babies, leaving the door open to a broader ban later on.
American diplomats called the decision today an important victory.
"We were pleased that we were able to reach a consensus that on such a vital issue there needs to be continued work," said Carolyn L. Willson, legal adviser to the American Mission here. "We've seen momentum building for a total ban," she added.
American officials argued that research cloning involves creating embryos that later have to be destroyed. The technique "raises profound ethical and moral questions and is highly controversial," the United States said in a position paper in February.
-------- health
Drug Agency Approves a Quick Test for H.I.V.
November 8, 2002
New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/08/health/08IMMU.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 - The Food and Drug Administration approved a test today that can detect whether someone is infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, in as little as 20 minutes. Experts said that advance might prompt thousands more Americans to get tested, which in turn might slow the spread of the disease.
The "while you wait" test, by OraSure Technologies Inc. of Bethlehem, Pa., will not be the first rapid H.I.V. test on the market. But, with a 99.6 percent accuracy rate, it is the first one that is highly reliable.
Standard tests for H.I.V. now take two days to two weeks to provide results, a time lag that experts say discourages thousands of people each year from returning to their testing center to find out whether they are infected.
"It's simple, it's accurate and it's very fast," Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, said of the new test.
Mr. Thompson called the agency's action "a very important step in America's war against H.I.V./AIDS."
Public health experts say the test is important for several reasons. It may help reduce mother-to-infant transmission of H.I.V. by enabling doctors to test pregnant women while they are in labor. It will also offer health care workers exposed to H.I.V.-tainted blood a quick way to determine if they need antiviral drugs that could prevent them from getting infected.
In addition, with the Bush administration considering whether to vaccinate all Americans against smallpox, the new test will offer health professionals a fast, easy way to determine if someone is infected with H.I.V., and thus ineligible for the vaccine.
An estimated 900,000 Americans are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, but as many as a quarter of them do not know it, Mr. Thompson said. Each year, he said, as many as 8,000 people are tested and never return to find out the results.
Federal health officials said the the OraSure test might sharply cut those numbers. Cornelius Baker, executive director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, a large AIDS healthcare agency in Washington, agreed.
"Right now, people come in for a test and they have to come back two days later to find out the results," Mr. Baker said. "This means we will be able to see more people, because we will be able to give people counseling and a test in one session as opposed to two."
To use the test, a health care worker pricks a patient's finger and draws a single drop of blood, which is dropped into a small vial that contains a liquid solution. The testing device, which resembles a dipstick, is then inserted into the vial.
The test detects whether antibodies to H.I.V. are present in the patient's blood. It takes 20 minutes to an hour to get results, company officials said.
There is, however, one hitch: people infected with H.I.V. do not develop antibodies to the virus until three months after exposure. So the Food and Drug Administration recommends that people who test negative repeat the test if they believe they have been exposed to the virus. The agency also recommends that, in the case of a positive test, a more traditional test be conducted to confirm the results.
The agency has approved the test, called the OraQuick, for use in hospitals, clinics and doctors' offices that meet certain federal laboratory standards.
Because it is so easy to use, Mr. Thompson said, the government may eventually consider making it available more broadly, perhaps even to social workers in H.I.V. counseling centers. Before that happens, however, OraSure must conduct another clinical trial to prove that untrained people can administer the test as reliably as health professionals.
Mike Gausling, the company's chief executive, said OraSure had already submitted a testing proposal to the food and drug agency.
Mr. Gausling said he did not know what the test would cost. But he said it would probably be cheaper than the company's other test for H.I.V., a saliva test that costs about $20. He said it would take about 45 days to get the first 50,000 OraQuick tests to the market.
-------- ACTIVISTS
D.C. Council Opposes Military Action in Iraq
Mayor Questions Voting on Foreign Policy
By Craig Timberg and David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 8, 2002; Page B07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25878-2002Nov7?language=printer
The D.C. Council voted 10 to 3 last night to formally oppose U.S. military action in Iraq unless there is proof of an "imminent threat" to national security and widespread support from the international community for an attack.
The action, which supporters acknowledged had only symbolic value, came despite the reservations of Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), who questioned whether it was the role of city legislators to weigh in on a national foreign policy debate.
Crafters of the resolution said they had the responsibility to speak for residents of Washington, who would send federal tax dollars and soldiers to any war effort but, because of their lack of representation in Congress, had no say in last month's vote authorizing President Bush to attack Iraq.
"It's a great issue of our time," said council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) in an interview. "We're the legislative body for the District of Columbia. Our voices should be heard, particularly if our sons and daughters are going to be sent to foreign lands."
City councils in Takoma Park, Berkeley, Calif., Santa Fe, N.M., and several other cities also have passed resolutions opposing unilateral military action in Iraq. Similar resolutions are under discussion in Madison, Wis., and Baltimore.
The resolution, drafted by council member Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3) in conjunction with the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think tank based in Washington, is to be sent to Williams, President Bush, the Congress and several associations of state and municipal officials.
Marcus Raskin, co-founder of the think tank, which is seeking to push the effort in other cities, said money spent on war would undercut funding for urban needs. "Cities have to be clear that they're the ones who are going to be paying for this war," he said.
The two-page text warns: "War waged unilaterally by any individual nation, including the United States, could set a dangerous precedent for preemptive warfare; violate international law and the principle of non-aggression among states; undermine the post-war system for resolution of disputes between nations; destabilize the Middle East; fuel more terrorist attacks; and undermine the moral authority of the war on terrorism."
The resolution urged Bush not to initiate war on Iraq, despite the approval of Congress, unless there is proof of an "imminent threat" to the United States, support from the international community, a comprehensive estimate of costs and a plan to rebuild Iraq politically and culturally after the war.
"Come on, let's get real here. He can't defend the country until he gets a cost estimate?" countered council member David A. Catania (R-At Large), who was joined by council members Carol Schwartz (R-At Large) and Harold Brazil (D-At Large) in opposing the resolution. "I don't want to be in a position to second-guess the president. For us to have to go through these hoops before we defend ourselves is very strange."
Because the vote was not a bill, it requires no action by Williams. But in an interview, he expressed reservations. "We weren't elected to do foreign policy, and I don't think we should be doing foreign policy," the mayor said. "What's that got to do with running the city?"
White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said of the council vote, "That's obviously their prerogative. The president's views are very clear." She added that Bush considers launching war on Iraq a last resort for disarming Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction, warranted only after other means are exhausted.
Democrats hold a 10-1 registration edge in the District, and 11 of the 13 council members are Democrats. Yet the city must work closely with Bush and Congress, which has veto power over most actions of the D.C. Council.
Also yesterday, the council voted to revoke a plan -- approved last month -- to tax the proceeds on municipal bonds. The decision to tax the bonds was part of the $323 million fix to the city's budget, but bondholders lobbied to keep the tax exemption. The estimated $6.6 million the tax would have generated has been replaced by other revenue sources.
Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this article.
--------
U.S. Defends Iranian Reformer Sentenced to Death
November 8, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-usa.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday accused Iran of breaking international standards of due process by sentencing to death a reformist who questioned the right of the clergy to rule the Islamic republic.
An Iranian court sentenced Hashem Aghajari, a close ally of President Mohammad Khatami, on Wednesday. The verdict is likely to send shock waves through Iran's reformist movement, many of whom have defended his right to free speech.
State Department spokesman Frederick Jones said: ``The trial and the extraordinarily harsh sentence against Iranian reformist Hashem Aghajari, merely for exercising his right of free expression, represents a breach of accepted international standards of due process.
``We are gravely concerned about this case, which indicates a deteriorating human rights situation in Iran,'' he added.
Jones said the number of public executions, stonings, punitive amputations and acts of persecution against reformers and the press had increased in Iran in recent months.
``The United States stands with the people of Iran in their quest for greater freedom, prosperity, judicial due process and the rule of law,'' he added.
President Bush has said Iran is part of an ``axis of evil'' but his administration appears to be undecided between confrontation and a strategy of encouraging reformers.
----
Dominicans nuns face federal charges
By PATRICK O'NEILL,
National Catholic Reporter,
November 08, 2002
http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives/110802/110802h.htm
Three Dominican nuns face up to 30 years in federal prison stemming from an Oct. 6 protest at a Colorado missile silo. Calling themselves "The Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares II," Srs. Jackie Hudson, Carol Gilbert and Ardeth Platte cut through fences at missile silo site N-8 near Greeley Colo. (NCR, Oct. 25) and, using handheld hammers, pounded on the silo to symbolize the act of beating "swords into plowshares," a reference to Isaiah 2:4.
The women are being held in the Clear Creek County Jail facing two federal charges: injury, interference or obstruction of the national defense of the United States, which carries up to 20 years imprisonment and up to a $250,000 fine, and injury of property of the United States, with a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment, and up to a $250,000 fine. A trial is set for Dec. 16.
Jeff Dorschner, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Denver, said the total damage done was more than $1,000, which qualifies the charges as felonies. Dorschner said the office agreed to allow the three nuns to be released on their own recognizance, but they refused.
"The bond requires them not to participate in further demonstrations, and they could not promise to do that as a matter of conscience," said Liz McAlister, who, along with her husband, Philip Berrigan, resides at the Jonah House Community in Baltimore, where Platte, 66, and Gilbert, 54, also reside. Hudson, 67, lives at the Ground Zero Community near Seattle, Wash.
The women refused a court-appointed attorney, saying they would jointly undertake their own defense, although they reserved the right to find a pro-bono attorney who would offer legal assistance.
Berrigan, himself a veteran of many Plowshares protests, said the action by the three nuns "couldn't come at a better time" as the United States readies itself for war with Iraq.
A critic of the peace movement's limited use of nonviolent direct action to resist war, Berrigan said the movement "has been traumatized" by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
During last week's antiwar demonstrations in Washington, "the law was kept impeccably," Berrigan said, "which is to say that the whole rotten mess is legalized, and people are not risking that much for truth and sanity and decency and the law of God."
"Very definitely there's a price to pay" for war resistance, Berrigan said, "and virtually nobody wants to pay it. But these three brave Catholic nuns are willing to pay it. ... The health of least two of them is not that robust, so they're taking enormous risks."
Patrick O'Neill is a freelance writer who lives in Raleigh, N.C.
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