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NUCLEAR
Hunting a Deadly Soviet Legacy
Vietnam, South Korea to cooperate on nuclear power plant
Excerpt from interview with YASSER ARAFAT TO MELHEM KARAM"
Bosnian Radiation Blamed on NATO
Radioactivity Detected in Bosnia Where NATO Used Depleted Uranium Shells
UNEP Identifies DU Risks in Bosnia-Herzegovina
US Used More DU Weapons In Afghanistan Than Gulf
RWE to operate first on-site nuclear waste storage
We're not spies, says inspection chief
Iraq Inspections Receive Support From Arab League
U.N. Set to Move in Quickly to Seek Iraq Nuclear Arms
A Missile Shield Appeals to a Worried Japan
U.S., allies consider halting oil shipment
U.S., Allies Grapple with N.Korea Nuclear Issue
Flawless test flight for US cruise missile
Malaysia rejects Yemen-style US military action
More radioactive waste shipped from Murmansk region
Bush Marks Veteran's Day With Vow on Iraq
Lott Says Senate Could Pass Security Bill Within Days
MILITARY
Biological Blame Game: USA in First Place
Defense stocks rise on election news
Iraqi oil, American bonanza?
Saddam tells MPs to decide
U.S. Warplanes Strike Iraq Targets
Lawmakers in Baghdad Meet on Response to U.N. Resolution
Leaking plans for a rolling war
Destination Iraq for UK soldiers
INTERVIEW WITH THE LEADER OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
Arab Diplomats Say Iraq to Abide By Resolution
Al-Qaida Leaders Said in Pakistan
Manufacturing terror
Laden, Mullah Omar calling shots in Kashmir, Chechnya: Putin
Kremlin to impose its peace plan on Chechnya
Sweden Expels Two Russian Diplomats for Spying
Russia Convicts Officer of Spying
Studies barely scratch surface of Gulf War's toll on health
Iraqi Battleground Fiercer, Veterans Say
Photonic Crystals in Uniforms
Only matter of time before US hit by terrorists: Ridge
Bush Dodges the Pomp in Dealing With the Press
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
FBI Whistle-Blower's Case Reexamined
FBI Urged to Protect Whistleblowers
A fate worse than prison
We Should Shun Assassinations
ENERGY AND OTHER
Dutch energy firms slam planned green subsidy cuts
Physicists Split the Anti-Atom
Grand Jury Subpoenas Energy Records
Universities Fined for Hazwaste Violations
As AIDS Spreads, India Struggles for a Workable Strategy
Gates Pledges $100 Million in India's AIDS Fight
Shadow Economy Guarantees Russia's Stability
ACTIVISTS
Greenpeace activists block Hungary chemicals plant
Anti Nuclear Protestors Demonstrate
Iran Students Stage Third Day of Protests
2 German Police Hurt in Nuke Protest
-------- NUCLEAR
Hunting a Deadly Soviet Legacy
Concerns About 'Dirty Bomb' Drive Efforts to Find Radioactive Cesium
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 11, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36157-2002Nov10?language=printer
TBILISI, Georgia -- In the 1970s, scientists in the former Soviet Union developed scores of powerful radioactive devices and dispatched them to the countryside for a project known cryptically as Gamma Kolos, or "Gamma Ears." Its purpose: to deliberately expose plants to radiation and measure the effects.
Some of the tests were aimed at simulating farming conditions after a nuclear war. In rugged eastern Georgia, researchers bombarded wheat seed with radiation to see if the plants would grow better. All the experiments used a common source of radiation, a lead-shielded canister containing enough radioactive cesium 137, U.S. officials now say, to contaminate a small city.
The experiments stopped long ago, but last year's terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon have kindled an intense interest in Gamma Kolos that revolves around a single question: Where's the cesium now?
Spurred by fears of a "dirty bomb" attack that could spread radioactive poisons across major cities, U.S. and international nuclear experts have begun quietly searching former Soviet republics to recover the remains of the Gamma Kolos project before someone else does.
Unknown in the West until recently, the Soviet project is viewed as especially dangerous because its cesium devices could be easily exploited for terrorism: small, portable and possessing a potent core of cesium chloride in the form of pellets or, more frequently, a fine powder. Cesium 137, a silvery metal isotope used commonly in medical radiotherapy, emits powerful gamma radiation and has a half-life of three decades.
"It's like talc -- extremely dispersible," said Abel Gonzales, director of radiation and waste safety for the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations-chartered nuclear watchdog. "You don't even need a bomb. Just open a can and people will die."
With heightened urgency and new backing from the U.S. Energy Department, the IAEA led a 10-month sweep of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, now a troubled but independent state. The search turned up five of the Gamma Kolos devices, all of which are now in safe storage. Four more devices have been found in Moldova, while in Russia U.S. officials are helping to construct security systems for agricultural research centers where large quantities of powdered cesium are stored.
But elsewhere across the old Soviet empire, the search is hampered by a lack of funding and a dearth of information. None of the cesium devices is known to have been stolen, but in some Central Asian states there are no records showing how many of the devices exist or what has happened to them. Estimates of the total number of devices are vague -- "anywhere from 100 to 1,000," not counting stocks of cesium in loose storage in Russia, a senior IAEA official said.
Russia is beginning to cooperate in the search, although it cannot yet account for all the cesium, Bush administration officials said.
"I can tell you the Russians themselves are very worried about the cesium that's still out there in some of the [former Soviet] republics," a top official of the U.S. Nuclear Security Administration said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
At least some of the republics share that concern. In Georgia, officials are combing the countryside with radiation detectors following a string of accidents in which civilians stumbled upon abandoned radioactive devices and suffered severe radiation burns. In at least one instance, the radioactive device had drawn the interest of local businessmen who were hoping to sell it on the black market, according to U.S. and Georgian government officials.
"We're not a nuclear country, yet we have these problems with nuclear material," said Zurab Tavartkiladze, Georgia's deputy environmental minister. "How many more are out there? We don't know, because we don't know how many existed to start with." 'Dirty Bomb' Concerns
While the United States has spent billions of dollars in the past decade helping secure or destroy Soviet-era nuclear and chemical weapons, only since September 2001 has the U.S. effort expanded to include nonfissile radioactive material such as cesium 137. The interest first arose from intelligence reports last fall that al Qaeda terrorists were exploring the use of radiological weapons known as dirty bombs. It grew with the discovery by U.S. troops of detailed bomb-building instructions in Afghan caves used by al Qaeda forces. In June, the threat became personal for many Washingtonians when the Justice Department announced it had foiled an alleged al Qaeda plot to explode such a device in a U.S. city, possibly the capital.
The concerns prompted Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in September to call for a global housecleaning to find and secure material that could be used in dirty bombs -- a threat that was made "horrifyingly clear" by the events of the previous 12 months, he said.
"After September 11 [2001], there could be no doubt, if there ever was one, that terrorists would use nuclear materials to harm innocent citizens of the civilized nations of the world -- if they could acquire them," Abraham said.
Although far less lethal than traditional nuclear weapons, dirty bombs could be attractive to terrorists because they can inflict widespread disruption for relatively little cost. With conventional explosives and a few ounces of cesium 137 or strontium 90, a dirty bomb could contaminate large swaths of real estate with dangerous radiation, unleashing panic and rendering some areas uninhabitable for decades.
In a computer simulation of a dirty bomb attack on New York, the detonation of 3,500 curies of cesium chloride in Lower Manhattan -- about 50 grams or 1.75 ounces -- would spread radioactive fallout over 60 city blocks. Immediate casualties would be limited to victims of the immediate blast, but the aftereffects, including relocation and cleanup, would cost tens of billions of dollars, said Michael A. Levi, a physicist and director of the Federation of American Scientists' Strategic Security Project, which conducted the study.
"The financial costs, from the loss of property to business losses, could be huge," Levi said. "People may refuse to return, and others may be unwilling to travel to the area. The threshold for scaring people away from some activities is very low."
Radioactive material for such a bomb can be found in almost every country, including the United States. But terrorists looking for bargains could hardly do better than in the former Soviet Union. The Soviets are known to have produced tens of thousands of radioactive devices for uses ranging from medical diagnostics to military communications, and many were simply abandoned after the Soviet breakup in 1991. Some regions are so littered with such devices that published tourist guides caution travelers to watch out for them.
Nowhere has the problem attracted greater attention than in Georgia, a struggling democracy and staunch U.S. ally in which there have been not only mishaps involving radioactive devices, but documented attempts to steal or smuggle nuclear material. Porous borders with the separatist provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have become thoroughfares for smuggled contraband from cigarettes to weapons, according to Georgian and U.S. government officials. Four years ago, a sting operation in the port city of Batumi netted three kilograms of enriched uranium -- one of the largest seizures ever made of material that could be used in a nuclear bomb.
"Not only is Georgia's government incapable of stopping this kind of smuggling, but some local officials would no doubt take part in it," said Mikheil Saakashvili, a parliament member and leader of Georgia's opposition National Movement party. "There are no resources for monitoring, and the pay for the border guards is $30 to $50 a month."
To head off future thefts, Georgia last year launched an aggressive campaign to find abandoned radioactive devices and store them in a secure, central location. Last month, dozens of Georgian workers armed with hand-held radiation detectors swept an abandoned Soviet missile base near the capital city of Tbilisi, part of a grid-by-grid search that has now covered 15 percent of the country, including all major population centers.
The search turned up small amounts of cesium 137 and strontium 90: in tools, calibration devices, night-vision equipment. "Most of it was junk," said Lia Chelidze, the Georgian government's liaison to the IAEA. But in all, she said, Georgians recovered more than 200 pieces of radioactive equipment during their search, 11 of them with massive radioactive potency.
Of those 11, six were strontium-powered generators once used in military communications equipment. The five other items had been designated for use on farms as part of a project only a few Georgians knew by name: Gamma Kolos. A Lone Sentry
The devices themselves resemble antique milk cans, and for years they were left to rust in sheds owned by Georgia's agriculture department. Today, a small radiation symbol, visible on some of the devices, offers the only hint of their highly lethal contents.
"That's 2,100 curies, just there," said Lerry Meskhi, head of Georgia's nuclear and radiation safety service, pointing to one of the Gamma Kolos devices soon to be entombed in a freshly dug pit beneath a government storage building. "In this small space, there's more than 10,000 curies," or units of radiation, he said.
The measurements were alarming. By comparison, the second-worst civilian nuclear accident -- after the 1986 Chernobyl accident -- involved a medical radiotherapy machine containing roughly half as many curies of cesium 137. Poor villagers in the Brazilian town of Goiania found the machine in an abandoned clinic in 1987 and broke it apart to salvage the metal. Within days nearly 30 people suffered serious radiation injuries and four of them later died. Hundreds of others were treated for exposure and dozens of houses were demolished in the cleanup.
"Even one curie can cause a lot of harm, but it's not something that would attract a terrorist," said the IAEA's Gonzales. "With 2,000 or 3,000 curies you can do a lot of damage."
There is no evidence of immediate danger in the rambling government compound where Georgia's Gamma Kolos equipment is stored. Hidden from public view, the building is in a decaying suburb of the capital, flanked by massive factories that have been idle since shortly after the Soviet collapse more than a decade ago. The few cars that pass must navigate their way around truck-sized potholes and livestock that freely roam the street.
A lone sentry, in civilian clothes and apparently unarmed, guards the roll-away gate to the compound. Georgian officials acknowledge that the real security is in the form of tons of concrete that will seal the devices from intruders, compliments of the U.S. Department of Energy.
Few, if any, officials of the current government were in office when Gamma Kolos was active. Although records are sparse, Georgian environmental officials said the devices were probably built in the 1970s and have lost more than half of their original 4,500-curie strength due to normal atomic decay. The canisters were mounted on tractors and towed directly into fields for planting, they said. Wheat seeds were fed into the machine for a jolt of gamma radiation before being dropped into furrows. "It was supposed to speed up germination and increase yields," one official said. Whether it worked is unclear; in the West, scientists have used radiation to force mutations in crop strains.
The Soviet practice remains a puzzle to some experts in the West. But at the time, it was deemed successful enough that Soviet scientists sent the devices to other republics, from Moldova to Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. Precise figures are unknown, but IAEA officials say they believe the number of devices in other states is much higher than in Georgia, one of the smallest of the former Soviet republics. "Georgia is a mosquito compared to these other places," a senior IAEA official said.
In other regions, the devices were buried in fields to test how crops would perform in a radioactive environment, according to U.S. officials familiar with the experiments. More of the devices and large quantities of surplus cesium were kept at Soviet agricultural institutions and in a network of regional radioactive dumps, the officials said.
Energy Department officials said the U.S. government became aware of the problem in the late 1990s but decided to focus on what was regarded at the time as more serious threats: securing weapons-grade uranium and plutonium as well as the vast stocks of Soviet chemical weapons.
"Two years ago, these radiological sources were not even on the horizon," one Energy Department official said. "But if September 11 taught us anything, it's that whatever seemed unimaginable before is very much imaginable now."
With $25 million in new spending approved by Congress and earmarked for the project, U.S. officials are hoping to make rapid progress in locating missing cesium devices and locking them away in vaults such as the one recently built in a Tbilisi suburb. After initial hesitation, Russia this spring formally embraced the effort and pledged full cooperation in helping U.S. and IAEA officials locate missing radioactive devices, including those in other countries.
"The Russians now 'get it,' " a senior Energy Department official said, "and their cooperation is important because they are aware of things that went on in those regions that we don't know about."
So far, the Russian cooperation has yet to produce a single document or solid lead. But the recent commitments by the Russian government reflect a growing awareness that dirty bombs are Russia's problem, too, Abel Gonzales of the IAEA said.
"The attitudes are starting to change, so for the first time we see that we're all in the same boat," Gonzales said. "After that, it's just a matter of going after them, one by one."
-------- asia
Vietnam, South Korea to cooperate on nuclear power plant
Mon Nov 11,
AP World Politics
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20021111/ap_wo_en_po/vietnam_south_korea_1
HANOI, Vietnam - Vietnam and South Korea (news - web sites) agreed Monday to cooperate on a nuclear power project for Vietnam, an official said.
The memorandum of understanding was signed in Hanoi by Vietnamese Vice Minister of Industry Nguyen Xuan Chuan and South Korean Vice Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy Kim Dong-won, said an Industry Ministry official.
Under the agreement, South Korea will help Vietnam with its long-term nuclear energy strategy, that includes eventually producing some of the power-plant parts locally. No other details of the deal were released.
Vietnam has said that it needs nuclear power plants by 2017 to meet increasing electricity demands, average growth of some 15 percent per year.
More than 50 percent of Vietnam's electricity is generated by hydropower plants, the remainder by gas-fueled or coal-fired plants.
-------- depleted uranium
Excerpt from interview with YASSER ARAFAT TO MELHEM KARAM"
November 11, 2002
http://www.mmorning.com/article.asp?Article=4673&CategoryID=3)
"...See how many resolutions have been adopted by the UN Security Council but have never been applied by the Jewish state, including the one calling for an inquiry into the massacre perpetrated in the Jenin camp. In the same way, American documents reveal the use by Israel of arms prohibited under international law, such as depleted uranium and other weapons. We have often mentioned this...."
(See "--- israel / palestine" below.)
--------
Bosnian Radiation Blamed on NATO
November 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Bosnia-Depleted-Uranium.html
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- U.N. experts said Monday they found three radioactive hotspots in Bosnia resulting from ammunition containing depleted uranium used during NATO airstrikes in 1995.
The tests found radiation at two sites in the Sarajevo suburb of Hadzici and one in Han Pijesak, in the Bosnian Serb republic, according to preliminary results released by the United Nations Environmental Program.
During its 1995 bombings of Serb positions around Sarajevo, NATO used munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal that is used to pierce armor. The Bosnian government said some 10,800 rounds with the material were fired in its territory.
Once lodged in the soil, the munitions can pollute the environment and create an up to 100-fold increase in uranium levels in groundwater, according to the U.N. Environmental Program.
``We are concerned about the situation at the Hadzici tank repair facility and the Han Pijesak barracks,'' said Pekka Haavisto, the chairman of the U.N. agency's task force.
In Sarajevo, the U.N. team detected depleted uranium-related materials and dust inside buildings that are now used by private businesses. At the site in the Bosnian Serb republic, the contaminated area is used as a storage facility by army troops.
The areas where radiation is detected should not be used until the sites are decontaminated, Haavisto said.
The international experts were invited by the Bosnian government to investigate concerns that depleted uranium could harm residents and international peacekeepers.
The U.N. team advised the Bosnian government to start decontaminating the three sites and educating people about potential hazards.
Apart from this team, a medical sub-team composed of experts from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Army, visited several hospitals in Bosnia, collecting medical data and statistics. A full report was to be published by UNEP in March 2003.
----
Radioactivity Detected in Bosnia Where NATO Used Depleted Uranium Shells
VOA News
11 Nov 2002,
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=2E04BFCA-5B02-4AB4-AB6D812B566B5214
United Nations environmental experts have said they have detected radioactivity in three areas of Bosnia where NATO forces used depleted uranium shells during an air strike in 1995.
U.N. Environment Program officials Monday warned against deploying forces in those areas for fear of a possible health risk coming from the radioactive material.
The head of the U.N. team, Pekka Haavisto, said the three places of concern were an ammunition storage site near Sarajevo, a nearby tank repair factory and a military barracks in Han Pijesak in eastern Bosnia.
The areas were hit by NATO air strikes using depleted uranium armor-piercing rounds in 1995 as part of an effort to curb attacks by Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Investigators had probed 14 sites over the past month.
NATO authorities last year launched a probe into the possible link between the use of depleted uranium ammunition in the Balkans and increased cancer rates among peacekeepers who had served in the area. But a committee reported that medical research so far had not proved any link between the weapons and the health problems.
Some information for this report provided by AP and AFP.
----
UNEP Identifies DU Risks in Bosnia-Herzegovina
From United Nations Environment Programme
Monday, November 11, 2002
http://www.enn.com/direct/display-release.asp?id=7785
SARAJEVO - A team of experts fielded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has investigated 15 sites in Bosnia and Herzegovina targeted with weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) during the mid-1990s.
The UNEP team used highly sensitive instruments to measure surface radioactivity at 14 sites. These measurements revealed the presence of radioactive "hot spots" and pieces of DU weapons at three sites - the Hadzici tank repair facility, the Hadzici ammunition storage area and the Han Pijesak barracks.
"Following a request by the Council of Ministers of Bosnia-Herzegovina, UNEP is carrying out this scientific assessment", said Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of UNEP. "Seven years after the conflict, DU still remains an environmental concern and, therefore, it is vital that we have the scientific facts, based upon which we can give clear recommendations how to minimize any risk."
"We are concerned about the situation at the Hadzici tank repair facility and the Han Pijesak barracks", said Pekka Haavisto, Chairman of UNEP DU projects. "The UNEP team detected DU-related materials and DU dust inside buildings that are currently used by local businesses or, in the case of Han Pijesak, by troops as storage facilities."
"Before using any DU-targeted building there should always be proper clean-up. When people are working in buildings that have not been decontaminated, unnecessary risks are being taken, and, therefore, we will discuss with the Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities the need for decontamination inside the buildings currently in use as a first precautionary step. Such a job should be carried out by experts", said Mr. Haavisto.
The UNEP team found that the general public is not aware of what DU ammunition looks like and the dangers it can pose. UNEP will discuss with the national civil protection authorities the possibility of offering de-mining personnel, other local authorities involved in DU work, and interested members of the public with an easy-to-read flyer on the issue of DU ammunition in the environment.
The two recommended precautionary measures of decontaminating the targeted buildings and educating the public are consistent with those proposed in UNEP's earlier DU studies in Serbia & Montenegro and Kosovo.
In addition to the 14 sites that were examined the team could not to enter one site due to safety concerns over nearby mines.
The 17-member UNEP team included experts from UNEP, the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority (SSI), Spiez Laboratory (Switzerland), Italy's Environmental Protection Agency and Technical Services (APAT, former ANPA), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Greek Atomic Energy Commission, the US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (USACHPPM), the Nuclear Safety Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the University of Bristol (UK).
The Bosnia and Herzegovina Ministry for European Integration hosted the UNEP team. Local scientists also joined the team on different occasions. The team received local support from the United Nations Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH), the Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Center (MAC) and NATO/SFOR.
The team took almost 200 environmental samples, including 47 surface soil samples, three full soil profiles, three penetrators, one full DU bullet, four smear samples, 24 air samples, 42 water samples, 19 lichen samples, and three bark, two moss, one mushroom and two vegetable samples.
The samples collected will be analysed for radioactivity and toxicity at three internationally recognized laboratories - Spiez Laboratory (Switzerland), APAT (Italy) and Bristol University (UK).
A medical sub-team composed of the experts from WHO and the US Army Center (USACHPPM) visited three hospitals and examined medical data and statistics in the Bosnia and Herzegovina Federation and in the Republika Srpska. The sub-team stayed in close contact with both Ministries of Health (Srpska and Federation) and received their full support.
In parallel to the medical sub-team, the IAEA expert assessed the overall situation on radioactive sources in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This included regulations on handling, radioactive sources in use and storage of radioactive wastes.
The UNEP DU assessment is funded by the Governments of Italy and Switzerland. The final results will be published in a UNEP report in March 2003.
For more information, please contact: Mr. Pekka Haavisto, Chairman of UNEP DU Projects, +41-79-477-0877, pekka.haavisto@unep.ch, Eric Falt, UNEP Spokesperson in Nairobi, +254-20-623292, or Michael Williams, UNEP Information Officer in Geneva, at +41-22-917-8242, +41-79-409-1528 (cell), michael.williams@unep.ch. See also http://postconflict.unep.ch
For more information, contact: Jim Sniffen Information Officer United Nations Environment Programme 1-212-963-8210 sniffenj@un.org Web site: http://www.unep.org
----
[This popped up on a Google search. Have no idea who "Jihad Unspun" are, but they make an interesting allegation. Perhaps someone can either support or debunk this? mailto:prop1@prop1.org - be sure to include the URL for this NucNews (http://prop1.org/nucnews/2002/021111nn.htm.)
US Used More DU Weapons In Afghanistan Than Gulf
Nov 11, 2002
Jihad Unspun - A Clear View On The US War On "Terrorism"
Source: NNI
http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=33210&list=/home.php&
"U.S. forces must refrain from using depleted uranium weapons like the ones they used in Afghanistan in their possible attack on Iraq," said the discoverer of Gulf War syndrome, Dr. Asef Dracovic, in an interview with Al-Jazeera television. He warned against the syndrome and said that if U.S. forces use depleted uranium (DU) in the threatened attack on Iraq, as they did in Afghanistan, it would have very serious implications.
Dracovic said that U.S. forces used more DU weapons in Afghanistan than they used in the Persian Gulf War and the Balkans wars, adding that if the same amounts were used in Iraq, it would have terrible consequences. He stated that thousands of DU bombs were used by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. About 80,000 U.S., 15,000 Canadian, and a large number of British soldiers are suffering from Gulf War syndrome, but unfortunately the media has covered up the whole issue under pressure from the U.S. administration.
Meanwhile, in recent days there have been numerous reports about the birth of many disabled and deformed children in Afghanistan. A large number of health specialists in Afghanistan as well as international observers, including one of the officials of a local hospital, regard the increased number of birth defects in Afghanistan to be the direct result of the U.S dropping DU bombs on Afghanistan.
The use of DU weapons has not only harmed children but also has contaminated plant and animal life in the war-ravaged and impoverished country. If U.S. forces use DU weapons in their threatened war against Iraq, two important Muslim countries of the region will suffer for years.
-------- germany
RWE to operate first on-site nuclear waste storage
REUTERS GERMANY:
November 11, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18514/story.htm
FRANKFURT - German utility RWE said last week it had obtained approval to operate an on-site interim storage for nuclear waste at its Emsland reactor in northern Germany.
The approval is the first for one of 12 such sites which will hold German nuclear waste for up to 40 years prior to it going into a final repository.
Under a nuclear consensus deal between the German government and power industry in 2000, utilities said they would build the sites to avoid the unpopular atomic waste transports.
"KKW Lippe-Ems, majority-owned by RWE, today received the approval for an interim site at the Emsland nuclear reactor in Lingen...from the federal authority for the protection against radiation (BfS)...," RWE said in a statement.
"The storage of (CASTOR) nuclear storage containers will start in due course."
"The facility will help to secure the disposal of waste from Emsland until the government has met its obligation to provide a permanent repository."
"Construction of other interim sites will be probably be completed by 2005."
Construction of the 25 million euros ($25.28 million) site which can hold 130 CASTOR containers took 18 months.
A permanent storage site has yet to be chosen for use after Germany shuts all its nuclear plants, which under the consensus deal is due by the early 2020s.
The utilities have to build the interim sites at costs of around 25 to 50 million euros each, although central storage sites at Gorleben and Ahaus could hold all of the nuclear waste until final decommissioning of Germany's 19 nuclear plants.
But the costs to police transports to the two central sites exploded in the past because of large demonstrations by anti-nuclear protestors, who cite safety risks.
Some groups say they aim to disrupt transports in order to force operators to pull out of nuclear power production sooner.
Utilities may have nuclear waste reprocessed abroad, but this covers only 10 percent of present waste volumes and may only take place until 2005.
-------- inspections
We're not spies, says inspection chief
Blix tries to allay Iraqi fears of espionage
Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Monday November 11, 2002
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,837656,00.html
Hans Blix, the UN's chief weapons inspector, has assured Iraq that the team he is sending into the country next week will be as free of spies as he can make it.
The previous inspections team, Unscom (UN special commission), which served in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, was regularly accused by Iraq of containing US spies. There were suspicions about British, French and Russian agents being involved too, and, indirectly, the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad.
Although the accusations were denied at the time, the involvement of at least the CIA was later confirmed by the UN, by the US administration and by former weapons inspectors.
A spokesman for the new weapons team, Unmovic (UN monitoring, verification and inspections commission), said yesterday that Mr Blix has taken significant steps to try to avoid any repetition of the spying by changing the make-up of the team as well as its finances.
The Iraqi foreign minister, Naji Sabri, sought a guarantee from Mr Blix earlier this year that there would be no more spies. According to the Unmovic spokesman, Mr Blix told Mr Sabri that "we can never guarantee that we have not been infiltrated".
Mr Blix said that if he had given a guarantee, the Iraqis would not have believed him anyway. Instead, he pledged that he had taken steps to filter out spies and anyone involved in such activities would face immediate dismissal.
In an attempt to counter accusations of infiltration by intelligence organisations, only 25% of Mr Blix's 270-strong Unmovic team has been drawn from its heavily criticised predecessor, Unscom.
Mr Blix has expanded the number of countries from which his team has been drawn to 44, which amounts to a threefold increase in the pool of countries that made up Unscom, which had been heavily dependent on the US.
Mr Blix's team has only 27 members from the US, 10% of the total, and 13 from Britain. The Russians are sending 22 and France 25.
One of the flaws in Unscom was that staff were mainly provided by governments who not only seconded their own people but paid them. They were open to the charge that their first loyalty was to their countries rather than the UN.
Mr Blix's spokesman said that to avoid accusations of such bias this time round, only about half the staff have been provided by governments and the rest have been recruited directly through adverts. The inspectors tend to be specialists in their own scientific fields who are then given training on how to hunt for weapons.
A crucial difference from Unscom is that all the Unmovic staff will be paid for directly by the UN. The cash will come from Iraq: an Iraqi fund is held at the UN under an oil-for-food programme established to alleviate the impact of sanctions. Unmovic takes 0.8% of this fund to pay its staff and other costs.
Unscom had a stormy relationship with Iraq and was headed by a fiery individual, the Australian diplomat Richard Butler, and a former US marine, Scott Ritter. In an account of his time in Iraq, Endgame, Mr Ritter recounted how a CIA agent provided logistical and other help.
The US involvement included smuggling into Baghdad a large listening device known as "Stephanie", which was stored in Mr Ritter's office. He said that the most sensitive information went back to the US rather than Unscom. Mr Ritter was also quoted in an Israeli paper at the time praising the contribution of Israeli intelligence in passing on information to help the inspectors.
Despite Mr Blix saying that he will try to keep spies out of his team, he is prepared to make use of material provided by US and British intelligence. Tony Blair put out a dossier in September of suspect Iraqi sites linked to the production of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. US and British intelligence services were believed at the time to have held back the most sensitive information, though this has been, or will be, passed to the inspectors.
Saddam Hussein has repeatedly said he has no weapons of mass destruction. It could prove awkward for him in a month or less, when he has to make a disclosure of precisely what illegal weaponry, if any, Iraq has been developing.
----
Iraq Inspections Receive Support From Arab League
November 11, 2002
New York Times
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/11/international/middleeast/11ARAB.html
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 10 - Arab governments voiced collective support today for new weapons inspections inside Iraq, although they want Arab experts added to the inspection teams and warned that the latest United Nations resolution should not be considered a free pass for Washington to invade.
The support, expressed in a resolution at a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo, suggests that most governments in the region remain perfectly happy to see Saddam Hussein defanged, political experts said, yet fear the repercussions of another war in the region.
The action by the Arab League stressed that the Security Council vote "is not a pretext for another military action against Iraq," Naji Sabri, the Iraqi foreign minister, said at a news conference after the Arab League meeting.
At the same time, Iraq appeared to be bowing toward the inevitable, with Iraqi television announcing that Mr. Hussein was planning to convene a special session of Parliament on Monday to discuss the issue of renewed inspections - the usual choreography for a simulated public stamp of approval for a decision the leadership finds distasteful.
The extent to which Arab governments are concerned about the effects of any action against Iraq on regional stability was expressed today by Syria's foreign minister, Farouk al-Sharaa, on the sidelines of the meeting. He said Syria's decision to join in a unanimous 15-0 Security Council vote to pass the resolution demanding renewed weapons inspections was intended to spare the Iraqis from being attacked by the United States.
"This resolution stopped an immediate strike against Iraq, but only an immediate strike," he said. "Now America cannot strike Iraq under U.N. auspices, although of course the United States can strike Iraq unilaterally outside international law. If this happens, the world will not be with the Americans. It will have to deal with all those demonstrators from Los Angeles to the Far East and the Arab countries."
"This resolution was for the immediate effect," he said. "It avoided an inevitable strike against Iraq."
Iraq's government-controlled newspapers had initially called the Security Council resolution "bad and unfair." But by today, Iraqi officials and news media were hailing it as an international effort to thwart the American desire for war.
Although Iraq has until Friday to declare that it intends to comply fully with the terms of the resolution, Mr. Sabri noted that Iraq had agreed before to renewed inspections and thought there was no need to alter the United Nations guidelines about the way they worked.
"The problem is that we need experts who work in a professional, objective way," Mr. Sabri said, adding that, as the Arab League communiqué said, the new inspection teams should not "try to provoke or incite clashes as they have previously."
He said that such unbiased arms inspections would expose the "great lie" promulgated by the United States. "It is the lie about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," he said.
The Arab League resolution also restated the longstanding Arab position that Iraq must work with the United Nations inspectors, and it emphasized that only the Security Council should evaluate reports from the inspectors. Such cooperation should lead to the lifting of penalties that have been in place against Iraq since it invaded Kuwait in 1990, the league said, adding that ordinary Iraqis had suffered because of the sanctions.
In addition, the league proposed that the United Nations pay equal attention to Israel's weapons of mass destruction and stressed that Arab League members were committed both to maintaining Iraq as a united country and to maintaining the stability of all Arab countries. "They reiterate the absolute Arab rejection to striking Iraq and consider it a threat to the national security of all Arab countries," the league resolution said.
Although an Arab summit meeting in Beirut last March issued a statement that an attack on Iraq would be considered an attack on all Arab countries, commentators have dismissed that as an empty threat. But concern remained that any such conflict would rearrange the existing state of relations among countries in the region and between those countries and the United States.
The official Iraqi news agency reported today that Mr. Sabri had sought assurances from Arab governments that they would take specific steps in the event of an attack. The steps included not only barring American forces from using bases in their countries to attack Iraq, but also committing themselves to further measures like stopping oil shipments to countries that participate in any attack, breaking diplomatic relations and withdrawing financial assets.
Finally, Mr. Sabri proposed that governments should allow their citizens to volunteer to defend Iraq, the report said. None of those specific proposals were reflected in the communiqué issued by the league. "They have been meeting over and over, and they are trying to justify themselves, to save face in front of their constituency, in front of the Arab people," said Nizar Hamzeh, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, referring to the Arab League countries. "They are afraid about what comes after this war against Iraq: which is the next country, what is the next target?"
Worst-case scenarios in the region have raised fears that the United States could redraw the map of the region, much the way the secret Sykes-Picot pact by Britain and France did early in the last century, although calmer heads reject such an outcome.
"All the Arab states that I know would prefer Iraq without weapons of mass destruction," said Abdelmonem Said, the director of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, speaking by telephone from Cairo. "It's journalists and the intelligentsia who want Iraq to have weapons of mass destruction because Israel has them."
Governments in the region are also concerned how others will suddenly act - Iran in particular - if a traditional enemy is suddenly rendered toothless by an American invasion.
"You start to shuffle the cards and everybody gets worried," said Mr. Said. "That is what they are worried about, the strategic implications of a war against Iraq."
Commentators in the region have said that when Syria voted with the Security Council, it was less out of a desire to shield Iraq than out of fear of the consequences of ignoring the United States - whether affecting future Mideast peace talks or, worse, making Syria a tempting target for the kind of treatment Iraq has been accorded.
"The price of even abstaining would be high, at the very least it would be complete isolation," wrote Zohair Qussaibati, a columnist for Al Hayat, an Arabic-language daily published in London. He argued that all Arab states would eventually line up similarly. Although Arab states would like to present the resolution as a victory, he wrote, it really reflected the United States' ability to do what it wants.
"Everyone came out of this meeting pretending that they are wise, happy and victorious, including Baghdad, which considered that the international community triumphed over the evil American administration," Mr. Qussaibati wrote. "This is a catastrophe in reading what happened," he added, noting that something as simple as Iraq firing at a plane in its airspace might end up being considered sufficient cause for a war.
--------
INSPECTIONS
U.N. Set to Move in Quickly to Seek Iraq Nuclear Arms
November 11, 2002
New York Times
By JULIA PRESTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/11/international/middleeast/11INSP.html
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 10 - United Nations atomic experts have finished detailed plans for a "full court press" of fast-moving inspections that will quickly uncover any major nuclear weapons program Iraq has undertaken in the last four years, according to Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the nuclear team.
While Mr. ElBaradei said he was confident he would find "all large components" of nuclear weapons work in Iraq, he cautioned that his inspectors could face difficulties detecting smuggled nuclear materials and will need help from other governments. He said it could take several months to assess evidence the Bush administration has provided to support its claims that Iraq is trying to build a nuclear weapon.
"We are going to use every weapon in our diplomatic inspection arsenal to make sure that if there was any breach, we can detect it and detect it early," said Mr. ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in an interview Friday, when the Security Council unanimously approved a resolution giving the inspectors enhanced authority.
"We are going to be tough," he said. "We will not tolerate any cat-and-mouse."
Mr. ElBaradei will travel to Baghdad on Nov. 18 with Hans Blix, the head of the United Nations chemical, biological and long-range missile inspections team. The inspectors have been barred by Iraq since they withdrew in December 1998, on the eve of American and British bombing raids to punish Baghdad's failures to cooperate with the inspectors.
Bush administration officials have said they will be watching the inspectors' every move, ready to go to the Security Council to call for war against Saddam Hussein at the first sign that he is cheating or obstructing the inspectors' work. But while the United States and Britain, the co-authors of the resolution, see the inspections as a trigger for war, other Security Council members are hoping they will force Iraq to disarm and lead to peace.
Up to now, Mr. ElBaradei, who is based in Vienna, has stayed in the background as Mr. Blix talked to the Security Council and reporters, even though the two chiefs have equal authority. But as the inspections get under way, Mr. ElBaradei becomes a key figure for the Bush administration.
In a report in February 1999, the atomic agency said its inspections to that point "revealed no indication" that Iraq had a nuclear weapon or retained "any practical capability" to make fuel. Iraq is only allowed to have very limited amounts of radioactive isotopes for medical treatment and agricultural uses.
President Bush has charged that Mr. Hussein reactivated his nuclear program, employing many scientists and technicians and withholding key information about procurement and foreign assistance. Mr. Bush warned that if Iraq acquired fissile material, it could build a weapon within a year.
Mr. ElBaradei said he would arrive in Iraq with about 10 atomic experts, and a week later start building the team to about 25 inspectors. They will move quickly to revisit sites they examined previously, he said, to see whether old surveillance systems remain in place and to set up environmental sampling to test for radioactivity.
He said that he would need up to three months to set up a broader plan of work based on programs that Iraq declares and suspicions the inspectors may have about hidden activity.
He said that he and Mr. Blix expect to have latitude to make judgments about Iraq's cooperation, suggesting their standards might be more flexible than the administration's.
The inspectors will not be alarmed by "a minor omission" in Iraq's weapons declaration, Mr. ElBaradei said. "We will be guided by the definition of material breach, which is really a major violation of the very purpose of the process."
Mr. ElBaradei said it is virtually impossible for Iraq to conceal an advanced nuclear weapons program, as it requires large industrial facilities and emits radioactivity. But it will be hard for inspectors to discover if Iraq has smuggled in small amounts of uranium or plutonium.
"The difficult part would be if Iraq were to import nuclear material from abroad, across the border, that would be a real challenge to our system," Mr. ElBaradei said. He is appealing for intelligence data any country might have about black market nuclear trading with Iraq.
The atomic chief predicted that evaluating information provided by the Bush administration about Iraq's attempt to buy aluminum tubes, which the president cited as the most damning evidence of Iraq's nuclear ambitions, would be a complex job. While he is expecting more details from Washington, he said he did not yet know if the tubes went to Iraq, and he remained unsure if they were for nuclear development. "Our assessment is that they could have been used for conventional rockets in addition to being used for uranium enrichment," he said.
During the Security Council's heated negotiations over the resolution, Mr. ElBaradei, an Egyptian, reached out to the Arab world to defend the inspections, and conducted a long interview with Al Jazeera, the Arabic-language television station. "The Arab world must understand that there is a problem in Iraq, and it is not because Iraq is an Arab country," he said. "It is because Iraq has not fulfilled its obligations with regard to disarmament."
The new resolution, he stresses, has language - albeit deeply buried - that holds out the prospect to Baghdad of an end to economic sanctions within a year if Mr. ElBaradei and Mr. Blix give their approval. But Mr. ElBaradei expects his word to carry weight in the Middle East if he says that Mr. Hussein balked. "I think they will probably listen to me, because I will speak to them in their own language," he said.
-------- japan
A Missile Shield Appeals to a Worried Japan
November 11, 2002
New York Times
By JAMES BROOKE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/11/international/asia/11MISS.html
TOKYO, Nov. 10 - Alarm over North Korea's missile and nuclear weapon programs is pushing Japan toward joining the United States in trying to develop a missile defense program, officials and analysts here say.
"We should exert efforts to get the program to leave the research phase as soon as possible," Japan's Defense Agency chief, Shigeru Ishiba, told a Parliament committee last week, urging faster work with the United States on a program that uses missiles to intercept other missiles.
With parts of Japan only 350 miles away from North Korean territory, many Japanese have recently felt a surge in insecurity. First, North Korea admitted to a visiting American diplomat that it maintains a secret nuclear bomb program. Then, last Tuesday, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman reacted to a breakdown in talks with Japan by saying that North Korea was "reconsidering" the moratorium on missile tests that it adopted after it test-fired a rocket over Japan in 1998.
"The impact of the news from North Korea has been strong," Masashi Nishihara, president of the National Defense Academy, Japan's interservice military college, said on Friday. "North Korea has reversed its positions. That justifies us to move forward to develop missile defense, and to eventually deploy it."
In a poll conducted a week ago for the liberal daily Asahi Shimbun, 95 percent of 2,068 Japanese respondents surveyed said they were "concerned" about North Korea's nuclear program.
On Friday, Yomiuri Shimbun, a conservative daily, ran a headline that said, "U.S. to Press Japan to Build Missile Shield." But in a briefing for the news media, the reported instrument of pressure, Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, said there was no need for a heavy sales job.
"You don't have to pressure Japan for Japanese to realize that Japan is facing a serious threat of missile attack," he said, referring to North Korean capabilities. "There are missile arcs that one could draw that clearly cover Japan. That's what makes the missile threat very serious."
The Pentagon says North Korea has about 100 Rodong missiles with a range of about 1,000 miles that are capable of hitting all major Japanese cities. Chinese officials estimated last month that North Korea had at the most five nuclear weapons.
Asahi Shimbun said the United States was moving missile surveillance units to Japan. On Oct. 21, an RC-135S Cobra Ball reconnaissance aircraft equipped for tracking ballistic missiles arrived in Okinawa from the United States, it said. Ten days later, the Invincible, a ship equipped with advanced radar to monitor mid- range missiles, visited Okinawa for the first time, it added.
American officials declined to address the reports, saying they do not comment on military operations.
Japan is already conducting research on antimissile technology, which the United States hopes to deploy in 2008. But, wary of provoking China, the long-established nuclear power of Northeast Asia, Japan had planned to delay until 2004 any decision on taking part in field trials. Mr. Ishiba, who took over as Japan's defense minister last month, has pushed for a commitment, though Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has remained noncommittal.
Within Mr. Koizumi's coalition government, a pacifist party, New Komeito, played a central role two weeks ago in winning elections for governing party candidates. New Komeito is reportedly preventing Mr. Koizumi from sending warships to the Arabian Sea to support American military operations.
"Our premise is that North Korea will sincerely implement agreements in the Pyongyang declaration and we want the North to sincerely maintain the declaration," Mr. Koizumi said on Tuesday, referring to the statement that he and North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, signed on Sept. 17 in North Korea's capital. The declaration upholds the Korean peninsula as free of nuclear weapons.
Japan now demands that North Korea dismantle its nuclear bomb program before receiving Japanese aid. Japanese officials met recently with Pakistani officials, hoping to learn details of North Korea's technology. Last month The New York Times reported that Pakistan supplied North Korea with nuclear bomb-making equipment. Pakistan has denied the report.
"The final aim of North Korea is to obtain economic aid - the key thing is money," Shunji Taoka, a defense affairs writer for Asahi Shimbun, said on Friday. Referring to the billions of dollars in aid that Japan has offered North Korea, he added, "Japan's Foreign Ministry has a rare chance to be a major player."
But if forced into a corner, North Korea might resort to a familiar negotiating tactic: provoking a crisis. It might test a new rocket engine, test-fire a new generation rocket or expel International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, Scott Snyder, Korea representative for The Asia Foundation, a United States government-supported group, said. "They will try to use a crisis to escalate things, and they can do it," he said.
A cartoon published here last week showed Kim Jong Il as a panhandler, holding a sign that read, "Will not bomb for food."
Several high-level American officials have been visiting Japan. Last Thursday, it was Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. James A. Kelly, the assistant secretary of state for Pacific and East Asian affairs, met here on Saturday with his Foreign Ministry counterparts from Japan and South Korea. The Kyodo news agency reported today that Mr. Kelly predicted to Japanese officials that next year Congress would stop financing for oil shipments to North Korea.
"Will Japan go nuclear?" Hau Boon Lai, a columnist for The Straits Times of Singapore, asked, echoing regional concerns that Japan is considering building nuclear bombs.
But aversion to nuclear arms runs deep here. Mr. Nishihara of the defense academy said, "I have not seen any arguments that Japan should go nuclear."
-------- korea
U.S., allies consider halting oil shipment
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 11, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021111-91586569.htm
Officials from the United States and its allies meet this week to consider suspending U.S. oil shipments to North Korea, and President Bush's national security adviser said yesterday "it's not going to be business as usual" since the recent disclosure of North Korea's nuclear-weapons program.
Condoleezza Rice would not say if a shipment of oil that left Singapore on Wednesday for North Korea would be allowed to reach the Communist state.
"I'm not going to get ahead of the diplomacy. We're dealing with our friends and allies on this," Miss Rice said.
The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, composed of the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union, plans to meet in New York this week to try to reach a consensus on whether the shipments should continue.
The United States has been providing 500,000 metric tons of heavy oil to North Korea annually since 1994 as part of an accord with the United States. Under the original plan, the shipments were to continue until two light-water reactors, financed by South Korea and Japan, are completed in North Korea.
But the oil shipments and the reactor projects are in jeopardy as a result of North Korea's admission last month that it is undertaking a new nuclear-weapons project.
Miss Rice said the Bush administration was having "very serious discussions" with organization members and Asian nations on how best to deal with North Korea.
The key, she said on ABC's "This Week," is "to convince the North Koreans that they cannot re-enter - or, I should say, enter [because] they've never been in it - the international community of peace-loving states and all the benefits that are there until they give up this program, this nuclear-weapons program, and all pretensions to it."
Asked about the possibility of the oil shipment reaching North Korea, Miss Rice said diplomacy should be given a chance to work. But, she said, "The North Koreans should understand that it's not going to be business as usual while they are in violation of their international agreements."
North Korea's development of its weapons program puts at risk economic and other aid that could help the impoverished Communist country, Miss Rice said.
--------
U.S., Allies Grapple with N.Korea Nuclear Issue
November 11, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-korea-north.html
SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) - Japan and South Korea reiterated demands Monday for a verifiable halt to North Korea's nuclear weapons program, but failed to work out a shared approach with the United States on ways to end it.
The three states put off a decision on halting deliveries of oil to Pyongyang until an allied meeting in New York this week.
In the intensifying triangular diplomacy to preempt a second North Korean nuclear crisis in a decade, South Korea hosted Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and James Kelly, the top U.S. negotiator for North Korea.
Officials said Kawaguchi's talks with South Korean counterpart Choi Sung-hong and Kelly's separate meetings in Seoul had failed to work out a shared approach to ending North Korea's uranium enrichment program for nuclear arms.
At issue is how to halt the program and whether to penalize Pyongyang for violating the 1994 Agreed Framework pact under which North Korea pledged to end an earlier drive for nuclear arms by extracting plutonium.
Japan and South Korea said the issue ``should not be decided in a hasty way, but that a careful approach will be needed,'' a Japanese government official said of the ministers' talks. ``They decided to leave these issues to KEDO,'' he said, referring to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization.
U.S. officials have been taking a more hard-line tack.
In Russia, one of the few countries with any influence on North Korea, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Moscow had no evidence Pyongyang had acquired nuclear weapons.
``We have no concrete information that North Korea has produced any nuclear developments or nuclear weapons,'' Interfax news agency quoted him as telling reporters in Moscow. ``It is unimportant who provides information about North Korea having such nuclear developments, but we need clear proof.''
Russia has asked North Korea for information on its nuclear weapons program since Pyongyang's acknowledgment it was proceeding with it. Russia has been rebuilding Cold War-era ties with North Korea and developing warmer relations with the South.
UPHOLDING THE 1994 DEAL
KEDO is implementing the 1994 deal, under which North Korea agreed to freeze its program in exchange for 500,000 tons of fuel oil each year and construction of two light-water reactors that cannot easily be converted to produce weapons material.
The decision on whether to deliver the latest shipment of oil is expected at a meeting of KEDO's executive board of KEDO Thursday and Friday. The New York meeting will be attended by U.S., Japanese, South Korean and European Union officials.
The United States has not announced a decision on the oil shipments, but there are growing calls in Washington to freeze them -- even going as far as recalling the latest shipment of fuel oil that left Singapore for North Korea last week.
Tokyo and Seoul believe an end to deliveries would be used by Pyongyang to ignore the deal and proceed with the program.
Indirectly stating that concern, the Japanese official said Tokyo and Seoul ``agreed on the point that the KEDO arrangement has been effective so far'' in freezing North Korea's plutonium-based weapons program.
Kelly, who met Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun and other officials, made no public comment. Seoul media quoted Jeong as saying: ``North Korea's nuclear program can never be tolerated, but it is desirable to resolve problems peacefully, so the two Koreas should not stop dialogue.''
In Seoul last week, U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith stopped short of criticizing South Korea's engagement with North Korea, but said Pyongyang should not be allowed to conduct ``business as usual'' after breaking its nuclear pledges.
-------- missile defense
Flawless test flight for US cruise missile
November 10, 2002
UPI
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20021110-095757-5301r.htm
TUCSON, Ariz., Nov. 10 -- A prototype Navy cruise missile that has the capability of being directed to a different target while in flight was successfully launched underwater for the first time Sunday.
Raytheon Company announced that the test flight completed the demonstration test-flight phase (DT-1) of its program to develop the Tactical Tomahawk, a cruise missile that can strike one of as many as 15 preprogrammed targets, or even be directed to an entirely new location while in flight.
"The resounding success of DT-1 and the entire test flight program demonstrates that the Navy-Raytheon team will be delivering...a strike weapon with transformational capabilities," said Navy Capt. Bob Novak, a manager of the Tomahawk program.
Those capabilities will allow cruise missiles to lurk in the sky over a battlefield for several hours until a suitable target is identified and its location is fed into the rocket's guidance system.
The Tactical Tomahawk is also equipped with a television camera that can be used by ground commanders to gain a bird's eye view of the battlefield.
Current cruise missiles do not have the ability to be steered toward a new target once it is in the air, which limits its value in a battle when both enemy and friendly forces are constantly moving.
The Tactical Tomahawk is scheduled to be introduced in 2004 and will be deployed aboard both submarines and surface ships. The Navy plans to obtain more than 1,300 of the missiles over the life of the program at a cost of around $575,000 per copy, nearly half of the cost of the Navy's current Tomahawk.
Sunday's test fired the Tactical Tomahawk from an underwater launcher off San Clemente Island, 50 miles west of San Diego. The missile seamlessly skimmed across the ocean and continued on over land to the China Lake Test Range located in the desert around 200 miles to the northeast.
The successful flight moved the Tactical Tomahawk a major step closer to full production.
"We are excited to have completed this demanding flight which marks the end of the demonstration flight test phase," said Louise Francesconi, the president of Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson. "This major milestone allows the Navy to proceed into the technical evaluation period of the program."
(Reported by Hil Anderson in Los Angeles)
-------- pacific
Malaysia rejects Yemen-style US military action
Nov. 11, 2002
Agence France-Presse
http://www.inq7.net/brk/2002/nov/11/brkafp_6-1.htm
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia warned Monday that any covert military action by the United States against terrorist targets, such as the missile strike in Yemen last week, would be unacceptable here.
"We do not need any foreign interference or foreign troops in the country. We are capable of fighting terrorists," Defense Minister Najib Tun Razak told the official Bernama news agency.
Najib had been asked to comment on a report that US State Department coordinator for counterterrorism Francis Taylor had said the Yemen strike could be emulated in Southeast Asia.
Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi also dismissed the possibility Sunday, saying the United States could not conduct any sort of military operation in Malaysia without first informing the government and seeking its cooperation. "There is no place for covert operations here," he said.
Manila, which was visited by Taylor last week, has also rejected the idea that the United States could conduct strikes similar to that in Yemen, in which six suspected al-Qaeda operatives were killed by a Hellfire missile launched from a remote-controlled CIA Predator spy plane.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said any US missile attack in the Philippines without permission "would be an intrusion into our sovereignty".
Both Malaysia and the Philippines are strong supporters of the war on terrorism.
Meanwhile, both Najib and Abdullah have said they have no official information on media reports that two brothers of a key suspect in the October 12 Bali bomb blast, Amrozi, have fled to Malaysia.
Abdullah indicated that the Indonesian government had not contacted Malaysia about the issue. He said, however, that if it were true they had slipped into Malaysia, the government would arrest them and hand them over to the Indonesian authorities.
-------- russia
More radioactive waste shipped from Murmansk region
2002-11-11
http://www.bellona.no/en/20393.html
Ten shipments with spent nuclear fuel were carried out from Murmansk region to Mayak plant in Chelyabinsk region this year. 60 reactor cores were transported from Murmansk region during recent 8 years, Murmansk State Television Company reported. Russia possesses only two special trains for spent nuclear fuel shipment to Mayak. The Norwegian government funded the construction of one of them. Each train consists of three railway cars made of stainless steel, weighing 40 tons. The walls are 30 cm thick. The containers are secured against explosions, fire, falling from 10 meters height. The trains serve Murmansk region, and also the Russian Far East, Severodvinsk and other regions. The Murmansk Shipping Company carried out maintenance works at Lepse nuclear storage ship, which holds 639 fuel assemblies. Norway allocated 23.5 million Norwegian crowns for this project. Bellona foundation sponsored construction of the living modules to accommodate Lepse crew away from irradiation.
-------- us politics
Bush Marks Veteran's Day With Vow on Iraq
November 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Iraq.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Honoring those who served in the wars of yesteryear, President Bush said Monday he will lead America into a new battle if necessary to disarm Iraq. ``This great nation will not live at the mercy of any foreign plot or power,'' he said.
At Arlington National Cemetery, the hallowed burial ground of military heroes situated on a hillside overlooking the Potomac River, Bush said today's military serves ``on the scattered battlefields of a new kind of war,'' in Afghanistan and beyond.
``That mission will go on until the terrorists who struck America are fully and finally defeated,'' he said.
``This new kind of war also requires us to confront outlaw regimes that seek and possess the tools of mass murder,'' Bush said. ``We will not permit a dictator who's used weapons of mass destruction to threaten America with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons,'' the president said.
``The dictator of Iraq will fully disarm, or the United States of America will lead a coalition and disarm him,'' the president said, drawing a long applause.
Underscoring the threat, senior administration officials said that Bush has approved tentative Pentagon plans for invading Iraq should a new U.N. arms inspection effort fail. The strategy calls for a land, sea and air force of 200,000 to 250,000 troops, officials said.
Iraq's parliament condemned a tough new U.N. resolution as full of lies and ill intentions during a special session Monday, and a senior lawmaker there urged that it be rejected.
Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, dismissed that response, and rejected the legitimacy of the parliament's debate on the resolution.
``One has to be a bit skeptical of the independence of the Iraqi parliament from Saddam Hussein,'' she said. ``I don't think anyone believes this is anything but an absolute dictatorship and this decision is up to Saddam Hussein.''
Iraq has no right to accept or reject the resolution, she said. ``They are obligated to accept, but the U.N. thought it best to ask for return-receipt requested,'' Rice said. In the meantime, the Bush administration was awaiting official word from Iraq on its intentions. Iraq has until Friday to accept its terms and pledge to comply.
Bush, who began his day with rain-soaked pre-dawn visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, called on new generations of warriors to draw inspiration from those who served -- and in many cases, died -- before.
``Especially in this time of war, we see in our veterans an example of courage and selfless sacrifice and service that inspires a new generation and will lead this country to victory,'' he told an East Room assembly after his early-morning visit to the black-granite memorial.
America remembers today those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, he said, reaffirming his doctrine of making war with terror networks and, if necessary, ridding the Iraqi regime of its ``weapons of mass murder.''
``The time to confront this threat is before it arrives, not the day after,'' he said, calling this ``an urgent task for America and the world.''
`` .. The events of September the 11th clearly demonstrate that a threat that gathers on the other side of the earth can bring suffering to the American homeland,'' Bush said.
On his impromptu visit to the 20-year-old Vietnam memorial, Bush encountered a group of veterans. ``Thank you for serving. God Bless you all,'' he said.
A steady rain pelted his dark umbrella as the president walked up to the wall and scanned the tiny script that records the 58,229 names of those killed or missing in the war from 1959 to 1975. Air Force Col. Jeff Newell, a White House military aide, handed Bush an American flag, and the president placed it at the base of the wall.
Later, he presided over a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. It was still pouring, but Bush was sheltered by a marble dome.
Among those in the front row at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier were former Sen. Bob Dole and his wife, soon-to-be Sen. Elizabeth Dole. Bush, wearing a black coat, stood with hand over heart during the playing of ``Taps.''
Administration officials on Sunday promised ``zero tolerance'' if Saddam Hussein refuses to comply with a new U.N. Security Council resolution demanding that he eliminate weapons of mass destruction and open up to inspectors. They said they are watching closely to ensure that the Iraqi president cooperates.
A Pentagon plan for invading Iraq calls for a land, sea and air force of 200,000 to 250,000 troops. Pentagon planners had considered an approach that would have used 100,000 or fewer troops, but they settled on a much larger force favored by Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the Central Command that would run any war in Iraq, said officials speaking on condition of anonymity.
--------
Lott Says Senate Could Pass Security Bill Within Days
November 11, 2002
New York Times
By DAVID FIRESTONE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/11/politics/11CONG.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 - Trent Lott, the Senate Republican leader, said today that he hoped the Senate could approve a vast new Homeland Security Department this week, a move that would break a two-month deadlock and begin the long-awaited reorganization of the federal government to prevent terrorism.
"I think we are very close," Mr. Lott said this morning on the NBC program "Meet the Press." "We hope by Tuesday or Wednesday we would have a bill that could be passed by the Senate by a wide margin."
But Mr. Lott, who is not yet the majority leader, did not explain how such a momentous vote could take place so quickly, within the first three days of the lame-duck Congressional session that begins on Tuesday. At least for two weeks, the Republicans still lack a majority to push through the Bush administration's version of the department, which would eliminate many of the Civil Service protections that federal employees have in most other government agencies.
Mr. Lott said he believed his side now had the votes to approve the administration's plan. Before the election recess, Democrats had 51 votes in the Senate for their plan, while Republicans, with 49 votes, were filibustering to prevent it from being approved.
During that period, Senator Paul Wellstone, a staunch supporter of the Democratic plan, was killed in a plane crash, and his temporary replacement, Dean Barkley, has not said which version he plans to support. Mr. Lott said today that he "had the impression" that Mr. Barkley might join the Republicans. Unless he has received a private pledge of Mr. Barkley's vote, the Republicans would have to rely on a Democrat to switch sides, and none have yet publicly stated an intention to do so.
Most of the new Republican senators elected last week will take office next year. The Republicans will gain the Senate majority in about two weeks, when the votes that elected James M. Talent as the new senator from Missouri are certified. (Mr. Talent can take office early because he is filling the last four years of the term of Mel Carnahan, who died two years ago in a plane crash.)
Also on "Meet the Press," the Senate Democratic leader, Tom Daschle, repeated his offer from last month to allow the Republicans a straight vote on their version of the domestic security bill, followed by a vote on the Democratic plan. Republicans rejected that offer at the time.
"My offer still holds," he said. "I don't think I should change the rules or change my position on procedure just because we may or may not have the votes now."
He noted that Republicans had used the domestic security issue effectively against two Democratic senators who lost their re-election bids and suggested they might back off their insistence on Civil Service changes now that the issue had served its political purpose.
"They've opposed getting it done before the election so they could blame the Democrats, because they knew the president had the megaphone," Mr. Daschle said. "So we understand that. There were all kinds of political games being played. Now we have got to get the job done. Now the game should be over."
But it appears unlikely that the Republicans will back off their plans, knowing they will control the Senate in a matter of weeks.
Mr. Lott agreed to an accelerated timetable for approving the Homeland Security Department at the insistence of President Bush, who said last week that quick passage of the agency was now the top priority of the White House.
"It's imperative that it pass in the 107th Congress," said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, on the same program today. "So that when the 108th Congress convenes we do have a department up and ready to run."
-------- MILITARY
-------- biological weapons
Biological Blame Game: USA in First Place
The politics of biological weapons
Dmitry Litvinovich
PRAVDA.Ru
Translated by Maria Gousseva
2002-11-11
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/11/11/39350.html
Read the original in Russian: http://world.pravda.ru/world/2002/5/16/43/2737_USA.html
The 21st century has inherited a number of unsettled problems from the 20th century: terrorism, which has already gained an incredible scale; the countless number of hot spots on the planet; and the threat of a biological war. The world isn't ready for a biological attack, and the anthrax scare in America was an obvious confirmation of this. The mass media were so focused on the problem, which in its turn caused a mass psychosis among the population. A biological weapon is an instrument for big-scale politics, and the USA openly demonstrates it (Washington thinks that the notorious "axis of evil" countries hold biological weapons.)
No evidence is required; accusations are hurled at a country, and then its up to this country to prove its innocence. This is happening to Iraq, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba. This phobia is actively exploited not only by the political establishment, as Hollywood is also playing the game. You've probably also heard about the new fashion trends: people have started wearing ties with the biological cultures of anthrax, smallpox, plague, etc.
The threat (or pseudo-threat) of a biological war is actively discussed on the top level. Talks designed to protect the world from the supposed increasing threat of biological war are to be recommenced in Geneva. About a year ago, consultations on the problem were suspended because Americans refused to participate in them. The countries that signed the 1972 Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention have been trying for several years already to make the convention prohibiting development and production of biological weapons work. The convention signed during the cold war was a mere declaration in fact: no measures for the realization of the convention were mentioned in the document at all. In December 2001, after many efforts spend on making the convention effective, Americans abandoned the negotiations, which shocked the world community. The USA says that the system suggested by the convention for control over enterprises in the biological sphere is ineffective and may entail violations, and these violations in their turn will endanger America's national security, the BBC reports.
The USA won't sign the convention because it would have to open its laboratories to inspection, which very undesirable for America. Instead, Washington follows the trite principle that the best defense is an offense and accuses other countries of holding biological weapons. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday with reference to sources in the US special services that Iraq, North Korea, Russia, and France hold secret smallpox viruses.
The American military is developing new-generation bacteriological weapons, which is a serious violation of international agreements on the prohibition of these kind of weapons. The Guardian informs that the statement was made by respected experts on both sides of the Atlantic. Professor Malcolm Dando, from the University of Bradford, and microbiologist Mark Wheelis, from the University of California, are sure that the USA is continuing to develop cluster bombs with biological components, with anthrax cultures for instance. The Guardian reports that the scientists point out the obvious contradictions in the domestic and foreign policies of the USA, which is ready to wage a war with Iraq with the supposed goal of stopping the production of the very same kinds of weapons that it is developing itself. Professor Dando says that secret military laboratories are working on the following.
1. Attempts are being made to develop a bacteriological weapon using bacteriological materials open to all; this is being done to prove that terrorists might also do this as well.
2. Research projects are be conducted with the goal of genetically engineering dangerous cultures, including an anthrax resistant to modern antibiotics.
3. These laboratories are also working on the production of dry anthrax spores. However, the scale of these research projects disagrees with the declared goals; it is impossible to find out how the spore surplus is being used.
Specialists in biological and chemical weapons also say that the USA is developing so-called "non-deadly" kinds of weapons, similar to the narcotic gas used during the storm of the theater in Moscow occupied by Chechen terrorists. The American military is also developing new generation biological weapons, which is a serious violation of international agreements prohibiting the production of these kind of weapons.
The US's double-dealing in the production and usage of biological weapons brings to nothing to all the efforts of the world community to gain control over the usage of such deadly weapons. Moreover, currently, members of the 1972 convention don't speak in support of international inspections. They just hope that countries that had signed the document 30 years ago will agree to hold annual, non-committal discussions. The main objective they pursue is to constantly remind the world about the necessity to be on the look-out. Isn't this funny? It's obvious that the USA is laughing at the whole of the world: Washington wants to postpone the talks on the 1972 convention until 2006. Observers say that new suggestions are ineffective and are unlikely to be approved of by the White House. The principle often used by the USA, " Quod liced Jovi non liced bovi," is still in force.
-------- business
Defense stocks rise on election news
By Tim Lemke
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 11, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/business/20021111-46449556.htm
Republican victories on Election Day triggered a four-day rally among defense stocks last week, as investors anticipated quicker resolution on homeland security, and more congressional support for a bigger Pentagon budget and programs such as missile defense.
The Standard & Poor's Aerospace and Defense Index rose more than 11 points, or 6.1 percent, from Tuesday to Friday. Shares of Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, the largest U.S. defense contractor, rose $6.20, or 12 percent, to close the week at $56.43. Shares of Falls Church-based General Dynamics rose $4.10, or 5.3 percent, to close the week at $81.60. Boeing, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman all saw sizable gains.
The rally last week restored defense stocks to levels not seen since early October. They had fallen gradually in the past month as some investors shifted their money to less-expensive stocks and others remained cautious, waiting to see whether Republicans would take control of Congress. Speculation that Democrats would remain in power caused some stocks to dip in the days before the elections.
To some analysts, a surge in defense stocks came as no surprise, given the strong support defense funding traditionally has received from Republicans.
"A GOP House and Senate is likely to make it easier for [President] Bush to push through higher defense spending," Banc of America Securities defense analyst Nick Fothergill said in a written recap of a conference call held Thursday. "Pet projects like missile defense should get an easier ride."
Mr. Fothergill said more Democratic victories on Election Day might have caused some second-guessing of congressional approval of action against Iraq.
"A Democrat win might have made the administration reconsider their hard-line stance on Saddam [Hussein]," he said.
Mr. Bush signed a $355.1 billion defense bill last month, which included the largest defense spending increase since 1982. He is expected to ask for as much as $400 billion for the 2004 budget.
But some analysts cautioned against getting too excited over the prospect of a defense buildup.
In a report released last week, Standard & Poor's senior analyst Robert Friedman argued that Congress is not likely to increase spending dramatically over the long term. He said a 2 percent to 4 percent annual defense budget increase is more realistic than the Pentagon's projection of a 5.9 percent annual increase over the next seven years. Furthermore, he said, defense stocks underperformed the S&P 500 during the 1980s, a decade that featured a hefty defense buildup.
"Many in the investment community are counting on a combination of big, sustainable hikes in defense spending and the war on terror and possible strike on Iraq, and military weapons procurement reforms, to dramatically improve the industry's earnings and return on equity," Mr. Friedman wrote. "But we believe those optimists will ultimately be disappointed."
Mr. Friedman said that while most people view the 1980s as a decade of major defense buildup, spending grew significantly only during 1981 and 1982. After that, increases in defense spending were incrementally smaller, and defense budgets fell after 1985. He said other economic concerns could divert money from defense.
"We believe Congress will restrain such spending to take into account other budgetary concerns, such as sluggish growth in tax receipts, pressure for balanced budgets, social spending and homeland-defense initiatives," Mr. Friedman said.
----
Iraqi oil, American bonanza?
In a post-war Iraq, U.S. companies could be major players
By John W. Schoen
MSNBC,
Nov. 11, 2002
http://www.msnbc.com/news/824407.asp
NEW YORK - The most visible dogfight over Iraq's future is playing out in diplomatic circles, as the U.S. tries to convince its skeptical allies that a "regime change" is imperative and military action inevitable. But another high-stakes, much less visible struggle is also quietly taking shape. Once U.N. economic sanctions on Iraq are lifted, who will develop - and control - Iraq's vast oil reserves?
SINCE U.N. SANCTIONS choked off the flow of Iraqi oil a decade ago, Baghdad's role in world energy markets has been severely curtailed. Iraq's oil output is so low that many analysts believe that even a complete shut-off of Iraqi supplies would easily be made up by other oil producing countries. In fact, they may already have. Led by Saudi Arabia, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries quietly boosted production in September, raising output some 10 percent above official quotas, according to the latest figures from the International Energy Agency.
But Iraq's vast oil reserves remain a powerful prize for global oil companies. Iraq is sitting on an estimated 112 billion barrels of crude, a pool of oil second in size only to Saudi Arabia's 264 billion barrels. (By way of comparison, proven U.S. reserves total about 22 billion barrels; the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve holds about 600 million barrels.)
Development of those Iraqi reserves will be no small project. After years of decay, Iraq's oil infrastructure will require years of work and billions of dollars in investment, according to Nathaniel Kern, a Middle East analyst at Foreign Reports, Inc. in Washington.
"It's in terrible shape," he said. "The pipelines are leaking lakes (of oil), refineries are dumping toxic waste. It is a broken down industry."
POTENTIAL WINDFALL
Such a massive rebuilding effort represents a huge opportunity for the companies chosen to tackle it. As the Bush administration has been working to rally support among its allies for a military strike, Saddam Hussein has been using the promise of lucrative oil contracts to weaken that U.S. effort and boost opposition to tougher U.N. resolutions.
Some major deals are already in place. In 1997, Russia's LUKOIL signed contracts to develop Iraq's West Qurna oil field. The same year, the China National Petroleum Corporation bought a 50 percent stake in the al-Ahdab oil field. (Both have been barred from developing those reserves by U.N. sanctions.) More recently, France's TotalFinaElf has reportedly negotiated agreements to develop the much larger Majnoon field, but has not yet signed firm contracts to do so.
Over the years, those deals complicated U.S. efforts to win support for tough action against Baghdad in the U.N. Security Council, where France, Russia and China are permanent members.
WAITING THEIR CHANCE
So far, U.S. oil companies have been stuck on the sidelines of the Iraqi oil rush. Even if Saddam wanted to enlist U.S. firms in the rebuilding of Iraq's oil infrastructure, U.N. sanctions - as well as U.S. laws - have barred American oil companies from dealing with Baghdad.
But some analysts say it's unlikely that American firms will be left empty-handed if the U.S. follows through on threats of military action.
"If you turn up and it's your tanks that dislodged the regime and you have 50,000 troops in the country and they're in your tanks, then you're going to get the best deals," said Credit Suisse First Boston oil analyst Mark Flannery. "That's the way it works. The French will have three men and a 1950s tank. That's just not going to work."
American oil companies are also hoping to benefit from the industry's unusually strong ties to the White House. President Bush, himself the former head of a Texas oil company, has pursued an national energy policy that relies on aggressively expanding new sources of oil. Vice President Dick Cheney is the former CEO of oil services giant Halliburton. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice is a former director of Chevron.
So far, U.S. oil companies have been mum on the subject of the potential spoils of war. A spokesman for ChevronTexaco would say only that "we don't speculate and we don't comment on speculation." Officials at ExxonMobil did not respond to calls for comment.
NOT SO FAST
It's anyone's guess just who will decide how Iraq's oil resources are developed. But some analysts say it's likely those decisions will be made by Iraqis.
"Iraqis are pretty nationalistic," said James Placke, a Middle East analyst at Cambridge Energy Research. "The assumption that the U.S. will just walk in and call the shots - I think that's simplistic. Unless we behave like a colonialist occupier, we're not going to call the shots."
Some analysts note that a large-scale, occupying army would further inflame anti-American sentiment in the region and destabilize Iraq's oil-rich neighbors, notably Saudi Arabia.
So a lot depends on just what kind of government is in power when U.N. sanctions are lifted. Even if the U.S. ousts Saddam, say analysts, any new government would face the daunting task of unifying rival ethnic groups and keeping a lid on political infighting.
"Ruling Iraq will be an absolute nightmare," said Bill O'Grady, a commodities analyst at A.G. Edwards in St Louis.
A regime change could also dramatically reshuffle the deck for global oil giants trying to make the most of the cards they've been dealt. The Iraqi National Congress, an exiled opposition group that might have a role in any new government, has said it would review all oil contracts negotiated by Saddam Hussein. New contracts might offer less attractive terms, according to Placke.
"(Existing contracts) were done on a production sharing basis, which some Iraqis regard as too generous," he said. "They would prefer to go back to a straight service contract. That's not of much interest to most larger oil companies."
Interactive: Conflict with Iraq - A look at the ongoing standoff with Saddam
FEAR INSIDE OPEC
No matter who ends up developing Iraq's reserves, a revitalized Iraqi oil industry poses new problems for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, whose 10 members carved up Iraq's production quotas when U.N. sanction took hold in 1991. By some estimates, a rebuilt Iraqi oil industry could produce as much as six million barrels a day, second only to Saudi Arabia as top OPEC producer. As Iraqi production rises, say analysts, oil prices would likely fall unless OPEC cuts back elsewhere. But it's not at all clear how closely Iraq will cooperate with OPEC once sanctions are lifted.
Russia's role in developing Iraqi oil production also strengthens it's threat to OPEC's grip on oil prices. Now second to Saudi Arabia in output, Russian oil companies would benefit from increasing output and boosting market share - even if oil prices fall. And Iraqi oil is cheaper to produce than Russian reserves buried deep below the Western Siberian permafrost.
The Russian government, though, may be less enthusiastic about boosting Iraqi production if it sends oil prices falling too far. Moscow is heavily dependent on oil as a critical source of foreign exchange, and the loss of all those petrodollars could send the fragile Russian economy back into a deep recession.
Russian oil companies have been pressing for guarantees that their deals won't be jeopardized by any U.S.-led move to oust Saddam - so far, those pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Russia's relationship with Iraq is further complicated by an estimated $7-$9 billion in loans owed by Baghdad to Moscow. Russia is also a major supplier of manufactured goods to Iraq.
-------- iraq
Saddam tells MPs to decide
November 11 2002
By Caroline Overington New York Correspondent
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/11/1036308630599.html
The Iraqi parliament has been told by Saddam Hussein to meet early today to discuss the United Nations Security Council's latest resolution on Iraq.
The move is considered an attempt by President Saddam to avoid having to personally accept the resolution and make a humbling concession to the international community.
News agencies reported yesterday that President Saddam had told parliament to debate the resolution and then decide whether to send it to a committee for a formal decision.
No one with any knowledge of Iraq's decision-making processes believes parliament will actually decide how to respond to the UN, but President Saddam appears to want to avoid making the announcement himself.
In reality, Iraq has no choice other than to accept the terms laid out in the resolution, at least in principle, since the resolution says there will be "serious consequences" if Iraq tries to avoid its obligation to disarm.
This is generally accepted to mean that the United States will lead an attack on Baghdad.
Arab neighbours have encouraged President Saddam to accept the inspections, saying they offer his best chance of avoiding war.
Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo welcomed the resolution, but suggested some improvements. For example, Arab nations would like more Arabs among the inspectors.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri told Iraqi television yesterday that the number of Arab experts on the team "don't exceed the fingers on one hand".
Arab League members were particularly blunt with Dr Sabri at the Cairo meeting.
"We're telling Iraq the Americans are really serious and this time we're not with you," said a senior adviser to one delegation. "If you reject the resolution, you're on your own."
The 22 members of the Arab League issued an eight-point statement that called on inspectors to "carry out their mission with professionalism, complete neutrality and objectivity and that they do not carry out provocative acts so as to ensure their credibility".
This is an apparent reference to President Saddam's belief that weapons inspectors worked as spies the last time they were in Baghdad.
President George Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told US television yesterday that she did not want to "waste the world's time with another game of cat and mouse" with President Saddam.
She said she was amazed by his decision to seek advice from his parliament.
"Saddam Hussein is an absolute dictator and tyrant and the idea that he somehow expects the Iraqi Parliament to debate this, well, they've never debated anything else," she said.
Arab nations apparently believe that Iraq will accept the new resolution.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said yesterday that the "indications are positive".
- with agencies
----
U.S. Warplanes Strike Iraq Targets
By Matthew Rosenberg
Associated Press Writer
Monday, November 11, 2002; 3:15 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37539-2002Nov11?language=printer
ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN -- U.S. warplanes flying from an aircraft carrier in the Gulf struck missile sites in southern Iraq in response to hostile acts, the U.S. military said Monday.
The attack took place Sunday by fighter jets patrolling the no-fly zone in southern Iraq, Capt. Kendall L. Card, the commander of the USS Abraham Lincoln, told crew in announcement over the ship's public address system. He did not provide any details of the attack.
The U.S. Central Command said in a statement on its Web site that coalition aircraft used precision-guided weapons to target two surface-to-air missile sites near Talil, 175 miles southeast of Baghdad, in response to Iraqi hostile acts. There was no word from Baghdad on the strike.
The Central Command said damage assessment was ongoing. The airstrike came after Iraq moved the missiles into the no-fly zone, the statement said.
Iraq considers allied air patrols, set up to protect Shiite Muslims in the south and Kurds in the north, a violation of its sovereignty and frequently shoots at U.S. and British aircraft. Patrols are run in the southern zone by the Central Command and in the northern no-fly zone by the U.S. European Command. In response, coalition pilots try to bomb Iraqi air defenses.
The hostilities have been going on for years but are being watched more closely since the U.S. administration has vowed to oust Saddam Hussein's regime. The Pentagon has also changed its targeting in recent months, not necessarily hitting back at facilities from which the hostilities originate, but rather planning strikes that will do the most to cripple Iraq air defenses.
Two aircraft carrier battle groups, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS George Washington and each with about 10,000 sailors and Marines, are within striking distance of Iraq, and two more could join them by the year's end. The U.S. Navy has accelerated training schedules for other warships.
--------
Lawmakers in Baghdad Meet on Response to U.N. Resolution
November 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-UN.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi lawmakers denounced a tough, new U.N. resolution on weapons inspections Monday as dishonest, provocative and worthy of rejection -- despite the risk of war. But parliament said it ultimately will trust whatever President Saddam Hussein decides.
One after the other, senior lawmakers rejected the resolution, the latest in a long effort to ensure Iraq scraps its weapons of mass destruction. This time, however, the United States and Britain have made clear they will attack Iraq if it does not fully comply.
Parliament speaker Saadoun Hamadi said the resolution was stacked with ``ill intentions'', ``falsehood'', ``lies'' and ``dishonesty.'' Salim al-Koubaisi, head of parliament's foreign relations committee, recommended rejecting the resolution but also advised deferring to the ``wise Iraqi leadership'' to act as it sees fit to defend Iraq's people and dignity.
``The committee advises ... the rejection of Security Council Resolution 1441, and to not agree to it in response to the opinions of our people, who put their trust in us,'' al-Koubaisi told fellow lawmakers.
Saddam has used parliament's action as cover for difficult decisions in the past, and harsh rhetoric does not necessarily mean parliament will reject the proposal. Saddam ordered parliament to recommend a formal response, and lawmakers were expected to vote on recommendations for the Iraqi leadership Tuesday.
Iraq has until Friday to accept or reject the resolution, approved unanimously last week by the U.N. Security Council. Exactly when on Friday was left intentionally vague in the resolution, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
There are numerous interpretations for the deadline -- the minute the resolution was adopted, the minute Iraq was notified, the end of business Friday, or midnight on Friday. It is up to the Security Council to interpret its own resolution, Eckhard said.
If Saddam fails to follow through, a Pentagon plan calls for more than 200,000 troops to invade Iraq.
Parliament's advice on the new U.N. resolution, which demands Iraq cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors or face ``serious consequences,'' will go to the Revolutionary Command Council, Iraq's ruling body headed by Saddam.
Should parliament recommend acceptance, it would allow Saddam to claim the decision was the will of the Iraqi people and more smoothly retreat from previous objections to any new resolution governing weapons inspections.
In Washington, President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, rejected the legitimacy of the parliament debate.
``One has to be a bit skeptical of the independence of the Iraqi parliament from Saddam Hussein,'' she said. ``I don't think anyone believes this is anything but an absolute dictatorship and this decision is up to Saddam Hussein.''
She also said Iraq has no right to accept or reject the resolution. ``They are obligated to accept, but the U.N. thought it best to ask for return-receipt requested,'' Rice said.
On Sunday, Arab League foreign ministers ended meetings in Cairo, Egypt, with a final communique urging cooperation between Iraq and the United Nations. The Arab ministers also called on the United States to commit to pledges Syria said it received that the resolution could not be used to justify military action. They also put forward a united position of ``absolute rejection'' of military action.
Parliament is stacked with Saddam's allies. During opening speeches aired live on Iraqi television. lawmakers applauded every mention of Saddam's name in speeches praising ``His Excellency Mr. President, the holy warrior leader Saddam Hussein.''
Wafa Samir, a 30-year-old teacher, watched the speeches on television at a Baghdad shopping center. ``For how long will they keep issuing resolutions and expect Iraq to implement them?'' she asked. ``They have to stop some time for the Iraqis' sake.''
On convening the session, Hamadi, the parliament speaker, told lawmakers the resolution ``does not have the minimum of fairness, objectivity and balance,'' and violates international law.
``The ill intentions in this resolution are flagrant and loud in ignoring all the work that has been achieved in past years ... and takes the issue back to square one,'' Hamadi said. ``This resolution includes many impossible demands that can't be executed.'' Iraq maintains it no longer has any weapons of mass destruction. Lawmaker Ismail Nasif Jassim called the 30-day period for Iraq to provide documents on its weapons programs ``illogical and a way to provoke Iraq.''
The U.N. resolution gives inspectors unrestricted access to any suspected weapons site and the right to interview Iraqi scientists outside the country and without Iraqi officials present -- both issues that could become points of dispute.
Jassim called the provision for interviewing scientists ``a violation of human rights because it demands of any Iraqi they want to interview to travel abroad with their family.''
Iraq has insisted on respect for its sovereignty, an argument it has used in the past to restrict access to Saddam's palaces.
``Whoever formulated the text of that resolution deliberately chose what opposes with Iraq's sovereignty and conflicts with the dignity of the people,'' Hamadi said.
Saeed Mousawi, a senior official at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, noted the resolution had changed the rules by expanding the inspectors' powers to decide where to go and whom to interview. ``This decision creates a wide ground for upcoming crises, and not for a solution,'' he told the parliament.
On the Net:
http://www0.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID5298&Criraq&Cr1
----
Leaking plans for a rolling war
Monday, 11 November, 2002,
By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online world affairs correspondent
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2441269.stm
The Pentagon has drawn up plans for an invasion of Iraq which are based on a concept of "rolling war".
The idea would be to seize three areas of Iraq - the south, the north and the west - and use them as staging points to threaten Baghdad in the hope that this would precipitate an internal collapse of the Iraqi regime.
In this way Washington would avoid a major assault on the capital.
The battle plan was extensively leaked and discussed by both the New York Times and the Washington Post on Sunday. The accounts are similar.
Psychological campaign
It would be a very different operation from the Gulf War to remove Iraq from Kuwait in 1991.
Elements of the lessons learned in Afghanistan, where the US forces set up a base in Kandahar outside the capital Kabul, would be used.
However, enough armoured forces would be on hand to launch a ground attack on Baghdad if necessary. About 250,000 American and 15,000 British troops would be deployed.
Major Charles Heyman, a former British army officer who now edits Jane's World Armies said that there would be a "tightening of the noose" around Saddam Hussein.
Major Heyman said that the leaks were part of a psychological campaign against Saddam Hussein which is already underway.
"Saddam Hussein is hearing all the things he doesn't want to hear", he said "And he is beginning to wobble".
It is unusual in war for plans to be disclosed in advance. This time, however, the thinking is that the more Saddam Hussein knows of the very real threats against him, the sooner he will back down.
Eliminating options
"His options are being closed down" said Major Heyman. "He is being told that he and his military face destruction if he doesn't comply with the Security Council demands."
The psychological campaign - or "PsyOps" - would be stepped up before and during a conflict, encouraging local uprisings and a coup against Saddam Hussein himself.
A military campaign itself would start with an extensive air attack in which the proportion of "smart bombs" used would be as high as 60%, compared with only 9%during the Gulf War, according to the New York Times.
The targets would be what are being called "pillars of the regime" - air defences, weapons sites and facilities, presidential sites. This time, bridges in the centre of Baghdad and other cities would be hit only when necessary.
The idea would be to try to avoid civilian casualties and damage to civilian structures. This, it is felt, would help convince the Arab world that it is regime-change which is being sought, not the punishment of the population.
Ground operations would probably start - perhaps at the same time as the air attack - with the airlifting of troops into the so-called "Scud box" in Western Iraq.
This would prevent Iraq from launching any Scud missiles towards Israel, if it has any left which are working.
Special forces would activate "out of the box", or unconventional, plans by attacking sites which might contain weapons of mass destruction - chemical and biological.
Target Basra
The city of Basra in the south would also be an early target, according to Major Heyman.
This would provide the allied forces with a port and two airfields. But the Shatt al-Arab waterway would have to be cleared of mines first and this is why four British minesweepers are on their way to the Gulf.
There are also reports that cargo ships have been taking mobile bridges to the region, equipment essential for fast-moving warfare.
In the North, troops could be helicoptered in from Turkey to secure the area already held by Kurds and block any retreat for Saddam Hussein's army. They could also threaten Saddam Hussein's home city of Takrit north of Baghdad to which he might retreat.
By seizing key positions inside Iraq, the Americans and British would not need to rely on Saudi Arabia and other reluctant neighbours of Iraq to provide bases, though Kuwait would be a willing partner and so, too, would be the Gulf state of Qatar.
As with all plans, they no doubt contain many more secret elements and might not survive contact with the other side. But the broad outline is clear enough.
----
Destination Iraq for UK soldiers
Monday, 11 November, 2002,
By Paul Adams
BBC Defence Correspondent
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2444651.stm
Across the Atlantic, another rush of publicity surrounding the Pentagon's military plans for Iraq.
But in Whitehall? Nothing. A resounding silence about a deployment that could be just around the corner.
"No political decisions have been made," is the standard response to queries regarding Britain's military preparations.
There is plenty of talk about "contingency plans" but little else.
On the ground, with US men and armour converging on the region, there is little sign of British movement or preparation.
But if and when the war comes, there is no doubt UK forces will be involved, probably in substantial numbers.
British Royal Marines landing in Afghanistan Royal Marines would play a key role In strictly military terms, American forces do not need British help; they are more than capable of taking on Iraq single-handed.
But senior Whitehall sources say Britain's involvement is "a political matter."
An announcement could come next week. Officials say it is unlikely any decisions will be made public before Saddam Hussein accepts or rejects UN Security Council Resolution 1441.
It is likely elements of the UK's 1st Armoured Division, based in Germany, will form the backbone of the British force.
This could include the 7th Armoured Brigade (the famous "Desert Rats"), based at Bergen, Norway, and the 4th Armoured Brigade, based in Osnabruck, Germany.
Both are designed for rapid reaction operations.
The force would come with about 100 Challenger main battle tanks, as well as armoured personnel carriers and mobile artillery.
But the heavy armour designed for use in northern Europe needs to be "desertised" before it can be used.
Senior military sources say it will take more than two months to transport the tanks to the Gulf and prepare them for action. Challenger Tank Armoured divisions will form the backbone of UK forces
Other units, including 16 Air Assault and the Royal Marines, will be pushing to participate.
Special forces
The role of special forces will be crucial and the SAS and SBS can expect to play an important part in a campaign.
Other key contributions are likely to include air-to-air refuelling tankers and specialist de-mining operations in the waters of the Gulf.
Some US reports have suggested British troops will be involved in establishing a presence in Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq - part of a strategy to of take over parts of the country and apply pressure on the rest.
Other British forces could perform a similar function in the south, where the city of Basra is regarded as a likely early target.
Once they are there, how long do British troops stay in Iraq? In the words of a senior official: "It's inconceivable there won't be a long term commitment."
-------- israel / palestine
INTERVIEW WITH THE LEADER OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY YASSER ARAFAT TO MELHEM KARAM
Monday Morning (Lebanon),
November 11, 2002
http://www.mmorning.com/article.asp?Article=4673&CategoryID=3
FOR A REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT
On what basis have you formed the new government?
Do you consider it to be more representative than the previous one? I have always wanted, and I continue to hope that the new government will include all sections of the political spectrum. I made wide contacts and consultations with our Legislative Council and with political forces to set up the new cabinet team, which is based on the principle of continuity, of renewal and of pursuing action dedicated to protecting our sacred Christian and Muslim shrines in our blessed land, and to be in the vanguard of the defense of our Arab nation.
What is the administrative and security plan of the new Palestinian cabinet? How will it deal with Israel?
The new government has three priorities: to put an end to the occupation; prepare for the elections; and persevere in the reform process. We are carrying on this battle for the defense of our existence and our national independence. These missions require the new cabinet to build a more solid basis for the various administrations of the national Authority so that they can deal with the tasks before them in these difficult circumstances.
In the first place, it is important to restructure the security organizations, giving them the potentialities required, after they have been the targets of Israeli aggression, which has had the aim of sowing chaos and instability in Palestinian society.
In fact, this pernicious objective has not been achieved thanks to the awareness of the Palestinian people, their faith in their cause and their firmness in resistance, despite the Israeli military escalation against our masses and the blockades imposed on our cities, camps and villages, most of which are occupied, in addition to the stifling blockade imposed on our people, the requisition of our funds over a period of 26 months, the ongoing crimes committed by the settlers, the takeover of our land and the destruction of our infrastructures.
OUR WHOLE NATION IS THREATENED
Sharon's new government, in which Binyamin Eliezer has been replaced by Shaul Mofaz as defense minister, threatens to have the Israeli army reoccupy the whole Gaza Strip. Do you expect it to put this threat into action?
Our entire nation is threatened and is subjected to daily attacks by the Israeli army, its tanks, planes, bulldozers, bombs and rockets, to which Rafah and Jenin, among others, are exposed.
As for the possible reoccupation of the whole Gaza Strip, this sector is already being subjected to constant aggression, division and invasions. The settlers have been mobilized for this purpose by the military forces stationed in the Strip.
INDEPENDENCE OR MARTYRDOM
You have said that Sharon's plan is to kidnap you and exile you to Lebanon or Morocco in order to impose an alternative leadership led by a purely symbolic president...
I am a believer and God has said: "Nothing will happen to you, save what is willed for you by the Almighty". Thus, we are determined to continue in the defense of our land, our holy places and our masses until the end of time.
I have affirmed in the first, second, third and the current blockade that our only two options were independence or martyrdom. Is there a third option?
I am a president who was democratically elected. Palestine is not a number in Sharon's pocket or anyone else's, nor are we pawns in a chess game. What is happening in other places will not apply to Palestine because the Palestinian people will never bend the knee or capitulate. Threats and killings will not sway or intimidate us. We are all potential martyrs.
FOR A PEACE OF THE WARRIORS
How do you see Palestinian-Israeli relations during the rest of Sharon's mandate?
Sharon's government has endangered the peace process. Indeed, he has openly declared the end of the Oslo accord, which was signed at the White House in September 1993. Further, he has attacked us with all the military force he possesses, even with weapons prohibited by international law. But our people will never submit to the arrogance of the occupation, and a military solution will bring no peace, security or stability so long as our land is occupied, as long as our people are besieged and settlements are maintained on our soil.
We support the peace of the warriors I signed with my departed partner Yitzhak Rabin, who gave up his life because extremist Israeli forces did not, do not, want a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the region.
What is the financial condition of the Palestinian Authority? How would you reassure those who accuse some of its members of corruption on both the administrative and financial levels?
Sharon's government has suspended for 26 months the payment of funds owed to us from customs dues. These sums amount to between 1.5 and 1.9 billion dollars. This is action violating all international laws and conventions. The result of this has been the disruption of our plans and programs, not to mention the fact that we have no money to pay for rehabilitation of institutions, for the rebuilding of houses destroyed by the army; no money to deal with the consequences of the loss of life and the injuries, the killing of harmless women and children, the assassination of our officials... Without Arab and international support, added to the solidarity of our people, the resistance would not have been possible in the face of the occupation, the blockade and the Israeli war machine. Our human losses have risen to 68,000 martyrs and injured. In addition, 70 percent of our people live below the poverty line.
In regard to the alleged financial corruption, I can certify that there is exaggeration. Israel is leading a campaign with this purpose in the framework of its general plan directed against our people and our national program.
I do not deny that there have been certain irregularities here or there for personal ends, but we apply the law and act with transparency in order to prevent any violation; we do this in the national interest. We have always given a favorable reception to any Arab or international approaches by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund aimed at examining the veracity or otherwise of the Israeli accusations.
Here, I would like to ask a question: The funds owed to us have been frozen by Israel for the last two years. In the light of this, is it possible to speak of corruption and corrupters since the money we do have is hardly sufficient to cover the needs of our people, our institutions and our civil servants?
THANKS TO OUR ARAB BROTHERS FOR THEIR SUPPORT
Syria made a donation of half a million dollars towards reconstruction of the camps at Jenin and Balata. How do you evaluate Syro-Palestinian relations at this point?
Our relations are solid with President Bashar Assad and the Syrian leadership. We thank them for this donation and for their assistance with UNRWA for the rebuilding of the camps at Jenin, Rafah, Balata and other camps. We're working together to consolidate Arab solidarity and recover our occupied Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian land, and also to do whatever we can to protect fraternal Iraq and the region from the perils that would threaten them if war broke out.
And Palestinian relations with Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Lebanon? The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, under the leadership of the Servant of the Two Sanctuaries, King Fahd, of Crown Prince Abdallah and of Prince Sultan, second deputy prime minister, has been exposed to a fierce campaign of denigration because of its honorable and principled stands regarding the cause of our people and of our holy places, particularly Jerusalem. The initiative of His Royal Highness Crown Prince Abdallah, which the Beirut Arab League summit adopted, has become the powerful instrument of a unified Arab policy, agreed by the world as the basis for an equitable peace in the Middle East.
I'm not forgetting the assistance and support given us by Saudi Arabia and all our brothers in the Gulf: the United Arab Emirates, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Kuwait, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Emirate of Qatar, in addition to other donations from Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, Sudan and others to our Palestinian people in their struggle for independence and freedom.
As for Lebanon, which is dear to the Palestinian people, we are keen to establish the most solid relations with its president, its government and its people. Lebanon supports the struggle of our people, their revolution and their refugees. That is why we seek the strongest relations with this fraternal country and hope there will be a revision of certain laws which limits the work of Palestinian refugees to enable them to support their famiies, the more so since circumstances have changed after the transfer of the Palestinian cause and struggle into the interior of the territory of Palestine.
And this, in addition to Egypt, which has never failed to stand by our side on all levels, and the help we do not forget from President Hosni Mubarak, as from our brothers in Jordan, of King Abdallah II and the Jordanian people, side by side with all our brothers, the Arab leaders and peoples.
AMERICA AND THE ZIONIST LOBBY
What of your relations with the United States?
We desire the best possible relations with the United States, since no contradictions exist to hamper such relations. More than half a million Palestinians live in the United States, but unfortunately the American policy, despite its talk of peace and its initiatives, successive American Administrations, under the pressure of the Zionist lobby, have for years provided Israel with every form of support, material, military and political. This gives extremist Israeli forces the means of torpedo the peace process and perpetuate the occupation and the stifling blockade of our people.
This also encourages Israel not to comply with the resolutions of international legality. See how many resolutions have been adopted by the UN Security Council but have never been applied by the Jewish state, including the one calling for an inquiry into the massacre perpetrated in the Jenin camp. In the same way, American documents reveal the use by Israel of arms prohibited under international law, such as depleted uranium and other weapons. We have often mentioned this.
How long will it be until an independent Palestinian state is created and the sufferings of the Palestinians end?
The Palestinian people have no choice other than to continue their national resistance in Palestine until the creation of an independent Palestinian state and a settlement of the cause of the Palestinian refugees in conformity with UN Resolution 194.
You now understand with me that a unanimity has been seen throughout the world on the fact that security, peace and stability in the Middle East are linked to creation of an independent State of Palestine having Jerusalem as its capital.
As I have said many times, we stand a stone's throw from the state and from Jerusalem. We're in the last 10 meters of the race, especially after the Security Council's Resolution 1436, President Bush's speech and the "road map" jointly proposed by the European Union, the United States and Russia.
-------- mideast
Arab Diplomats Say Iraq to Abide By Resolution
Hussein Orders Assembly To Hold Special Session
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 11, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36738-2002Nov10?language=printer
CAIRO, Nov. 10 -- Iraqi President Saddam Hussein intends to accept a recently passed U.N. Security Council resolution that requires his nation to disarm and mandates rigorous weapons inspections, Arab foreign ministers and diplomats said today.
In a further sign that Hussein may be ready to acquiesce to the resolution, an Iraqi television station owned by one of his sons reported tonight that he has called for an emergency session of the national assembly. Although the legislative body, which is stacked with ardent Hussein supporters, wields little clout in Iraq's political system, it is often called on when the president wants a unanimous, raised-hands endorsement of his policies.
"I think we can expect a positive position by the Iraqis," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said today on the sidelines of a meeting of Arab foreign ministers here.
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud Faisal, also said Iraq would be willing to comply with the terms of the resolution, which calls for Iraq to declare within 30 days all of its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction and to provide inspectors unfettered access to Hussein's presidential palaces and other sensitive sites. Iraq has until Friday to accept the resolution.
Suggesting that Iraq's agreement was a foregone conclusion, the Arab foreign ministers, whose meeting was convened by the 22-member Arab League, issued a statement tonight "welcoming Iraq's acceptance of the return of the international inspectors unconditionally."
Arab diplomats said they expect the Iraqi government to issue a formal statement in the next few days pledging compliance. The national assembly meeting is scheduled to begin Monday.
President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, dismissed as "ludicrous" Hussein's call for parliament to consider a response to the resolution.
"Saddam Hussein is an absolute dictator and tyrant, and the idea that somehow he expects the Iraqi parliament to debate this -- they've never debated anything else," Rice said on ABC's "This Week." "I'm surprised he's even bothering to go through this ploy."
Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, said his government has not yet taken an official position on the resolution, but he hinted that approval might not be far away. He said the issue of whether inspectors would be allowed back into Iraq "was never a matter of dispute," insisting that an offer made in September to allow the inspectors to return was still valid.
"Everyone knows that the United States is scared that when the inspectors return, their lies will be revealed as it will be known that Iraq doesn't possess any weapons of mass destruction," he said.
Other Iraqi officials, however, have long insisted that if a new resolution passed, the inspectors would not automatically be allowed to return. It was not until last Monday that Hussein indicated he might be willing to comply with a new resolution.
The Arab ministers issued their own resolution tonight welcoming the Security Council resolution, a symbolically significant move that the Bush administration had been seeking on the assumption that Hussein would be more likely to accede to U.N. demands if he was urged to do so by his neighbors and closest allies.
But in their eight-point resolution tonight, the ministers added a few demands of their own, insisting that Arabs participate in the inspections process and that the Security Council also order Israel to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction because they "constitute a serious threat to Arab and international peace and security."
The U.N. weapons inspection operation has not released the names or the nationalities of the inspectors who would be sent to Iraq. But one of the most senior officials involved in the process, Mohammed El Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is an Egyptian. He is slated to be a part of the advance team of inspectors who could arrive in Iraq as early as Nov. 18 if Iraq formally accepts the U.N. resolution.
Apparently fearful that the United States might launch military action if it deems Iraq not to be cooperating with the inspectors, the ministers said the Security Council is "the only appropriate body that can evaluate the reports written by inspectors."
The ministers' resolution also demanded that inspectors "carry out their mission professionally, objectively and in an unbiased way, and to refrain from intimidating acts."
Iraq has accused previous inspection teams, which operated in the country from 1991 to 1998, of acting as spies for the United States and of deliberately prolonging their work to prevent the lifting of debilitating economic sanctions that were imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.
The new resolution calls for inspectors to have unrestricted access to any site they want to visit and the right to interview Iraqi scientists outside the country or without Iraqi officials present. In the past, Baghdad has objected to unannounced visits at presidential palaces and military bases, calling them a violation of its sovereignty.
The Arab ministers called for the five permanent members of the Security Council, particularly the United States and Britain, to uphold their commitment that the resolution not be "used as an excuse to wage war on Iraq and does not constitute automatic military action." Reiterating a declaration they issued in September, the ministers said any military action against Iraq would be considered a threat to the security of all Arab nations.
Faisal, the Saudi minister, said assurances from Syria that the resolution does not endorse U.S. military action was instrumental in attaining Iraq's apparent agreement. Syria's foreign minister, Farouk Charaa, said he received a letter from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell "in which he stressed that there is nothing in the resolution to allow it to be used as a pretext to launch a war on Iraq and that if the U.S. administration had any intention of resorting to military action, this resolution wouldn't have taken seven weeks."
Syria, the only Arab nation with a seat on the Security Council, surprised the world by casting a vote in favor of the resolution on Friday.
The Arab foreign ministers, Faisal said, "welcomed the resolution with the confirmation that Syria received."
After the meeting, Charaa said the U.N. resolution had "pushed away the phantom of war."
-------- pakistan
Al-Qaida Leaders Said in Pakistan
Mon Nov 11, 2002
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN,
Associated Press Writer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20021111/ap_on_go_ot/whither_al_qaida_1
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. intelligence believes most of al-Qaida's surviving leaders have relocated to Pakistan, although a few have slipped away to countries in Asia and North Africa, defense and counterterrorism officials say.
Last week's CIA strike on al-Qaida's chief operative in Yemen crossed one "top 20" target off U.S. lists. But several key members of the terror group's leadership remain alive and free, although U.S. officials believe many are laying low in Pakistan to avoid the worldwide dragnet.
Pakistan was the obvious rallying site once U.S. and anti-Taliban forces overran Afghanistan last year: It is easy to reach but difficult to police. Because of concerns that a U.S. military presence would anger the Pakistani populace, U.S. forces cannot operate with the impunity they enjoy in Afghanistan.
But some of al-Qaida's senior operatives have been on the move - presenting a danger and an opportunity, say U.S. counterterrorism officials. As mobile operatives cross borders to meet with cells to plot attacks, they often must pass through airports and security checkpoints, spend money and make phone calls, all of which expose them to potential detection and capture.
In Pakistan, al-Qaida operatives are believed to have gone either to the wild mountainous region along the Afghan border, or to the cities, particularly Karachi.
Osama bin Laden's whereabouts and status remain unknown, although many CIA and military officials say they assume he is alive. Their best bet: He is in the mountains along the border. His recent communications give no clues to their origins, and officials say it is possible they were made some time ago.
Bin Laden's chief deputy, Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahri, spent most of 2002 in limbo, finally re-emerging to speak on an audio tape released last month that referred to recent events. Al-Zawahri is believed to be in Pakistan. Officials won't say if they think he is with bin Laden.
Two al-Qaida operations chiefs are out of the picture: Mohammed Atef, killed in a U.S. airstrike near Kabul a year ago, and Abu Zubaydah, captured in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad in March. Officials have identified seven senior operatives who have been killed since the Sept. 11 attacks, and several more who have been captured.
President Bush spoke Monday of the global effort to catch al-Qaida's leaders.
"Some of the terrorists met their fate in caves and mountains of that country," he said in a Veterans Day speech at the White House. "Others were a little luckier, and they're now in custody answering questions. Yet many trained killers are still scattered amongst 60 nations, and ridding the world of this threat requires a different kind of strategy."
Others have risen to replace those lost, particularly Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, allegedly al-Qaida's Persian Gulf chief and one of two masterminds of the USS Cole bombing in 2000.
Mohammed is still believed to be in Pakistan, a U.S. defense official said Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity. Mohammed's aide, another alleged Sept. 11 plotter named Ramzi Binalshibh, was captured in a raid in Karachi in September.
Al-Nashiri, who was in Afghanistan when the war started, is thought to have escaped to Yemen, which would have required a trip by boat or plane, or a long overland journey through several countries. He is probably the top-ranking al-Qaida operative in Yemen, particularly since the CIA killed chief Yemen operative Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi in a missile strike Nov. 3.
Two other top al-Qaida operatives have also been on the move, according to officials:
_Abu Musab Zarqawi: He fled Afghanistan during the war, going first to Iran, then to Baghdad in Iraq for medical treatment, and then on to Syria, officials said. His presence in Iraq and Iran led to American invective against those nations, although it is unknown whether he had contact with either government. Zarqawi, a Jordanian, was convicted in absentia in connection with a plot to bomb tourist spots in Amman, Jordan, during millennium celebrations.
_Abu Zubair al-Haili: This corpulent senior Saudi operative allegedly helped al-Qaida foot soldiers escape from Afghanistan, but he was caught in Morocco in June.
Other key players remain in Pakistan, defense officials say:
_Shaikh Saiid al-Sharif: Bin Laden's alleged financial chief and key financier of the Sept. 11 attacks is also known as Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi.
_Tawfiq Attash Khallad: A Yemeni missing his right foot, Khallad has been linked to both the USS Cole attack and two Sept. 11 hijackers. A CIA officer once described him as "a major-league killer."
_Abu Mohammad al-Masri: U.S. officials have tied al-Masri to the 1993 attacks on U.S. soldiers in Somalia and the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings. An Egyptian on the FBI's most wanted list, he is also known as Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah.
Still others are thought to have escaped to nearby countries:
_Saif al-Adil: Bin Laden's alleged security chief went from Afghanistan to eastern Iran, defense officials said. He's wanted for his alleged role in the Somalia attacks and the East Africa embassy bombings.
_Mohammad Omar Abdel-Rahman: The son of the "blind sheikh" convicted in connection with a plot to bomb New York landmarks in 1994, the younger Abdel-Rahman is thought to have remained in Afghanistan, the officials said.
----
Manufacturing terror
When Indian police blamed Pakistani terrorists for a shopping centre shootout, it seems to have been a crude attempt to defame Islamabad
Luke Harding
Monday November 11, 2002
UK Guardian: New Delhi dispatch
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,837996,00.html
It had all seemed so convincing. When two "terrorists" arrived at Ansal Plaza, Delhi's most upmarket shopping centre, the police were waiting for them.
The men parked their car in the underground basement and got out. When a plain clothed officer challenged them, they allegedly opened fire. In the ensuing 15-minute "encounter" both militants were shot dead.
The following day Indian newspapers published gruesome photos of one of the slain "terrorists" lying on the floor, his finger still on the trigger of a Chinese-made pistol. The Indian government promptly announced that the "terrorists" were from Pakistan, and congratulated the police on foiling a major attack one the eve of Diwali, India's biggest festival. There was only one problem with the police's story: it wasn't true. Yesterday the Ansal Plaza "shootout" - which took place a short walk from India's only branch of Marks and Spencer - was beginning to turn into a serious embarrassment for India's deputy prime minister LK Advani, who visited the scene on Monday.
Indian newspapers had already pointed out several discrepancies in the police's version of events. Why did one of the "terrorists" have a black eye? And why did they choose to drive into an underground car park instead of opening fire immediately on shoppers?
Yesterday a doctor who was in the basement at the time gave dramatic testimony. He claimed that both men were unarmed when police shot them. Dr H Krishna said the men stumbled out of their car and appeared either drugged or suffering from lack of sleep. They were empty-handed and walking with difficulty, he added.
The police opened fire a minute later, killing the "terrorists" instantly. When Dr Krishna tried to explain this to reporters, officers escorted him away. He later gave his account to India's Asian Age newspaper, and then wisely disappeared off to Australia. Several intelligence officers had turned up outside his home. Indian human rights organisations have now asked the police for an explanation.
The incident - or lack of incident - has, of course, a wider political significance. India has persistently accused Pakistan of supporting Islamist militants who infiltrate into India to carry out attacks in Kashmir and elsewhere.
There is no doubt that New Delhi has a strong point: the raid two months ago, for example, on a Hindu temple in Gujarat, in which 30 people were shot dead, was almost certainly the work of a Pakistan-based militant organisation, Lashkar-i-Toiba. But the "encounter" on November 3 appears to have been entirely stage-managed by the Indian police.
It was, presumably, a crude attempt to defame Islamabad. Pakistan has said it had nothing to do with the dead men, whose true identities remain a mystery. Last night Indian detectives were doggedly sticking to their increasingly discredited version of events.
The officer in charge, Neeraj Kumar, said his men had recovered an AK-56 rifle and two pistols, as well as a mobile phone and three diaries. These apparently gave details of a plot to kill Mr Advani. He denied that his officers had planted the weapons on the dead men.
But few people will be satisfied with his assurances and ballistics experts have pointed out that the "first reaction" of someone hit by heavy fire is to drop whatever they are holding.
Such murky "encounters" take place routinely between security forces and "militants" in Indian Kashmir. But Kashmir is a long way away from India's capital and they rarely get much scrutiny.
Any shootout in the heart of Delhi - a stroll away from Pizza Express, McDonalds and Lacoste - is bound to attract attention, and this one has provoked more questions than answers.
The entire episode does not reflect well on either the Indian home ministry or the police force, and undermines New Delhi's claim that it is the victim of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. There is plenty of genuine terrorism in India. There is no need to invent more.
-------- russia / chechnya
Laden, Mullah Omar calling shots in Kashmir, Chechnya: Putin
PTI
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2002
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=27940599
MOSCOW: Rejecting the European demands for a political dialogue with the Chechen rebels, Russia President Vladimir Putin has said Osama bin Laden, Taliban supremo Mullah Omar and their like-minded are calling shots in Kashmir, West Asia, Chechnya and elsewhere in the world.
"These guys kill hundreds and thousands of innocent people, not just for their pleasure, but they make political demands also. They are putting their demands before the US, also before the European and Arab states, demands concerning the Middle East and also Kashmir, and in our case it is Chechnya," Putin pointed in a statement at a Kremlin meeting with pro-Moscow Chechen political, business and religious leaders.
"To those who thoughtlessly or deliberately, out of fear of the bandits or following the lingering European tradition of appeasement, will further continue to urge us to sit down at the negotiating table with the killers, I suggest that they should enter in to talks with bin Laden or Mullah Omar," Putin said.
He cautioned that any body at home or abroad urging for talks with the self-styled Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov would be seen by the Kremlin as "an accomplice of terrorists".
Putin gave this statement on Sunday ahead of his Brussels visit for Russia-EU summit, where Maskhadov is projected as the only legitimate negotiations partner for Moscow in Chechnya peace talks.
----
Kremlin to impose its peace plan on Chechnya
By Fred Weir in Moscow
11 November 2002
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=350973
A Kremlin peace plan to be imposed on Chechnya will exclude separatist rebels from any role in the process and will legally bind the tiny territory to Russia forever, President Vladimir Putin said yesterday.
In his toughest rejection of any contact with the elected Chechen President, Aslan Maskhadov, Mr Putin told a meeting in the Kremlin of pro-Moscow Chechen businessmen that last month's theatre siege proved there could be no dialogue with "scum".
Organisers of the popular musical Nord-Ost (North-East), which was brutally interrupted by Chechen terrorists, staged moving memorial concerts at the weekend. The show was renamed "North-East, we are with you" for the occasion, in memory of the 128 victims who died, nearly all of them from the poison gas used by Russian forces to end the siege.
Mr Putin said: "Those who choose Maskhadov choose war. Those who propose negotiating with that murderer might as well suggest reaching an agreement with [al-Qa'ida and Taliban leaders, Osama] bin Laden and Mullah Omar."
The Kremlin plan for Chechnya involves holding a referendum on a new constitution for the mainly Muslim Caucasus republic of about one million, followed by elections to a regional parliament.
Under federal law, ethnic republics are forbidden to secede and their constitutions merely spell out the division of powers with central authority. Mr Putin said: "Citizens must understand what a Chechen settlement means. The issue here is maintaining the integrity of the Russian state."
Human rights activists have been warning for months that the Kremlin's plans may involve forcibly repatriating an estimated 200,000 Chechen refugees who have fled to neighbouring areas to escape the fighting, devastation and brutal zachistki - security sweeps by Russian forces.
Last week Russian media reported that the 503rd Motorised Rifle Division, a crack army unit, had been ordered to surround several refugee camps in Ingushetia, which could be a prelude to a resettlement effort. Aid workers say electricity, water and food supplies to camps are being gradually cut off by authorities.
Moscow's hand-picked administrator for Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, said the referendum could be held in the spring, followed later by legislative elections. He added that "terrorists" would be barred from running for office.
Mr Putin said: "Instead of talks, Maskhadov has chosen the path of terror and stands behind the scum who took hundreds of people hostage."
The Kremlin has yet to present convincing evidence that Mr Maskhadov, a secular nationalist elected in Chechnya's only democratic poll in 1997, had any connection with last month's mass hostage-taking. Mr Maskhadov did condemn the raid, but only after special forces had stormed the theatre.
A leading Chechen warlord, Shamil Basayev, has claimed responsibility for organising the theatre attack and insisted he had done so without Mr Maskhadov's knowledge.
A website that speaks for Mr Maskhadov said at the weekend that Mr Basayev had been stripped of all his posts in the independent Chechen government and was under investigation by the republic's Supreme Sharia Court for his role in the theatre attack.
Many experts say that any political settlement that does not involve Mr Maskhadov and provide some measure of independence for Chechnya is doomed to fail, as did a similar Russian-installed government and "elected" legislature during the first Chechnya war from 1994-96.
About 200 peace activists meeting in Moscow at the weekend called on the Kremlin to respond to the hostage tragedy by seeking dialogue with the separatist rebels.
"We need to hold negotiations, and this must include talks with those who are putting up armed resistance," said Leonid Gozman, a liberal deputy of the state duma.
Otto Latsis, editor of the independent Novoye Gazeta newspaper, said: "The only thing that can force the Kremlin to make peace would be pressure from public opinion, but this does not exist [in the wake of the theatre attack]."
In a new tactic, apparently copied from Israel, Russian special forces dynamited a house belonging to one of the 19 female "suicide bombers" who took part in the Moscow theatre attack. The woman's family were given just a few minutes to evacuate their home, in the Chechen town of Achkoi-Martan, on Friday.
-------- spy agencies
Sweden Expels Two Russian Diplomats for Spying
November 11, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-sweden-russia.html
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden has expelled two Russian diplomats in connection with a spying scandal at telecoms equipment maker Ericsson, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
``The Foreign Ministry has informed representatives of the Russian embassy that two its employees have been declared persona non grata on grounds of activities which are incompatible with their diplomatic status,'' a spokeswoman said. ``The two have already left Sweden.''
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it reserved the right to respond, but did not specify how. Often its reaction in such cases is to expel a similar number of diplomats.
``The decision by Swedish authorities to declare two diplomats at the Russian embassy persona non grata gives rise to bewilderment and regret,'' the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement in Moscow.
``The Russian side reserves the right to make an adequate response to the latest step,'' it said.
The expulsions come as Russia's President Vladimir Putin, himself a former intelligence officer, meets European Union leaders at an EU-Russia summit in Brussels on Monday.
On Friday a court ordered three Swedes, seized by the police on Wednesday, to be held in custody on suspicion of passing secret documents to an unnamed foreign intelligence service.
A former Ericsson employee accused of being the ringleader was detained as he met a foreign intelligence officer. He was ordered held by the court on suspicion of serious espionage, a crime which can only be committed against national security.
The two others, Ericsson employees in its development section, are suspected of industrial espionage. The company has suspended two more people in development units on suspicion of breaking company security rules.
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.
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.
Ericsson has said it believed the damage done by the spying operation to the company was limited.
But the affair, casting doubt on the security of Ericsson technology, could not have come at a worse time for the Gripen fighter, one of three planes contesting a $3.5 billion Polish contract for 48 multi-role combat jets.
The deadline for placing offers is November 12 and the Gripen is competing against France's DassaulT Mirage jet and the F-16 fighter made by Lockheed Martin of the United States.
Saab Aerospace, a joint venture of Sweden's Saab AB and Britain's BAE Systems Plc that makes the Gripen fighter, said the company was not affected by the affair.
The scandal is the biggest industrial espionage case in Sweden since a worker of Swiss-Swedish engineering group ABB was detained in February 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.
--------
Russia Convicts Officer of Spying
November 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Espionage.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- A military court convicted a Russian military officer of espionage Monday, reportedly for providing state secrets to the CIA.
In a closed trial, the court sentenced Col. Alexander Sypachev to eight years in a maximum-security labor camp and stripped him of his rank, the Russian military prosecutor's office said.
The prosecutor's office did not provide details about the alleged espionage. U.S. Embassy officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Interfax news agency said Sypachev, a Russian intelligence agent, was detained in April and accused of divulging state secrets to the CIA and other offenses.
Interfax quoted Moscow district military court official Yevgeny Komissarov as saying Sypachev wrote a two-page report about Russian intelligence personnel for his American contacts.
The verdict said Sypachev was detained by the Federal Security Service after he placed an envelop containing the report in a secret location, Interfax reported.
Komissarov said Sypachev had pleaded guilty and cooperated with investigators.
-------- us
Studies barely scratch surface of Gulf War's toll on health
Mon, Nov. 11, 2002
By John Simerman,
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/4492985.htm
James Taylor of Pacheco Calif., a former combat swim instructor and Marine, suffered breathing problems after spending eight months in the Gulf War.
James Taylor of Pacheco can't say just what turned him from an ultra-fit Marine combat swim instructor to a disabled asthmatic with chronic bronchitis whose severe attacks prompt frequent scrambles to the emergency room.
Whatever it was, Taylor traces it to the Persian Gulf, where he served before returning home in 1991 with breathing problems and horrible coughing fits.
"When we got there we didn't have biological equipment. We had second-rate gas masks, no chem or bio suits," said Taylor, now 35. "You throw that in with botulism shots, pills for nerve agents and blood agents, anthrax ... I'm not a scientist. I can't say for sure."
Like many veterans who have been denied a recognized link between their unexplained symptoms and service in the Persian Gulf, Taylor wonders if U.S. military leaders will take the war's lessons to heart as the Bush administration readies a new attack on Iraq.
Pentagon officials say they have. Missteps during the gulf war have prompted a renewed focus on soldier health, as military leaders contemplate a new kind of warfare, and an Iraqi government armed with untold chemical and biological weapons.
Among the lapses of 11 years ago, federal officials acknowledge inadequate protective gear, excessive false readings from chemical sensors, mismanagement of medical records and poor administration of a stew of vaccines and inoculations.
Vaccine shortages left many soldiers without, while others took far too much. Some received the anthrax vaccine without knowing. Who and how many is unknown because of bad record-keeping.
"We didn't know what we were going up against," Taylor said. "They really don't have an excuse this time."
Concerns from the gulf war drove the Pentagon to launch a major "Force Health Protection" initiative to safeguard soldiers. Congress in 1997 weighed in with a law demanding that soldiers undergo health screenings before, during and after they deploy.
The Defense Department now has better gas masks and protective suits, decontamination units and chemical detection equipment, and the services have developed better training to prevent chemical, biological and radiation exposure.
Yet problems persist.
The General Accounting Office, while acknowledging advances since the gulf war, recently found that the Pentagon lost track of as many as 250,000 defective chemical-warfare suits and that defense officials have no solid strategy for low-level exposures to chemical agents.
Medical panels and a presidential committee on gulf war illnesses recommended several measures to protect the health of soldiers. But a report two years ago by the Institute of Medicine found the response lacking.
"The most important recommendations remain unimplemented despite the compelling rationale for urgent action," the report found.
A major problem is tracking soldier movement and maintaining health records that can be accessible to military and private doctors when soldiers return home. Earlier this year, the Department of Defense created a new directorate to oversee those efforts.
"We've made some good strides, but we really need to do a much better job of keeping medical records, making sure vaccinations are given before we get into theater," said Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of the Defense Department's Deployment Health Support Directorate.
Kilpatrick said the Pentagon now sends advance teams to sample air, water and ground before operations move into an area. In Afghanistan, Special Forces use Palm Pilots to keep medical records, he said. During the gulf war, many paper records disappeared.
Gulf war veterans groups remain skeptical. They have spent years fighting for health care, battling the Pentagon for information and demanding recognition and funding of research that seeks to explain why some soldiers fell ill, while others who fought alongside them remained healthy.
Gulf war veterans are divided over a new foray into Iraq, said Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center.
"Those who aren't sick say 'Let's go back and finish the job,'" said Robinson, a former Army Ranger. "If they know someone who is sick or are sick themselves, they are very leery of going back to fight what will certainly be a chemical and biological war."
The federal government has spent more than $120 million studying possible causes of the mysterious conditions reported by gulf war veterans, including fatigue, muscle pain, memory loss, sleep disorders, respiratory trouble and other chronic illnesses.
Gulf war veterans complain of symptoms at more than twice the rate as those who did not serve there, defense officials say.
But they have reported only one scientific link -- a recent finding that veterans who served in the Persian Gulf region are at greater risk for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, a rare and fatal neurological illness. The reason is unclear.
On Oct. 31, the Department of Veterans' Affairs said it would more than double research funding for gulf war illnesses. The announcement came after a British study, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, found that gulf war illnesses were not stress-related psychiatric disorders.
Some research points to neurological damage.
An advisory committee in June estimated that between 25 percent and 30 percent of the 700,000 U.S. veterans who served in the gulf war are now ill.
More than 8,000 have died. By comparison, 148 troops were killed in action, and fewer than 500 were wounded in the Persian Gulf region during the war.
"It was the anti-Vietnam War. It was the clean victory. The problem was, you could be injured from more than bullets and bombs," said Robinson. "Science is just now catching up."
Veterans point to a host of possible causes for their illnesses.
Among them are smoke from oil fires set by the Iraqis; depleted uranium used in U.S. ammunition; vaccines and inoculations, including an anthrax vaccine and an experimental botulism vaccine; and sarin nerve gas exposure from the destruction of weapons at an Iraqi munitions depot.
"To have so many possibilities on the table is just medically not a tenable situation," Kilpatrick said. "We need to have that baseline information, to say what we can rule out, even if we're not able to diagnose a disease and recognize symptoms."
More difficult, he said, is changing a culture in which military planning trumps health care. "The biggest obstacle clearly is the demands of the battlefield. We have to find a happy medium."
The task is more urgent, with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's apparent readiness to deploy chemical or biological agents in battle, regardless of the impact on his own fighters, said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations.
Shays, who led congressional hearings on gulf war illnesses, has criticized the Pentagon's insistence that hazardous exposure levels were not enough to sicken the troops.
"The military's the military. When they go into battle, they don't always keep the best medical records and so on," he said. "But there's no illusion about the environment we're sending our soldiers in. Battlefields are always toxic. In this case, beyond toxic, you may have chemical and biological agents."
One of the biggest problems during the gulf war were false alarms from tightly calibrated chemical sensors. Soldiers didn't know what was real, said Dr. Bernard Rostker, the Pentagon's top official for gulf war illnesses during the Clinton administration.
"They were basically useless," said Rostker of the sensors. "There are new sets of alarms, much more sensitive."
Rostker, who said he spent four years "trying the damnedest to pin (gulf war veterans' illnesses) to something," said the changes hold promise.
"We're better prepared than we were, and we're much more sensitive to the fact, 'Pay me now or pay me later,'" Rostker said. "Whether you learn enough, God knows. I hope we don't have to prove it."
----
Iraqi Battleground Fiercer, Veterans Say
2nd Gulf War Would Present Chemical Arms Danger, Ex-Soldiers Fear
By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 11, 2002; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36652-2002Nov10?language=printer
Only four days into the ground war -- with the Iraqi army on the run -- Sgt. Kevin Gregory and his squad from the Army's "Tiger" Brigade were stunned when the orders came to cease fire.
The platoon sergeants gathered the soldiers near the Kuwaiti city of Al Jahra and told them that they would advance no farther. The Persian Gulf War was over.
"When we stopped, we were ticked off," recalled Gregory, 38, who lives in Anne Arundel County. "We wanted to know why. We wanted to see a good end."
Now President Bush is promising to deliver that "good end," threatening an attack that would force out Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and rid that country of its weapons of mass destruction.
Gregory and many Gulf War veterans, though, greet the prospect with decidedly mixed feelings. Although many are eager for troops to finish the job they started, they worry about the cost of returning to the Middle Eastern nation, which is believed by the U.S. government to be armed with chemical and biological weapons.
"I'm kind of upset we have to go back," Gregory said. "I wish we'd done it right the first time."
While history remembers the Gulf War as all "smart bombs" and sorties -- surgical strikes with few casualties on the battlefield -- veterans recall the thousands of men and women who came home wounded, physically or emotionally.
"On this Veterans Day, we need to remember the price of this war is going to be more than rebuilding Iraq," said Stephen Robinson, a former Army Special Forces soldier who served in Iraq and is now executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center in Silver Spring. "It's going to be upholding our promise to take care of the soldiers who go there to fight."
Gregory was seriously wounded during his service in the war as an infantry squad leader with the 2nd Armored Division's Tiger Brigade. The day after fighting stopped, a truck he was in ran over a land mine. The blast shattered his feet and ankles and left him hospitalized for more than two months. He now wears a leg brace to walk.
Despite his injuries, Gregory said he supports going back to Iraq. "I wish I were in good enough physical condition to go myself," he added. Gregory's wife remains on active duty with the Army, and he worries that she might be sent to the region. "I don't want to see her go," he said.
The war this time, he fears, will be much costlier for U.S. troops than the 1991 Gulf War, which claimed 148 Americans killed in action. "Now [Hussein] knows what to expect," he said. "He knows how we fight. I don't think it'll be as easy this time."
Some veterans worry about being bogged down in city-street fighting in Baghdad, a scenario the Defense Department hopes to avoid. The gravest threat, others say, is that Hussein will make full use of chemical and biological weapons, unlike during the last war. "We've basically given Saddam no option," Robinson said. "He's going to use everything he has to kill as many as he can."
Kirt Love served during the war with the Army's 141st Signal Battalion, part of the U.S. "left hook" aimed at destroying the elite Iraqi Republican Guard. Like Gregory, he was upset when the attack abruptly ended after the Iraqi army abandoned Kuwait.
"I was ready to drive to Baghdad myself and take out Saddam," said Love, 38, a resident of Mount Jackson in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. "All the troops were angry. We all felt betrayed."
Now he is an activist on the issue of illnesses suffered by Gulf War veterans and is adamantly opposed to U.S. ground forces going back for another war. He is worried that gas masks and other protective gear issued to troops have not been adequately upgraded.
"Our government knows our equipment is not up to standards," Love said. "This isn't going to be the same as before. This is going to be a bloody affair. They haven't shown us that they have learned anything."
Love suffers from migraine headaches, respiratory difficulties and nerve damage, problems he attributes to his service in the theater. He co-founded the Desert Storm Battlefield Registry, an advocacy group trying to bring attention to the unexplained illnesses reported by thousands of Gulf War veterans. The causes have been variously attributed to vaccines given to protect the troops, exposure to chemical agents released at depots, oil fires, battle stress or depleted uranium used in some U.S. armaments.
Gregory works in the Washington office of Disabled American Veterans, and many of the soldiers he deals with fought in the Gulf War. "I think people tend to overlook what happened there," he said.
Many are suffering orthopedic problems, others have chronic fatigue syndrome and others are experiencing post-traumatic stress, he said.
Soldiers who were sent to the Saudi Arabian desert during the buildup to the war, including Gregory, had no way of knowing that the war would end so quickly with so few casualties. "We were scared," Gregory said. "There was constant fear for your life. There's quite a few Gulf War veterans who are experiencing problems."
Robinson's last assignment before retiring from the military last year was in the office of the secretary of defense, where he did research on Gulf War illnesses. He was disillusioned by what he saw. "It seemed that everything we produced leaned away from helping the veterans," he said.
"Gulf War veterans were treated as if they were crazy and didn't have real problems," added Robinson, who served with the 10th Special Forces Group in northern Iraq assisting Kurds immediately after the ground war ended. "Now science is catching up."
If the United States sends troops to fight Iraq again, Robinson said, it must ensure that they are fully protected against chemical and biological hazards. "I served 20 years. I loved my military career," he said. "But I don't want to see guys make the same mistakes we made."
Gulf War veterans will be among those marching this morning along Constitution Avenue in the "March to Remember" -- an event sponsored by Vietnam Veterans of America -- as a show of unity among veterans past, present and future, Robinson said.
--------
PATENTS
Photonic Crystals in Uniforms
November 11, 2002
New York Times
By TERESA RIORDAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/11/technology/11PATE.html
THESE may be lean economic times, but there is brisk demand for scientists who work on military projects.
One project is the $50 million contract the Defense Department gave earlier this year to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The goal is to build a sort of exoskeleton that among other things is supposed to give soldiers superhuman strength, protect them from biological and chemical weapons, and even help heal their injuries.
One of the researchers on the case is Yoel Fink, an assistant professor at M.I.T. Using, in part, technology he created, Mr. Fink and his team aim to embroider the supersoldier fighting uniform with polymer threads that - by selectively reflecting or absorbing different wavelengths of light - would silently flash an optical bar code. That way, for example, troops wearing specially tuned night-vision goggles would be able to distinguish between foe and friend during a night firefight.
The supersoldier project, officially known as the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, has special meaning for Mr. Fink, who grew up in Israel and served in the army there.
"I spent three years of my life in the infantry," said Mr. Fink, who is now 36 years old. "It absolutely hits close to home because I know how vulnerable infantry soldiers are."
If two recently issued patents are any indication, though, Mr. Fink's ambitions extend beyond the battlefield.
Last month, Mr. Fink and several colleagues were granted United States Patent 6,463,200 for a fiber that steers light beams efficiently over long distances. The technology is being developed by OmniGuide, a start-up in Cambridge, Mass., that Mr. Fink co-founded and that recently secured $10 million in a second round of financing.
In August Mr. Fink received a more fundamental patent, Number 6,433,931, which broadly covers the use of certain polymers as photonic crystals - an innovation that Mr. Fink hopes will one day revolutionize optics the way the semiconductor revolutionized electronics.
As a tenure-track researcher at M.I.T. whose ideas are the foundation of a start-up company, Mr. Fink now seems a rising star. But when he first arrived at M.I.T. as a graduate student in 1995, he spent nearly a year and a half casting about for a project and a thesis adviser.
John D. Joannopoulos, a solid-state physicist at M.I.T. and expert on photonic crystals, did not take Mr. Fink into his laboratory. "He basically told me, `Look, I don't have any positions available,' " Mr. Fink said.
So when Mr. Fink came up with what he considered a revolutionary idea for building photonic crystals, he instead approached Edwin Thomas, a respected materials scientist at M.I.T. "I went to see him and said, `I want to talk,' " Mr. Fink recalled. Mr. Thomas said he could not talk because he was on his way to Greece.
Undaunted, Mr. Fink gave Mr. Thomas a copy of Professor Joannopoulos's book, to which Mr. Fink had stuck a yellow sticky note pithily outlining his idea. When he returned Mr. Thomas called Mr. Fink, eager to start working on the idea. Within a few weeks Mr. Fink had financing from the Air Force to pursue it.
For three months, Mr. Fink, Mr. Thomas and Tim Oyer, an M.I.T. patent lawyer, feverishly laid out a road map for developing the crystal. "We wanted to do with photons what people have been doing for years with electrons - to manipulate the flow of light in materials," he said.
Photons are the smallest known units of light, with both particle and wave properties. Photonic crystals allow for the manipulation of light.
Mr. Fink was by no means the only researcher trying to produce photonic crystals. "What struck me was that there wasn't a very good way to build these crystals," he said. "People were trying to build these structures by modifying semiconductor techniques."
While other researchers were trying to create photonic crystals by etching into silicon, Mr. Fink proposed a radically different idea: making a photonic crystal out of plastic.
The plastic he wanted to use was something called a block co-polymer, essentially a plastic made from two different types of polymers. Imagine one polymer as a string of pearls and the other polymer as a string of rubies, both of them loosely strung. Now imagine that when they are dropped into a jar and shaken, they self-entwine and pack themselves into a structure that repeats itself in a specific pattern - say, two rubies, four pearls, two rubies, four pearls and so on. "This a structure that forms itself," Mr. Fink said. "It doesn't require complicated processing."
In part it is this pattern, as well as the differing reflective qualities of the "rubies" and the "pearls," that gives this crystal such potential, Mr. Fink said.
Off the battlefield, how might life be different in the future if photonic crystals came to pass? Fashion mavens might leave the house in a turquoise outfit in the morning and retune the same outfit to tangerine when they went out to dinner. Optical communications systems might someday be woven into our clothing, making cellphones and hand-held devices seem like quaint artifacts of the early 21st century. And the innards of computers might rely as much on optics as on electronics.
Professor Fink has since won over Professor Joannopoulos, who ultimately became his thesis adviser and whom he now considers a mentor. But he acknowledged that though it had been proved experimentally, his self-assembling plastic photonic crystal project was still a long way from reality.
"It's a very beautiful idea," Mr. Fink said. "What's keeping us from flying with it right now is that we need a clever chemist - which I am not - to synthesize the polymer."
Mr. Fink says the first application to come out of his research is likely to be a light-transmitting fiber for a highly secure military communications network for the military. The main patron for his research, after all, is the Defense Department.
-------- propaganda wars
Only matter of time before US hit by terrorists: Ridge
November 11 2002
AFP
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/11/1036308581873.html
US President George Bush's Homeland Security Adviser Tom Ridge said in an interview with the BBC broadcast on Sunday that it was only a matter of time before America was again attacked by terrorists.
Asked by the BBC if it was only a matter of time before America was attacked, Mr Ridge said: "Yes. Unquestionably. It's a matter of time and we have to be right in the democratic countries. We have to be prepared and have to be right a thousand out of thousand.
"They (the terrorists) only have to be right once out of a thousand and they can bring the kind of horror and destruction that we experienced on September 11."
Mr Ridge, who spoke to the BBC earlier in the week, said it was "correct" to suggest that al-Qaeda sleeper cells were operating in America.
"We believe they are there and not only sympathisers but operatives and we have to plan and prepare accordingly and we are."
On Thursday, Mr Ridge gave a speech at the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College in London, in which he said that work carried out between the US and foreign intelligence agencies had brought about the detention of about 2700 al-Qaeda suspects.
Mr Ridge warned in his speech that America and its allies faced the threat of terrorism "for the foreseeable future", adding that al-Qaeda "remains our most immediate and serious threat".
--------
WHITE HOUSE LETTER
Bush Dodges the Pomp in Dealing With the Press
November 11, 2002
New York Times
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/11/national/11LETT.html
After last week's Republican conquest of the House and the Senate, White House aides were eager to have President Bush acknowledge his triumph with a full-dress, chandelier-lit news conference in the classical splendor of the East Room. But Mr. Bush said absolutely not, and the event was quickly moved to a utilitarian auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door.
"He wasn't going to have some grand East Room press conference where he comes in pounding his chest," one senior White House official said. "He thought that sent an inappropriate signal. It was important to be humble in victory."
Humble or no, Mr. Bush has in fact had only one prime-time news conference in the East Room in his nearly two years as president, and aides say they will be surprised if he ever has one there again. Mr. Bush, they said, considers an East Room news conference to be more about the preening of the press than information imparted by the president.
"The whole pomp and circumstance that comes with a prime-time press conference overshadows the purpose of the press conference," the White House official said. "It becomes more an event where people try to sound smart and ask some arcane question that's not really relevant to American people's lives, but is relevant to somebody's editor."
Mr. Bush's point of view reflects a president who is still casting about for a comfortable way of engaging the press. He gives very few interviews, keeps questions from reporters in Oval Office photo sessions to a minimum and never comes back to the press section on the rear of Air Force One to say hello - and influence what gets written. Bill Clinton, in contrast, would pad back for such long disquisitions that exhausted reporters traveling home from foreign trips wanted to shoo him away.
Americans got another glimpse last week into Mr. Bush's complicated attitude toward the press in "Journeys with George," a documentary by Alexandra Pelosi about the 2000 Bush campaign that was shown election night on HBO. Critics have all noted the bantering, chummy relationship between the candidate and reporters and have frequently said that as a result the press was far too easy on its likable subject.
But to look at it another way, the jokes were Mr. Bush's way of deflecting access to himself and his thinking and served as a barrier between him and the press. The most revealing moment came off camera, after Ms. Pelosi, an NBC producer, had gotten into a spat with the reporters on the plane. Mr. Bush pulled her aside, Ms. Pelosi said, and told her, "When they see me talking to you, they're going to act like your friends again, but those people aren't your friends."
So far, Mr. Bush has had only seven solo White House news conferences. If you include those with foreign leaders at home and abroad, he has had 42. The number comes courtesy of Mark Knoller of CBS News, an assiduous record-keeper, whose statistics are often more reliable than those of the White House.
In contrast, Mr. Clinton had given more than 70 news conferences at this point in his presidency, most of them jointly, while President Bush's father had given more than 60. Those statistics come from Martha Joynt Kumar, a professor at Towson University who tracks the White House communications operation.
Five of Mr. Bush's seven news conferences have been in the cramped squalor of the White House press briefing room. Last week's was held in the Executive Office Building auditorium (grandly and inaptly named "Presidential Hall") because White House advisers thought the briefing room would be too small for the post-election press mob scene. They also ruled out the Rose Garden, which was briefly considered, as too cold.
Mr. Bush's only solo East Room news conference was on Oct. 11, 2001, four days after the start of the bombing of Afghanistan, when the president and his advisers decided that the gravity of the time warranted the setting.
Mr. Bush strode alone down the red carpet to mount his podium, a dramatic commander-in-chief entrance first choreographed by the image-maker Michael K. Deaver for Ronald Reagan and used by every president since.
"It's one of the few times when the president can come on stage alone, nothing around, and it's just him going to meet the press," Mr. Deaver said. "It shows strength, it shows authority."
Afterward, Mr. Bush got excellent reviews for his grasp of the issues, his forthcoming responses and a few moments of humor. Since then, a president infamous for malapropisms and scripted answers has continued to receive largely good reviews for his performance at news conferences, and hardly seems scared off by the press.
But that does not mean he relishes the encounters. As Mr. Bush said with a fair amount of sarcasm in the middle of his news conference last week, "I'm having such a good time."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
FBI Whistle-Blower's Case Reexamined
Charges of Continued Retaliation Referred to Inspector General's Office
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 11, 2002; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36605-2002Nov10?language=printer
New allegations of retaliation by senior executives at the FBI have been referred to the Justice Department inspector general's office, which just completed a draft report detailing previous incidents of mistreatment against the same employee, according to FBI and congressional sources.
The incidents have renewed debate over the FBI's treatment of internal whistle-blowers, who have historically complained that the bureau's clubby atmosphere results in harsh punishment for rank-and-file workers who uncover wrongdoing.
The case also presents another challenge for reformist FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, who has repeatedly told lawmakers that whistle-blowers will be protected even while having to deal with an increasing number of them speaking out. One of the recent incidents involves one of Mueller's handpicked senior deputies, W. Wilson Lowery Jr.
The allegations center on John E. Roberts, a unit chief who leads employee misconduct investigations in the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility. Roberts testified in Congress last year about how his career was damaged because he helped uncover flaws in the FBI's handling of the 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. He repeated many of the same criticisms in a recent television interview.
His claims had already helped lead to a broad investigation of FBI personnel policies by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine. A draft report from Fine now being circulated at FBI headquarters strongly condemns top management for meting out unfair discipline, and it supports Roberts's claims of mistreatment, according to people familiar with the document.
But since Roberts appeared Oct. 27 on a "60 Minutes" television broadcast, some of Mueller's top managers humiliated and threatened him, according to his attorney and Senate investigators. The treatment came despite the fact that Roberts was preapproved to appear on the broadcast by top FBI officials, his supporters said.
"This is retaliation in its deepest form," said Kris Kolesnik, executive director of the National Whistleblower Center who is working as an investigator in Roberts's case. "The message is: Thou shalt not criticize the FBI. If you do, you're going to get hammered."
OPR officials referred questions about the incidents to the FBI press office. Lowery was traveling and did not return a telephone message left Friday. Roberts also could not be reached for comment.
FBI spokesman Michael Kortan declined to discuss any details about the case. "This matter, including the allegations in this letter, are under review by the inspector general," Kortan said.
According to a letter sent Friday to Mueller by Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), Lowery, an executive assistant director, and Robert J. Jordan, the head of Roberts's department, "engaged in a course of retaliatory action" against Roberts that included badmouthing his performance in front of the department staff and angrily confronting him in a private meeting.
On one recent day, when Roberts was on sick leave, Jordan allegedly called an "all hands staff meeting" in which he read a transcript of Roberts's television interview and encouraged co-workers to criticize him, according to the letter. One of those at the meeting was Roberts's wife, Brenda, an FBI support employee who required medical assistance after the session was adjourned, the letter said.
The senators also allege that Lowery and Jordan called Roberts into "an aggressive and hostile conversation" in which they challenged his views and informed him that Fine's office would be asked to investigate. Jordan also allegedly told Roberts that the television appearance was "a dis" to Jordan and Mueller.
"You have repeatedly pledged -- both in public and personally to us in private -- that you do not and will not tolerate retaliation against FBI whistleblowers," Grassley and Leahy wrote in their letter to Mueller. "We urge you to follow through on these words with actions and take appropriate corrective action."
Grassley and Leahy have sponsored legislation that would beef up protections for FBI whistle-blowers, who they argue are at greater risk of retaliation than many other federal employees.
Since succeeding controversial director Louis J. Freeh last September, Mueller has had to cope with a number of high-profile cases involving proclaimed whistle-blowers. One of the most significant involved Coleen Rowley, the Minneapolis FBI legal counsel who complained that headquarters' officials stymied the efforts of local agents to search the belongings of terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Another case involves a former FBI wiretap translator named Sibel Edmonds, also interviewed by "60 Minutes" about her claims of incompetence and corruption in the FBI's translation services. Although Edmonds, like Roberts, had previously aired her complaints in public, her appearance on CBS prompted a formal response from FBI headquarters.
Kortan sent Edmonds a letter two days before the broadcast saying she had to get FBI approval before talking to a correspondent. Her attorney alleged that the bureau was trying to quash the interview.
"I don't know what causes them to keep making these stupid kind of moves," Kolesnik said. "They don't seem to understand the impact of their actions."
--------
FBI Urged to Protect Whistleblowers
November 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-FBI-Whistleblower.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An FBI manager suffered humiliating retaliation from his superiors after publicly airing allegations about uneven discipline at the agency, according to two senators who are urging greater FBI protection for whistle-blowers.
Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller that the case appears to demonstrate that efforts to change the insular FBI culture are far from complete.
``Any FBI agent ought to be able to speak publicly about any issues that don't compromise investigations or national security,'' Grassley said Monday. ``These allegations are serious. They demand full attention from the top.''
The senators described several allegations of retaliation against John Roberts, unit chief of the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility, after Roberts appeared Oct. 27 on the CBS show ``60 Minutes.'' Roberts had obtained FBI approval to appear on the program, during which he essentially repeated previous public testimony to Congress regarding unfair discipline for agency rank-and-file workers compared with senior managers.
After the show aired, Grassley and Leahy say two top FBI managers -- Office of Professional Responsibility assistant director Robert Jordan and W. Wilson Lowery Jr., the office's executive assistant director -- ``engaged in a course of retaliatory action'' against Roberts.
An FBI spokeswoman said Monday the agency would have no comment on the allegations in the letter, which was sent to Mueller on Friday.
Later Monday, attorneys for Roberts asked Attorney General John Ashcroft in a letter to undertake a formal investigation of the Roberts case and to stop FBI officials from acting further against Roberts or his wife, also an FBI employee.
``This level of retaliation is simply intolerable,'' said the letter, signed by attorney Stephen Kohn and others representing the couple.
Mueller has dealt with several high-profile whistle-blower cases in recent months. Among them, Coleen Rowley, the FBI legal counsel in Minneapolis who complained that top agency officials blocked efforts to investigate terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui before Sept. 11, 2001.
A former FBI linguist, Sibel Edmonds, claims her dismissal last spring was retaliation stemming from her claims about serious lapses in the agency's ability to translate foreign languages. The Justice Department's inspector general is investigating that case.
In the Roberts case, the senators say he was ``angrily confronted'' by Jordan after the show aired. Later, the senators say Jordan held a staff meeting when Roberts was out sick in which he read a transcript of the ``60 Minutes'' appearance, telling the group the FBI was ``a family'' and implying that problems should be handled in private. Roberts' wife, who also works in the same FBI unit, was at the meeting and was extremely upset by it, the letter said.
After challenging Roberts in ``an aggressive and hostile'' encounter to back up his claims, Jordan and Lowery also told Roberts they were referring the matter to the Justice Department's inspector general, the letter said. That referral, they said, ``appears to be an effort to sidestep responsibility for FBI missteps and send a discouraging message'' to other employees.
Roberts, whose office handles FBI employee misconduct investigations, made previous claims that a disparity exists between the way senior officials and lower-level employees are disciplined. Those claims are the basis of an unreleased inspector general's report that Grassley and Leahy say criticizes the FBI for a double standard in employee discipline.
``For the same offense, they hammer the rank and file but let the senior managers off,'' said Kris Kolesnik, executive director of the National Whistleblower Center and an investigator in the Roberts case.
Grassley and Leahy, who are sponsoring legislation to strengthen protections for FBI whistle-blowers, asked Mueller to investigate the allegations in the Roberts case and report his findings.
``You have repeatedly pledged, both in public and personally to us in private, that you will not tolerate retaliation against FBI whistle-blowers,'' the senators wrote. ``We urge you to follow through on these words with actions and take appropriate corrective act.''
On the Net:
National Whistleblowers Center: http://www.whistleblowers.org
-------- immigration
A fate worse than prison
The Australian government's culture of secrecy means the brutal conditions of asylum seekers are routinely covered up
David Fickling
Monday November 11, 2002
UK Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,837840,00.html
It was marketed to the Australian public as the last word in compassionate detention.
Freshly built, in the populous South Australian town of Port Arthur, Baxter was to be a different beast than Woomera and Curtin, the notorious desert and bush camps where Australia locks up its refugees and asylum seekers.
The immigration minister, Philip Ruddock, described the accommodation as "three-star", but even he was forced to admit the centre was not quite what Baedeker would expect.
"There are aspects of it that, in terms of what you or I might want at home, are very different," he conceded to journalists touring the camp in July.
Those aspects included the 9000-volt electric fence circling the camp's 2.8km perimeter, its closely guarded isolation block, and the CCTV cameras that monitor activity outside the bedrooms and bathrooms.
South Australia's premier, Mike Rann, was less circumspect than Mr Ruddock, calling for the camp to be closed and describing the conditions as demoralising and fire regulations as life threatening.
The camp was micro-designed with the attention to detail of a Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Beds, which in previous camp riots had been used as barricades and tools for breaking down razorwire fences, were now welded into the ground.
To prevent inmates communicating with each other, the population was separated into four discrete compounds comprised of circular buildings with windows facing inwards.
The department of immigration and multicultural and indigenous affairs (Dimia) is keen to stress on paper that these people are detainees, not out-and-out criminals.
The conditions in Baxter would be more suited to a maximum-security prison than a holding camp for educated professionals and families, who make up the bulk of its population.
The few who have managed to visit the detainees describe entering through a succession of intercom gates and metal security cells, oddly reminiscent of the psychopaths' wing in The Silence of the Lambs.
Gates are operated from a central computer and only one can be opened at a time. The logjams as people wait for doors to close can last more than 10 minutes.
Since the inmates are forbidden to keep matches or lighters, anyone who wants a cigarette has to call a guard to light it for them, resulting in the opening and closing of more doors.
Anyone who wishes to meet up with a friend in a neighbouring compound must fill in a request form, and with permission granted, both will meet in a neutral area in one of the centre's five empty compounds.
It does not take a group psychologist to work out that such conditions are not conducive to a general feeling of wellbeing among inmates.
New arrivals to the camp begged guards to allow them to return to Curtin, the hot, humid and crowded detention camp in Australia's far north-west.
Matters came to a head last month when one of the detainees smashed a window after being denied medical treatment.
Australasian Correctional Management, the company that runs the centre, organised 30 guards in riot gear to deal with the disturbance.
Dimia says they were threatened with crudely-fashioned weapons, and inmates reported beatings and kicks to the head.
The government denied the claims when confronted with the allegations of guard brutality, said refugee advocate Marion Le.
"It's not enough for the government or for Mr Ruddock to keep saying that there are always going to be these kinds of allegations," she said.
"Unless you have an outside independent body overseeing a facility like Baxter, then these types of problems are inevitable."
ACM is a subsidiary of the US incarceration giant Wackenhut , which is itself owned by Group 4 Falck - the group that runs Britain's detention centres at Campsfield, Oakington and Yarl's Wood.
It enjoys a bizarre symbiotic relationship with Dimia.
Ask Dimia for any substantive information about the running of the camps and you will be told the issue is an ACM matter and can only be answered by ACM.
Ask ACM for the answer and you will be told all its public inquiries are handled by Dimia.
Western Australia's inspector of custodial services, Richard Harding, blamed this cosy culture for the endurance of problems at centres which he described as being "worse than prisons".
Dimia doesn't want to reveal the provider's faults, because in doing so it reveals its own faults. In reality, they want to keep this problem under control, to keep the problem out of sight, out of mind," he said.
An investigation into last month's events has now been set up by the Commonwealth ombudsman, but the grim details of Australia's detention system are so well known that even the most scathing of official reports is now met with bored indifference.
When it emerged last month that a former Australian defence minister had mislead the electorate during the run-up to last year's federal elections over the "children overboard" affair, the news provoked scarcely a ripple of debate.
Naturally, video of the incidents at Baxter last month - taken by the ever-present CCTV cameras - will not be released to the public.
Showing a sudden concern for the inmates, Dimia has declared that such an action would be an infringement of their rights to privacy.
Perhaps such solicitousness would be more believable if Dimia were not so keen to hush up what is going on inside its camps.
Inmates' rights, it seems, come into play onlywhen they can be used - without the inmates' consent - for Dimia's own interests.
-------- terrorism
We Should Shun Assassinations
By Charley Reese,
King Features Syndicate, Inc.
November 11, 2002
http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20021111/index.php
As you probably know, the CIA engineered the murder of a man and five companions in Yemen. A missile fired from one of our drones killed them.
If indeed they were al-Qaida operatives, I have no sympathy for them. They have chosen to wage a campaign against us, and they are now casualties of that war. At the same time, I don't approve of the method used.
The problem is that they are described as "suspected" al-Qaida. To execute suspects is to use the method of the death squad. It appeals to our childish sense of adventure, to our desire for quick and simple justice, but, unfortunately, it erodes the moral values of the United States.
When you give up the law and proper procedures, you give up everything. No doubt most of the suspected criminals in the United States who were lynched were guilty of the crimes they were "suspected" of having committed. That did not make lynching the right thing to do. Not only is there the constant possibility that an innocent person could be killed, but it destroys respect for the law, and respect for the law was what the American Revolution was all about.
All you have to do is read the Bill of Rights. What the Founding Fathers were determined to do was to protect citizens from the arbitrary exercise of government power. A death squad, an assassination and a lynching are arbitrary exercises of brute force - exactly what men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson so vehemently opposed.
If these "suspected" al-Qaida people were in fact members of the terrorist organization, they could have been taken into custody, tried and then dealt with. That way, any doubts about their guilt are resolved, as far as it is possible for humans to resolve such doubts.
What Americans must realize is that if the government is allowed to murder suspects in Yemen, there is nothing to stop it from deciding to murder suspects in the United States - maybe even you or me. It is always a mistake to cheer on a lynch mob by deluding yourself that it will never come for you. George Washington warned us that government power is like fire - "a useful servant but a fearful master." The whole essence of the American experience has been the continuing struggle to limit the power of the government.
Sure, dictatorships are more "efficient." Republican government can be messy and inefficient. The rule of law can be inefficient. But where would you rather live - in America, with all its inefficiencies, or in Iraq, with its very efficient secret police? The streets of Baghdad are safer than the streets of Washington. That's true of every city in a totalitarian state. But the price of that security is loss of freedom and the constant fear of something far more dangerous than individual criminals - a criminal government.
We should not make the mistake of believing that we can have the protection of the rule of law for ourselves in this country but abandon it in dealing with foreigners in foreign countries. The behavior in foreign countries will corrupt our own officials at home. No drug is more powerful and addictive than power, especially the power to decide who lives and who dies.
We can win the war against terrorism by following our own rules. It is not necessary to adopt the methods of murderers to combat murder. By resorting to assassination, we will make people fear us, and what people fear they eventually grow to hate. You cannot win a war against terrorism by making the world hate us.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Dutch energy firms slam planned green subsidy cuts
REUTERS NETHERLANDS:
November 11, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18521/story.htm
AMSTERDAM - The Dutch federation of energy companies last week criticised new government proposals which trimmed subsidies for clean energy and shifted payments to producers from consumers.
Government proposals issued earlier this week called for 140 million euros in new subsidies for green electricity producers to partially offset the elimination of 450 million euros in renewable energy tax breaks for consumers announced in September.
EnergieNed, an umbrella organisation of generators, transmission firms and consumer groups, said the planned reduction in subsidies would be a setback for green energy growth in the Netherlands, where more than 1.3 million households are currently powered by renewable sources.
"The ambitions of the government for a growth target of 9-10 percent renewably produced electricity would be unreachable," EnergieNed said in a statement, refering to the 2010 state goals.
EnergieNed said it had sent a position paper to the Dutch parliament calling for a delay in any new rules to July 2003 to give the government time to improve the system.
The parliament is expected to debate the energy policy next week when it takes up the proposed 2003 budget.
Under the government proposals which would take effect from the beginning of 2003, the state will subsidise five euro cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) of power from sea-based wind, biomass facilities with capacity under 50 megawatts, photovoltaic solar power, tidal and wave power and water power.
Land-based wind farms and plants operating on partial biomass will receive 2.4 euro cents per kWh, while cogeneration plants will receive 0.32 euro cents.
EnergieNed said the cogeneration proposals would leave the industry without the proper support while the government formulates a subsidy system for carbon dioxide reduction.
The Dutch government has pledged to cut its output of carbon dioxide along with other EU states under the United Nations Kyoto treaty, which seeks to reduce industrial states' output of gas blamed for contributing to global warming. The Kyoto treaty has not yet entered into force.
Separately, Greenprices, a lobby organisation for renewable energy, and a number of environmental pressure groups said they had launched a campaign calling for consumers to lobby their parliamentarians to oppose the subsidy changes.
EnergieNed said it agreed with government plans to eliminate an unexpected consequence of the previous subsidy system which paid up to 200 million euros to existing biomass generation in Denmark and Norway, but said that loophole could be easily closed by altering tax laws.
-------- energy
Physicists Split the Anti-Atom
SCIENCE Notebook
Monday, November 11, 2002
Washington Post; Page A09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30605-2002Nov8?language=printer
Physicists for the first time have gotten a look inside an atom of antimatter.
The advance comes from an international group of researchers working at the CERN facility outside Geneva, which recently reported that it had for the first time created significant quantities of antimatter.
Although often the subject of science fiction, antimatter can actually exist. It is composed of electrons and protons just like normal matter, but they have the exact opposite electrical charge. When matter and antimatter meet, they obliterate each other. Researchers had previously been able to produce antimatter only in very small amounts for very short periods of time.
In the new work, a team led by Gerald Gabrielse of Harvard University used an electric field to break apart anti-hydrogen atoms they had created to study their insides.
The anti-atoms appear to have the same properties as normal atoms, which is consistent with existing theories, and the researchers said they will report this in a paper slated for publication in the November issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.
--------
Grand Jury Subpoenas Energy Records
November 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Energy-Subpoenas.html
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Four power sellers confirmed they have received subpoenas from a federal grand jury investigating the energy crisis last year in California.
The grand jury, based in San Francisco, is probing accusations that several power companies schemed to drive up prices. Atlanta-based Mirant Corp. and Houston-based Reliant Resources Inc. on Monday confirmed they had received subpoenas from the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco requesting information regarding California's energy markets.
North Carolina-based Duke Energy and Oklahoma-based Williams Cos. said Friday they received subpoenas from federal prosecutors in San Francisco.
All four said they would cooperate.
Shares of Williams fell 44 cents, or 16.9 percent, to $2.17 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Duke shares fell $1.37, or 6.9 percent, to $18.59; Reliant dropped 29 cents, or 12.9 percent, to $1.96, and Mirant fell 36 cents, or 16 percent, to $1.89.
Matt Jacobs, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Francisco, said he could not comment because the case is ongoing.
Federal investigators have spent months working with a California Senate panel investigating the state's energy crisis and evidence of possible market manipulation in 2000 and 2001.
California owes tens of billions of dollars for power it bought when prices soared, and hopes to convince federal energy regulators to order energy sellers to refund $9 billion in alleged overcharges.
The state Public Utilities Commission has blamed most of the blackouts on energy companies withholding power from the market. The report singled out the five largest energy suppliers -- Duke, Dynegy, Mirant, Reliant and AES/Williams.
The generators have denied that they withheld energy, saying they were ordered to run aging plants harder than normal to meet demand and had to perform more maintenance as a result.
John Sousa, a spokesman for Texas-based Dynegy, said that to his knowledge the company had not been subpoenaed Friday. Calls to Calpine and Enron were not immediately returned Monday.
Duke also has been subpoenaed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and a federal grand jury in Houston about its energy trading activities, including strategies that enabled the company to boost prices.
Last month, in the first public acknowledgment that criminal activity helped drive up California power prices, a former Enron energy trader pleaded guilty to conspiracy in a San Francisco federal court.
-------- environment
Universities Fined for Hazwaste Violations
November 11, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-11-09.asp#anchor6
NEW YORK, New York, Columbia University, Long Island University and New Jersey City University face a total of $1.1 million in penalties for alleged violations of hazardous waste regulations.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as part of its ongoing efforts to ensure the protection of those working at and attending institutions of higher learning, has issued civil enforcement actions against the three universities alleging violations of federal and state laws that provide for the safe handling and disposal of hazardous wastes.
"These complaints and penalties highlight the real benefits of the self audit and disclosure programs that EPA is promoting at colleges and universities," said EPA regional administrator Jane Kenny. "EPA encourages colleges and universities to take advantage of these programs, but they should also keep in mind that we will continue to inspect institutions that are not taking part in them."
The civil complaints, the basis for the proposed penalties, charge the universities with violations of state laws and the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which ensures that hazardous waste is managed in an environmentally sound manner from "cradle to grave". All three complaints include orders requiring the universities to address the alleged deficiencies and to comply with all appropriate federal and state hazardous waste laws.
The complaint against Columbia University carries a total penalty of $797,029. Most of the penalty, $584,158, is the result of charges that Columbia failed to minimize the risk of fire, explosion and/or the release of hazardous chemicals into the environment.
Long Island University's $219,883 penalty is the result of a civil complaint charging the university with violations of federal and New York State laws that govern the identification and storage of hazardous wastes. The complaint charges that Long Island University failed to determine whether several solid waste streams it generated were hazardous wastes; stored hazardous wastes without a permit; failed to adequately respond to EPA's requests for information about its hazardous wastes; and did not minimize the risk of fire, explosions or release of hazardous waste into the environment.
New Jersey City University faces a penalty totaling $88,344 for violations of state hazardous waste and tank regulations. The complaint alleges that New Jersey City University failed to determine if wastes generated at its facility met the criteria for being hazardous; did not minimize the possibility of a fire, explosion or any unplanned release of hazardous waste or hazardous waste constituents; failed to keep release detection records for two underground storage tanks (which have since been removed); and did not train mployees in proper hazardous waste management and emergency procedures.
The EPA continues to encourage participation in its Colleges and Universities Initiative, which has been in place since 1999. As part of the initiative, EPA sent letters to 365 colleges and universities in New Jersey, New York, and Puerto Rico; held free workshops to help colleges and universities comply; set up a Web site that provides information about their duties under the law; and warned them that EPA inspections of their facilities - with the risk of financial penalties - were imminent.
To date, 48 colleges and universities in the region have come forward to disclose violations to EPA. More than half of those schools have been granted a 100 percent waiver of certain penalties while the other cases are still under review.
-------- health
As AIDS Spreads, India Struggles for a Workable Strategy
November 11, 2002
New York Times
By AMY WALDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/11/international/asia/11INDI.html
CHENNAI, India, Nov. 8 - This is the sight of a wave, years in building, crashing onto shore.
Women with H.I.V. - plump women, skeletal women, always frightened women - fill two wards of the Tambaram tuberculosis sanitarium in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. With few exceptions, they are not the commercial sex workers who helped spread the epidemic in its early stages and who have since been taught that condoms can help curb it.
Most of them are wives, or widows, infected years ago by their husbands, the only sexual partners they have ever known. Many have watched their spouses sicken, and die.
Now their turn has come.
Each month at this hospital, the Government Hospital for Thoracic Medicine and which has become the largest AIDS care facility in India, the number of patients with H.I.V. or AIDS, especially women, seeking care is on the rise.
The number of new outpatients with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, has nearly doubled in the past year, rising to 1,151 last month from 613 in October 2001. From March 31 to August 31, the number of reported AIDS cases in the state rose to 22,826, from 16,677, by far the highest in the country.
With no more empty beds, the hospital in Tambaram, a suburb of this city, has taken to offering patients straw mats on the floor. "We never expected this," said Dr. S. Rajasekaran, the deputy superintendent.
Tamil Nadu, with a population of around 62 million, has been at the vanguard of the AIDS epidemic in India, the country with the world's second-highest number of H.I.V. cases. The state had among the country's highest rates of H.I.V. infections - but also led efforts to contain it through outreach to high-risk groups and other preventive means.
Now, with both opportunistic infections from H.I.V. and cases of full-blown AIDS climbing, Tamil Nadu faces a question that the country as a whole must confront: in a nation of limited resources, but where government is committed to providing basic medical care, what kind of investment can and should be made in caring for people who are already infected?
There is no easy answer, given that most states lag dangerously behind Tamil Nadu even in prevention efforts. But in this lush state, many of those who have led the prevention campaign are now starting to talk about care. They are arguing that India also needs to develop a better health infrastructure for those already infected, and that even if it cannot provide antiretroviral therapy to the sick, it can help them live longer, more productive lives.
The good news is that Tamil Nadu offers hope that with enough prevention, India, where the overall rate of infection remains a fairly low .8 percent among adults, can avoid an Africa-like pandemic. After a decade of focusing on high-risk populations like truck drivers and sex workers, Tamil Nadu's rate of antenatal infection, the most reliable way of tracking the epidemic's spread to the general population, appears to be stabilizing or even dropping.
But without similar efforts at prevention in other states, many experts here and abroad fear the worst. India now has, by conservative estimates, four million people infected with H.I.V., and the United Nations warned this year that India could soon surpass South Africa, where nearly 5 million have H.I.V., in having the most cases in the world. A recent analysis by the United States National Intelligence Council predicted that India could have as many as 25 million by 2010.
Recognizing that India's epidemic is at a pivotal point, on Monday the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will announce a $100 million commitment over 5 to 10 years to combat the spread of H.I.V. and AIDS in India. As in Tamil Nadu, the foundation hopes to focus especially on prevention among mobile populations - sex workers, truckers, migrants - who carry the virus from state to state.
But the long lines snaking inside the outpatient clinic at Tambaram, the forest of outstretched hands waiting for medicines that will help them stave off illness, the direly weak 25-year-old widow whose 9-year-old orphan-in-waiting sleeps on the cold floor at her side, all suggest that India will face a competing, and increasingly urgent, claim in its approach to AIDS.
"I heard he doesn't want to give for care," said Dr. Suniti Solomon of Mr. Gates, who will announce the foundation grant in Delhi on Monday. Dr. Solomon, who runs the YRG Center for AIDS Research and Education in Chennai and diagnosed Tamil Nadu's first H.I.V. case in 1986, added, "What I'm going to try to tell him is, unless you fund care, how is prevention going to work?"
Dr. Solomon used to argue that prevention was all that mattered. She began rethinking her position as the price of antiretroviral drugs dropped, and as studies showed that over time, they save money by reducing hospital visits and lost work days. She has become such a strong believer in the notion that H.I.V. is a disease that can be lived with that she has started helping couples safely conceive a child even though one or both has tested positive.
There is also the fact that prevention efforts in Tamil Nadu are at a difficult juncture. The successes of the groups that tackled the AIDS epidemic, like the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society and the AIDS Prevention and Control Project (APAC), which was financed by the United States Agency for International Development, were concentrated among high-risk populations.
Spending about $6 million a year, they used peer educators and advertising, among other methods, to spread the word about safe sex and condom usage. The proportion of commercial sex workers using condoms increased to 88 percent in 2001 from 56 percent in 1996, according to an APAC study, and among truckers and their helpers to 78 percent from 44 percent.
But the patients who are coming into the Government Hospital for Thoracic Medicine are members of populations that had been considered low-risk. At least a third of the new patients are women, most of them monogamous housewives. Seventy-two percent of new cases are from rural areas, once thought to be largely shielded from the epidemic. In 1996, the hospital had 10 cases of children with H.I.V.; now it has 250.
Reaching sex workers concentrated in a red-light district is one thing. Reaching, in a deeply conservative society, into not just diffuse villages, but the marital home, to teach infected men to start using condoms and their wives to demand that they do so, is quite another.
Dr. Bimal Charles, the project director for APAC, said he was trying to figure out how to get condoms to rural areas so that husbands could discreetly buy them to use with their wives. Right now, "someone who goes to buy is a marked person," in a culture where the stigma of AIDS remains intense, Dr. Charles said.
The biggest problem, Dr. Charles said, are "those who are positive and do not know it." Men who were not tested passed it on to their wives. Women not tested passed it to their babies.
Most of the women in the wards were not tested even after it was clear their husbands were H.I.V.-positive, but rather only when they became seriously ill.
His organization now wants to encourage more voluntary testing. But even if testing becomes more widespread, what happens when a positive result comes back?
Many private doctors and hospitals refuse outright to treat H.I.V./AIDS patients. One study of rural medical practitioners in Tamil Nadu found that of the 99 who said they had "treated" an H.I.V. or AIDS patient in the previous year, 80 percent had simply referred the patient to a government hospital and 9 percent had actually refused to treat the patient at all. And even many government hospitals, which in theory provide free care to everyone, are unwilling or unable to treat H.I.V./AIDS cases.
So most poor patients are sent to the Government Hospital for Thoracic Medicine in Tambaram, which began admitting H.I.V.-positive patients in 1993. More than one-third of new H.I.V. patients are coming from Andhra Pradesh, the neighboring state, where infections are spreading like wildfire.
The Tambaram hospital feels like the backwater tuberculosis sanitarium it once was. Pigs roam freely through its run-down grounds and open-air wards. Over the summer, three H.I.V. patients committed suicide by hanging themselves from the trees.
Most patients, some 300 a day, come for outpatient treatment, a monthly supply of Siddha - an indigenous form of medicine developed in Tamil Nadu whose efficacy in fighting H.I.V.-related infection has yet to be clinically proved. The drugs are provided free to patients, at a cost of about $2 a month per person to the government.
The hospital offers antiretroviral therapy only for staff members who may have been infected, and, for one or two months to patients on the brink of death - right now, about 50 to 60 out of 300. The cost is about $30 a month per patient.
The decision to spend money to give respite to the near-dead reflects the struggles of caregivers overseeing a de facto hospice instead of a hospital. Asked what the point was of giving antiretroviral therapy for only a month or two, Dr. Rajasekaran, the deputy superintendent, replied, a touch defensively, "Saving a life is the point."
In the future, Dr. Charles of APAC says more care will be "home-based," intended to give a "dignified end" to a terminal illness. "There's no way you can start care centers in every community," he said.
But activists like Rama Pandian, who has been H.I.V. positive for a decade, see that as shirking responsibility for developing a public health system that can deal with AIDS.
"Don't leave the burden on the community, on the family," he said, and allow doctors and hospitals to continue to avoid treating AIDS patients.
For now, the burden is mostly on the individual, particularly women whose husbands have already died.
In a village of 300 families about 100 miles east of here, villagers say that the army man may have died of AIDS. The truck driver almost certainly did, and Shekhar the cow trader definitely did. That was why they insisted hospital workers dig up his body after he died and cremate it.
Now some say the cow trader's wife, Shanthi, has H.I.V., too. In front of her neighbors, she denies it, blaming her weakness on a heart problem, her husband's death on his drinking.
But in the privacy of her own barren, one-room hut, she breaks down. Her husband died of AIDS six years ago. She tested positive for H.I.V. seven months ago, after she became sick. Her clothes are growing looser, her skin more lesioned. Her panic over her children's fate is mounting.
Her greatest concern is that no one in the village know what is making her ill, even if they suspect. "If they know, they will isolate my children," she said.
The main thrust of the counseling she received after testing positive was this: "If you want to stay in your village, don't tell anybody." She earns 300 rupees - about six dollars - a month at a shoe factory, and is spending 60 of them on an ayurvedic "anti-infective therapy" prescribed by a private doctor. Similar drugs may be free at Tambaram, but she cannot travel there - although in all likelihood, as the disease progresses, that is where she will end up.
For now, in the dimness of her thatched hut, she whispers the rest of what the counselor told her: Death is natural. It comes to everyone. Do not be afraid.
--------
Gates Pledges $100 Million in India's AIDS Fight
November 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-India-Bill-Gates.html
NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates pledged $100 million Monday to fight AIDS in India, a dramatic initiative he said would focus on helping women protect themselves from careless partners.
The $100 million contribution from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest grant the organization has given to a country to fight the deadly virus. Gates, who wore a ``tika,'' the deep red Hindu mark, on his forehead, started his four-day trip through India with a visit to a private hospice in New Delhi.
``It's a very brave thing to speak out and it's a problem that needs a lot of brave people,'' Gates told Naveen Kumar, an HIV-positive activist who said India's public health facilities had refused to treat him and his wife.
Kumar said his HIV-positive wife was turned away from public hospitals when she was pregnant. Doctors at one government-run hospital suggested she have an abortion.
``The hospital actually asked my wife to leave. They said it was useless to have the baby,'' he told Gates. Their daughter is healthy and virus-free, he said.
Gates said his initiative would focus on women, because of their vulnerability to the virus and their lack of access to treatment in India.
``In a conservative society, the effort would be to reach out to the women through other women and to ensure that the resources reach the women,'' Gates said.
He said the Gates Foundation was looking at programs that teach prevention methods that don't require the cooperation of a male partner.
The foundation has invested $100 million in research on microbicides -- gels designed to kill HIV.
Gates said the foundation was funded by his personal wealth, which Forbes magazine estimated at $43 billion in September.
``I realized about 10 years ago that my wealth has to go back to society,'' said Gates, a father of three who says he was influenced by his own parents' practice of regularly donating to charity.
``A fortune, the size of which is hard to imagine, is best not passed on to one's children. It's not constructive for them.''
Gates, who also met with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, urged Indian leaders and health professionals to look beyond the stigma of AIDS and publicize its danger.
``HIV-AIDS is at a relatively low level in India and experience shows that countries that act at an early stage can prevent the disease from becoming widespread.''
Gates set himself up for criticism by citing a recent U.S. government report that predicts the number of people with HIV in India will rise to 20-25 million by 2010. The figure stands at about 4 million now, about .7 percent of the adult population.
India has rejected the report as inaccurate. Health Minister Shatrughan Sinha on Friday accused Gates of ``spreading panic'' by citing the figures.
The government has not given an alternate projection, but says it does not expect a dramatic increase. India insists its AIDS-prevention programs are paying off and the number of HIV carriers has stabilized over the last three years.
Gates shrugged off the criticism, and noted that Sinha had agreed to chair the board overseeing the Gates grant and that Vajpayee expressed appreciation for the money.
Gates will meet with industry and government officials in New Delhi, Bombay and the southern software hubs of Hyderabad and Bangalore.
He said he worried that India's enormous progress in information technology -- the country has the only Microsoft software development center outside the United States -- would be thwarted by AIDS.
On the Net:
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: www.gatesfoundation.org
-------- imf / world bank
Shadow Economy Guarantees Russia's Stability
The World Bank studies Russian illegal economy
2002-11-11
Kira Poznakhirko
PRAVDA.Ru
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/11/11/39338.html
While the people of Russia were celebrating either the anniversary of the Great October Revolution or the Day of Consent (on November 7,8 and 9), the World Bank decided to deal with the studies of the shadow economy. The Bank decided to look into the matter of this phenomenon in Russia too.
The research that was conducted before allows to come to certain conclusions. Christof Ruehl, chief economist for the World Bank in Moscow, believes that he share of the shadow economy in the Gross Domestic Product of Russia made up some 40 or 50 percent. Ruehl said that the share of the shadow economy in Italy, for instance, was estimated on the level of 17%. In his opinion, the majority of the Russian shadow business is concentrated in the field of services.
It is obvious that the shadow economy issue has not been studied well enough yet. Shadow economy exists even in most developed countries of the world, which have developed economic laws. Furthermore, economists still do not have a common opinion as far as the issue of the shadow economy is concerned. They are not sure, if it is bad or good.
Shadow economy as a phenomenon results in the reduction of collection of taxes, decrease of economic indexes. On the other hand, this economy creates more employment in new economic branches. It is something like a reserve for the economic growth in the future. It also plays the role of insurance in case of a serious crisis. Experts say that the role of the shadow economy can be reduced owing to a tax reform and active deregulation of the economy. It is generally believed that shadow economy is more typical to the countries, which have changing economies. It should be added here that the shadow economy of the West involves emigrants from the countries with that kind of economy.
The World Bank is going to look into the matter of the Russian shadow economy in detail now. Christof Ruehl is certain that the joint project of the World Bank, the Economic Analysis Bureau and the Higher Economic School concerning the shadow economy will allow to have a better understanding of this phenomenon, as well as its role and structure.
We would like to remind here that the research of the World Bank is a lot different from the data of the official Russian statistics. The Russian State Statistics Committee estimated the shadow economy on the level of 20-25%. The Committee believes that about ten million Russian people are employed in the shadow economy branch. Deputy chairman of the Russian State Statistics Committee, Alexander Surinov, said that their official methods gave reasons to believe that the data were objective.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Greenpeace activists block Hungary chemicals plant
REUTERS HUNGARY:
November 11, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18519/story.htm
BUDAPEST - More than 20 Greenpeace activists chained themselves to the gates of Hungarian chemicals plant EMV, protesting against what they said was the factory's pollution of the environment with pesticides.
"EMV makes pesticides that are banned in Germany and in the United States and pollutes the Babony creek, flowing into the Tisza river," Greenpeace Hungary spokeswoman Judit Kalovits said.
"The goal of our protest is to make EMV stop producing these poisonous chemicals and polluting the water," she told Reuters.
It was the second Greenpeace action this year against the EMV site in Sajobabony, northern Hungary. The first was in June.
Protesters included activists from Austria, Romania, Britain and Slovakia as well as Hungary.
EMV environmental manager Ferenc Zakar told Reuters: "We don't understand what they want, their claims are groundless. We produce chemicals fully in line with current environmental regulations."
He said the plant produced about 5,000 tonnes of active pesticide ingredient a year, 98 percent of which went for export to western Europe, the United States, South Africa and Australia.
"If these chemicals were banned in Germany and the U.S., how could we sell them there?" Zakar asked.
He said EMV had spent 800 million forints ($3.4 million) on environmental protection projects in the past three to four years.
----
Anti Nuclear Protestors Demonstrate Against Upcoming Nuclear Waste Transport in Gorleben
GERMANY: November 11, 2002
Story by CHA
http://www.planetark.org/envpics/sgorlebendemonstr.jpg
Photo by CHRISTIAN CHARISIUS, REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/18532
An anti-nuclear protester holds up a placard reading 'Gorleben affects us all' during a demonstration at the site of the potential permanent nuclear waste storage facility in Gorleben November 9, 2002.
German police expect thousands of demonstrators to try to block the transport of twelve Castor rail containers of reprocessed German waste from the La Hague reprocessing plant in France to the Gorleben interim storage facility.
The shipment, expected to be the largest ever shipment between the two countries, is due to start next week.
---------
Iran Students Stage Third Day of Protests
November 11, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-politics.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Hundreds of Iranian students chanting ``Death to despotism'' boycotted classes and staged a rally on Monday in a third day of protests in support of freedom of speech and political reform.
The demonstrations, sparked by a death sentence imposed on a reformist academic last week, are the largest pro-reform protests in the Islamic Republic for three years.
``I feel ashamed to live in a society... where people are jailed for their opinions,'' Saeed Razavi Faqih, one of the organizers of Monday's rally, told a crowd of about 1,000 at Tehran's Tarbiat-e Modarres University.
The protests come as President Mohammad Khatami is engaged in a make-or-break struggle to assert his authority over hard-liners who have frustrated his efforts to promote democracy in the country of 65 million people.
The reformist-dominated parliament passed a pair of draft bills in the last two weeks aimed at curbing the power of conservative-controlled bodies such as the judiciary.
But conservative watchdogs are likely to veto the bills, leading many reformists to call on Khatami to resign.
``Khatami, resign, resign'' the students chanted enthusiastically on Monday.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's most powerful figure, met Khatami and other senior officials on Monday. No reason for the unannounced meeting was given.
Scores of outspoken intellectuals and journalists have been jailed in the past three years in a conservative crackdown.
But it was the case of reformist history lecturer Hashem Aghajari, sentenced to death last week for blasphemy after he questioned the right of the clergy to rule Iran, that detonated the current wave of protests.
ATTACK ON FREE SPEECH
Reformers are enraged, seeing the sentence as a direct attack on free speech.
``I believe the hard-liners are mistaken in thinking that society will express its opposition calmly and peacefully through the print media,'' reformist deputy Ahmad Shirzad said in an interview in the English language Iran News on Monday.
``In my view, Iran is on the verge of renewed tensions on a massive scale.''
So far the student protests have been entirely peaceful.
At Monday's rally, student's carrying pictures of Aghajari listened to a recording of one of his lectures before a succession of speakers denounced his death sentence.
``Whether the execution is carried out or not is not important,'' said student leader Razavi Faqih. ``They are imposing the teachings of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky on the people in the framework of Islam,'' he said to loud cheers.
``Although I don't agree with some of Aghajari's opinions, I'm ready to be executed in his place.''
MORE PROTESTS PLANNED
Aghajari, a member of the radical reformist Mujahideen of the Islamic Revolution, is also a veteran of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war in which he lost a brother and a leg.
``What (Iraqi President) Saddam (Hussein) couldn't do, these people are doing now,'' Mehdi Hosseini, who fought alongside Aghajari in the war, told the students.
Addressing the country's clerical hierarchy, he said: ``You were urging the youth to go to the front and pushed them to the minefields. But where were your children at that time? They were having fun in Europe.''
Police kept an eye on the rally, but did not intervene.
More protests were planned for Tuesday at Tehran University, scene of violent 1999 clashes between hardline vigilantes and reformist students which led to mass arrests and spurred on a conservative crackdown on all forms of dissent.
Conservatives have so far been largely silent on the protests. State television said on Sunday students were angry about the quality of food in the university canteen.
Some analysts said hard-liners were waiting for the students to step out of line in order to crack down hard.
``They are looking for an excuse to suppress the demands,'' Tehran university politics professor Hamid Reza Jalaipour said.
--------
2 German Police Hurt in Nuke Protest
November 11, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Germany-Nuclear-Waste.html
DANNENBERG, Germany (AP) -- Anti-nuclear activists staged a parade through this north German town near a nuclear waste dump Monday, and two police officers were injured in a skirmish with demonstrators.
Police said most of the approximately 1,000 protesters demonstrated peacefully against a shipment of 12 containers of atomic waste that left the reprocessing plant at La Hague, France, Monday night.
The train, with about 300 police aboard, was expected to reach the French-German border Tuesday afternoon. The shipment is the largest yet for dumping at Gorleben.
About 15 Greenpeace activists wearing white jumpsuits protested at the Valognes, France, train terminal as the 1,455 ton shipment left northern France.
In Germany, about 100 radicals in the group of protesters clashed with police, who responded with truncheons. About 60 people also blocked the road between the town of Dannenberg and Gorleben, ignoring a ban on all demonstrations in a within 50 yards of the last part of the route.
The nuclear dump at Gorleben is 75 miles southeast of Hamburg and has been a focus of Germany's anti-nuclear lobby.
Over the weekend, farmers and anti-nuclear groups symbolically set up at least 12 ``villages,'' with camp fires and bales of hay, near the route and several thousand people demonstrated at Gorleben
This week's shipment is the first since last November, when demonstrators repeatedly defied some 17,500 police to stage sit-down protests along the route through Germany.
Those protests were smaller than demonstrations that marked the previous transport in March 2001, the first in three years. The previous German government had suspended shipments after leaks were found in some containers.
Spent fuel from Germany's 19 nuclear power plants is sent to France and Britain for reprocessing under contracts that then oblige Germany disposed of the waste.
Last year, the government and power companies signed an agreement to phase out nuclear power within about 20 years. Activists hope that protesting waste shipments will force a quicker shutdown.
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