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NUCLEAR
Antiterrorism bill scraps nuclear safety funding
25 years since signing of Vienna Convention
NUCLEAR PLANT IS CLOSED BY SEAWEED
Depleted Uranium:
Grisly US crimes raise questions on Gulf War illness
Officials say missing Uranium not harmful
Three Sites Remain Radioactive from Bosnian War
Most of France would prefer no nuclear power: poll
Train loaded with nuclear waste arrives in Germany
Iraq Accepts United Nations Resolution
Arms Inspectors in Iraq Will Use High-Tech Gear
North Korea Won't Give Ground in Nuclear Flap
North Korea Demands US Sign Non-Aggression Pact
Pakistan's N. Korea Deals Stir Scrutiny
Russia to remove all spent nuclear fuel from Kola
Typhoons being repaired to operate until 2010
County Exec Suggests Takeover Of Indian Point
Hansen's Effort to Block Nuclear Waste Dies
Homeland Bill Gets Boost
Pakistan-N.Korea Tie Seen as Tricky Issue for Bush
Bush wins on homeland security bill
Finishing homeland security
Congress Moves Toward Approving Security Agency
Congress Sends Bush Defense Authorization Bill
MILITARY
Ethiopia faces famine
Bulgaria Blocks Illegal Arms Sale;
America Wants to Use Biological Weapons on Iraq
Troops could replace firefighters
India to be world's tech hub, says Bill Gates
States seek to salvage global ban on germ weapons
Colombia's Air Assault on Coca
Iraq Trying to Procure Atropine, An Antidote to Nerve Agents
U.S., EU dismiss Iraqi objections to U.N. resolution
Iraq's Parliament Rejects U.N. Resolution
War plan calls for air strikes
Israel Mounts Major Raid on West Bank Town
CIA team in Turkey to plan capture of northern Iraq
Jordanian police hunt for weapons
Iran tense as Iraq is pressured
NASA Proposal Calls for Space Plane
Hellzapoppin' at the Pentagon
Cheerleaders, put on your gas masks
The Pentagon's Path From Osama to Saddam
Spokesman Is Assigned to U.S. Military Command
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Ashcroft's Law West -- and East -- of the Pecos
Briton accused of hacking military computer network
ACLU seeks immediate release of government surveillance records
ACLU Seeks U.S. Surveillance Records
Colombia's Air Assault on Coca Leaves Crop, Farmers in Its Dust
Excerpts From Purported Bin Laden Tape
Purported Bin Laden Tape Lauds Bali, Moscow Attacks
New Recording May Be Threat From bin Laden
ENERGY AND OTHER
Electrabel to buy wind parks from Gamesa
Solar power to light gloomy London bus shelters
Energy Department Focuses on Hydrogen
California Town Launches Diaper Recycling
Staples to Sell Eco-Friendly Products
Heart re-starter approved for homes
Growth Hormone Alters Aging
ACTIVISTS
A Call to Arms By an Enemy of War Against Iraq
Protests Grow in Iran Over Death Sentence for Professor
Protests Grow for Iranian Professor
Access to Bishops Limited
Bishops Turn to Writing Antiwar Policy
Up to Four Protesting Students Die in Clashes With Afghan Police
Protests Start in Sydney Over WTO Mini - Summit
Army Corps Silences Whistle - Blower
Fifteen Arrested in Sydney Anti-WTO Protest
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Antiterrorism bill scraps nuclear safety funding
Igor Kudrik,
2002-11-13
Bellona
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/icebreakers/27150.html
OSLO - In the wake of the hostage drama in Moscow, the Russian government intends to spend more on the anti-terrorism campaign and scrap funds for federal nuclear safety programmes.
Photo: Thomas Nilsen
The Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, drafted a 7bn rouble bill - equivalent to $233m - for additional funding of the Russian security forces. The amount was later reduced to just over 3bn roubles by the Russian cabinet. Other budget items, such as security at strategic sites, will be increased, contributing to the overall rise in security funds.
But the increase will cut other spending; among these are funds earlier agreed for nuclear safety projects in the Russian Federation.
One of the projects to have its funding slashed is Lepse - a storage ship filled with damaged spent nuclear fuel assemblies moored outside Murmansk at the Kola Peninsula.
The Lepse project
Lepse background
The Lepse project has been dragging since 1994, when Bellona in co-operation with Murmansk Shipping Company, or MSCo, - the commercial operator of Russia's nuclear-powered icebreaker fleet - facilitated the EU Commissioner's visit to Murmansk, which brought the first international funding to the project.
Lepse has onboard 639 spent nuclear fuel assemblies, which have been stored there for 20 to 37 years. The conditions onboard are considered to be a health hazard for the personnel. This prompted Bellona to finance onshore cabins for the dilapidated ship's crew to reduce risks to their health. Even though Lepse is being constantly monitored, it has an aged hull and is located in the Kola Fjord area, a region of heavy shipping, which presents a risk to the environment in case of accident.
The urgency of Lepse's remediation has been recognised by international experts and governments. But only this year the final framework agreement was signed to release funds and to start working on the ship. Two years will be spent on paper work - preparation of the project on how to unload damaged fuel assemblies from the ship's hold with the use of robotics. This work and the eventual unloading operation will be funded by western donors, including the EU and Norway.
But there are other expenses to take care of, such as keeping the ship afloat. This year, MSCo received 50m roubles to maintain the ship from the federal budget. A larger sum was in the federal budget for the year 2003, but now the chances of getting the funding are slim, the money will be transferred to the security forces, Bellona's sources at MSCo say.
In the long run, the Russian side is also to foot the bill for managing the fuel after it is extracted from Lepse and put onshore, as well as decommissioning the ship. There are other sources to possible funding, but these depend on the signing of the Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme for the Russian Federation (MNEPR).
MNEPR to be discussed at Putin's visit to Oslo Northern Dimension The Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership (NDEP) is an initiative aimed at co-ordinating efforts to tackle environmental problems in north-west Russia, especially environmental problems from radioactive waste. MNEPR should be signed to release NDEP funds - Bellona's Position Paper. read on " MNEPR was to become a universal agreement between Russia and other states wising to contribute to nuclear safety projects in north-west Russia. The agreement was to regulate tax exemption, nuclear liability and other issues in international nuclear safety projects. Despite the good idea supporting the agreement, negotiations between Russia and potential donor states have been carried out for years without result.
The last issues remaining to be discussed relate to value-added taxes. As soon as this problem is resolved, the first part of the 62m euro-fund pledged by the European countries can be spent on projects in north-west Russia.
MNEPR, according to Russia's Foreign Ministry, is on the agenda when Russia's President Vladimir Putin arrives in Oslo for the one-day visit on November 12th.
But signing MNEPR may not be enough for the eventual release of the funds. Russia has to be also one of the contributors and allocate 10m euros of the 62m fund. So far, Russia has only pledged to do so, without giving a final confirmation. Such a confirmation may be complicated, considering the new spending earmarked for the security forces included in Russia's 2003 budget.
Other nuclear programmes are in danger The discussion of the 2003 budget is still pending in the Russian State Duma, but the initial reactions indicate that there will be no major opposition to cuts in nuclear safety. So far, there have been no reports on other specific nuclear safety projects to be buried in 2003, but those are usually the first candidates to be deleted as the past 10-year experience shows.
At the same time the Russian Ministry for Nuclear Energy, or Minatom, which has responsibility for managing radioactive waste, is prioritising commercial projects, or so it thinks, such as building new nuclear power plants and developing nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure; including the grand plan to import foreign spent nuclear fuel to the Russian Federation for storage and eventual reprocessing. What it hopes for is unclear. Miantaom's development of projects and obtaining international funding for them has been slow and some times such projects were simply stalled.
----
25 years since signing of Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage
2002-11-13
Bellona
http://www.bellona.no/en/20393.html#27125
The Russian State Duma should ratify the Convention this month. At present more than 30 countries, including former Russian republics Georgia, Armenia, At present more than 30 countries, including former Russian republics Georgia, Armenia, Byelorussia, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Moldova have ratified the Convention . It is planned to establish an intergovernmental insurance "pool" to secure the risks of radiation accidents. Its main tasks will be to create common conception in the field of nuclear insurance, common policy towards foreign insurers, integration in the world system of nuclear insurance and protection of the investors. The project is however hampered, as Russia has not ratified it yet although it was signed on May 8, 1996. The Vienna Convention was adopted on April 29, 1963 at the international conference and was open for signature on May 21, 1963. Its objective is to establish minimum standards to provide financial protection against damage resulting from peaceful uses of nuclear energy. It entered into force on 12 November 1977. The party operating the installation is fully responsible for the possible incident. The compensation limit has been recently increased up to $400 million.
-------- britain
NUCLEAR PLANT IS CLOSED BY SEAWEED
Heather Greenway
Scottish Daily Record,
Nov 13 2002
From: Christine Patronik-Holder - patronikholder@safeenergy.org
SCOTLAND'S biggest nuclear power station was crippled last month by a seaweed invasion.
The Torness plant in East Lothian was forced to close for a day when the weed wreaked havoc on a reactor.
Politicians were stunned that the power station had to close, not for a breakdown in scientific engineering, but for the seaweed clogging up a pipe.
Green MSP Robin Harper said: "If Scotland's nuclear industry grinds to a halt because of seaweed, what hope is there for its future ?
"It again shows that the nuclear industry is unreliable."
The reactor had only been up and running for three weeks when seaweed blocked the pipe which takes in seawater used in a cooling process.
Both reactors were forced to close in the summer because of cooling problems and fears were raised about British Energy's future.
The closure triggered the company's current financial crisis.
A red-faced British Energy spokesman said: "We thought we were home and dry with Reactor One until the seaweed got stuck in the intake pipe.
"When that happened, it triggered a safety mechanism which shut down the reactor for a day until we could clear away the weed.
"Once the blockage was cleared and we could take in water, we started the reactor again."
Kevin Dunion, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: "It's laughable that British Energy is blaming nature - not itself - for this latest breakdown."
-------- depleted uranium
Depleted Uranium:
UN Confirms Radioactivity in Bosnia
Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY
PRAVDA.Ru,
2002-11-13
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/11/13/39419.html
The United Nations Environment Program task force inspecting Bosnia-Herzegovina have claimed that DU can create an increase of uranium concentration 100 times natural that of levels in groundwater. Three sites have been declared as radioactive and have been cordoned off.
The government of Bosnia-Herzegovina has claimed that 10,800 rounds of DU ordnance were fired into its territory by NATO aircraft during the Bosnian War in 1995. This weaponry is coated with Depleted Uranium to give shells a greater penetration into their target. Despite numerous claims by NATO that this weaponry is safe, there have been a growing number of scientific reports which would suggest that this is not the case. Inhalation of DU dust has been stated to be the cause of raised levels of cancer in areas where DU has been deployed, namely in Southern Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo and southern Yugoslavia. In Iraq, up to 500,000 children have died in the area targeted by DU during the Gulf War of cancer-related illnesses.
Pekka Haavisto, the Chairman of the UNEP team in Bosnia, declared that "We are concerned about the situation at the Hadzici tank repair facility and the Han Pijesak barracks". He added that the areas where radiation has been detected should be abandoned until they are decontaminated.
The team has admitted that there are potential hazards to people who come into contact with DU. Meanwhile, World Health Organisation experts have been visiting hospitals in Bosnia, performing tests on patients who claim to have been contaminated by DU. The UNEP team has warned that troops should not be deployed in the areas contaminated.
The more NATO denies that DU is dangerous, the more evidence is overturned which states the contrary. In deploying DU, NATO blatantly disregarded the terms of the Geneva Convention, which states that weapons that leave a lasting on the battlefield must not be deployed. NATO is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and, were the world order based upon justice, its leaders would be liable to stand trial at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
This, however, will never happen because the United States of America considers that its citizens are above international justice, leaving this country a free reign to go globe-trotting on a gung-ho mission of arrogance and abject disrespect for international norms of behaviour.
----
Grisly US crimes raise questions on Gulf War illness
By Sarah Edmonds
13 Nov 2002
AlertNet / Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N05284168?view=PrinterFriendly
WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - The Beltway sniper, the University of Arizona gunman, the Fort Bragg murders, the Oklahoma City bomber.
The terrible and unfathomable crimes behind the headlines vary widely but all share a common thread that researchers say may merit a closer look: With the exception of one of the four Fort Bragg killings, all are alleged to be have been committed by veterans of the 1991 Gulf War.
There are too many unanswered questions to draw broad conclusions about whether the men connected with these crimes were suffering from the illnesses that research has shown afflict some 25 to 30 percent of the 697,000 U.S. Gulf vets.
However, studies have turned up evidence of injury to the brain in some ill veterans of the conflict, including damage to the deep brain structures where personality is determined.
What caused this damage, and other symptoms vets describe, isn't clear, but researchers have said possibilities could include environmental toxins, low-level nerve agents, depleted uranium, oil fires, mustard gas, stress as well as vaccines given to soldiers to guard against biowarfare and nerve gas.
Dr. William Baumzweiger, a California neurologist and psychiatrist who specialized in Gulf War ailments, said he was not surprised that so many of the high-profile crimes were tied to Gulf veterans. "Gulf War veterans have a very high frequency of turning to violence to deal with frustration," he said.
A TERRIBLE TOLL
Baumzweiger testified for the defense at the trial of Gulf veteran Jeffrey Hutchinson, convicted last year of the 1998 murders of his girlfriend and her three children in Florida.
But Hutchinson does not win the prize for infamy in this group. That goes to Timothy McVeigh, executed in 2001 for the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people and injured hundreds of others.
September and October of this year brought two more high-profile cases involving veterans.
John Allen Muhammad, along with a young accomplice, has been accused of killing 10 people in and around Washington D.C. He is also charged with shootings in Louisiana and Alabama and could be linked to others.
Then in late October, failing Arizona nursing student Robert Flores, who served in the Army during the Gulf War, mowed down three of his professors before shooting himself.
Earlier in 2002, four servicemen allegedly killed their wives at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the base home to the storied 82nd Airborne Division. Three of the four were Gulf War veterans.
Last week, a military team probing the Fort Bragg deaths blamed marital woes, deployment stress and reluctance to seek counseling.
"REASONABLE HYPOTHESIS"
Privacy Act rules make it impossible to find out if any of the Gulf veterans in these high-profile crimes ever officially complained of symptoms, and researchers are unaware of any statistics that indicate that rates of violence among Gulf veterans are higher than the general populace or than other combat veterans.
One researcher, who declined to be identified, said of speculation about a link between Gulf War illnesses and the crimes: "It's a very reasonable hypothesis and it's reasonable because these people came back with personality change, difficulty controlling anger and so forth."
"The question is over 10 years, what is the expected incidence of violent shooters, violent criminals, in the population of 695,000 former military people? I don't know the answer to that. Nobody knows ... although these are such high-profile crimes, you'd expect that the incidence of that would be extremely rare," he added.
Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veterans' advocacy group, said more study of Gulf War ailments is clearly needed.
"Do Gulf War veterans as a whole demonstrate psychotic, homicidal, suicidal behavior? I don't think so. Are there individuals that have demonstrated those? Yes, absolutely," he said, adding that while the vast majority of those who suffer from Gulf War ailments will never turn violent, he receives despairing letters and telephone calls daily from sufferers.
In an emotion-choked voice, Robinson read from one such letter, written by a veteran in jail for a vehicular homicide that killed a close friend. It said in part: "I'm nervous all the time. I feel like my body is doing 200 miles an hour. I am always fatigued, my body shakes and sweats. I believe that because of the physical symptoms, I am a basket case. Anxiety and depression rule my life."
NOT JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 1999 -- the latest year for which the data are available -- just 16 people aged 25-49 committed murder per 100,000 population.
There is no breakdown according to military service.
"There is no evidence to support the notion that Gulf War veterans are more violent than any other group," said Barbara Goodno, a spokeswoman at the Defense Department.
"We should be careful not to jump to conclusions. Approximately 697,000 veterans served their country in operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. It would be an injustice to them to automatically link the aberrant acts of a few to their military service," she added.
But enough questions linger that with the country teetering on the brink of another conflict with Iraq, researchers think these violent crimes may merit further study.
"These high-profile shooters, that looks like it could be something new. And certainly the Gulf War personality change thing could account for it," the researcher said.
The U.S. government does not acknowledge a Gulf War "syndrome" -- a group of signs and symptoms adding up to a unique condition. It admits there are a number of illnesses that have emerged in veterans of the conflict but until recently it has put these down to psychology.
Symptoms can include difficulty with concentration, thinking and memory, severe body pain, chronic diarrhea, sleep disturbances, night sweats, hot flashes and personality change, said Dr. Robert Haley of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, a member of the research advisory council on Gulf War illnesses to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
"It's common for these guys to have become (different)," Haley said. "Their wives will tell you, 'This isn't the guy who went over. He's had a personality change.' And they typically come back (with) difficulty controlling temper, often depressed, withdrawn, not wanting to be around other people, difficulty dealing with complex environments."
Haley said it is "too big a leap" to go from this to a conclusion that Gulf War brain injuries could be prompting this small group of men to commit terrible crimes.
POTENTIAL BREAKTHROUGH
According to a report the advisory committee issued to the Department of Veterans Affairs in June, the ailments of veterans of the relatively short conflict "cannot be adequately explained by deployment stress, wartime trauma or psychiatric diagnoses such as post-traumatic stress disorder."
This year's advisory committee report said neurological problems are a key category of Gulf War illnesses and that there is enough evidence "to conclude that this line of inquiry represents a potential breakthrough that could be pursued."
Last month, Veterans Affairs issued a statement citing the research on a possible neurological link and committing $20 million in fiscal 2004 to further study. The department will set up a brain-imaging center to probe the issue.
"It's not inconceivable that certain individuals may have severe neurological impairment," said veterans' advocate Robinson. "I can't sit here and tell you that that's the reason they commit crimes. But ... what we do need to do is continue the research that the VA has said it is going to authorize."
----
Officials say missing Uranium not harmful
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2002
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=28004275
HYDERABAD: A 7.35-kg block of 'depleted uranium'which is missing from the Central Crime Station (CCS) poses no danger to human health, officials have assured.
The block of depleted uranium-molybdenum alloy, seized two years ago by the police,was stored in the CCS store room along with two other pieces,weighing about 35 kg in all. The material had been part of recovered property in a theft case.
According to the police, the CCS hired a few persons recently to whitewash the premises and the workers said to have removed the material along with other scrap during the process. Dispelling any fears of radioactivity from the missing block, additional commissioner (crime) M Alagar said experts of the Nuclear Fuel Complex had said that the material did not have any radio-activity left.
The police seized the pieces from two scrap dealers, Mohd Ghouse Mohiuddin and Md Khaza Moinuddin, who collected it from the Bibi Cancer Hospital, Malakpet, in Nov. 2000. The hospital had disposed off the metal as scrap.
----
Three Sites Remain Radioactive from Bosnian War
November 13, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-13-02.asp
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Three sites in Bosnia-Herzegovina that were targeted with weapons containing depleted uranium during the mid-1990s are still radioactive enough to pose a risk to human health, a team of 17 experts from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said Tuesday.
In response to a request by the Council of Ministers of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a team assembled by the UNEP Post Conflict Assessment Unit carried out its scientific assessment in October.
American soldier holds a Scud missile containing depleted uranium (Photo courtesy U.S. Deployment Health Support Directorate)
Using sensitive instruments to measure surface radioactivity at 14 sites, the UNEP team confirmed the presence of radioactive "hot spots" and pieces of DU weapons at three locations - the Hadzici tank repair facility, the Hadzici ammunition storage area and the Han Pijesak barracks.
In addition to the 14 sites that were examined, the team could not to enter one site on their list due to safety concerns over nearby landmines.
The team took some 200 environmental samples - including 47 surface soil samples, three full soil profiles, three penetrators, one full DU bullet, 24 air samples, 42 water samples, and samples of lichen, bark, moss, mushroom and vegetables - to be analyzed for radioactivity and toxicity at laboratories in Switzerland, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Depleted uranium (DU) is a byproduct of nuclear power which has been used in heavy tank armor, anti-tank munitions, missiles and projectiles. The substance has 60 percent of the radioactivity of natural uranium and "significant chemical toxicity," according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
NATO fired more than 10,000 rounds of DU ammunition during the air strikes in 1994 and 1995. U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft fired approximately 10,000 30mm DU rounds, some 3.3 tons of DU, at 12 sites in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1994-1995, according to the U.S. Deployment Health Support Directorate.
Pekka Haavisto measures radioactivity in Bosnia-Herzegovina. (Photo courtesy UNEP)
Pekka Haavisto, who heads the UNEP Post Conflict Assessment Unit, is a former Finnish environment minister. He warned that two of the sites - the Hadzici tank repair facility and the Han Pijesak barracks - have not been cleaned of radioactive materials and dust although people are working in these facilities.
"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," Haavisto said.
Haavisto said UNEP will approach the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina about cleanup of the radioactive sites.
"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," he said. "Such a job should be carried out by experts."
A medical sub-team composed of the experts from WHO and the U.S. Army Center visited three hospitals and examined medical data and statistics in the national and regional ministries of health, with their full support.
Bombed out church in Hadzici (Photo courtesy http://www.spc.org.yu/)
In parallel to the medical sub-team, an expert on radioactivity from the International Atomic Energy Agency assessed the overall situation on radioactive sources in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This included regulations on handling, radioactive sources in use and storage of radioactive wastes.
UNEP team members found that members of the general public are 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 an easy-to-read flyer on the issue to de-mining personnel, local authorities involved in DU work, and interested members of the public.
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.
-------- france
Most of France would prefer no nuclear power: poll
London
Platts
13Nov2002
http://www.platts.com/nuclear/index.shtml
Most French people would like to do without nuclear power, according to a poll Wednesday. 61% of those polled "don`t want this energy used in the future," according to results of the IFOP poll carried exclusively in French daily Le Monde. Some 62% would pay between 3% and 10% more for their electricity to "help abandon nuclear power," according to the poll of 1005 people aged over 18.
At the same time 59% of those polled think "nuclear is the cheapest way of producing electricity" and two thirds believe abandoning it would have "negative consequences" for France's exports, economic development and France`s energy independence. The poll, commissioned by French electricity industry leaders, also found that most were "sceptical of the quality of official information" on nuclear.
-------- germany
Train loaded with nuclear waste arrives in Germany
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
By Reuters
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11132002/reu_48934.asp
WOERTH, Germany - A train carrying reprocessed German nuclear waste crossed the border from France Tuesday and police said they were expecting thousands of demonstrators to try to slow its passage to a storage site.
German police said there had been no disturbances so far to the transport of the 12 containers filled with 1,300 tons of reprocessed nuclear waste on their way to temporary storage in the north German town of Gorleben.
But police said they were expecting many thousands of antinuclear activists to try to prevent the train from reaching Gorleben, north of Hanover. The train arrived in Woerth after crossing the border from France Tuesday afternoon.
There have been reports of minor injuries in scuffles between police and demonstrators in Gorleben this week.
The 660-yard long train left the French reprocessing plant of La Hague Monday and is expected at its final destination Wednesday.
Protesters gathering near Gorleben and said they were determined to make the final leg of the journey as difficult - and expensive - as possible.
Hundreds of police from several German states were securing the tracks along the way, trying to prevent protesters from blocking the train's path.
During the last transport a year ago, protesters chained themselves to the tracks and delayed the train by several hours.
"We have a smaller police force in place this time, but are prepared for a more violent confrontation," a police spokesman said. Some 15,000 police were needed to guard the route last year in the largest peacetime security operation in post-war German history.
Security costs have reached some 23 million euros (US$23.20 million) in past years.
-------- inspections
Iraq Accepts United Nations Resolution;
Weapons Inspectors Leave for Baghdad on Monday
November 13, 2002
New York Times
By JULIA PRESTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/13/international/13CND-IRAQ.html
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 13 - Iraq said very reluctantly today that it would "deal with" a Security Council resolution obliging it to disarm and allow United Nations weapons inspectors to begin work, but it also denied that it possessed any prohibited weapons.
Most Security Council nations welcomed Baghdad's statement, which came two days before a deadline set in the resolution that the council unanimously approved last week. Iraq's response came in a nine-page letter that its United Nations ambassador, Muhammad al-Douri, delivered today to the office of Secretary General Kofi Annan.
The White House dismissed as fabrication Saddam Hussein's contention that Iraq possesses no weapons of mass destruction.
Earlier, shortly before the Iraqi envoy announced that Baghdad had accepted terms of the resolution, Mr. Bush told reporters at a cabinet meeting that he was firm in what he expected.
"Zero tolerance - about as plain as I can make it," he said. "We will not tolerate any deception, denial or deceit, period."
A White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the administration was taking a cautious approach to Iraq's promise to comply. "We have heard this before, and now it's time to see it by their actions," he said.
In pages of hostile language, the Iraqi letter calls the United States and Britain, allies who wrote the resolution, "the gang of evil" and accuses them of manipulating the Security Council with "the biggest and most wicked slander" against Iraq.
In the text, Baghdad provides the bare minimum expression of agreement to allow the inspections to go forward under the tough terms of Resolution 1441.
But it was enough for the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Anan, who said after meeting with President Bush in Washington that Iraq had met the first deadline set out in the resolution.
"Iraq has accepted," Mr. Annan said outside the White House. "I think the word, the acceptance and inviting the inspectors to come in, is there, so we take it that they have accepted it."
Mr. Annan said that the first inspectors would head for Iraq on Monday and that he and President Bush had agreed that their reception would be the first true test of Iraq's compliance.
"The issue is not the acceptance but performance on the ground,"` he said. "I urge the Iraqis to cooperate with them and to perform. I think that is the real test we are all waiting for.
"The president is determined that the disarmament will take place and that we should press ahead with our plans."
As Mr. ad-Douri arrived at the United Nations this morning to deliver to deliver the letter, he told reporters: "The letter is saying that Iraq will deal with the Security Council Resolution 1441 despite its bad contents. We are prepared to receive the inspectors within the assigned timetable. We are eager to see them perform their duties in accordance with international law as soon as possible. This is the essence of the letter.
"We explained in the letter the whole Iraqi equation dealt with here within the United Nations activities," Mr. al-Douri went on. "So we tried to explain our position, saying that Iraq have and have not and will not have any mass destruction weapons." He added that Iraq therefore had no concerns about the inspectors' return to the country.
In answer to a reporter's question, he said, "Iraq is clean, yes."
Asked why Iraq had accepted the resolution after so adamantly opposing the idea, Mr. al-Douri said it was "the right time to give the answer right now."
"We choose always the peaceful ways and means," he continued. "And this is part of our policy, vis-à-vis to protect our country, to protect our nation, to protect the region also from the threat of war, which is real. And everybody knows about it."
Similar comments were made in Baghdad, where a television announcer, reading from an Iraqi Foreign Ministry message to Mr. Annan, said: "We would like to inform you that we have decided to deal with the resolution 1441 despite the bad intentions included in it.
"We are ready to receive inspectors to carry out their mandate in making sure that Iraq has not produced mass destruction weapons while they were absent from Iraq since 1998."
Following the Iraqis' statements, United Nations officials in Vienna said that the first weapons inspectors would leave for Iraq on Monday.
The Security Council unanimously adopted the resolution last Friday after months of diplomatic lobbying by the Bush administration, which had threatened to attack Iraq if the United Nations failed to act.
Resolution 1441 gives Iraq a "final opportunity" to comply with disarmament resolutions and establishes a rigorous regimen of inspections, giving United Nations inspectors immediate access to any site they want in Iraq. The text warns of "serious consequences" if Iraq commits any other violation - meaning war. But such violations must be reported by the inspectors to the Council, which will meet to decide the next step.
The Security Council had given Baghdad until Friday to respond to the resolution.
The Iraqi Parliament, called into special session to discuss the issue, rejected the resolution on Tuesday but left the way open for Mr. Hussein to accept it.
--------
Arms Inspectors in Iraq Will Use High-Tech Gear
November 13, 2002
New York Times
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/13/international/middleeast/13INSP.html
In the four years since United Nations weapons inspectors left Iraq, the digital revolution has made their gear smaller, lighter, faster, more precise and easier to use. Millions of dollars in commercial and antiterrorism funds are accelerating the rush of technology, opening new vistas for weapons sleuthing.
Experts say the advances are giving the inspectors a technical edge in the hide-and-seek world of Iraqi weapons, as well as new leverage to disarm Iraq.
Among the new developments are these:
¶Commercial spy satellites so powerful that their photos can reveal details of factories, buildings and arsenals.
¶Miniature sensors that can constantly monitor the air, water and soil for telltale signs of weapons of mass destruction.
¶Newly portable germ detectors that can quickly check installations for anthrax, plague and other deadly biological agents.
¶Powerful radar systems that can penetrate the ground to scan for signs of tunnels and underground bunkers.
Human knowledge and experience will still be paramount in any inspection regime, Hans Blix, head of the United Nations inspection teams, recently told trainees in Vienna, according to transcripts made public by the United Nations. But, he went on, "powerful new means of verification" are now coming into play.
His view was supported by military analysts who pointed out that if the equipment can find strong evidence of prohibited weapons work, rather than weak or ambiguous clues, that could prove important in making the case for action against the government of President Saddam Hussein.
But even as Mr. Blix hailed technology's new power, military analysts emphasize that Iraqi weapons makers have had four years to refine their deceptions and thoroughly understand the United Nations approach.
As one Defense Intelligence Agency expert, John Yurechko, said recently of the Iraqis, "They now have experienced the inspection regime" and have whetted skills to counter it.
Weapons inspections began in Iraq in 1991, but after repeated failures of cooperation between the United Nations and Baghdad, the inspectors left in December 1998, hours before the United States and Britain began three days of air strikes.
Four years later, questions abound over what Baghdad has done during the inspection hiatus. The Defense Intelligence Agency, in a worst-case estimate, says Iraq may be rebuilding its nuclear program, renewing production of deadly nerve agents like sarin and VX, and racing to make germ weapons.
"Most elements are larger and more advanced than before the gulf war," the agency said of Baghdad's germ warfare effort.
Before the 1991 war, according to the United Nations, Iraq made at least 5,125 gallons of botulinum toxin, the deadliest substance known to science, and 2,245 gallons of anthrax agent - enough to kill everyone on earth several times over.
The United Nations now has about 250 experts trained to search Iraq for weapons of mass destruction. About 100 of them will be on the mission at any one time.
Some weapons experts say the technical edge may help newer inspectors compensate for their relative lack of experience.
But Tim McCarthy, who went to Iraq 15 times as a missile inspector and now works at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, was cautious about the new technologies, pointing out that they could also beguile with the hope of quick breakthroughs while ultimately wasting time and financial resources.
"There's lots of whiz-bang gadgets out there, and sometimes they don't get you to the central issues," he said.
A vital tool, Mr. McCarthy added, is the interview. Hundreds of Iraqi scientists are thought to know about programs to develop biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, and inspectors who interview them must develop the knack to detect a lie.
"It comes down to the nose," Mr. McCarthy said.
United Nations officials would not describe the new surveillance technologies in detail, for fear of tipping their hand. For example, Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, said making public the exact specifications for, say, a laser sensor, might let the Iraqis develop ways to confuse it.
"The sensors are much more sensitive," Mr. Buchanan said. "Camera resolution is better. Equipment that might have needed a room now might fit into a briefcase."
The general advances, experts said, are driven by the same digital revolution that has drastically increased the power of computers, cellphones and cameras. In tandem with these changes, new interest and redirected government financing have brought rapid advances in weapons detection.
"Four years ago the interest in defending against chemical and biological arms wasn't nearly as great," said K. David Nokes, head of national security programs at the Sandia National Laboratories, based in Albuquerque, N.M.
Germ detectors, too, have dramatically improved. The most accurate ones map a microbe's genetic material with the same kind of equipment used to decode the human genome. In 1998, when the inspectors left Iraq, only large laboratories could do such analyses.
But by 2001, after years of biodefense funding, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California had perfected a two-pound device known as Hanaa, for Hand-Held Advanced Nucleic Acid Analyzer, which can recognize a microbe by its DNA, helping eliminate identification failures and false positives.
"Having sensitive detection technology like Hanaa is very useful," said Page O. Stoutland, a Livermore counterterrorism official. "The traditional way is to take lots of samples and then send those home. But that takes days or weeks to sort out."
By contrast, he said, Hanaa, now being made commercially, works in about 20 minutes, "letting you go back quickly if you get an interesting reading."
Miniaturization has also shrunk radiation detectors, which can help track nuclear materials. The inspectors have acquired two types made by Quantrad Sensors, a company in Madison, Wis. Its portable Ranger unit can detect several radioactive isotopes, while its Alex unit can identify a wide range of metals with potential nuclear uses.
"They're simple to use," said Martin Janiak, the company's head. "You turn them on and go."
As for the new commercial satellites, which came into being in 1999 and now number a half-dozen, their cameras can see objects on the ground as small as two feet wide, revealing roads, buildings, pipelines, bridges, tanks, jets and missiles. The United Nations is using images from at least two of the commercial craft, officials said, and began experimenting with them about two years ago.
While countries at times supply the United Nations with images from their own reconnaissance satellites, a United Nations report last year praised the new self-reliance. "Material from multiple sources," it said, "serves to provide the commission with a broader and independent assessment capability."
In September, after studying photos of Iraq, weapons inspectors identified several nuclear-related areas of new construction or other unexplained changes. "We are very curious to see what is under the roof," said Jacques Baute, leader of the nuclear inspectors.
A newer technology on the horizon is pilotless reconnaissance drones, which the Security Council has allowed under the resolution adopted last Friday on new Iraq inspections. Among other things, the American military has used the drones for photographic surveillance.
Private experts said drones or piloted surveillance craft might carry gear to help the inspectors find underground bunkers, a top issue on the agenda.
Last year, an Iraqi defector who described himself as a civil engineer said in an interview that he personally worked on secret installations for biological, chemical and nuclear arms in underground vaults. Other Western intelligence has echoed that theme.
Special radar systems can penetrate the ground. Other devices can detect variations in the earth's gravitational field, revealing underground voids. Still other sensors can detect magnetic fields generated by electrical gear in tunnels up to 100 feet deep.
Tim Brown of GlobalSecurity.org, a private group in Alexandria, Va., said it was very likely such equipment would be used in Iraq. "If they don't go in with something like that," he said, "they're not going to be perceived as serious."
In a talk last month in Vienna, Mr. Blix of the United Nations said the new inspections, aided by the new technologies, could be thorough but not perfect in ferreting out hidden Iraqi arms.
"It is not possible to examine every square meter in a big country, or every basement, or every computer program, or archive, or every truck on the road," he said. "All that is attainable is a high degree of assurance that there are no malign bugs or bombs."
-------- korea
North Korea Won't Give Ground in Nuclear Flap
November 13, 2002
By Eric Hall
Reuters
http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=worldnews&StoryID=1728582#
HONG KONG - North Korea said on Wednesday it would not make the first move to defuse a dispute over its nuclear weapons program, and insisted Washington sign a non-aggression pact first.
Consul General Ri To Sop, North Korea's top diplomat in Hong Kong, also told Reuters that any move to halt crucial shipments of oil to Pyongyang would be considered a hostile act. He did not elaborate.
"We want the United States to legally guarantee a non-aggression treaty, then our side is ready to address the U.S. security concerns," Ri said in an interview.
His statement was a strong reassertion of Pyongyang's position ahead of a key meeting on the oil shipments issue on Thursday between the United States, South Korea, Japan, and the European Union.
At the meeting in New York, the United States will try to halt essential oil exports to North Korea for its admission that it still had an active nuclear weapons program, in abrogation of a 1994 agreement.
Asked whether Pyongyang would withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty if oil shipments were stopped, Ri said: "I cannot give you an exact answer but I can say this is another hostile act... the neighboring countries are talking about not stopping."
Washington has said Pyongyang clearly violated the 1994 agreement to freeze the nuclear weapons work in exchange for oil shipments and two light water reactors that cannot be easily used to produce weapons-grade material.
But the United States has not yet managed to line up clear support from Japan, South Korea, Russia and China to force Pyongyang to comply.
South Korea said earlier Wednesday it favored continuing oil shipments through the winter to the beleaguered North Korean economy.
Since October, when the United States presented North Korea with evidence it was enriching uranium, which is part of the process in making an atomic bomb, Pyongyang has not only admitted it was doing so, but has stressed that it was part of its sovereign right to defend itself.
Ri would not confirm or deny that his country had a working nuclear weapon, or one that could easily be armed or delivered, but added: "So, U.S. pressure to scrap or dismantle our nuclear weapons ... is completely absurd logic."
"Now we have our defensive capabilities to defend our sovereignty and our right to existence...against the hostility from the United States."
Asked what concrete steps North Korea would take if the United States agreed to its insistence on a non-aggression treaty, Ri said: "This would be discussed."
"The U.S. assertion that the DPRK (North Korea) should halt first the nuclear program means a surrender... Since a surrender means a death, it can only lead to a confrontation," Ri said.
But he added: "Now, we are ready for war or dialogue. We prefer dialogue but we will not move first. We will not beg for recognition from the hostile side."
----
North Korea Demands US Sign Non-Aggression Pact
VOA News
13 Nov 2002,
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=C4328558-E8E1-40F6-82B1D6C3E0981271
A North Korean diplomat says Pyongyang will not answer U.S. concerns about its nuclear program until Washington signs a non-aggression pact. The comment by North Korea's Consul-General in Hong Kong, Ri To Sop, comes as a U.S.-led consortium, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, or KEDO, prepares to meet Thursday in New York to discuss the future of fuel oil deliveries to the communist state.
Mr. Ri told reporters Pyongyang wants dialogue with the United States, but will not address U.S. security concerns until Washington signs a non-aggression treaty.
U.S. diplomats said last month that North Korea has admitted violating a 1994 agreement in which Pyongyang pledged to halt its nuclear development program, in exchange for energy assistance. In response, Washington reportedly plans to call for KEDO, which comprises the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union, to stop fuel oil deliveries to North Korea.
But South Korea's Unification Minister told reporters that fuel oil deliveries should continue until at least January.
Some information for this report provided by AFP and Reuters.
----
Pakistan's N. Korea Deals Stir Scrutiny
Aid to Nuclear Arms Bid May Be Recent
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45961-2002Nov12?language=printer
The Bush administration has evidence that suggests Pakistan assisted North Korea's covert nuclear weapons program as recently as three months ago, much later than previously disclosed, according to sources in the administration and on Capitol Hill.
While the administration has taken a hard line against North Korea, demanding that it verify it has dismantled its efforts to enrich uranium before U.S. officials engage in further discussions with the communist state, it has taken a much softer tack against Pakistan. Publicly, officials have suggested that if Pakistan, a key ally in the war against terrorism, had provided help to North Korea in the past, it changed its behavior after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington.
But in reality, U.S. officials say, the administration believes Pakistan continued to trade nuclear technical knowledge, designs and possibly material in exchange for missile parts up until this summer, when the administration concluded North Korea was secretly trying to construct a facility to enrich uranium for a bomb. Administration officials would not discuss the extent of the evidence, but they said it involves highly suspicious shipping trade.
"Let's put it this way: There were still shenanigans going on three months ago," an administration official said. Intelligence officials who have briefed members of Congress have also disclosed the administration's concerns that Pakistan's illicit nuclear trade continued well into this year.
Pakistan's involvement in North Korea's program has put the administration in an extremely delicate position. Under U.S. law, if the president determines that a country has delivered nuclear enrichment equipment, material or technology without international safeguards, the United States must suspend economic and military aid. Such sanctions were imposed against Pakistan in 1979, but last year President Bush waived them and other nuclear-related sanctions after the Pakistani government agreed to help in the fight against al Qaeda and Afghanistan's Taliban militia after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Rather than press Pakistan for a full accounting, U.S. officials said they have noted the latest evidence -- which Pakistani officials have argued is innocent -- and believe they have put Pakistan on notice that future violations will not be tolerated. Intelligence officials plan to closely scrutinize transactions between Pakistan and North Korea.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has personally guaranteed that questionable transactions with North Korea will cease, and U.S. officials believe he would like to halt the nuclear leakage. But they also question whether he has full control of all entities that could be doing business with North Korea. "In the end, we may find he is only partially truthful," the official said.
Several experts said it will be difficult to understand the scope of the North Korean program -- which by some estimates would not be operational for several years -- unless the administration demands that Pakistan disclose exactly what it might have provided to North Korea.
"We have asked North Korea to verifiably dismantle its nuclear enrichment program," said Robert J. Einhorn, former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation in the Clinton and Bush administrations and now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "How will we know if North Korea has done that unless we know precisely what Pakistan has transferred to North Korea?"
Pakistani officials publicly insist that they have not helped the North Korean program in any way.
"No material, no technology ever has been exported to North Korea," said Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, the Pakistani ambassador to the United States. "I can assure you there is no way we would underestimate the seriousness of such an international breach."
Qazi said that while Pakistan has engaged in trade with North Korea, "nobody can tell us if there is evidence, no one is challenging our word. There is no smoking gun."
Last month, U.S. officials confronted North Korea with their conclusion that it had a covert nuclear program. Then, North Korea unexpectedly admitted it.
Pakistan produces highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, and U.S. officials have long suspected that Pakistani nuclear scientists had disturbing ties to the North Koreans.
In the face of Pakistan's vehement denials, U.S. officials have been publicly anxious not to suggest that Musharraf, who seized power in 1999 in a bloodless coup, is anything but a close friend and ally.
Indeed, asked last month about reports that Pakistan provided assistance to North Korea's program, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer did not confirm the reports but noted: "Many things that people may have done years before September 11th or some time before September 11th, have changed. September 11th changed the world and it changed many nations' behaviors along with it."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has been careful publicly not to suggest when Pakistan may have helped North Korea. Instead, he said that as recently as last month, he spoke to Musharraf "about the need not to assist North Korea in any way and have any kind of relationship with North Korea now that would give them the wherewithal to develop those kinds of weapons or the means to deliver them."
Powell said he purposely did not dwell on past behavior because "the past is the past and there isn't a whole lot I can do about it. I'm more concerned about what is going on now. We have a new relationship with Pakistan."
Leonard Weiss, a former Senate staffer who specialized in nonproliferation issues, said there is "no question" that, under a 1976 law known as the Symington amendment, Pakistan would qualify for sanctions if it aided North Korea's program. But he said that if officials decide not to probe too deeply, "they avoid the political problem of having to give them a waiver."
-------- russia
Russia to remove all spent nuclear fuel from Kola Peninsula within 6 years
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
By Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11132002/ap_48938.asp
MOSCOW - Russia will remove all the spent nuclear fuel currently stored on and near the Kola Peninsula, an Arctic region bordering on Norway, within the next six years, the governor of the region said.
Murmansk region governor Yuri Yevdokimov said that the government had instructed the Defense Ministry and Atomic Energy Ministry to clean up the fuel that had been used by Russia's nuclear submarine fleet, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Tuesday. Yevdokimov's comments came while President Vladimir Putin was in Norway on a state visit.
In July, the European Union, Russia, and Norway pledged an initial 110 million euro (US$109 million) to support a cleanup fund to rid Russia's northwestern coast of nuclear waste from the submarines.
Norway has financed construction of a special train to carry nuclear fuel from submarines; helped build a radioactive waste recycling facility in Murmansk, about 1,450 kilometers (906 miles) north of Moscow; and taken part in renovating a spent nuclear fuel storage site 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian-Norwegian border, ITAR-Tass said.
A representative of the Norwegian-based environmental group Bellona said Tuesday that the organization expects progress during Putin's visit on the preparation of a framework agreement meant to avert the danger of nuclear pollution in the Barents Sea and the White Sea off northwestern Russia, the Interfax news agency reported.
"Western governments, particularly Scandinavian governments, are concerned about the danger posed by what is called the world's largest nuclear cemetery, the Barents Sea, in which dozens of submarines with nuclear reactors have been dumped," Interfax quoted Igor Kudrik, a Bellona manager in St. Petersburg, as saying.
Norway suggested drafting and signing the agreement, called the Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Program for Russia, in 1999, Kudrik said.
Bellona says there are about 100 Russian submarines with 300 nuclear reactors aboard in the waters of the Kola Peninsula, Interfax reported. It said Norwegian environmentalists estimate the total cost of cleaning up the peninsula and the nearby Russian region of Arkhangelsk at $2 billion.
----
Typhoons being repaired to operate until 2010
Igor Kudrik, Andrey Mikhailov,
Bellona
2002-11-13
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/navy/northern_fleet/vessels/27221.html
OSLO-SEVERODVINSK - Russian navy may face nuclear-free seas by 2010; repairs Typhoon class submarines to use them as test platforms for weapons, which are still in design.
A Typhoon class submarine in Severodvinsk. Bellona archive http://www.bellona.no/data/b/0/27/22/9_1407_1.jpg http://www.bellona.no/data/b/0/27/23/0_1407_1.jpg
A Typhoon class submarine - Arkhangelsk (TK-17) - left the docks of Sevmash shipyard (Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk county) and headed to its home base in Zapadnaya Litsa at the Kola Peninsula on November 9th 2002. The submarine has been under repairs and upgrade for one year.
The first submarine within Typhoon class - TK-208 - commissioned in 1981 has been under repairs in Severodvinsk since 1990. Its repairs and upgrade seem to near the end as the submarine was taken out of the dry dock and is undergoing pre-sea trial testing. During this long 12-year resting period submarine's ID-number TK-208 was replaced with name Dmitry Donskoy. The sea trials of the submarine are scheduled for spring 2003.
The longish repairs of Dmitry Donskoy were apparently not caused only by the lack of funding. As recently as this year Russian admirals started to refer to Dmitry Donskoy as to the submarine of the forth generation. This submarine built in early 1980 belonged at that time to the third generation. No submarines of the forth generation have been constructed in Russia so far.
A Typhoon class submarine - Arkhangelsk (TK-17) - left the docks of Sevmash shipyard (Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk county) and headed to its home base in Zapadnaya Litsa at the Kola Peninsula on November 9th 2002. Severodvinsk There were also reports that Typhoons, or at least upgraded Dmitry Donskoy, will be used as testing platforms for new weaponry.
The type of weaponry is a big dilemma for the Russian navy, however.
It all started, when the first forth generation submarine - starting from this year it is referred to as the fifth generation submarine - Yury Dolgoruky, Borey class armed with ballistic missiles, was laid down at Sevmash in 1996.
The initial plans suggested that Yury Dolgoruky would be carrying Bark missiles. The maker of Bark class missiles was the Makeev Design Bureau, which designed almost all Soviet/Russian sea-based ballistic missiles. The Bureau had been working on this missile since 1982. The Bark-class missiles were a dramatically modified version of the SS-N-20 currently installed on Typhoon class submarines. But after a number of unsuccessful tests, Bark missiles were discarded in 1998. The design of a new ballistic missile system was given Moscow Institute of Thermo-equipment (MIT), which designed land based solid fuel ballistic missiles of Pioneer, Topol and Topol-M classes. The new missile system was nicknamed Bulava-30.
Back in 1996, it was said that Yury Dolgoruky would completed in 2002. Today a new date - 2007 - is set, given Bulava-30 is ready by that time.
And here enter Typhoons. Out of six originally built Typhoons, three, as Russia's Navy officials maintain, are slashed for decommissioning. In 1996, TK-12 and TK-202 and in 1997 TK-13 were taken out of regular service and placed on reserve.
TK-202 arrived to Severodvinsk first week of July 1999 for decommissioning. The work on this submarine is being funded by the US Cooperative Threat Reduction program, or CTR. This autumn spent nuclear fuel was to be unloaded from TK-202 reactors at the Zvezdochka shipyard (Severodvinsk) defuelling site. The construction of the defuelling site was also financed through CTR. TK-12 and TK-13 are lining up for their turn to be scrapped.
The remaining three Typhoons, TK-208, TK-17 and TK-20 may be used to ensure that by 2007 Russian navy is not having nuclear-free-seas situation and finally commissions the fifth generation submarine.
Programme until 2010 According to Russian daily Vremya MN, the funding of the Russian navy until 2005 will focus on keeping in operation the existing submarines, including SSBNs of Delta-III class in the Pacific and Delta-IV class in the Northern Fleet. Along with that the funding to complete Yury Dolgoruky should be provided in full. But 2010, a serial production of Borey class submarines should start, as suggested by the current programmes.
The share of the navy in the defence budget, however, has not exceeded 11 to 12% during the past years. The naval lobby has been trying hard to raise navy's budget allocations up to 25%, but so far those attempts have not been successful. Given the current state of affairs, the strategic forces of the Russian Federation are slowly migrating towards the shore. At least the land-based strategic forces have a modern missile system - Topol-M - which the navy lacks so far for the reasons mentioned above.
Putin's favouritism of the naval forces has proven during the years of his presidency to be more of PR-related, rather than having any practical application. The bulk of the funds earmarked for the navy go to ensure the timely payments of allowances, whereas only a small fraction is spent on development.
Typhoon class submarines - overview K-no. (fabric no.) Ship yard -Laid down -Launched Active service -Start date -End date Accidents/Incidents Present condition
TK-208 (Dmitry Donskoy) Sevmash 30/06 1976 23/09 1979 12/12 1981 1986: Reactor cleaning unit leakage 1987: Reactor cleaning unit leakage The submarine has been under upgrade and repairs at Sevmash shipyard since 1990. Repairs intensified in 2000, but the submarine is still at the shipyard. Scheduled to enter service in spring 2003
TK-202 Sevmash 01/10 1980 26/04 1982 28/12 1983 1996 No data Under decommissioning with CTR funds at Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk since 1999. Defueling started in June 2002.
TK-12 Sevmash 27/04 1982 17/12 1983 27/12 1984 1996 No data Laid-up in Nerpichya Bay, Zapadnaya Litsa.
TK-13 Sevmash 05/01 1984 30/04 1985 30/12 1985 1997 No data Laid-up in Nerpichya Bay, Zapadnaya Litsa.
TK-17 (Arkhangelsk) Sevmash 24/02 1985 Aug 1986 06/11 1987 in service No data Repaired at Sevmash 2001-2002. Based in Nerpichya Bay, Zapadnaya Litsa.
TK-20 Sevmash 06/01 1986 Jul 1988 Sep 1989 In service No data Based in Nerpichya Bay, Zapadnaya Litsa.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new york
County Exec Suggests Takeover Of Indian Point
Spano Wants Plant To Go From Nuke To Gas
November 13, 2002
NBC
http://www.wnbc.com/news/1783877/detail.html
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano said Wednesday that the county is considering taking over the Indian Point nuclear power plants and replacing them with gas-fired generators.
Spano, saying the eventual cost could run into the billions of dollars, announced he was budgeting $500,000 for a study to investigate how the county could buy or condemn the twin power plants in Buchanan. The reactors' safety and security has been a hot-button issue in Westchester since last year's terrorist attack on neighboring New York City.
"Replacing Indian Point's nuclear reactors will make us all feel safer," he said. "If we buy the facility -- or if needed, condemn it -- and replace it ... we can be masters of our own fate."
Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Corp., the owner of the plants, said the company "expects to operate Indian Point for a long time to come" as a nuclear power site.
He said he expects Spano's study to show that "electric rates would rise through the roof" if the county took it over.
Spano said Westchester voters would make any final decision, in a referendum. He acknowledged there were many questions about such a conversion, and "that's what the study is for."
-------- utah
Hansen's Effort to Block Nuclear Waste Dies
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
BY ROBERT GEHRKE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
From: Bruce Baizel <baizelb@earthlink.net>
WASHINGTON -- Rep. James Hansen's backdoor bid to stop the storage of high-level nuclear waste in Utah's west desert died Tuesday after House and Senate negotiators dropped his provision from the final version of a defense bill.
The Utah Republican quietly slipped language into the Defense Authorization Bill that would have created 500,000 acres of wilderness in Utah's west desert, beneath the Air Force's Utah Test and Training Range.
The wilderness designation would have blocked shipments of highly radioactive waste to a proposed temporary storage site on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation. But the provision was opposed by environmentalists, who said the wilderness language was too weak and gave too much power to the Pentagon.
Democrats were furious that Hansen usurped the normal committee process and crammed his language into the bill. Electric utilities that operate nuclear reactors that produce the waste also lobbied against the measure.
"Utah had its last, best chance to stop the introduction of dangerous, high-level nuclear waste into our community and they let their radical wilderness agenda stop it," Hansen said in a statement. Hansen's language became one of a handful of sticking points that bogged down the defense bill, despite having the support of the Defense Department, the White House and Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt.
A number of compromises were offered, including one that would have merely directed the Pentagon to study the impact of storing nuclear waste beneath the bombing range and the potential health and safety effects if there is an incident on the range.
"We offered every compromise in the book and we answered every concern, but it appears they would rather have 40,000 metric tons of nuclear waste in our back yard than give an inch on their extreme position on wilderness," Hansen said.
On Tuesday, lead negotiators from the House and Senate decided to trash the controversial measures -- including Hansen's proposal -- in order to get a bill passed as Congress meets in a short postelection session this week.
Hansen is retiring at the end of the year and without his seniority and position on the key House defense and resources committees, it could be difficult to bring back similar legislation next year.
Larry Young, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), said Hansen overreached with his proposal and angered too many important members of Congress with his backdoor tactics.
"It was doomed to failure because he took on too many opponents simultaneously," Young said. "It's bittersweet to see the outcome. It was a bad public lands provision that he inserted into the House version. It needed to be stopped and it was. In the process he's willing to sacrifice public safety."
Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of electric companies, is seeking a license to store 44,000 tons of highly radioactive fuel from commercial power plants on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation, 45 miles west of Salt Lake City. State officials and Utah's congressional delegation have been searching for ways to block the proposal.
Hansen pointed to the recent crash of two F-16s as evidence of the danger of storing nuclear waste on the test and training range. Young said his group supports the concept of using wilderness designations to stop the nuclear waste shipments. But the group objected to Hansen's language, which would have allowed the military to close parts of the wilderness areas, given the Secretary of Defense veto power over land uses, and would have prevented the wilderness designation of lands that SUWA says should be considered.
-------- us nuc waste
Homeland Bill Gets Boost
3 Key Senators Agree to White House Plan for Department
By Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45457-2002Nov12?language=printer
The drive to create a federal Department of Homeland Security, one of President Bush's top priorities since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, drew close to fruition yesterday as key senators agreed to a slightly revised version of the White House's proposal.
The breakthrough came when three centrist lawmakers -- Sens. John Breaux (D-La.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Lincoln D. Chafee (R-R.I.) -- agreed with some apparent reluctance to a White House plan to resolve a dispute over worker rights, which had held up the bill for two months. The developments, on the opening day of Congress's post-election session, reflected Bush's dramatically enhanced clout since Republicans expanded their House majority and won control of the Senate in last week's elections.
With GOP leaders embracing the deal and Democrats not standing in the way, the House could approve the legislation as soon as today. The Senate, under Democratic control for several more days, could grant final approval later this week or early next week.
The agreement would give Bush nearly all the flexibility he sought to bypass civil service rules in hiring, firing and promoting the 170,000 workers from 22 agencies that would be combined into the new department. The president also could waive collective bargaining rights when national security was deemed to be at stake.
The White House made modest concessions. Government unions, for example, would get a bigger role than Bush originally wanted in handling disputes over work rules and a limit on collective bargaining waivers. Unions would have 30 days to respond to proposed work rule changes. If no agreement is reached, the department would have to send a letter to Congress explaining the dispute, which would allow for congressional protests.
Another 30 days would be allowed for mediation. But in the end, the department could implement changes it saw fit. The department would have to issue findings in writing before bargaining rights could be waived, and waivers would be limited to four years, allowing for review by a new administration.
The proposal drew a sharp dissent from the American Federation of Government Employees, the large union of federal workers. "The American public needs to know that the president's so-called compromise . . . is a Trojan horse," said union President Bobby L. Harnage. "It has nothing to do with improving security. All it does is strip federal workers of the right to defend themselves in the workplace."
The three centrist senators, who earlier offered a compromise with stronger worker protections, said the new proposal recognizes political realities while improving earlier White House positions. "This was the best we could get, knowing it would pass" anyway, Breaux said.
The bill also would allow commercial airline pilots to carry firearms in their cockpits, a proposal passed earlier by the House and Senate in separate bills.
But it does not include a Senate-approved provision calling for an independent blue-ribbon commission to look into the nation's preparedness for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. A move to include the commission in separate intelligence legislation has also stalled.
The compromise came as the 107th Congress reconvened for a lame-duck session to wrap up unfinished business. The 108th Congress will convene in January, with Republicans deposing Democrats in the Senate and expanding their majority in the House.
In yesterday's first order of business, Vice President Cheney swore in Dean Barkley as the interim senator from Minnesota. Barkley, an independent, was appointed to succeed the late Sen. Paul D. Wellstone (D-Minn.) for the rest of the current Congress after Wellstone was killed in a plane crash Oct. 25.
Barkley declined to align himself with either party, which had the effect of keeping Democrats in narrow control of the chamber for a few days at least. Republicans will take over later this month when Missouri certifies last week's results in which James M. Talent (R) ousted Sen. Jean Carnahan (D) in a special election.
Most of the Senate's day was taken up with tributes to Wellstone, whose empty desk stood covered in black and topped with a vase of white flowers. Barkley hailed Wellstone's "unrelenting energy to fight the fight" and said he planned to carry on Wellstone's effort to expand insurance coverage for mental illnesses during his few days as a senator.
Despite optimism about passing the homeland security bill, two of Bush's other priorities -- spending bills for the current fiscal year and terrorism insurance legislation -- appeared to have little chance in the lame-duck session.
After meeting with Bush at the White House, House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts (Okla.) told reporters that the bill to provide federal support for buying insurance against terrorist attacks is likely to go over to the next Congress. It has been held up by a dispute over limitations on punitive damages in lawsuits.
Instead of passing appropriations bills, Watts said, Congress will probably approve temporary funding through early January, when the new Congress will convene.
But Senate Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum (Pa.) said he was "very hopeful" that long-delayed legislation to overhaul bankruptcy laws will be approved. He said he also sees a "melting of the iceberg" on judicial nominations in the Senate, where Republicans have objected to Democrats' blocking of some of Bush's appointees.
-------- us politics
Pakistan-N.Korea Tie Seen as Tricky Issue for Bush
Reuters
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51138-2002Nov13?language=printer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration's tough line on North Korea's nuclear weapons program differs sharply from its delicate approach toward Pakistan, a U.S. ally in the anti-terror war who some suspect has provided Pyongyang with key technology.
Despite Pakistan's reported role in Pyongyang's program, there is no indication President Bush or the Republican-led Congress plan to impose sanctions or any other punishment on the South Asian nation.
Quite the contrary.
Pakistan has received more than one billion dollars worth of direct and indirect U.S.-backed assistance since signing on as a pivotal player in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, war against al Qaeda and other extremist groups.
"Republicans will go along with the administration in trying to stay focused on the war on terrorism and Pakistan is important on this," said a Republican Senate source.
"I don't think people will want to take the administration on," he added, in explaining why no punitive action toward Pakistan is expected on Capitol Hill.
In contrast, the administration is pushing to have the international community suspend if not halt outright heavy fuel oil shipments to the North Korea and to inflict other economic and diplomatic pressures that would force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
U.S. concerns about Pakistan's nuclear arms capability and weapons-related exports to so-called rogue states were once a centerpiece of relations between Washington and Islamabad.
Such worries were muted after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with U.S. officials saying that if Pakistan had troubling entanglements before, it has changed.
CONCERNS REVIVED
But these concerns surfaced again after the stunning revelation last month that North Korea has a nuclear program in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States.
Pyongyang's program involved producing highly enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons.
It was discovered when Washington learned the Stalinist regime was trying to acquire large amounts of high strength aluminum that could be used in gas-centrifuge facilities, one of several technologies for producing enriched uranium.
U.S. officials and experts say Pakistan is a likely source of technology and expertise for North Korea.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday the United States has evidence suggesting Pakistan assisted North Korea's nuclear program as recently as three months ago -- much later than previously disclosed.
If true, it could call into question Pakistan's commitment to the war on terrorism. Bush last January branded North Korea part of the "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran.
It could also confront the administration with a difficult choice. Under U.S. law, the president must suspend economic and military aid if a country transfers nuclear technology to nuclear programs without international safeguards.
Pakistan was sanctioned for such behavior in the past but penalties were waived after the anti-terror war began. It denies making nuclear-related transfers to North Korea.
NO PROOF
On Wednesday, a senior U.S. official took pains to make a case that the administration had no conclusive proof of Pakistan's involvement with North Korea.
"There's no evidence that the government (in Islamabad) was helping (North Korea) within the last three months or before," he told Reuters.
"That's not to say they might not have...I'm not saying we are convinced there is no Pakistani government involvement," he said.
He said the implication of the Post story is "we know (Pakistan) is involved and we're not saying it publicly because it would upset the Pakistanis. But the fact is, while we know the technology North Korea is using is the same as Pakistan, that doesn't mean that is proof the government is involved."
North Korea could have acquired its expertise and materiel from other sources, said the official, who left open the possibility the culprit might be Pakistani individuals or entities rather than the government itself.
The lab operated by Abdula Qadir Khan, the so-called father of Pakistan's bomb, was sanctioned by Washington in 1998. As head of the nation's nuclear program, he made the Ghauri as a carbon copy of North Korea's Nodong missile.
Khan is alleged to have established front companies and smuggling operations to gather and sell nuclear gear and blueprints. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf forced his resignation last year.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said last month he was assured by Musharraf "Pakistan is not doing anything" now to aid Pyongyang. But Powell would not discuss the past.
The Clinton administration sometimes drew what some argue are similar distinctions with China, contending the government was unaware of weapons-related transfers by various entities and individuals and could not control them all. This approach was harshly criticized by some Republicans now in power.
Frank Gaffney, an influential Republican defense analyst, said he generally believes "we should be demonstrating to people there are costs for doing these sorts of things."
But he said "it's tricky with Musharraf (because) he's one of the few reeds we're leaning on" in the anti-terror war.
One approach might be to punish only the Pakistani intelligence services "which I suspect is up to its eyeballs in this thing," Gaffney suggested.
----
Bush wins on homeland security bill
By Joseph Curl and Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021113-14803141.htm
President Bush, capitalizing on the Republicans' historic victory in last week's congressional elections, yesterday won the battle with the Democrat-controlled Senate over his plan to create a Department of Homeland Security.
Senate Democrats led by John B. Breaux of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska signed off on a White House-backed proposal, which is expected to pass overwhelmingly in the House and Senate, where it has been bogged down for weeks.
"No one wants to be on record opposing homeland security," a Senate Republican leadership aide said of Mr. Bush's plan to consolidate more than 100 federal agencies into one umbrella department to oversee the security of Americans.
The revised bill is expected to pass the House today, but procedural hurdles will slow the bill in the Senate. The leadership aide said Republicans hoped it would receive a vote by Friday, but it could be tied up until early next week.
The breakthrough came after Republican congressional leaders met at the White House yesterday with Mr. Bush, who has made its passage the top priority of the lame-duck session.
Mr. Bush opened the meeting by telling the lawmakers they should "see the election for what it was" and get working quickly on homeland security and terrorism insurance, said a senior White House official.
The White House last night voiced cautious optimism.
"We remain hopeful that Congress will get legislation to the president before they leave," Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said.
With nearly 75 percent of Americans supporting the creation of a Homeland Security Department - a key factor in the 2002 elections, in which Republicans bucked decades-old trends and picked up seats in both congressional chambers - Democrats capitulated.
Now that Republicans will take over the Senate, Mr. Breaux and Mr. Nelson, along with liberal Republican Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, saw the inevitability of the department's creation.
"In the end, most members of the Senate want to pass homeland security," said the three senators, who conceded the Republican takeover of the Senate puts the party in a superior negotiating position.
"We will vote for this proposal when it reaches the Senate floor," they said in a joint statement last night.
Their shift gives supporters of the Homeland Security Department 52 votes, a majority in the 100-member Senate.
One senior Bush administration official said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle gave up his opposition because he didn't want a prolonged fight over what he now sees as a lost cause.
"With the president's wins last week in the House and the Senate, he now knows this is a big-time loser," the official said.
Ranit Schmelzer, spokesman for Mr. Daschle, said the senator believes the measure's worker protections do not go far enough, but he would bring the bill to the Senate floor because the new department is needed. She said the bill appears to have enough votes to pass the Senate.
Sen. Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia Democrat, had used parliamentary procedures before the election to put the biggest roadblocks in front of the new department. Aides to Mr. Byrd did not know last night whether he would try to slow passage of the legislation.
The president's proposal, passed this summer by the House, has been bottled up for months in the Democrat-controlled Senate, which wanted to prevent the president from suspending some bureaucratic job protection for the 170,000 employees of the planned department.
The president's proposed legislation calls for the creation of an umbrella department to combine more than 100 federal agencies from 22 departments, including the Border Patrol, Secret Service and Coast Guard.
Mr. Bush demanded the power to suspend certain job-protection benefits for federal employees if they stood in the way of protecting Americans. He wants to be able to exempt unionized workers from time-consuming collective-bargaining agreements and bypass civil service rules in promoting, firing and transferring workers.
"The enemy moves quickly, and America must move quickly," Mr. Bush said in a speech earlier yesterday at the District's Metropolitan Police Department Operations Center. "To meet the threats, I must be able - and future presidents must be able - to move people and resources where they're needed, and to do it quickly, without being forced to comply with a thick book of rules."
Much of the language remains in flux but the compromise was summarized on a one-sheet briefing paper.
The proposal contains a national-security waiver that retains the president's discretion to exempt agencies and subdivisions from collective bargaining when it conflicts with the president's ability to protect homeland security. However, the president is required to notify Congress of his reasons for exercising this authority 10 days before it takes effect.
Under the new proposal, unions must get 30 days' advance notice, would have an opportunity to object and could take their case to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. But if no agreement is reached, the department could carry out its initial intentions, aides said.
In a nod to Democrats, the legislation would require the department to negotiate any workplace changes with the employees union and require federal mediation if no agreement was reached. But in the end, the department could make whatever changes it wanted - flexibility that administration officials have argued they will need.
•This article is based in part on wire service reports.
----
Finishing homeland security
EDITORIAL •
November 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20021113-280771.htm
As he criss-crossed the country on behalf of Republican candidates in the waning days of the campaign, President Bush repeatedly emphasized the importance of Senate passage of his proposal to create a new Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Bush's forceful criticism of the Senate's failure to join the House (which voted overwhelmingly in September to approve a clean homeland security bill ) played a key role in the defeat of two incumbent Senate Democrats - Max Cleland of Georgia and Jean Carnahan of Missouri. Their successful Republican challengers, Rep. Saxby Chambliss in Georgia and former Rep. Jim Talent in Missouri, made Mr. Cleland and Mrs. Carnahan's failure to cooperate with the president on this issue central features of their campaigns in final weeks before the election.
In the wake of the Republicans' remarkable showing at the polls, the president has continued to drive home the point that it's time for the Senate Democrats and Republicans to join the House in passing a homeland security bill he can sign.
Ever since Sept. 4, when the Senate took up the homeland security bill being pushed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Majority Leader Tom Daschle, that chamber has been the major stumbling block to passage of reform legislation. The problem has remained the same: The Democratic Senate, acting with the support of powerful unions like the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union, has attempted to force Mr. Bush to choose between two alternatives. He would sign homeland security legislation that would have stripped him of powers that every president since Jimmy Carter has had codified in law - to exempt from union control Homeland Security Department employees working in sensitive national security-related areas. Or, he would get no bill at all.
Before the election, supporters of Mr. Bush, led by Sen. Phil Gramm, Texas Republican, and Zell Miller, Georgia Democrat - the only Senate Democrat to break with his party's leadership and side with Mr. Bush on the issue - sought in vain to work out a compromise with Democrats Sens. Benjamin Nelson and John Breaux (negotiating on behalf of Mr. Daschle) and the lone Republican not to support Mr. Bush: Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee. As the two sides neared agreement on the issue, however, Mr. Daschle and the unions killed the deal. That was before the election.
After the Republican victory at the polls, Mr. Daschle and the unions appear to have relented somewhat, and serious negotiations over a compromise resumed last weekend involving the Gramm-Miller and the Breaux-Nelson team. It is possible that a new compromise deal could reach the House floor today and the Senate floor by the end of the week.
Now, it is only a matter of time before this new department becomes a reality. The leading obstacle right now appears to be outgoing Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, a staunch opponent of Mr. Bush's homeland security bill, who may try to prevent it from being voted on - just as he did the Iraq resolution last month. Mr. Byrd's office told The Washington Times yesterday that the senator has made no decision on this issue. It's time for Mr. Daschle to do what he did last month on Iraq: Move immediately to ensure that this essential piece of legislation is wrested from Mr. Byrd's clutches and voted on.
----
Congress Moves Toward Approving Security Agency
November 13, 2002
New York Times
By DAVID FIRESTONE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/13/politics/13CND-CONG.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 - The House today hurriedly approved a revised Homeland Security bill that reflected a new agreement with the White House altering civil service rules, brushing aside Democratic objections that it had added several last-minute provisions benefiting businesses and Republican interests.
Changing an earlier vote, the bill would now allow American companies that have moved offshore in order to evade taxes to contract with the Homeland Security department. It would also add protection against liability suits for airline screening companies and many other businesses that contract with the department.
Having approved the largest issue in the post-election session, House members also passed a stopgap spending measure to keep the government operating through January. Many members of both parties had hoped the House would pass at least a few of the pending appropriations bills the government uses to keep operating, but House leaders said they would take up the bills once the new Congress convenes next year.
As expected, Republican House members elected Tom DeLay of Texas, formerly the majority whip, to the new post of Majority Leader. Many members said his influence over the caucus could make him the most powerful majority leader in decades, exceeding even the House Speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, who nominally outranks him.
Democrats are set to conduct their leadership elections on Thursday, and are likely to choose Nancy Pelosi of California, now the minority whip, as their leader. This morning, however, a new candidate for the job emerged, demonstrated the continuing disagreements among the Democrats over how to respond to their losses in last week's midterm elections. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, a moderate Democrat who has served since 1983, said she would run for the position in the hopes of drawing votes from members who object to Ms. Pelosi's emphasis on fund raising.
"We will never raise more money than the Republicans - never," said Ms. Kaptur, who is generally considered a liberal but opposes abortion rights. "We must elevate the non-money wing of the Democratic Party and create populist symbols to convey our message."
Ms. Kaptur joins Harold Ford of Tennessee in contesting the Democratic leadership election, for which Ms. Pelosi claims to already have sufficient support to win.
--------
Congress Sends Bush Defense Authorization Bill
November 13, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-arms-congress.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the Pentagon readied for possible war with Iraq, Congress on Wednesday sent President Bush a $393 billion defense authorization bill that expands benefits for combat-injured veterans, but falls far short of the sweeping increases veterans groups sought.
The Senate approved by a voice vote the final bill that the House of Representatives also passed unanimously on Tuesday as Congress rushed to wrap up a lame duck session by week's end.
The compromise worked out with the White House allows military retirees with any disabilities resulting from enemy fire or with major disabilities from combat-related activities including hazardous duty and simulated battle training to receive full retirement and disability payments.
The bill also authorizes programs of the Pentagon including operations in Afghanistan, clears the way for a 4.1 percent pay raise for military personnel, and frees money to help control material in Russia and elsewhere that could be used for weapons of mass destruction.
``We stand poised on the brink of possible military action'' against Iraq, said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat. ``This bill will provide the men and women in uniform with the tools that they need and the pay and benefits that they deserve.''
The Pentagon already is getting a nearly 12 percent funding boost for Bush's military buildup and the war on terrorism from a defense budget bill that Congress passed before it recessed for the Nov. 5 election.
The last-minute deal on military benefits eases a long-standing ban on veterans receiving both disability payments and pensions in full, but is short of the phaseout or repeal of the ban for all veterans with service-related disabilities sought in earlier House and Senate bills.
DOLLAR-FOR-DOLLAR
Currently there is a dollar-for-dollar reduction from retirement pay for each dollar received in disability pay.
Levin said the compromise would cost about $2 billion over 10 years, compared with the $18.5 billion cost of the original House plan and the $58 billion cost of the Senate plan which the White House said were unacceptable.
Heading into the Nov. 5 congressional elections, Democrats made a campaign issue of Bush's threat to veto higher veterans' benefits and the bill stalled until the lame duck session.
The panel's top Republican, John Warner of Virginia, said that with current budget deficits the final deal ``was a balance and I think we came out about where we should be, establishing a beach-head on this issue.''
Warner, the incoming committee chairman after Republican election wins gave them control of the Senate, said he would hold hearings on a possible further easing of the ban.
He also said he planned hearings on whether the doctrine against having the military engage in local law enforcement should be relaxed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The final defense bill rebuffed much of the Pentagon's demand for broad exemptions from environmental rules, but did exempt it from protections for migratory birds during training activities if it avoided unnecessary killings.
It also contains compromises struck earlier this year to fund Bush's program to develop a national missile defense program but under increased congressional oversight, and to back the Pentagon's decision to kill the 40-tonself-propelled Crusader howitzer, but save a number of jobs and technologies from the $11 billion program.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Ethiopia faces famine
By Tim Butcher
LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH
November 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021113-11484280.htm
JOHANNESBURG - A famine several times worse than the 1984-85 disaster is looming over the Horn of Africa, threatening more than 15 million people with starvation, the Ethiopian prime minister has said.
"The facts speak for themselves," Meles Zenawi told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Monday. "During the famine we had in 1984-85, the number involved was roughly a third to one half of the number of people involved now. So if that was a nightmare, this will be too ghastly to contemplate."
If his prediction proves accurate, millions could die on a scale not seen in Africa since the crisis that revolutionized humanitarian fund raising in 1985.
While governments dithered, the public pledged millions of dollars at Live Aid events. Images of emaciated Ethiopian children with bloated stomachs, too tired to brush flies away from their faces, were shown extensively on TV, prompting an unprecedented response.
Bob Geldof, the motivating force behind Live Aid, said news of an imminent famine in Ethiopia showed government-to-government aid programs had once again failed.
"Live Aid, if it did nothing else, put this at the top of the political agenda, and yet we see 15 million people dying in one country alone. That's frankly untenable. It means that all your nostrums hitherto haven't worked."
Attempts to raise humanitarian aid to head off any new crisis are likely to be hampered by "donor fatigue" among Western nations, which have already given generously this year to relieve a famine in southern Africa. Ironically when that famine was declared, aid experts reported that food aid had been offered by the Ethiopian government, which then claimed to have a surplus. That now appears premature.
The main cause of the crisis is the failure of two seasonal rains. "The current drought is unique because the short rains and the long rains have failed," Mr. Meles said.
Normally Ethiopia has two rainy seasons, a short season from February to April and a longer one from June through September. This year the short season failed and the longer one began late and finished early.
The World Food Program, the United Nations' main humanitarian relief agency, warned last week it could run out of food aid for Ethiopia as early as next month unless governments respond quickly with aid.
The Red Cross and the Red Crescent societies began a $11 million appeal Monday to help 120,000 people already suffering in Ethiopia.
U.N. agencies in Ethiopia estimate more than 6 million Ethiopians - or one person in six - are threatened by the drought. But according to Mr. Meles, as many as 15 million Ethiopians could be at risk.
Even though a peace treaty ended the 1998-2001 war with neighboring Eritrea, strained relations between the two sides continue to hamper humanitarian work in the region.
During the last major emergency relief operation before the war, more than 80 percent of incoming aid passed through Eritrean ports, which are now off limits to shipments bound for Ethiopia.
-------- arms sales
Bulgaria Blocks Illegal Arms Sale;
Ukraine Hedges on Iraq Arms Probe
World In Brief: EUROPE
Reuters
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46293-2002Nov12?language=printer
Bulgaria Blocks Illegal Arms Sale
SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Bulgaria, a candidate for membership in NATO, has uncovered and halted illegal exports of weapons parts to Syria, the government's press office said yesterday. Syria is on a U.S. State Department list of countries accused of sponsoring terrorism.
Terem, a state-owned plant, sold parts for armored personnel carriers via Turkey under a contract signed with a Washington-registered company, according to the government's press office and a report by BNR state radio, which quoted the National Service for Combating Organized Crime.
The Balkan state, repeatedly criticized for violating arms embargoes over the past decade, has worked hard to improve its image by preventing sales to blacklisted states in a bid to secure an invitation to join NATO, whose leaders convene next week in Prague.
Western diplomats have warned Bulgaria, once a major Soviet bloc arms exporter, that any indiscriminate arms sales might hurt its chances for membership.
--
Ukraine Hedges on Iraq Arms Probe
Reuters
KIEV, Ukraine -- A Ukrainian official, citing the need to keep state secrets, said the country could offer only limited cooperation with a U.S.-led probe into charges it sold arms to Iraq.
The United States says its relations with Ukraine have been plunged into a "crisis of confidence" over what it has described as Ukraine's failure to prove it did not sell an aircraft detection system to Baghdad in breach of U.N. sanctions.
Steven Pifer, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, last week said U.S. and British experts investigating the alleged sale had received limited cooperation from Ukraine.
But Viktor Medvedchuk, President Leonid Kuchma's chief of staff, said the United States had no right to expect Ukraine to breach its national interests and state secrets.
"We are ready to cooperate further with the experts if Ukraine's national interests as a sovereign state are respected," he said. "They should take into account the fact that we have national interests and state secrets."
"Under these conditions, we will be ready to continue our work with experts to seek answers to their questions and to show once more that Ukraine is not involved in a sale or a transfer of arms to Iraq."
-------- biological weapons
America Wants to Use Biological Weapons on Iraq
Good for the goose, but not good for the gander
2002-11-13
Dmitry Litvinovich
PRAVDA.Ru
Translated by Dmitry Sudakov
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/11/13/39446.html
The American government is concerned about the information that Iraq ordered a large quantity of medicines from Turkey. Those medicines are allegedly capable of protecting Iraqi soldiers from chemical weapons.
The Iraqi order was for 1.25 million atropine doses, as the New York Times wrote. The size of that order is a much larger than the quantity that could satisfy medical needs. This drug is usually used on to treat heart attacks. However, it can also be used as to protect people from chemical weapons. It can be particularly used to protect people from nerve gas poisoning.
US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher claimed that the United States is very concerned about Iraq's order of atropine, which was made beyond the scope of humanitarian needs. Boucher suggested that such a large purchase of medicines might testify to Iraq's preparation for chemical warfare.
For the time being, it is not known if Iraq already purchased the antidote or just placed an order. The Turkish government stated that they do not know anything about such order. Atropine is not included on the list of drugs banned by the international embargo on Iraq.
It is quite possible that the situation described by the New York Times is true. However, it is not ruled out that a group of American gentlemen and one lady (Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice) simply went mad over the fact that Saddam ruined their game plan.
It is an open secret that Americans are developing new kinds of biological and chemical weapons. This information periodically appears in the press. Therefore, there can be one conclusion made: the United States did not stop such programs at the end of the Cold War. On the contrary, America increased funding for these illegal programs. We are also certain that Russia has not stopped such programs. The mysterious gas that was used during the storming of the theater in Moscow proves this very well. Nevertheless, America's policy in this respect is rather surprising. The United States claims that the so-called "axis of evil" continues to develop "weapons of mass destruction," whereas America itself is absolutely pure and clean and has nothing like that at all.
In addition, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera has recently published an article about the gas that was used to destroy the hostage-takers in Moscow. It was particularly said that the Russian gas was nothing in comparison with the Pentagon's secret experiments. The author of that article wrote that America has cluster bombs that spray gas. Genetically altered anthrax spores that can withstand antibiotics are also being created. There are also cocktails of gases developed: blends of drugs, tear gas, and pepper gas. There is also supergas, the shells of which can be shot from a mortar.
The newspaper referred to information that was received from two British scientists. They said that it is the USA and Great Britain are working on the new generation of chemical and biological weapons. Below, we present some facts.
First, the CIA has been conducting secret research in the field in order to catch up with Russians, who never observed the chemical weapons treaty of 1997. Washington expressed protest in July of the current year against the inspections of the international organization (the UN Committee for Chemical Disarmament) that were meant to guarantee the supervision of the fulfillment of the above-mentioned treaty. The United States even forced the chairman of that committee resign, thinking that he was too "pro-Iraq." The Pentagon has a department for non-lethal arms, which denies any secret developments. However, the budget for the development of chemical and biological weapons was considerably increased for the year 2005.
The US Defense Department has acknowledged the use of sarine nerve gas in one of Hawaii's forest reserves in 1967, when the Cold War was underway. It was a part of the experiment with chemical and biological weapons within the framework of Project 112. The project was implemented from 1960 until 1970. The Pentagon performed 150 tests for checking the efficiency of new weapons of mass destruction.
The recent confession of the US Defense Department is meant to warn American veterans that they could have been subjected to chemical weapons back in those days. Yet, the Pentagon did not say which military units were implicated in those tests, or if there were any casualties. Some of these tests were carried out onboard US Navy ships. The Pentagon sent letters to some 1.4 thousand naval veterans, recommending them to undergo medical examinations.
-------- britain
Troops could replace firefighters
By Paul Martin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021113-78749895.htm
LONDON - Britain announced plans yesterday to deploy 19,000 troops in the face of growing terrorist threats after firefighters refused to postpone a nationwide strike starting tomorrow.
"This strike certainly endangers British citizens," Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, who ordered the soldiers to man fire stations and other emergency services, told the British Broadcasting Corp.
"Many who are now to act as firefighters should have been training for the defense of the world against rogue states like Iraq and against al Qaeda," he said.
The Firemen's Union walked out of talks with the government yesterday, labeling an 11 percent raise over two years as "derisory." The deal was offered to induce more modern practices and extra duties, and was far higher than for any other sector of government employees.
The nationwide firefighter's strike comes at a time when the government is issuing unprecedented warnings of attacks by terrorists through truck bombs being driven onto cross-channel ferries.
Britain has also revealed plans to send thousands more troops to the Persian Gulf within the next three weeks to bolster war preparations there.
A spokesman quoted Prime Minister Tony Blair as describing the firefighter's strike plan as "wrong, unjustified and unnecessary." He also warned that the strike "has the potential to be very damaging" to the country's security and well-being.
Mr. Blair was widely expected to face the unions down rather than accede to costly pay settlements that could derail his economic policy, analysts said.
The strike by 50,000 firefighters -only the second time that firefighters would go on national strike - presents the biggest industrial challenge to the Blair administration since it was swept to power two elections ago.
With a plethora of other state employees, such as mail carriers and teachers, also engaged in or considering industrial action, Britons are recalling the famous "Winter of Discontent," a series of strikes by public service workers in 1978 and 1979, which brought down a previous Labor government.
The strike would last two days. However, further strikes, each lasting eight days, would follow Nov. 22 and Dec. 4 and Dec. 16 unless the increasingly bitter dispute is settled.
Other workers, including those with the London Underground, could refuse to work if they believe their safety is at risk.
Unions have said they will support members taking action, which could spark disputes across British industry.
On Monday security guards and independently managed firefighters at the country's major airports announced a series of one-day strikes starting Nov. 28, also over pay. That raised the specter of travel chaos in the weeks around Christmas.
-------- business
India to be world's tech hub, says Bill Gates
PTI
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2002
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?art_id=28152740
BANGALORE: Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said on Wednesday that India was on course to becoming a global hub for 'mission-critical activity' in software as it was increasingly earning a reputation for its quality work and delivery on time.
Addressing developers here, Gates, on his maiden visit here, said two-three years back, if companies decided to do their mission critical work in India, it was then considered to involve enormous risk but no longer.
Gates said that in the last couple of years, Indian companies such as NASDAQ-listed Infosys Technologies Limited, based here, had built a worldwide reputation and earned a name for delivering quality work on schedule.
In the next few years, he predicted, firms in the US and Europe would be sure to insist that Indian companies be considered for doing all mission-critical work.
-------- chemical weapons
States seek to salvage global ban on germ weapons
Story by Richard Waddington
REUTERS SWITZERLAND:
November 13, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18561/story.htm
GENEVA - Talks to strengthen a global ban on biological weapons resumed this week after a year-long break amidst mounting pressure on Iraq to disarm or face a U.S.-led military strike.
But despite warnings that galloping advances in biotechnology have sharply raised the risks of germs being used as weapons of war, states were expected to do little more than agree to keep meeting in coming years.
Members of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) were picking up the pieces of their treaty a review conference last December was suspended in disarray, with the United States refusing to continue negotiations on new, tougher rules, including onsite inspections.
The BWC outlaws the use, production and stockpiling of biological or toxic weapons, but unlike other international weapons treaties, it has no verification mechanism to enable members to check on cheating.
Washington rejects inspections because it says they would expose its industrial and military installations to spying without giving assurance treaty violations would be detected.
The move by the United States, which has accused fellow members Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea of violating the treaty, brought years of discussions on a legally binding new protocol to the 30-year-old pact to a shuddering halt.
In its place, delegates from the 146 states to have ratified the BWC are studying a five-point plan by conference chairman Tibor Toth of Hungary, whose main aim is to ensure continued meetings ahead of the next review conference which is not scheduled until 2006.
"This is a rescue operation. It is the result of my sustained efforts to bridge differences between the delegations," Toth told a news conference.
HEATED DEBATE
Under the Toth plan, members would meet annually to thrash out specific issues, such as making treaty violations a criminal offence in individual countries, but there would be no further talk of inspections or protocols.
Washington had wanted the Geneva meeting to do no more than agree to meet again in 2006. If the debate got heated, as last year, it had threatened to accuse more treaty members of violations in addition to the four states already fingered.
Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea all deny having or having sought biological weapons.
But Iraq is known to have been seeking germ weaponry before United Nations inspectors were sent in to track down its weapons programme at the end of the 1990-91 Gulf War. Last Friday, the U.N. Security Council ordered Baghdad to give unfettered access for a new series of inspections or face the consequences.
Diplomats said the Toth plan could win widespread support because the only alternative was continued deadlock.
Although the United States was officially sticking to its demand to halt all talk until 2006, they said they were confident that Washington could back the plan as long as there was no attempt to add other elements.
In an effort to plug some of the gap left by the failure to agree any verification system for biological weapons, a group of eight non-governmental organisations (NGOs) announced a new international monitoring network to track moves in bio-weaponry.
-------- colombia
Colombia's Air Assault on Coca Leaves Crop, Farmers in Its Dust
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45987-2002Nov12?language=printer
LA HORMIGA, Colombia -- Three months of the most intensive U.S.-sponsored aerial spraying to date has devastated coca crops in this key cocaine-producing region of southwestern Colombia.
The spraying has covered more than 115,000 acres of coca here in Putumayo province since President Alvaro Uribe took office on Aug. 7, sending herbicides down on nearly the entire crop in the world's richest coca-producing farmlands. The aerial assault has accomplished what several previous Colombian governments employing more benign measures have failed to do: virtually eliminate the large and small coca crops in Putumayo. Past spraying had reduced coca cultivation only temporarily, until peasants replanted the lucrative crops. But the sustained intensity of this round appears to have killed many farmers' incentives to try again. More than a dozen coca farmers interviewed along a 40-mile stretch of fertile river valley, many of whom had experienced spraying at least once before, said they did not plan to replant coca and risk losing time, money and the food crops that are frequently grown alongside it.
If that holds true, the results would represent the first lasting success for the $1.3 billion U.S. anti-drug aid package for Colombia. The aid, mostly in military resources, has been concentrated in this remote province, 350 miles south of the capital, Bogota. The damage to these coca fields might not immediately reduce the amount of cocaine arriving in the United States, much of which is already in the international pipeline, but the supply could decline in the year ahead if the drug crop does not return, authorities said.
The success, however, has come at a high cost for thousands of peasants who live here on small farms cut out of the jungle.
"It is all gone here," said one farmer, Juan Carlos Gaviria, 52, whose three acres of coca in the village of Achapos Sinai were sprayed in August. "It is no longer profitable for us to plant this. But the problem is that this hasn't just ended coca, but everything else too."
The U.S.-backed anti-drug program, Plan Colombia, has traced an uneven course over the past two years. Until this point, the military resources and a special U.S.-trained anti-drug brigade have failed to make a lasting dent in an industry that supplies 90 percent of the cocaine reaching the United States. Nor has the program's $100 million-plus investment in a broad variety of social development projects, from road-building to crop-substitution incentives, constructed a substitute economy for impoverished farmers such as Gaviria, as had been promised on paper.
The goal of the plan, originally envisioned as a $7.5 billion effort funded by the Colombian, U.S. and European governments, was to cut coca production in half by 2005.The strategy, it was hoped, would dramatically reduce international cocaine supplies. In addition, it was hoped that the pressure on cocaine-producing areas would force the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as the largest rebel insurgency is known, to negotiate an end to its protracted war against the government once it was deprived of its principal source of financing.
The results so far are unclear. The CIA has estimated that Colombia's coca crop rose 25 percent last year, to nearly 420,000 acres, while the United Nations detected an 11 percent decline. However, both those figures reflect events that took place before the all-out spraying campaign here.
U.S. anti-drug officials, who have long identified spraying as the most effective weapon, had repeatedly said real progress would not materialize until the full complement of more than 20 OV-10 and T-65 spray planes and nearly 80 helicopter escorts foreseen in the aid package arrived to wage a war of attrition against coca farmers. The majority of those resources are now in place, and U.S. officials said they hope to spray more than 300,000 acres of coca over the next 12 months, a third more than in 2001.
Just as important, U.S. officials have found a reliable ally in Uribe, who came to office promising a broader war against the guerrillas. Uribe's predecessor, Andres Pastrana, won the aid package from the Clinton administration, but he frequently suspended spraying because of worries that its harsh effects were undermining international support for Plan Colombia, particularly among Europeans, and complicating peace talks with the FARC, which eventually collapsed. Uribe apparently has no such worries.
Government and national police estimates put Putumayo's coca cultivation at between 105,000 and 125,000 acres at the end of last year. Uribe said recently that 115,000 acres of coca have been sprayed in Putumayo since he took office, more than half the national total for last year. Farmers here estimate that 80 percent of the coca has been killed as a result of daily spraying that began July 31, after the deadline for thousands of peasants who signed on for U.S. alternative development assistance to yank up coca crops.
But it remains to be seen whether the spraying in Putumayo will push coca cultivation to other provinces, as it has in the past. The U.N. analysis reported that coca crops exist in 22 of Colombia's 32 provinces, almost double the number from three years ago. Development officials and farmers here say that Nariño province, just next door, is experiencing a spike in coca cultivation; it has become the country's fourth-largest coca-producing province since Plan Colombia began.
To avoid such movement, Plan Colombia promised to replace the illegal economy here by investing in roads, schools and health clinics, and by providing seed money to help farmers abandon coca for other crops. But the effort has not generated much support from local farmers, who view the alternative development help as too little and too slow in arriving.
Here in the Guamuez River valley, 4,000 families signed up last year for stopgap aid packages worth $800 in livestock, feed and seedlings for legal crops to tide them over while they pulled up their coca. But only 702 of those families complied with the July deadline to destroy their illegal crop.
Those families represent 22,000 acres of coca; they are now planning community projects such as collective dairy farms, fish farms and hearts-of-palm processing plants. In addition, more than 100 projects to build roads and bridges are underway to help farmers get legal crops to market in a region with few paved tracks. But those who did not comply with the agreements are no longer eligible for help, so thousands of families have been left without obvious livelihoods after being sprayed.
"Many received the original aid, but they did not meet the terms of the agreement," said Nidia Toro, a regional adviser for Plante, the government agency managing the alternative development program. "Many of them are larger producers, who don't live here and don't want to pull it up, and have made others in the area suffer as a result."
The spraying stopped this month, farmers and development officials here said, as the rainy season's low storm clouds began to make flying difficult. Farmers here said it was also likely that the spray planes ran low on targets.
These hills, once glowing with the brilliant green of coca, have been left a burned brown. In a tour of the area, it was hard to find a coca field intact along a swath of jungle and pasture stretching from El Placer in the west to Ancura in the east, a region that once accounted for as much as 40 percent of Colombia's coca production.
Many farmers here are already planting legal crops where coca once grew, in spite of the benefits cutoff, while others are preparing to do so. In the past, farmers used small, thatched shelters to protect coca seedlings from the spraying to facilitate quick replanting. Now many of those shelters cover palm, yucca and plantain seedlings.
Some large coca fields near the city of La Hormiga are reemerging after being cut back by farmers in a last-ditch effort to keep them going. Living coca fringes some large fields, and a few deep narrow valleys that are difficult targets for the spray planes brim with the head-high shrubs. But much of it is dead or dying, driving out many peasants who once produced it.
Whole villages have been abandoned, like the empty collection of cinder-block houses that once made up the hamlet of Los Angeles. Most residents packed up their few belongings and headed to neighboring Nariño, or to Ecuador on Putumayo's southern border, part of an exodus from Putumayo since January that the Social Solidarity Network, a government relief agency, estimates at nearly 9,000 people.
Honky-tonk towns like Puerto Asis and La Hormiga, whose traditionally high prices and assortment of Swiss Army knives, digital cameras and Ray-Ban sunglasses in local stores have long testified to the coca economy, are dark soon after sunset. At the Electro-Millionaire appliance store in Puerto Asis, Joaquin Santander has seen business fall from $35,000 a month to less than half that since the spraying started.
"We call our clients and ask why they aren't paying their credit, and they just tell us, 'We have no money,' " Santander said.
Those farmers who remain, like Alfonso Lopez, are trying to make ends meet the best they can. On a recent afternoon in La Hormiga, the 46-year-old farmer arrived at the Marquis Buy-Sell Store with his well-used chain saw.
A few weeks before, his 30-acre farm in Las Delicias was doused with herbicide, killing his four acres of coca and 12 acres of palms he planned to process into hearts of palm. He said pawning his chainsaw was the only way to pay the final year of high-school tuition for his daughter Edie, 17, the oldest of his five children. After firing up the saw on the sidewalk to show that it worked, he left with $80.
"I have nothing else," the slight farmer said. "Nothing at all."
-------- iraq
[While the author's analysis may be correct that Hussein plans to use nerve agents against the attacking armies, it could also be that he's concerned the the invading armies may have nerve gas similar to that used by Russian police in Moscow, which killed well over a hundred innocent hostages. et]
Iraq Trying to Procure Atropine, An Antidote to Nerve Agents
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Washington Post; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46225-2002Nov12?language=printer
Iraq has ordered 1.25 million doses of an antidote for nerve agents in what could be an attempt to protect its military personnel if President Saddam Hussein uses those weapons on the battlefield, administration officials said yesterday.
At least some of the doses were ordered from Turkey, and U.S. diplomats are discussing the issue with Turkish officials.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said it was not clear whether Iraq has received any deliveries of the antidote, atropine. "This is not something you would want to be selling to Iraq at this time," Powell said.
One U.S. official said the administration had not evaluated whether the size of the Iraqi request, first reported in the New York Times, suggests the atropine will be used as a battlefield antidote. Another official said the large quantity clearly suggests an attempt to protect military personnel in the event nerve agents are used against an invading enemy.
----
U.S., EU dismiss Iraqi objections to U.N. resolution
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021113-68239495.htm
NEW YORK - U.S. and European leaders yesterday brushed off a "message" from the Iraqi parliament after the handpicked legislative body voted unanimously to reject U.N. demands that the country disarm.
All 250 members of the Iraqi National Assembly - each of whom must swear an oath of loyalty to Saddam Hussein - voted to recommend against cooperating with a new U.N. resolution on weapons inspections. The legislature specifically left the final decision, which is due no later than Friday, to Saddam himself.
This is "a message to the United States that the people of Iraq are united behind their leadership," parliament Speaker Saadoun Hammadi told reporters following a two-day session in Baghdad.
"It also shows that the people of Iraq know that in the U.N. resolution there are major allegations which are baseless."
In Washington, President Bush brusquely dismissed the significance of the vote, describing the assembly as a "rubber stamp" for the Iraqi president.
"That's all. We're through negotiations. There's no more time," Mr. Bush said. "The man must disarm."
France, whose objections held up the U.N. resolution on Iraq for two months, meanwhile gave its clearest endorsement yet of military action if Iraq rejects the latest Security Council resolution.
"It is up to Saddam Hussein, and Saddam Hussein alone, to meet his international obligations," Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said on French radio.
"Now it is in the interest of his country and his people, and he must" comply with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441. "If Saddam Hussein does not comply, if he does not satisfy his obligations, there will obviously be a use of force."
In Damascus, Syria's state-run radio said yesterday the U.N. resolution had averted war for now, and that Baghdad could make war "impossible" by cooperating with arms inspectors.
"Resolution 1441 disabled the automatic war plan against Iraq and opened the way for calm work with the United Nations, friends and permanent members of the Security Council to distance the specter of war for a period," Damascus Radio said in a political commentary.
"During [that period], the war will become impossible if Iraq takes better advantage of the circumstances and cooperates well with the international inspection teams," it said.
Resolution 1441, passed unanimously on Friday, demands unrestricted access to any suspected weapons site and the right to interview Iraqi scientists outside the country and without Iraqi officials present.
Iraq, which maintains it no longer has weapons of mass destruction, has insisted on respect for its sovereignty, an argument it used previously to restrict access to Saddam's many palaces.
In its formal statement urging Saddam to reject the U.N. resolution, the parliament said Iraq's political leadership should "adopt what it considers appropriate to defend the Iraqi people and Iraq's independence and dignity."
The resolution further "authorizes President Saddam Hussein to adopt what he sees as appropriate, expressing our full support for his wise leadership."
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Iraq to accept the U.N. resolution in spite of the legislative recommendation, noting that it had been passed by a unanimous Security Council vote and endorsed by the Arab League.
"I hope the message will get through," he told reporters.
Mohamed El Baradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also urged Iraq to cooperate during a half-hour meeting in New York with Iraqi U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri.
"What I was trying to impress on him is that it should be a completely new phase, with demonstration of full cooperation and full transparency," Mr. El Baradei told the Associated Press afterward.
He and Hans Blix, the chief of the U.N. program to find and destroy Iraq's suspected chemical and biological weapons programs, expect to leave for the region Friday evening, assuming Iraq accepts the U.N. resolution.
Their team could begin limited inspections two weeks later, they have said, with more rigorous work beginning after Baghdad files a full and final declaration of its weapons programs, which is due December 7.
Saddam's son, Udai, a member of the parliament who runs a major Iraqi newspaper and television station, opened yesterday's proceedings in Baghdad by asking the legislature to accept the U.N. resolution as long as it had the backing of Arab nations and provided for the participation of Arab inspectors.
Udai Hussein is still a powerful figure in Iraq, although he is no longer considered his father's heir apparent.
U.N. officials say some Arabs have gone through the training program to join the inspection programs, and indicated they would appreciate more qualified applicants from the region.
The Arab League formally endorsed the resolution in Cairo over the weekend, also with the provision of Arab inspectors.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak yesterday warned a meeting of his ruling National Democratic Party that a war in the region could unleash terrorism and violence.
"If there is an Iraq attack, it will affect everyone and lead to acts of terrorism and violence, which might not happen immediately, but it will give the opportunity to terrorist groups," Mr. Mubarak was quoted as saying by the Egyptian minister of information, Safwat al-Sherif.
Russia, one of Baghdad's closest supporters on the Security Council, also urged the Iraqi leadership to accept the resolution yesterday.
Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov called on Baghdad "to exercise self-control and pragmatism" by accepting Resolution 1441, according to the Interfax news service.
•This article is based in part on wire service reports.
----
SETTING THE STAGE
Iraq's Parliament Rejects U.N. Resolution
November 13, 2002
New York Times
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/13/international/middleeast/13IRAQ.html
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 12 - Iraq's Parliament played out a show of defiance today, rejecting the United Nations resolution demanding tougher arms inspections but leaving the way open for Saddam Hussein to accept it.
The two-day parliamentary debate in Baghdad was seen as vintage Hussein stagecraft, complete with the leader's eldest son, Uday, also a member of Parliament, raising a lone voice urging the country to consent to Security Council Resolution 1441.
The session of Iraq's toothless, 250-member Parliament allowed the country to present a unified, fearless front before the world, analysts said. Most important, from Iraq's perspective, it paved the way for Mr. Hussein to step in and say that, despite the wishes of his people, he was going to accept far tougher sanctions in order to spare the region another war.
"I don't think Saddam has any alternative other than to accept," said an Arab journalist with wide experience in Iraq. "If he says yes, maybe he will gain time, but if he says no he knows he will be hit right away."
In Washington, President Bush dismissed the Parliament's action, saying the only opinion that counts in Iraq is Mr. Hussein's. "The Iraqi Parliament is nothing but a rubber stamp for Saddam Hussein," Mr. Bush said. "This guy's a dictator, so we'll have to wait and see what he says."
The one predictable aspect of Mr. Hussein's rule for more than two decades is that he will do anything to stay in power, which is what is at stake in Iraq agreeing to the new sanctions regime by the Friday deadline, analysts said.
"I would imagine him saying that the people said no, but he sees the decision from the perspective of protecting the Iraqi people, and I think he can get away with it, no problem," said Muhammad Kamal, an assistant professor of political science at Cairo University. "He will say yes to the resolution because it is not about Iraq this time, it is about his own political survival."
The parliamentary decision came in the form of a unanimous recommendation to the Revolutionary Command Council, the cabinet headed by Mr. Hussein, to reject new inspectors looking for weapons of mass destruction.
"Parliament's recommendations are to reject the U.N. resolution in accordance with the opinion of our people, who put their confidence in us, and authorize the political leadership to take the appropriate decision to defend Iraq's independence, sovereignty and dignity," said the motion, which was read by Salem al-Qubaissi, the chairman of the Parliament's Arab and International Relations Committee. But the motion then deferred to the country's leader, "Parliament authorizes President Saddam Hussein to take the appropriate decision and will stand by our leadership."
The vote followed hours of speeches attacking the resolution, with one deputy describing it as "a road map that will lead to the invasion of Iraq."
The Parliament speaker, Saadoun Hammadi, described the vote as a message to the United States that the people of Iraq are united against inspections deemed too difficult to implement. Resolution 1441 gives United Nations arms experts sweeping new rights and Iraq 30 days to submit a detailed list of its weapons.
"Parliament's decision reflects our opinion of this bad-intentioned resolution, which is full of wrong information and lies," Mr. Hammadi told reporters afterward. "This resolution was designed to provoke Iraq in every detail."
The lone dissent came in a letter issued by Uday Hussein, who controls a popular television station and a newspaper. He rarely makes public appearances, after having been badly wounded in an assassination attempt in 1996. He said the resolution should be accepted with the proviso that the inspection teams include Arab weapons experts - just as the Arab League stipulated in an earlier resolution.
"We should, as a National Assembly, accept the U.N. resolution," he wrote. "This does not necessarily mean that we're surrendering to America because for us our conflict with America will continue for the next 20 years due to our ideological, religious and fundamental differences with them."
He said Iraq had to allow diplomacy the chance to work, but given that the United Nations resolution was probably just a pretext to attack Iraq, the country should be prepared to fight.
"We have to know our enemy, and that the U.N. resolution does not mean stopping him from committing military action," Uday Hussein said.
His letter repeated some of the measures that Iraq tried and failed over the weekend to get the Arab League to support, including one that would cut off oil supplies to countries that assist any attack on Iraq.
Iraq watchers say there is fairly uniform agreement among the country's senior leadership that they should at least try another round of inspections, in the distant hope that it might result in the lifting of United Nations sanctions imposed in 1990. But the leaders appear divided about whether the latest resolution makes war inevitable or might stave it off. Uday Hussein's letter seems to indicate that his father is coming down on the side of the latter, analysts said.
Countries that have been close to Iraq in the past were urging Saddam Hussein not to play with fire. Both Russia and France pushed for acceptance of the resolution, with the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, issuing a sterner warning than usual that Iraq faces the use of force if it does not cooperate.
In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak said he had advised Iraq to allow new weapons inspections without hindrance.
"It is important for Iraq to realize the seriousness of the situation, that it accept the U.N. Security Council resolution and that it allow the arms inspectors to undertake their mission without obstacles," Mr. Mubarak said, adding that he thought it would be unlikely for Washington to launch an attack if Iraq commits to the resolution.
--------
War plan calls for air strikes
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021113-41479881.htm
The U.S. war plan for Iraq calls for 60,000 to 80,000 ground troops to lead the invasion after about 10 days of intensive air strikes to take down air defenses, command and communication centers, and enemy troop concentrations.
Up to 250,000 soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors will be deployed around the Persian Gulf region. But thousands of ground troops will be held back at bases in Turkey, Kuwait and Qatar as reserve forces in case the initial invasion meets an unexpected resistance, said military sources who discussed war planning on the condition of anonymity.
In a war that most senior Bush administration officials believe will go quickly, the United States will rely more on air transportation of troops than it did in the 1991 war to evict Iraqi troops from Kuwait and push them north toward Baghdad.
In 1991, huge armored and light infantry columns moved north through Iraq and Kuwait by land. In a new attack, many troops would be airlifted inside Iraq from Turkey, Kuwait and Qatar. They would establish operating bases in remote areas and then launch attacks against key Iraqi strongholds.
Key in the attacks will be the performances of stealth aircraft, B-2 bombers, F-117 fighters and Tomahawk cruise missiles. The military will rely on these to take down key command and control facilities and air defenses. Shutting down Iraqi radars and some 60 surface-to-air missile sites will be crucial in allowing a follow-on wave of fighters and bombers to go after Iraq's military, especially dictator Saddam Hussein's most loyal Republican Guard troops in and around Baghdad.
Military officials said the plan calls for avoiding urban combat; casualty rates in street-to-street fighting likely would be high. Instead, the plan is to isolate the capital, spurring Saddam to run. The U.S. hope is that some of his key generals will change sides.
"We're getting a lot of secondhand stuff," said one official when asked whether top officers would fight Saddam.
President Bush and his aides have warned Iraq's generals not to follow orders to use Saddam's arsenal of deadly nerve gas or biological weapons. They also have cautioned the generals not to do anything to harm Iraq's civilian population.
One objective is the early fall of Tikrit, Saddam's political base north of Baghdad. The plan calls for air strikes against all military targets there in hopes the city will fall quickly.
The Washington Times first reported in April that Gen. Tommy Franks, head of U.S. Central Command who would oversee an Iraq invasion, had asked Pentagon officials to approve a total force of more than 200,000.
This touched off a long debate inside the administration. Some Pentagon officials recommended a smaller force, arguing the progress in developing "smart" munitions in the past 10 years allowed for fewer troops.
In the end, Mr. Bush approved the general concept of a plan calling for up to 250,000, the number requested by Gen. Franks. Two sources said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who had appeared neutral on the issue in internal discussions, sided with his combatant commander.
In what one source describes as a compromise on the total force issue, a significant portion of ground troops will be kept in the region in reserve and may not be needed.
One general theme of the invasion plan is to attack quickly and repeatedly, not giving Saddam's forces time to react.
Mr. Bush said last week: "Should we have to use troops, should it become necessary in order to disarm him, the United States, with friends, will move swiftly with forces to do the job. You don't have to worry about that."
During the air war, and beforehand, the United States will send special operations forces and CIA paramilitary officers into Iraq on reconnaissance missions.
Special-operations commandos also will be responsible for finding and destroying Iraq's stockpile of a dozen or more Scud missiles. Saddam used the ballistic missiles to attack Israel and Saudi Arabia in 1991. With his power at stake this time, analysts say, there is no reason why Saddam would not use chemical or biological warheads in a parting shot at the United States and Israel.
One military officer said he believes the secretive Delta Force, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., has been enlisted to hunt down the Scuds.
Desert Storm commanders failed to locate a single Scud launcher during the 1991 war. The United States later determined that Saddam was hiding the launchers under either ends of bridges. The United States now believes it has improved detection systems that can locate Scud launchers before they fire.
While Mr. Bush has approved the broad outlines of a campaign, many details still must be resolved. "We won't be quick. We will be prudent," Gen. Franks said yesterday.
The Washington Times reported in September that planners were eyeing February as the optimum time to strike and would rely on an unprecedented number of B-2s to kick off the war.
The New York Times and The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the administration had settled on a general war plan.
Gen. Franks is expected to request Army divisions from Europe and the United States, four carrier battle groups, 16 of 21 B-2 stealth bombers and various squadrons of Air Force F-16 and F-15 fighters.
A headquarters element from Central Command, including Gen. Franks, will travel in the coming weeks to Qatar in the Persian Gulf to test a new command center from where an Iraqi invasion could be directed.
A timetable for an attack is event-oriented. If Saddam refuses to allow weapons inspectors inside Iraq, U.S. forces could launch an attack as early as December. The United Nations has given Saddam until Friday to make a decision.
If Saddam complies with the U.N. resolution, an invasion timeline would depend on Iraqi movements to block or deceive the inspection team. A winter campaign would give the military time to win the war and begin rebuilding before the onset of the region's brutally hot spring and summer.
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Buster Glosson, who designed the devastating air war against Iraq in 1991, said in an interview that a key first step would be to take away Saddam's network of tunnels under Baghdad. He urged quick air raids and the isolation of key cities as opposed to head-on attacks by ground troops.
"My only nightmare is seeing great numbers of our sons and daughters moving prematurely from Basra and Mosul to Baghdad," Gen. Glosson said in September. "There is no doubt this Roman legion approach to fighting Iraq would also result in victory, but at what cost?"
-------- israel / palestine
Israel Mounts Major Raid on West Bank Town
November 13, 2002
New York Times
By JOEL GREENBERG with TERENCE NEILAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/13/international/13CND-MIDE.html
JERUSALEM, Nov. 13 - Israeli forces backed by tanks and helicopters mounted a major raid on the West Bank town of Nablus today in response to a weekend attack on a kibbutz that left five people dead.
Hundreds of soldiers backed by about 100 armored vehicles and helicopter gunships stormed into the city before dawn. Military commentators said they expected the operation to last for several weeks.
Troops have been in Nablus for most of the past seven months, enforcing curfews and manning checkpoints.
Today they went from house to house in a search for suspected Palestinian militants and arrested at least 30 people, the Israeli Army said.
The raid was concentrated on several militant strongholds - the Old City, two neighborhoods near An Najah University, as well as the Balata and Askar refugee camps on the outskirts of Nablus.
There were sporadic gunfights but no reports of injuries.
Tanks sealed all exits from the casbah, a maze of alleys and underground passages and the scene of extensive fighting in April. Troops took over a nearby girls' elementary school as a makeshift base.
Israel declared Nablus a closed military zone, and soldiers barred journalists from taking pictures or talking to those rounded up.
Troops also swept into Bir Zeit, a university town north of Ramallah, arresting suspected militants and confining residents to their homes.
The Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat denounced the raid as a "new war crime."
Mr. Arafat also responded angrily to Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pledge that, if elected prime minister, the first thing he would do would be to expel the Palestinian leader.
"Netanyahu has to remember that I am Yasir Arafat and that this is my land and the land of my great-great-grandfathers," he said.
News reports and Israeli security officials today identified the suspected gunman in the Kibbutz Metzer attack as Sirhan Sirhan and said he is a distant relative of the assassin by the same name who killed Senator Robert Kennedy in 1968.
The kibbutz attack suspect is a 19-year-old from the Tulkarm refugee camp. Relatives reported that Israeli troops searched their homes and detained two of his uncles in a raid earlier this week.
Israeli security officials have said the order for the kibbutz attack came from militiamen in Nablus.
The Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a militant offshoot of Mr. Arafat's Fatah group, claimed responsibility for the killings at Kibbutz Metzer, but Fatah said it had nothing to do with the attack, and it condemned assaults on civilians.
In the Gaza Strip today, Israeli helicopters fired four missiles on a suspected weapons workshop in Gaza City, the second such strike in two days. The attack demolished a car repair shop that had been severely damaged in a similar predawn attack on Monday. The shop was empty at the time.
Addressing a Likud Party gathering in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon staked out their positions in advance of a party primary scheduled for Nov. 28.
Mr. Sharon, who cast himself as a responsible centrist, won the loudest applause from the floor and seemed popular among the hundreds of party faithful gathered in the convention hall. "Arik, king of Israel!" they chanted, using his nickname.
Mr. Sharon also favors expelling Mr. Arafat, but he is constrained by a commitment to the Bush administration not to harm the Palestinian leader, who has remained for months in his headquarters in the West Bank.
On Tuesday night Mr. Sharon suggested that Mr. Netanyahu's proposed course of action was rash and could cause strains with the United States.
The winner of the party primary will be the Likud candidate for prime minister in national elections that have been set for Jan. 28. Mr. Netanyahu lost no time on Tuesday night in saying what he planned to do first if elected.
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CIA team in Turkey to plan capture of northern Iraq
WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
http://216.26.163.62/2002/ss_turkey_11_13.html
ANKARA - A CIA delegation began talks in Ankara on Tuesday with Turkish Foreign Ministry and military intelligence officials.
Turkish government sources said the CIA wants Turkey to play a major role in capturing northern Iraq and maintaining order in the Kurdish-and Turkmen-populated areas.
The CIA plans focus on Turkish military help in capturing the northern Iraqi cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, the sources said. The operation is meant to include Kurdish forces friendly to Ankara.
The talks began amid rising tension in northern Iraq. Kurdish sources reported that clashes have erupted between Turkish- and Iranian-backed forces in the village of Zamak along the Iranian border. On Monday, the Al Sulamaniyeh daily reported that three members of the Turkish-backed Patriotic Union of Kurdistan as well as two fighters from the Iranian-backed Ansar Islam were killed.
The CIA delegation is composed of 25 officials and is led by deputy chief John McLaughlin.
PUK leader Jalal Talabani has arrived in Ankara for meetings with senior Foreign Ministry and military officials. It was not clear whether Talabani will also meet with the CIA delegation.
The CIA and Turkish intelligence have been cooperatng on widescale operations, and U.S. intelligence agents are operating in northern Iraq. The CIA and the U.S. military are refurbishing abandoned Iraqi airports near the Turkish border, the sources said.
Turkey's military has opposed a U.S.-led war against Iraq. Ankara has asked for a multi-billion compensation package that includes Turkish control of the oil fields in northern Iraq.
The intelligence talks are also expected to discuss Turkey's participation in the U.S.-led war against terrorism. The sources said the CIA is expected to relay Russian complaints that Turkey has allowed Chechen insurgents to operate from its territory.
In Washington, U.S. officials said the Bush administration has held discussions with Turkey over sales of dual-use goods that could be employed in Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction program. The officials said Iraq's purchase of a huge number of chemical weapons antidote is believed to have come from Turkey.
"I can say that we have talked to the Turks about procurements by Iraq," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "Obviously, Turkey shares our concern about making sure that Iraq doesn't get anything that could further a program of weapons of mass destruction or be possibly involved with making it easier for Iraq to use weapons of mass destruction, as they have before."
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Jordanian police hunt for weapons
November 13, 2002
AP
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021113-41502184.htm
AMMAN, Jordan - Armored vehicles prowled deserted streets in the sealed southern city of Maan as police searched house to house yesterday for Muslim radicals suspected of holding a giant cache of weapons.
A security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the raid in Maan, scene of pro-Iraq riots in recent years, was part of a campaign to "put things in order before the possible war on Iraq."
He told the Associated Press that authorities were attempting to get all armed groups under control to prevent violent protests. Most Jordanians oppose any U.S. strike at neighboring Iraq, Amman's biggest trading partner.
Police were focusing on the city's al-Tour district, where five gang leaders were believed to be hiding. Another senior security official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the gang is believed to have smuggled a "huge amount of arms" into the city.
Interior Minister Qaftan Majali told the official Petra news agency that searches continued yesterday but the situation was calm. Officials said the curfew had been partially lifted to allow people to buy food.
Five persons are known to have died in gun battles so far. A police officer was killed Monday night in a shootout with gunmen protecting the gang, a government official said. Three gunmen and another policeman were killed earlier.
Fifty persons, including eight foreigners, have been arrested since Sunday, Mr. Majali said. They included gang members and those who resisted police or had weapons in their homes.
Videotape released by the government and shown on state television Monday night showed armored vehicles patrolling nearly empty streets, with shops shuttered.
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Iran tense as Iraq is pressured
By Borzou Daragahi
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021113-44931624.htm
TEHRAN - U.S. plans to topple Saddam Hussein's government in neighboring Iraq have riled Iran's fractious, strife-ridden government just as tensions between hard-liners and reformists have reached a boiling point.
Thousands of Iranian students ignored official warnings and demonstrated for a fourth day yesterday against a dissident's death sentence and to demand freedom of speech and political reform, according to Reuters news agency.
Some 5,000 students gathered at Tehran University, once the hotbed of revolutionary fervor that overthrew the shah two decades ago, in support of scholar Hashem Aghajari, sentenced to death for questioning clerical rule in the Islamic republic.
"The execution of Aghajari is the execution of the university," demonstrators chanted. "Political prisoners should be freed."
The momentum of protests appeared to be growing, with bigger crowds in Tehran each day and demonstrations spreading to the provincial cities of Tabriz, Isfahan, Urumiyeh and Hamedan, Reuters reported.
The protests come amid rising political tension in this country of 65 million people as moderate President Mohammad Khatami tries to assert his authority over hard-line rivals who control the judiciary, armed forces, broadcast media and have a veto over laws passed in parliament.
After their rally in Tehran, students marched through the vast university campus, holding hands and singing "Ey Iran," a popular nationalist song that predates the 1979 Islamic revolution.
When they reached the locked university gates, some tried to force them open and shouted at police and passersby on the other side. "Nation, shame on you for your silence. We don't want spectators, join us."
Though the death sentence against Mr. Aghajari sparked the latest protests, the U.S. threats of military action against Saddam have kept both reformists and hard-liners on edge for weeks.
Saddam is widely despised in Iran for the 1980-88 war; both hard-liners and reformists would like to see him gone.
"Some members of parliament have referred to U.S. actions as a pretext for pushing for more reasonable foreign policies," said Goudarz Eghtedari, a professor at Oregon's Portland State University.
"Meanwhile hard-liners, such as high-ranking officers of the Revolutionary Guard, have attempted to use the threat of America to get reformers to lay down their political demands and join hard-liners," he said.
For Iran, a member of President Bush's "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea, U.S. dominance in the region represents a long-term threat, said Mohammad Hadi Semati, a political science professor at the University of Tehran.
"Undeniably there is now pressure on Iran," Mr. Semati said. "The perceived threat is that the U.S. is basically leading this war not because of the threat of Saddam Hussein, but to have a strong foothold here to recreate and socially re-engineer the region."
From Tehran's point of view, America is circling Iran. To the east are the pro-U.S. governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan to the north, Turkey to the west and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar all play host to U.S. military bases.
"The ruling ayatollahs are afraid of having the U.S. in place on both major borders - in Afghanistan and in Iraq. They would be surrounded," said Juan Cole, a professor at the University of Michigan. "They have reason to be afraid that they are next on President Bush's hit list."
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NASA Proposal Calls for Space Plane
November 13, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-NASA-Budget.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- NASA is proposing to spend $2.4 billion over the next four years to design a new orbital space plane to ferry astronauts between Earth and the International Space Station.
In an amendment to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's proposed 2003 budget, agency officials for the first time set a firm figure of $6.6 billion for completing assembly of the basic orbiting space station. That would bring the U.S. share of the international project to less than $25 billion, officials said Wednesday.
The precise cost of the space station, a project started during the Reagan administration, has been an unsettled issue for years between NASA and Congress. After the agency announced last year that it faced cost overruns that could reach more than $600 million, Congress put a $25 billion cap on the project.
Sean O'Keefe, a former federal budget officer, was named NASA administrator in January with specific instructions from the White House to define and control the costs of the space station and other NASA programs.
In the budget amendment proposal, O'Keefe describes what he calls a ``new integrated space transportation plan'' that would complete the core components of the space station by 2004; extend the life of the aging space shuttle fleet; complete design of a new orbital space plane; and continue development of a new, reusable spacecraft and launch system to replace the shuttle.
He said the amendment would not add to the proposed NASA 2003 budget of $15 billion, but would redirect some funds.
O'Keefe said his plan inserts a ``systemic approach'' into NASA's space transportation activities, instead of having each element of space transportation acting as a separate program.
``All of the elements have a relationship to each other,'' O'Keefe said.
The budget amendment calls for spending:
--$1.6 billion to upgrade and improve the four-vehicle space shuttle fleet so it could operate until about 2012. The plan leaves open an option of extending shuttle usage into the 2020s.
--$15.2 billion over the next decade or so to add a fifth shuttle flight to the annual schedule. The shuttle has been limited by budget constraints to four flights a year and nearly all have been dedicated to assembly of the space station. The added flight could be used to accelerate station assembly or to perform other missions that are not now possible.
--$6.6 billion through 2006 to finish the basic assembly of the space station. This includes completion and installation by Feb. 19, 2004, of Node 2, a U.S.-made cornerstone component to which European and Japanese components will be attached. ``Node 2 completion is a big deal for us,'' said O'Keefe.
--$1.8 billion to support biological and physical research aboard the space station.
--$2.4 billion to research and develop technologies needed to build a new space system to replace the shuttle. This money would continue a long-range effort to develop a reusable craft that could frequently fly into orbit with less preparation and effort than is required for the space shuttle. O'Keefe would not estimate the final cost of such a craft, but a chart released by the agency suggested it would first fly in 2015.
--$2.4 billion to complete by 2004 the design of a new space plane that is intended specifically to ferry people in and out of space. O'Keefe said the design is still uncertain, but it would be a reusable spacecraft launched by expendable rockets. It could carry as many as 10 people. The plan calls for the craft to start operations sometime between 2008 and 2010.
Some members of Congress have complained that the space station crew size has been limited to three, the maximum number that could crowd into the Russian Soyuz, an evacuation craft attached to the station as a safety measure. Since maintaining and operating the station requires almost the full-time efforts of the three-member crew, some in Congress say little science has been performed in the multibillion-dollar orbiting laboratory. An independent space plane could allow more people to live on the station and conduct more research.
On the Net:
NASA Spaceflight: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/
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Hellzapoppin' at the Pentagon
Bill Berkowitz
WorkingForChange
11.13.02
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=14076
A new Pentagon strategy aimed at luring terrorists into committing acts of terrorism has been recommended to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by the Defense Science Board (DSB). The "DSB Summer Study on Special Operations and Joint Forces in Support of Countering Terrorism" claims that since the global war on terrorism "requires new strategies, postures and organization," it was advocating the creation of a super-Intelligence Support Activity, called the "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)."
According to Secrecy News, published by the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, stories about the DSB briefing first surfaced on September 26 in a report by Dan Dupont in "Inside the Pentagon" and by Pamela Hess, UPI's Pentagon correspondent. A month later, William M. Arkin mentioned P2OG in a column in the Los Angeles Times. And, in early November, CounterPunch ran a piece on P2OG by Chris Floyd called "Into the Dark: The Pentagon Plan: to Provoke Terrorist Attacks."
The DSB's recommendation for a Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group appears to be in line with President Bush's National Security Strategy, which called for preemptive military strikes. Military Analyst William Arkin writes that P2OG would "bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence, and cover and deception." The organization "would launch secret operations aimed at 'stimulating reactions' among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction -- that is, for instance, prodding terrorist cells into action and exposing themselves to 'quick-response' attacks by U.S. forces."
Arkin's story, titled "The Secret War: Frustrated by intelligence failures, the Defense Department is dramatically expanding its 'black world' of covert operations," reports that in what "may well be the largest expansion of covert action by the armed forces since the Vietnam era, the Bush administration has turned to what the Pentagon calls the 'black world' to press the war on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction."
In Pamela Hess' piece called "Panel wants $7bn elite counter-terror unit" -- written before the official release of the DSB report -- she claims the report also advocated "tagging key terrorist figures with special chemicals so they can be tracked by laser anywhere on Earth; creating a special SWAT team to surreptitiously find and destroy chemical, biological and nuclear weapons all over the world; and creating a 'red team' of particularly diabolical thinkers to plot imaginary terror attacks on the United States so the government can plan to thwart them."
The team would be made up of 100 counter-terror specialists in information operations, psychological operations, computer network attack, covert activities, signal intelligence, human intelligence, special operations forces and deception operations and have at least $100 million at their disposal.
How will the terrorists be "sparked... into action?" asks reporter Chris Floyd. Will it be done "by killing their family members? Luring them with loot? Fueling them with drugs? Plying them with jihad propaganda? Messing with their mamas? Or with agents provocateurs, perhaps, who infiltrate groups then plan and direct the attacks themselves?" This part of P2OG's strategy seems eerily reminiscent of the FBI's COINTEL program of the sixties and seventies, when often the people advocating the most violent acts were the FBI's agents.
By successfully luring terrorists into action the Pentagon, Floyd writes, "can then take measures against the 'states/sub-state actors accountable' for 'harboring' the Rumsfeld-roused gangs. What kind of measures exactly? Well, the classified Pentagon program puts it this way: 'Their sovereignty will be at risk.'"
"Right now, there is a lot more we don't know about the [DSB] proposal than we do know. The underlying principle of P2OG is not new," Steven Aftergood, the head of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists told me. The idea of trying to trigger a response from an opponent is basic and has been around since ancient times," he added. The initiatives advanced by the DSB "may not be a bad idea," but before anything like this is put into place, "it deserves to be closely scrutinized by Congress."
"There are laws that need to be complied with," Aftergood added, but he agreed with my characterization that it appears that laws are being "rewritten" as we speak.
DSB's shopping cart
The Defense Science Board, which reports to the Secretary of Defense, is not to be confused with the Defense Policy Board -- which also reports to the Secretary of Defense and is currently chaired by Richard Perle. The DSB has been advising presidents for more than forty years, and according to its website, it works "to transform the nation's armed forces to meet the demands being placed on them by a changing world order."
The board is concerned with "creating the military of the future -- one that takes full advantage of revolutionary new technologies... [and] moderniz[ing] and transform[ing] the business of defense, getting the best value for the taxpayer's money." Currently, the Board's authorized strength is thirty-two members and seven ex officio members (the chairmen of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Policy, Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, and Defense Intelligence Agency advisory committees). The members serve for terms ranging from one to four years "and are selected on the basis of their preeminence in the fields of science, technology and its application to military operations, research, engineering, manufacturing and acquisition process."
The cost of implementing the entire package of DSB recommendations is staggering.
UPI's Hess writes: "...an overhaul of the intelligence community's ability to penetrate terrorist cells to collect information" has a "price tag" of $1.7 billion over a 5-year period beginning in 2004.
"Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance" capabilities would be enhanced "with an infusion of $1.6 billion per year over the next six years, with the emphasis on tying together unmanned aerial vehicles, manned platforms, space-based sensors and databases into a seamless whole. The money would also be invested in developing 'a rich set of new ground sensor capabilities' that would be specially focused on watching small terrorist cells."
Another $1 billion a year is earmarked for research and development in sensor and "agent defeat" technologies.
It could take as much as $800 million to enhance "counter-terrorism capabilities" by adding 500 people over the next 18 months who would, according to the report, "focus on understanding effects of globalization, radicalism, cultures, religions, economics, etc., to better characterize potential adversaries."
A team run by the U.S. Special Operations Command consisting "of specially trained special forces soldiers able to search out and take offensive action against suspected nuclear, chemical or biological weapons sites, offer force protection for U.S. soldiers nearby and 'consequence management,' like enforcing quarantines" would cost about $500 million a year.
$100 million would fund the establishment of a "force of former intelligence retirees who could be recalled to duty instantly when a surge capacity of intelligence workers is needed" and who would meet "at least once a year and participate in counter-terror intelligence exercises."
In addition, at a cost of $20 million, the DSB recommends bringing together two dozen "creative, highly respected analysts -- and even people like author Tom Clancy who show a talent for dreaming up possible scenarios of destruction -- who would plan 'as terrorists might' ways to attack the U.S. homeland and forces overseas... [T]he panel would report their detailed plans to the CIA director. They would also report on what to look for in someone who is planning such an attack -- what materials are being purchased, what countries are being visited, and who would be contacted."
According to David Isenberg, writing in the Asia Times, the report recommends that "responsibility and accountability for the P2OG would be vested in a 'Special Operations Executive' in the National Security Council (NSC). The NSC would plan operations but not oversee their execution in order to avoid comparisons to past abuses, such as the Iran-Contra operations run out of the NSC by Oliver North during the Reagan administration. Under the board's proposal, NSC plans would be executed by the Pentagon or the CIA."
Will the DSB's proposals be adopted by the Defense Department and forwarded to Congress for approval? The FAS' Steven Aftergood believes that the "U.S. needs effective intelligence collection systems in order to anticipate and respond to threats." However, he tempers this by reiterating his conviction that intelligence functions need strong and "effective oversight." Unfortunately, he added, "The agency has been allowed to operate in a vacuum for too long." Invigorated Congressional oversight is what is required to "keep the agencies on a straight and lawful course" and to keep the public informed. And unfortunately, Aftergood added, "That is something that appears to definitely be lacking at this time."
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Cheerleaders, put on your gas masks
Mary Gooding,
Kankakee IL Daily Journal
November 13, 2002
http://www.daily-journal.com/content/?id=15973
Cheered on by a chorus of bloodthirsty TV, radio and newspaper savants -- few of whom have ever worn a soldier suit -- and equally unqualified politicians also burning to take out Saddam, the Washington Warlords say, "Regime change in Iraq will be a cakewalk."
And for once these know-it-alls are right.
Remember in 1991 when "the fourth most powerful army in the world" melted down after the first tank shot and surrendered to TV crews? Expect a replay when the bombs fall and our troops slash toward Baghdad.
My concern is not whether our warriors -- thousands of whom are about to hook up with tens of thousands more around the Persian Gulf, where they'll all remain on hold until whenever because politics is out-of-sync with the realities of war-fighting -- are up for the job, but if their biological and chemical gear can adequately protect them. For it's a given that Saddam will try to splash our troops with every bio/chem weapon he's got before he's incinerated. And immediately after the first such attack, we'll just as surely dispatch nukes and do unto Iraq as we did unto Japan.
Yesterday, I suited up in a charcoal-lined Mission Oriented Protective Posture suit -- MOPP -- complete with M-40 protective mask, rubber gloves and rubber boots. While it was far from desert weather on my mock battlefield, I came away from being hermetically sealed in that spacewalker suit at MOPP4 -- the highest level of protection -- convinced our soldiers won't be able to function for long in any environment in this type of gear.
My instructor, who'd spent hard time at our Army Desert Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., couldn't wait to tell me horror stories about the heavy heat-related casualties he'd observed during training exercises, when our troops were in MOPP4 suits for only short periods of time. Scores of warriors now deployed in the oven-hot Gulf share this captain's righteous concern.
While encased, I couldn't help wondering about performing basic body functions like eating and evacuating, let alone kill-or-be-killed drills. How could our Joes and Janes function as tankers, cannon-cockers, riflemen, flight ground crews, medics or truck drivers in this cumbersome stuff?
An old pro warrior now in the Gulf says: "Having trained for years in MOPP gear, I can best describe life wearing it as being truly miserable. I've seen soldiers in excellent condition unable to move after a moderate level of exertion. Will it work for more than a few hours here? Right! And I'm the tooth fairy."
Let's get a grip and find out what's really going down: Why not send the war-pushing pundits, politicians, Pentagon big wheels and service chiefs off for two weeks of fact-finding in Kuwait?
The first week, the best experts going on bio/chem defense would train them. The second week, they'd be suited up at MOPP4, moved to an isolated section of Kuwait along the Iraqi border -- close to the area where there's still 350 tons of U.S. depleted uranium fired by us during Desert Storm -- and for seven days they'd function as rear-echelon supporters, tasked with the vital bringing-up-the-rear jobs, and as frontline grunts, manning guns and tanks and conducting infantry battle maneuvers. While, of course, bio/chem weapons like the ones our intell folks say Saddam has -- anthrax, smallpox, mustard and sarin gas, to name but a few -- were sprayed in and around them.
But, hey, we don't need to sweat these high-profile folks. They won't be guinea pigs like our Desert Storm troopers -- who've suffered more than 170,000 dead and disabled out of the 700,000 who served there because of top-brass dereliction of duty. This time around, they'll be as safe as our kids when they jump off. After all, the gear and the vaccines procured to protect our soldiers from Saddam's vile weapons of mass destruction have been Pentagon and Food and Drug Administration certified as good to go.
This testimony to our wonder gear could and should be broadcast live, straight from the test site to the American public -- a top-rated TV reality show that would allow these VIP pols and pundits to get their war message out to a larger-than-ever audience share. At least for as long as they survived.
Http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's home page. Sign in for the free weekly Defending America column at his Web site. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831. His newest book is "Steel My Soldiers' Hearts."
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The Pentagon's Path From Osama to Saddam
Why the War Works
by Roger Trilling
November 13 - 19, 2002
Village Voice
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0246/trilling.php
(illustration Mirko Ilic)
ven as President Bush strong-armed the UN last week into passing a virtual declaration of war, he left much of the world unconvinced of his reasoning for attacking Iraq. Why are we so eager to take up arms? To protect ourselves against Saddam Hussein, who the commander in chief says is poised to strike with weapons of mass destruction? The imminence of the threat remains unproven. Because, as many on the left aver, we covet Iraq's 0il reserves? That's just a vague cliché.
Perhaps a fuller explanation hinges neither on oil nor on weapons of mass destruction, but on geopolitical necessity. Exactly how this is so is the subject of a very elegant paper released in September by the Institute for National Strategic Studies, part of the Pentagon's National Defense University. Entitled "Beyond Containment: Defending U.S. Interests in the Persian Gulf," it neatly summarizes the historical and strategic factors affecting U.S. decision-making in the region. And though its authors may read these words in horror, their work may be the closest American strategists have yet come to explaining why we're taking out Saddam.
"For the U.S., there is no escaping the role of security guarantor of the Gulf for the foreseeable future," the report states. "But trying to guarantee that security through a large-scale, visible, and permanent-looking U.S. presence will erode security, undermine security relationships with key Gulf States, impede needed political reforms, stir domestic opposition within Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States, and feed anti-American Islamic extremism. . . .
"If the continued survival of the Saddam Husayn regime (or a hostile successor regime) extracts huge costs for regional security, success in removing him and his circle would yield an enormous payoff. It would not eliminate all problems from the region, but it would drastically reduce the requirement for U.S. military forces to deal with the problems that remained."
Though this report has been made public (it's online at www.ndu.edu/inss/press/Spelreprts/SR_03.htm), you won't hear its nuanced conclusions discussed much by the current administration. Instead, the president continues to draw a broad link between an attack on Iraq and Osama bin Laden's attack on us. The act of deposing Saddam has become part of the war on terror, and not without reason. For in truth that is a war Osama declared on us, three years before 9-11, in part over our conduct not only toward Saudi Arabia, but also in Iraq.
In his 1998 call for jihad against "Jews and Crusaders," Osama boldly iterated his complaints against America. "First," the fatwa began, "for more than seven years, the United States has occupied the lands of Islam in the holiest of its territories, Arabia, plundering its riches, overwhelming its rulers, humiliating its people, threatening its neighbors, and using its bases in the peninsula as a spearhead to fight against neighboring Islamic peoples."
This was a reference to U.S. military forces that remained in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War, at UN behest, on land that had been virtually off-limits to infidel troops. Their mission was and is Operation Southern Watch, which patrols and sometimes bombs Iraq's southern no-fly zone.
"Second," Osama continued, "despite the immense destruction inflicted on the Iraqi people . . . and in spite of the appalling number of dead . . . the Americans nevertheless, in spite of all this, are trying once more to repeat this dreadful slaughter."
That proved a prescient reflection of America's growing frustration with UN sanctions, which were clearly failing to contain Saddam. Eight months after Osama issued his fatwa, President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act, breaking with UN policy and making regime change the stated aim of the U.S. government. This measure provides the legal basis for President Bush's insistence that, when it comes to war on Iraq, we will go it alone if we have to.
And though the world has been transfixed for more than a year by America's slow-motion rush to battle, it is worth remembering that for decades our interests in Saudi Arabia have shaped our policy toward Iraq, and that for the last 10 years we have been fighting Saddam from Saudi Arabia. The connection between the two powers isn't often made in the media, but it is common enough knowledge among both the followers of Osama and the policy-planners in the Pentagon.
The institute report is clear on the need to lower our Mideast profile without relinquishing our presence. "Regardless of how regime change occurs in Iraq-whether it happens quickly and decisively or is protracted and messy-and whatever type of post-Saddam regime finally emerges," argue the authors, "the United States will need to diversify its dependence on regional basing and forward presence, as well as reduce the visibility and predictability of its forward-deployed forces."
The U.S. has always considered the Persian Gulf vital to national security. Ten years ago, a document called the Defense Planning Guidance-drafted for then secretary of defense Dick Cheney by then and current assistant secretary Paul Wolfowitz-was the first documentation of America's intention to unilaterally dominate the world, and when parts of it were leaked by The New York Times, it created a firestorm. Referring to the Persian Gulf, it read, "Our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region, and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil."
Yet today, the U.S. has almost no access to Iranian or Iraqi oil, and our very efforts to gain that access are threatening our traditional ties to the Saudi mother lode. By getting rid of Saddam, the U.S. not only puts Iraqi oil in play but gains leverage over Iran. We could stop bombing Saddam from the bases in Saudi Arabia, and thus lighten if not erase our military presence in the kingdom. Further, we get a more open field in Iraq, with the possibility of remaking not only that country but the region in our image.
"If the U.S. has to leave Saudi Arabia, the plan is to encircle it," explained Nawaf Obaid, a bright young oil and political analyst based in Geneva. "That's what the war on terror is for. Any place with a terrorist presence will also have a military base: It's tied in to a master plan to put bases throughout the region."
Indeed, dozens of military bases have sprung up in the region since the Gulf War. The command-and-control center of the network is Prince Sultan Air Base, 50 miles southeast of the Saudi capital of Riyadh, and home of Operation Southern Watch. Other bases are in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the far-off Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. Still others are being developed from Yemen to the Caucasus to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Among them, Prince Sultan Air Base stands alone, distinguished not just by the undisclosed number of aircraft operating out of there, nor by its billion-dollar electronic infrastructure (which was able to direct the details of the air war over Afghanistan, 1400 miles away). Rather, as Osama noted and as its name implies, it's set apart by the fact that it is a Saudi, not an American, base. The $112 million in construction costs, like much of the expense of Operation Southern Watch, was borne by the Saudi government, which is thus in the position of containing us as we contain Saddam. And since the killing of 19 Americans in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, British, French, and American air force personnel have been quarantined at the base, protected by security upgrades from the Bin Laden Group, the local construction conglomerate.
Through the 1990s, Saudi Arabia became a less and less comfortable place for American servicemen. Slumping oil prices from the mid '80s to the late '90s caused a drastic fall in average personal Saudi income, from $19,000 in 1981 to $7300 in 1997. At the same time, a phenomenal 4.4 percent annual increase in the population made Saudi Arabia one of the youngest countries in the world, with 43 percent of its people under 15 years old. Unemployment is pandemic among its youth, who live in a newly mediatized world that feeds them nonstop imagery of Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians and miseries wreaked on Iraq through sanctions and bombing.
In 1995, the very pro-American King Fahd suffered a stroke, which put his half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, in charge of the kingdom. There were significant differences between the two. Abdullah had a reputation as a reformer who had long been disgusted by the corruption saturating the royal family. He was also more sensitive to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Abdullah is considered to be more pious than his predecessor, and therefore more respectful of the conservative Wahhabi clergy, whose cultural influence has only grown since the Islamic victory in Afghanistan.
In the '90s, buoyed by proxy military victories over the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988, the Soviets in 1989, and the Iraqis in 1991, Saudi Arabia assumed a central position in the Muslim world. At the same time, mired in a cruel and pointless policy of "dual containment" toward Iran and Iraq, and especially by an outrageous partiality toward Israel, America has watched as its influence in the kingdom steadily wanes.
The Saudi royal family derives its legitimacy from its stewardship of the holy land of Arabia, and especially of Mecca and Medina, the two most sacred sites in Islam. So an infidel presence is not lightly tolerated. Before the Gulf War, the admission of over half a million U.S. troops into the kingdom involved some pretty heavy wrangling with the ulema, the local clergy whose support is critical for the royal family.
That some of these troops still remain in the kingdom 11 years later-there are about 5000 Americans at Prince Sultan-casts doubt on the royal family's ability to protect the holy land, and therefore on the legitimacy of the house of Saud. But that the royal family might allow Americans to make war on Muslim countries-Iraq, Afghanistan-that had not attacked America (let alone Saudi Arabia) would be, to population and ulema alike, unimaginable, unacceptable, and ultimately, anathema.
It hasn't worked out for anyone. In 1994, when U.S. satellite imagery found Saddam massing troops near the Kuwaiti border, the royal family forbade any military countermeasure. In 1996, when Iraq mounted incursions against Irbil, a Kurdish town in the northern no-fly zone, the Saudis refused us the use of their bases. In 1998, during Operation Desert Fox (begun after the UN withdrew its weapons inspectors), no strikes were mounted from Saudi territory. And throughout the campaign in Afghanistan, U.S. planes flying from Prince Sultan were limited to providing support and surveillance functions.
So if you can't use your main military base to carry out military operations, what good is it? That's a problem. And if those military operations turn the local population against our local allies, in this case the royal family, that's a potential crisis.
The solution, of course, is to remove the troops from the area. But for that to happen prudently-and this is the point argued by the institute's study-the U.S. must first remove Saddam, who is ostensibly the reason we're in Saudi Arabia in the first place.
As the paper explains, "Under present conditions, the U.S. military footprint in the Gulf is determined by the military concept of operations for the region's defense against Iraq."
The document fills an interesting niche in the ongoing debate over the region. While endorsing regime change in Iraq, it does so for the sake of Saudi stability. By insisting on the importance of maintaining the U.S.-Saudi "special relationship," it thereby aligns itself with the traditional priorities of the U.S. military, security, and diplomatic communities. All agree on the urgent need to lighten the military footprint.
But many of the neoconservative hawks who have, over the years, pushed hardest for Saddam's removal have no such regard for the fine points of Saudi legitimacy. Their priority is the U.S. force posture in the region, and politics be damned.
In September 2000, the Project for a New American Century released a 90-page study called "Rebuilding America's Defenses." Many of its recommendations have since become Bush policy, and several of the project's participants-Paul Wolfowitz, I. Lewis Libby-have become major players in the administration. "Although Saudi domestic sensibilities demand that the forces based in the Kingdom nominally remain rotational forces," the report said, "it has become apparent that this is now a semi-permanent mission. From an American perspective, the value of such bases would endure even should Saddam pass from the scene."
A few days after September 11, Wolfowitz and Libby jump-started the campaign against Saddam. In a series of meetings convened by Richard Perle's influential Defense Policy Board and attended by Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, they argued-to the intense consternation of Colin Powell-for an American seizure of oil fields in southern Iraq. The oil would then be sold, they proposed, to finance an Iraqi opposition movement that would topple Saddam.
However cold their feelings might run in private about Saddam Hussein, the Saudi royals have always opposed the current military campaign against him. Their main objection has been that the U.S. has no coherent plan to replace him, and so would only bring chaos to the region. And to the Saudis, the Americans are never less coherent than when they make the case for an Iraqi opposition.
But Saudi caveats count for little in neoconservative circles. For some, the destabilizing effect could even bring advantages. "Removing the regime of Saddam Hussein and helping construct a decent Iraqi society and economy would be a tremendous step toward reducing Saudi leverage," William Kristol, The Weekly Standard's influential editor, said in congressional testimony in May. "Bringing Iraqi oil fully into world markets would improve energy economics. From a military and strategic perspective, Iraq is more important than Saudi Arabia."
This would certainly be in keeping with administration energy policy, which has been skeptical about sanctions and desperate to bring Persian Gulf reserves to the world market. "One possible consequence of a U.S. takeover in Iraq," oil analyst Obaid told the Voice, "could be to undercut Saudi Arabia by boosting Iraqi oil capacity. The idea is to cut back on Saudi influence over crude oil prices."
Other oil experts see a potential Saudi-Iraqi price war as beneficial to both countries, who would drive more expensive producers out of business while increasing market share. There are always many opinions about what could happen in the future.
Likewise, there are many scenarios about what shape U.S. military bases might take in a post-Saddam Persian Gulf. Some analysts hope we will maintain a lowered presence in the kingdom; others propose a return to our pre-Gulf War posture-ready, willing, and "over the horizon." Still others, including Kenneth Pollack, an author of the institute report, urge a long-term military occupation of Iraq, which would become America's new pillar in the Gulf.
So what will happen? Who knows? The future is as hard to fathom as the recent past or, weirdly, the present. Is Osama, through the Saudi people, actually driving U.S. policy? Good heavens, no. The hard line in the administration has always seen September 11 as an opportunity (that's their job), and played it accordingly. Or as Paul Wolfowitz mused a few months before Bush's election, "Just stop for two seconds and think about how we would be viewing the Persian Gulf right now if Iraq were like Egypt . . . "
-------- propaganda wars
THE PREPARATIONS
Spokesman Is Assigned to U.S. Military Command
November 13, 2002
New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/13/international/13MILI.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 - One of the White House's top communications troubleshooters, James R. Wilkinson, was named today as the chief spokesman for the United States Central Command, in another sign that President Bush is preparing for war with Iraq.
Mr. Wilkinson, 32, is a protégé of Karen P. Hughes, Mr. Bush's longtime adviser, and his appointment puts a White House loyalist with Washington experience in a pivotal position at the Central Command, which is based in Florida and which will be charged with waging and winning any war against Saddam Hussein.
When he reports this weekend to Gen. Tommy R. Franks, Mr. Wilkinson is expected to use his close ties with counterparts at the White House, State Department and Pentagon to help improve communications strategy between the Central Command and the rest of the government.
"Wilkinson has the president's ear," said one senior military officer. "It's all about coordination with the right people in Washington quickly to make sure CentCom is on the right track."
Other defense officials, however, said picking Mr. Wilkinson over a career military officer sent a signal that the administration wanted its own political appointee in the sensitive communications job.
"Franks needs help, but this is the wrong solution to the problem," said one defense official.
Mr. Wilkinson, a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve for five years, has been a special assistant to Mr. Bush since the administration's earliest days in office, coordinating communications for White House domestic and foreign policy agendas. His new job is a civilian position.
The White House has turned to Mr. Wilkinson before to help hone its message on the national and global stage.
During the war in Afghanistan, Mr. Wilkinson headed the Coalition Information Center, which used offices in Washington, London and Pakistan, to spread an anti-Taliban message.
Before joining the White House, Mr. Wilkinson served as spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld during the 2000 presidential transition.
During the Florida recount after the election, Mr. Wilkinson served as Miami-Dade County recount team spokesman for Mr. Bush.
From 1992 to 2000, Mr. Wilkinson worked for Representative Dick Armey of Texas, the House majority leader, serving in several positions including political director and press secretary.
A native Texan, Mr. Wilkinson received a degree in finance from the University of Texas at Arlington and a master's degree in government from Johns Hopkins University.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Ashcroft's Law West -- and East -- of the Pecos
He is arbitrarily deciding who can be tried where.
By Jonathan Turley,
November 13, 2002
Los Angeles times
http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-turley13nov13,0,2629067.story
If there is one legal principle that seems to guide Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, it is this: Possession is nine-tenths of the law.
In holding citizens and noncitizens, Ashcroft has claimed unilateral authority to dictate how and where they will be tried and, most important, executed.
In the last few weeks, he has taken this control to a new level, defying states and judges who do not conform to his demands for speedy justice.
For some officials in Maryland, Ashcroft virtually took on the role of a body snatcher in the aftermath of the arrest of the Washington sniper suspects. Though many observers thought that Maryland would have the clear claim for the first prosecutions as the state with the first and most murders in the case, the state's historical caution in using the death penalty did not sit well with Ashcroft.
So the Justice Department simply took possession of both suspects. What followed was a prosecutorial version of EBay. For a week, all the prosecutors were dialing in their bids to Ashcroft, publicly shilling for their ability to deliver the death penalty in a jiffy. Virginia had the advantage, promising not only to ice both defendants but also to execute their Chevy Caprice to seal the deal. Ashcroft handed the two over to Virginia like kitchen appliances on layaway plan.
While giving up such prize defendants, however, Ashcroft recently made clear that no deal is final -- until execution. Consider the fate of accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui in a Virginia federal court. Although Ashcroft had previously moved Moussaoui from Minnesota to this ultraconservative court, the judge started behaving strangely: She was actually considering defense motions. In the Ashcroft Justice Department, such due process is viewed as coddling. Ashcroft is now reported to be thinking of taking back Moussaoui for a fast military tribunal.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema is not the only judge in Virginia to earn Ashcroft's ire. U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar refused to go along with Ashcroft's unilateral actions in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen accused of having terrorist connections. Doumar demanded proof other than Ashcroft's assertion that he has the power to declare any person an "enemy combatant" and thus entitled to no constitutional rights. Ashcroft refused. He reportedly now is putting Hamdi on a list for a tribunal as well.
A military tribunal is designed for quick convictions, little appeal and easy executions. It is the convenience store of junk justice: fast service, cheap products, no substantive value.
It now seems that who is and who is not subject to summary tribunal justice is up to the shifting inclinations of Ashcroft, which sometimes appear as arbitrary as his choice of breakfast meat.
For example, John Walker Lindh was captured fighting in Afghanistan after being trained by Al Qaeda. Ashcroft let him have a real trial in a real court. Hamdi, also arrested in Afghanistan, has been denied access to counsel or the courts.
Then there is Jose Padilla, a Brooklyn, N.Y., native arrested in May at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and accused of plotting to set off a "dirty bomb." Ashcroft has stripped him of all rights and denied him access to courts or counsel.
Most attorneys general would resist removing cases from the Justice Department and declaring the military to have a superior judiciary. But Ashcroft has become a walking contradiction, more general than attorney. Whereas his predecessors viewed the justice system as the very thing that defines us as a nation of laws, Ashcroft views justice as merely one means to an end.
As he prepares his list for summary judgment and execution, the American justice system will be the first to be dispatched.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University.
----
Briton accused of hacking military computer network
November 13, 2002
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021113-1425499.htm
Federal authorities yesterday accused a British computer administrator of hacking into 92 networks operated by the U.S. military and NASA, including one break-in that shut down systems at a Navy facility in New Jersey immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Authorities said two of the computer systems were at the Pentagon. The intrusions also made inoperable the network that serves the military district for Washington, officials said.
Authorities disclosed indictments in Northern Virginia and New Jersey against Gary McKinnon, 36, of the Hornsey section of London. He was indicted on eight counts of computer-related crimes, including break-ins at six private companies.
Court records in Virginia said Mr. McKinnon caused $900,000 in damage to computers in 14 states.
In New Jersey, Mr. McKinnon was accused of hacking into a network of 300 computers at the Earle Naval Weapons Station in Colts Neck and stealing 950 passwords. Because of the break-in, which occurred immediately after the terrorist attacks, the whole system was effectively shut down for one week, officials said. That station replenishes munitions and supplies for the Atlantic Fleet.
"This was a grave intrusion into a vital military computer system at a time when we, as a nation, had to summon all of our defenses against further attack," said U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie.
Mr. McKinnon, if found guilty, faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine, Mr. Christie said.
U.S. officials said earlier they were weighing whether to seek Mr. McKinnon's extradition from England, a move that would be exceedingly rare among international computer crime investigations. Mr. Christie confirmed that in a statement yesterday.
A civilian Internet security expert, Chris Wysopal, said that a less-skilled, recreational hacker might be able to break into a single military network, but it would be unlikely that same person could mount attacks against dozens of separate networks.
"Whenever it's a multistage attack, it's definitely a more sophisticated attacker," said Mr. Wysopal, a founding member of AtStake, a security firm in Cambridge, Mass. "That's a huge investigation."
The security of U.S. military networks is considered fair compared with other parts of government and many private companies and organizations. But until heightened security concerns after last year's terrorist attacks, the Defense Department operated thousands of publicly accessible Web sites. Each represented possible entry points from the Internet into military systems unless they were kept secured and monitored regularly.
It would be unusual for U.S. officials to seek extradition. In previous major cyber-crimes, such as the release of the Love Bug virus in May 2000 by a Philippines computer student and attacks in February 2000 by a Canadian youth against major American commercial Web sites, U.S. authorities have waived interest in extraditing hacker suspects to stand trial here.
But the Bush administration has toughened hacking laws since September 11 and increasingly lobbied foreign governments to cooperate in international computer-crime investigations. The United States and England were among 26 nations that last year signed the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, an international treaty that provides for hacker extradition even among countries without formal extradition agreements.
----
ACLU seeks immediate release of government surveillance records
Associated Press
11/13/2002
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-11-13-patriot-act_x.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union asked a judge on Wednesday to order the Justice Department to release information on increased surveillance in the United States under a law passed after last year's terrorist attacks.
The ACLU on Aug. 21 filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act seeking records involving the implementation of the USA Patriot Act, which broadened the government's surveillance capabilities in order to stop future attacks.
The motion filed in U.S. District Court says that the Justice Department has done little to comply with the request for records and asks a judge to order their speedy release. The ACLU says the information being sought, generally policy directives and statistical information, would not jeopardize national security or ongoing investigations.
"Continued delay deprives the public of information critical to its ability to understand and evaluate government policy," the motion says.
The information sought includes circulation records from libraries, bookstore purchase records, the expanded use of telephone surveillance techniques and how many times the law has been used in searches and other surveillance.
Justice Department officials declined comment on the motion. Previously, the agency has said that some of the information being demanded is classified.
--------
ACLU Seeks U.S. Surveillance Records
November 13, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Patriot-Act-Lawsuit.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The American Civil Liberties Union asked a judge on Wednesday to order the Justice Department to release information on increased surveillance in the United States under a law passed after last year's terrorist attacks.
The ACLU on Aug. 21 filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act seeking records involving the implementation of the USA Patriot Act, which broadened the government's surveillance capabilities in order to stop future attacks.
The motion filed in U.S. District Court says that the Justice Department has done little to comply with the request for records and asks a judge to order their speedy release. The ACLU says the information being sought, generally policy directives and statistical information, would not jeopardize national security or ongoing investigations.
``Continued delay deprives the public of information critical to its ability to understand and evaluate government policy,'' the motion says.
The information sought includes circulation records from libraries, bookstore purchase records, the expanded use of telephone surveillance techniques and how many times the law has been used in searches and other surveillance.
Justice Department officials declined comment on the motion. Previously, the agency has said that some of the information being demanded is classified.
On the Net:
ACLU: http://www.aclu.org
Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov
-------- drug war
Colombia's Air Assault on Coca Leaves Crop, Farmers in Its Dust
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45987-2002Nov12?language=printer
LA HORMIGA, Colombia -- Three months of the most intensive U.S.-sponsored aerial spraying to date has devastated coca crops in this key cocaine-producing region of southwestern Colombia.
The spraying has covered more than 115,000 acres of coca here in Putumayo province since President Alvaro Uribe took office on Aug. 7, sending herbicides down on nearly the entire crop in the world's richest coca-producing farmlands. The aerial assault has accomplished what several previous Colombian governments employing more benign measures have failed to do: virtually eliminate the large and small coca crops in Putumayo. Past spraying had reduced coca cultivation only temporarily, until peasants replanted the lucrative crops. But the sustained intensity of this round appears to have killed many farmers' incentives to try again. More than a dozen coca farmers interviewed along a 40-mile stretch of fertile river valley, many of whom had experienced spraying at least once before, said they did not plan to replant coca and risk losing time, money and the food crops that are frequently grown alongside it.
If that holds true, the results would represent the first lasting success for the $1.3 billion U.S. anti-drug aid package for Colombia. The aid, mostly in military resources, has been concentrated in this remote province, 350 miles south of the capital, Bogota. The damage to these coca fields might not immediately reduce the amount of cocaine arriving in the United States, much of which is already in the international pipeline, but the supply could decline in the year ahead if the drug crop does not return, authorities said.
The success, however, has come at a high cost for thousands of peasants who live here on small farms cut out of the jungle.
"It is all gone here," said one farmer, Juan Carlos Gaviria, 52, whose three acres of coca in the village of Achapos Sinai were sprayed in August. "It is no longer profitable for us to plant this. But the problem is that this hasn't just ended coca, but everything else too."
The U.S.-backed anti-drug program, Plan Colombia, has traced an uneven course over the past two years. Until this point, the military resources and a special U.S.-trained anti-drug brigade have failed to make a lasting dent in an industry that supplies 90 percent of the cocaine reaching the United States. Nor has the program's $100 million-plus investment in a broad variety of social development projects, from road-building to crop-substitution incentives, constructed a substitute economy for impoverished farmers such as Gaviria, as had been promised on paper.
The goal of the plan, originally envisioned as a $7.5 billion effort funded by the Colombian, U.S. and European governments, was to cut coca production in half by 2005.The strategy, it was hoped, would dramatically reduce international cocaine supplies. In addition, it was hoped that the pressure on cocaine-producing areas would force the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as the largest rebel insurgency is known, to negotiate an end to its protracted war against the government once it was deprived of its principal source of financing.
The results so far are unclear. The CIA has estimated that Colombia's coca crop rose 25 percent last year, to nearly 420,000 acres, while the United Nations detected an 11 percent decline. However, both those figures reflect events that took place before the all-out spraying campaign here.
U.S. anti-drug officials, who have long identified spraying as the most effective weapon, had repeatedly said real progress would not materialize until the full complement of more than 20 OV-10 and T-65 spray planes and nearly 80 helicopter escorts foreseen in the aid package arrived to wage a war of attrition against coca farmers. The majority of those resources are now in place, and U.S. officials said they hope to spray more than 300,000 acres of coca over the next 12 months, a third more than in 2001.
Just as important, U.S. officials have found a reliable ally in Uribe, who came to office promising a broader war against the guerrillas. Uribe's predecessor, Andres Pastrana, won the aid package from the Clinton administration, but he frequently suspended spraying because of worries that its harsh effects were undermining international support for Plan Colombia, particularly among Europeans, and complicating peace talks with the FARC, which eventually collapsed. Uribe apparently has no such worries.
Government and national police estimates put Putumayo's coca cultivation at between 105,000 and 125,000 acres at the end of last year. Uribe said recently that 115,000 acres of coca have been sprayed in Putumayo since he took office, more than half the national total for last year. Farmers here estimate that 80 percent of the coca has been killed as a result of daily spraying that began July 31, after the deadline for thousands of peasants who signed on for U.S. alternative development assistance to yank up coca crops.
But it remains to be seen whether the spraying in Putumayo will push coca cultivation to other provinces, as it has in the past. The U.N. analysis reported that coca crops exist in 22 of Colombia's 32 provinces, almost double the number from three years ago. Development officials and farmers here say that Nariño province, just next door, is experiencing a spike in coca cultivation; it has become the country's fourth-largest coca-producing province since Plan Colombia began.
To avoid such movement, Plan Colombia promised to replace the illegal economy here by investing in roads, schools and health clinics, and by providing seed money to help farmers abandon coca for other crops. But the effort has not generated much support from local farmers, who view the alternative development help as too little and too slow in arriving.
Here in the Guamuez River valley, 4,000 families signed up last year for stopgap aid packages worth $800 in livestock, feed and seedlings for legal crops to tide them over while they pulled up their coca. But only 702 of those families complied with the July deadline to destroy their illegal crop.
Those families represent 22,000 acres of coca; they are now planning community projects such as collective dairy farms, fish farms and hearts-of-palm processing plants. In addition, more than 100 projects to build roads and bridges are underway to help farmers get legal crops to market in a region with few paved tracks. But those who did not comply with the agreements are no longer eligible for help, so thousands of families have been left without obvious livelihoods after being sprayed.
"Many received the original aid, but they did not meet the terms of the agreement," said Nidia Toro, a regional adviser for Plante, the government agency managing the alternative development program. "Many of them are larger producers, who don't live here and don't want to pull it up, and have made others in the area suffer as a result."
The spraying stopped this month, farmers and development officials here said, as the rainy season's low storm clouds began to make flying difficult. Farmers here said it was also likely that the spray planes ran low on targets.
These hills, once glowing with the brilliant green of coca, have been left a burned brown. In a tour of the area, it was hard to find a coca field intact along a swath of jungle and pasture stretching from El Placer in the west to Ancura in the east, a region that once accounted for as much as 40 percent of Colombia's coca production.
Many farmers here are already planting legal crops where coca once grew, in spite of the benefits cutoff, while others are preparing to do so. In the past, farmers used small, thatched shelters to protect coca seedlings from the spraying to facilitate quick replanting. Now many of those shelters cover palm, yucca and plantain seedlings.
Some large coca fields near the city of La Hormiga are reemerging after being cut back by farmers in a last-ditch effort to keep them going. Living coca fringes some large fields, and a few deep narrow valleys that are difficult targets for the spray planes brim with the head-high shrubs. But much of it is dead or dying, driving out many peasants who once produced it.
Whole villages have been abandoned, like the empty collection of cinder-block houses that once made up the hamlet of Los Angeles. Most residents packed up their few belongings and headed to neighboring Nariño, or to Ecuador on Putumayo's southern border, part of an exodus from Putumayo since January that the Social Solidarity Network, a government relief agency, estimates at nearly 9,000 people.
Honky-tonk towns like Puerto Asis and La Hormiga, whose traditionally high prices and assortment of Swiss Army knives, digital cameras and Ray-Ban sunglasses in local stores have long testified to the coca economy, are dark soon after sunset. At the Electro-Millionaire appliance store in Puerto Asis, Joaquin Santander has seen business fall from $35,000 a month to less than half that since the spraying started.
"We call our clients and ask why they aren't paying their credit, and they just tell us, 'We have no money,' " Santander said.
Those farmers who remain, like Alfonso Lopez, are trying to make ends meet the best they can. On a recent afternoon in La Hormiga, the 46-year-old farmer arrived at the Marquis Buy-Sell Store with his well-used chain saw.
A few weeks before, his 30-acre farm in Las Delicias was doused with herbicide, killing his four acres of coca and 12 acres of palms he planned to process into hearts of palm. He said pawning his chainsaw was the only way to pay the final year of high-school tuition for his daughter Edie, 17, the oldest of his five children. After firing up the saw on the sidewalk to show that it worked, he left with $80.
"I have nothing else," the slight farmer said. "Nothing at all."
-------- terrorism
Excerpts From Purported Bin Laden Tape
The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 12, 2002; 7:28 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45447-2002Nov12?language=printer
Excerpts from the official U.S. government transcript of the audiotape purporting to be of Osama bin Laden:
The road to safety begins by ending the aggression. Reciprocal treatment is part of justice. The incidents that have taken place since the raids of New York and Washington until now -- like the killing of Germans in Tunisia and the French in Karachi, the bombing of the giant French tanker in Yemen, the killing of Marines in Failaka and the British and Australians in the Bali explosions, the recent operation in Moscow, and some sporadic operations here and there -- are only reactions and reciprocal actions. These actions were carried out by the zealous sons of Islam in defense of their religion and in response to the order of their God and prophet. . . . What Bush, the pharaoh of this age, was doing in terms of killing our sons in Iraq, and what Israel, the United States' ally, was doing in terms of bombing houses that shelter old people, women and children with U.S.-made aircraft in Palestine were sufficient to prompt the sane among your rulers to distance themselves from this criminal gang. . . .
Our kinfolk in Palestine have been slain and severely tortured for nearly a century. If we defend our people in Palestine, the world becomes agitated and allies itself against Muslims, unjustly and falsely, under the pretense of fighting terrorism. What do your governments want by allying themselves with the criminal gang in the White House against Muslims? Do your governments not know that the White House gangsters are the biggest butchers of this age? Rumsfeld, the butcher of Vietnam, killed more than 2 million people, not to mention those he wounded. Cheney and Powell killed and destroyed in Baghdad more than Hulegu of the Mongols. What do your governments want from their alliance with America in attacking us in Afghanistan? I mention in particular Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia. . . .
We warned Australia before not to join in the war in Afghanistan, and against its despicable effort to separate East Timor. It ignored the warning until it woke up to the sounds of explosions in Bali. . . .
If you were distressed by the deaths of your men and the men of your allies in Tunisia, Karachi, Failaka, Bali and Amman, remember our children who are killed in Palestine and Iraq everyday. . . .
If you were distressed by the killing of your nationals in Moscow, remember ours in Chechnya. Why should fear, killing, destruction, displacement, orphaning and widowing continue to be our lot, while security, stability and happiness be your lot? This is unfair. It is time we get even. You will be killed just as you kill, and will be bombed just as you bomb. And expect more that will further distress you.
----
Purported Bin Laden Tape Lauds Bali, Moscow Attacks
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45816-2002Nov12?language=printer
CAIRO, Nov. 12 -- An audiotape recording attributed to Osama bin Laden, the fugitive al Qaeda leader, extolled the recent attacks in Bali and Moscow in a bellicose statement that, if authentic, would be the clearest indication in almost a year that bin Laden is alive and determined to pursue his Islamic war on the United States.
The statement, broadcast tonight around the Arab world on the al-Jazeera satellite television station, also hailed the fatal shooting of a U.S. Marine in Kuwait, the assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan and the attempt to sink a French oil tanker off Yemen, acts that it said were "undertaken by the zealous sons of Islam in defense of their religion and in response to the call of their God and prophet, peace be upon him." It went on to threaten further attacks on U.S. and other Western targets if the United States attacks Iraq.
After an initial analysis of the tape using computerized voice-matching technology, a knowledgeable Bush administration official in Washington said the voice on the tape "sounds like bin Laden's voice." But he added that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were still analyzing the tape, scrutinizing it not only for voice tone, but also inflection patterns and word usage.
Al-Jazeera declined to say how it obtained the tape. Previous recordings attributed to bin Laden by the widely followed television station, headquartered in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, have proved authentic.
A week after more than 3,000 people were killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon, President Bush said he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive." But the Saudi-born al Qaeda leader eluded U.S. forces as they destroyed the Taliban government in Afghanistan last fall and hunted for him and his al Qaeda followers in their mountain redoubts.
U.S. officials have said they thought they heard bin Laden's voice in a monitored communication as U.S. Special Forces troops and their Afghan allies swept through the heights of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan last December, trying to kill or capture him and the remains of his organization. Several other tape-recorded statements have since emerged on al-Jazeera -- the most recent in September -- but tonight's was the first referring to recent events in a way that would make it clear bin Laden is still alive and able to function.
In early October, al-Jazeera broadcast a voice recording of Ayman Zawahiri, the second-ranking al Qaeda leader, that U.S. officials concluded was genuine. In that recording, Zawahiri threatened continued attacks on "America and its allies."
Although the speaker tonight hailed the bloody attacks of recent weeks, he did not specifically claim responsibility for them. U.S. and other officials have blamed the Bali, Kuwait and Yemen attacks on members of al Qaeda or people sympathetic to the organization and its aims, fueling speculation that the group's followers may be shifting their attention to smaller and less protected targets without necessarily remaining in contact with bin Laden or other fugitive al Qaeda leaders.
As bin Laden has often done, the speaker criticized U.S. policy toward Israel, saying it was a key motivation for the attacks. The taped voice said the recent strikes were in response to what "Bush is doing in terms of killing our sons and what Israel, America's ally, is doing by bombing houses on the heads of those in them, from elderly women and children, with American planes in Palestine. . . .
"For our people in Palestine are being killed and have been suffering all kinds of torture for almost a century. If we defend our people in Palestine, the world goes up in arms and allies itself against Muslims under the banner of combating terrorism."
In an apparent message to Arabs whose governments have close military ties with the United States -- another subject that has drawn bin Laden's ire -- the recording said: "Do your governments not know that the White House gang are the biggest butchers of the era?
"Why should your governments ally themselves with America?"
The speaker also warned U.S. allies that have joined the war against terrorism, specifically Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia, saying: "If you don't like looking at your dead . . . remember our dead, including the children in Iraq."
For Western nations, the speaker said, "The road to safety starts with stopping aggression.
"We had warned Australia about its participation in Afghanistan. It ignored the warning until it woke up to the sound of explosions in Bali."
More than 180 people, most of them Australians, were killed in the Oct. 12 Bali bombings.
The tape also referred to the taking of hundreds of hostages by Chechen guerrillas at a Moscow theater Oct. 23, in which 128 hostages died when Russian forces stormed the theater three days later. But Russian officials have not linked the action to al Qaeda. The tape also mentioned the fatal shooting in Jordan on Oct. 28 of Laurence M. "Larry" Foley, a senior administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Although Western diplomats believe Muslim extremists were to blame, Jordanian officials have not linked al Qaeda to the attack.
Despite their failure to deliver bin Laden "dead or alive," U.S. officials have qualified their war on terrorism as successful because, they say, bin Laden and his organization have been crippled and forced into hiding. Speaking today in West Palm Beach, Fla., Gen. Tommy R. Franks, chief of the U.S. Central Command, said he did not know where bin Laden was, but was sure the al Qaeda leader was "having a bad year." Even his 5-year-old granddaughter asks him about bin Laden's whereabouts, Franks said. "I tell her, I don't know," he said. "But if he's alive, we'll certainly get him."
The CIA and other intelligence agencies have presumed that bin Laden is still alive, and small military and CIA covert operations teams continue to hunt for him along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and elsewhere, the administration official in Washington said. "This should not come as a surprise," he added. "We never thought he was dead."
U.S. intelligence analysts, the official said, believe the message broadcast tonight is "bin Laden's effort to boost morale among the rank and file" at a time when the United States and other nations are increasingly detaining -- and in some cases killing -- suspected al Qaeda followers. "It is meant to lead them to believe he's still around," he said.
Analysts also believe the message probably contains code words to operatives who are planning attacks, as analysts believe past messages have, he added.
Staff writers Dana Priest and Thomas E. Ricks in Washington contributed to this report.
--------
New Recording May Be Threat From bin Laden
November 13, 2002
New York Times
By JAMES RISEN with NEIL MacFARQUHAR
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/13/international/13CND-OSAM.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 - American intelligence experts were still trying to determine today whether an audiotape broadcast on Tuesday by Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite television network, does indeed contain the voice of Osama bin Laden praising several terror attacks around the world, including recent ones in Moscow and Bali, and threatened further bloodshed over Iraq.
American officials say the voice sounded like Mr. bin Laden and that the tape could be proof that he has resurfaced. Some American officials had concluded he was dead.
Experts at the Central Intelligence Agency are studying the tape to determine its authenticity, and officials cautioned that they did not yet have conclusive evidence that the voice was that of Mr. bin Laden.
It is possible that the tape is another fake, officials say, but it was clear that they were taking seriously the possibility that it was genuine.
President Bush said today that he had not formed an opinion on whether the tape is genuine. But he said, "Whoever put this tape out has put the world on notice yet again that we're at war and that we need to take these messages very seriously. And we will."
If the voice does prove to be that of Mr. bin Laden, and the tape has not been tampered with, this would provide the first proof that he is alive in almost a year. Last December, in intercepted radio transmissions from the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, American officials believe they heard him giving orders to Qaeda fighters. His fate has been debated since then.
The tape, which Al Jazeera said was an audiocassette, contained a message of about four minutes, shaped as a warning to Western nations not to join any American-led effort against Iraq lest they suffer the kind of scattered attacks that have taken place in recent months.
Although the man speaking on the tape did not take credit for the brutal attacks, from Bali to Moscow to Tunisia, he did extol those who had carried them out as "sons who are zealous in defending their religion."
Speaking in Arabic in what sounded like Mr. bin Laden's usual level voice, his comments interspersed with pious expressions, the man said recent attacks were "merely a reciprocal reaction to what Bush, the modern-day pharaoh, did by murdering our children in Iraq and what Israel, the ally of America, did in bombing houses of the elderly, women and children in Palestine, using American planes."
The use of the word pharaoh is a heavily freighted term drawn from Koranic texts, where the lesson of the fall of the pharaoh is deemed an example of the fate of arrogant leaders who think their own power equals God's.
The man said the attacks against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, led by the United States, should have been sufficient warning to other countries that they should keep their distance from the "criminal gang" in Washington. He specifically mentioned Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia as nations that should pay heed.
In cadence and tone, the tape sounded like previous messages from Mr. bin Laden, the renegade son of a Saudi family with extensive construction and engineering interests.
Staff members at Al Jazeera said that the tape had arrived Tuesday evening and that journalists there were convinced it was Mr. bin Laden's voice. "It is absolutely positive that it is Osama bin Laden's voice because we have many people in the office who have met him and they said this is his voice," said Dana Sayyagh, a journalist at the station.
They would not say how the station came to get the tape.
Analyses of past audio and videotapes have been unable to conclusively identify the voices on those tapes as Mr. bin Laden's, or confirm the timing to prove they were new.
Even with a $25 million price on Mr. bin Laden's head, American intelligence agencies have obtained little solid information about him. The failure to either kill or capture him has been a great frustrations for the Bush administration.
Soon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush boldly stated that he wanted Mr. bin Laden "dead or alive," but after months of fruitless searching in Afghanistan and elsewhere, American officials gradually began to play down the importance of catching him. President Bush and other officials began to say that Mr. bin Laden's fate had become almost irrelevant to the campaign against terrorism, because he was either dead or in hiding, and either way no longer as grave a threat to the United States as he had been.
Still, the doubts about whether he had survived American bombing raids in Afghanistan underscored the government's frustrations in trying to dismantle Al Qaeda, and the possibility that he was still at large seemed to bring the military action in Afghanistan to an incomplete end.
More troubling to American officials has been the evidence over the past few weeks that Al Qaeda appears to be regrouping to launch another round of attacks against Western targets.
The sudden re-emergence of Mr. Bin Laden (or someone who sounds like him) at a time when the United States is threatening war on Iraq complicates American policy.
Arab leaders have been warning since 9/11 that the failure of the United States to stem the Israeli-Palestinian violence would serve as the main recruiting tool for extremists, and that starting another conflict in the region would only strengthen the appeal from Mr. bin Laden for continued war against the West.
The tape seems timed to coincide with mounting anger in the Mideast over the threat of an invasion of Iraq if President Saddam Hussein does not allow renewed weapons inspections.
In the tape, several administration figures are named. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is accused of being responsible for the death of two million people in the Vietnam war. The man on the tape says both Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in their roles as leaders during the Persian Gulf war, visited more destruction on Baghdad than Halagu, the 13th-century Mongol and grandson of Ghengis Khan, who sacked what was then a center of Islamic civilization.
The specific terrorist attacks that Mr. bin Laden mentioned as a taste of things to come included the death of German tourists in Tunisia, the attack against the French tanker in Yemen, a bombing of French naval experts in Karachi, the killing of a American marine in Kuwait, the explosion in Bali, with its high toll of Australians and Britons, and the recent hostage-taking in Moscow.
In one of the references that showed the speaker was paying close attention to recent news, he dismissed reports that the bombing in Bali had meant to strike Americans rather than Australians. The man said that despite warnings, Australia had joined American forces in Afghanistan and worked against Muslims in gaining independence for East Timor.
"But it ignored this warning until it was awakened by the echoes of explosions in Bali," he said. "Its government subsequently pretended, falsely, that its citizens were not targeted."
The man said all these operations showed that Muslims would no longer be just the victims of Western aggression, but aggressors themselves.
"For how long will fear, massacres, destruction, exile, orphanhood and widowhood be our lot, while security, stability and joy remain yours alone?" the man said, addressing the Western nations. "As you kill, you will be killed; as you raid, you will be raided."
The man also said the attempts to defend the Palestinians had pushed the whole world together in a coalition to fight Islam that was given the "false and spurious title of the war against terror."
Mr. bin Laden's previous claims that he was helping to fight for the Palestinian cause or the Iraqis suffering under sanctions have been widely dismissed by governments and Muslim religious leaders, who say he has done nothing but harm their cause, but the statements carry a certain popular appeal.
While the United States and its allies have captured or killed a number of key Qaeda leaders, many others remain at large. A recent audio tape raised the possibility that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Eygptian militant considered to be Mr. bin Laden's mentor and chief deputy, is also still alive.
In the past, American intelligence officials have said they believed that Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahiri usually traveled together. But after the tape was disclosed on Tuesday, one American official cautioned that it could take time for analysts to review the tape before determining whether it is authentic and was made recently.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
------ alternative energy
Electrabel to buy wind parks from Gamesa
REUTERS BELGIUM:
November 13, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18553/story.htm
BRUSSELS - Belgium's Electrabel said this week it would buy wind parks in Portugal from Spanish wind power firm Gamesa for about 320 million euros ($323.9 million) in its first investment in wind energy outside its home market.
Electrabel, the sixth biggest power utility in Europe by sales, also said it was talking with Gamesa about buying other parks to be built by Gamesa elsewhere in Europe.
More than 40 percent owned by French utility giant Suez, Electrabel is expanding in Europe to offset falling tariffs in Belgium as the government opens up the energy market to competition.
Electrabel said the parks to be built in Portugal by Gamesa would come on line between 2004 and 2006 and have a combined capacity of 252 megawatts (MW).
An Electrabel spokesman said the parks would generate power for the Portuguese market. He was unable to say how many parks would be built or identify their location.
Electrabel was interested in Portugal because the Iberian Peninsula was one of the windiest points in Europe after Denmark and northern Germany, the spokesman said.
Wind parks also enjoyed support from the Portuguese and Spanish governments, he said.
Electrabel is building a 220-million-euro, 100 MW wind park off the Belgian coast and runs two others inland.
It already has a presence in Portugal with a stake in hydroelectric power company Generg.
Electrabel shares ended 0.08 percent higher at 238.90 euros in Brussels, while Gamesa ended up 2.07 percent at 17.25 euros in Madrid.
(Additional reporting by Dan Trotta in Madrid).
----
Solar power to light gloomy London bus shelters
REUTERS UK:
November 13, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18551/story.htm
LONDON - Optimistic London bus managers are planning to use solar power to light up the city's bus shelters, undeterred by the capital's notoriously dark and dreary weather.
The capital receives less than three hours sunshine on a typical winter day but three companies are testing technology to supply city network operator London Buses with solar panels capable of generating enough electricity to light shelters through the long and gloomy winter.
"We will take the best of each (company's) technology and combine them into the best specification...Of course, there's an obvious environmental benefit as well," London Buses' spokeswoman Abi Rogansky said.
The new technology, part of Mayor Ken Livingstone's pledge to improve transport safety in London, will light 200 of the capital's 10,700 shelters. The solar panels work by storing energy during the day for night-time use.
The three shelters being used in the north London trial are so gloomy that school teachers have had to stand at the bus stops with torches to help children see in the dark.
---
Energy Department Focuses on Hydrogen
November 13, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-13-09.asp#anchor4
DEARBORN, Michigan, Hydrogen is the focus of the Energy Department's research and development efforts to improve the efficiency of transportation, said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in a speech Tuesday.
Delivering the keynote address to an international audience of senior government, industry and academic officials at the Global Forum on Personal Transportation in Dearborn, Abraham unveiled a "National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap" and the "New Vision for the 21st Century Truck Partnership," which focuses on improving the energy efficiency and safety of trucks and buses.
The roadmap is the result of a 12 month collaborative process that brought together scientific and engineering experts to chart the course to a hydrogen economy, Abraham said. The roadmap outlines the research, development, demonstration, codes and standards, and education efforts necessary to advance hydrogen powered transportation solutions.
"Whether it is fusion, a hydrogen economy, or ideas that we have not yet explored, I believe we need to leapfrog the status quo and prepare for a future that under any scenario requires a revolution in how we produce, deliver and use energy," Abraham said.
In the coming decades, the United States will need new energy supplies and an upgraded energy infrastructure to meet growing demands for electric power and transportation fuels, the secretary added. Reliance on oil imports threatens the nation's economic well being and national security, he said.
Abraham noted that clean energy alternatives are needed to reduce air pollution, curb greenhouse gas emissions and offer sustainable solutions for increasing global economic growth, and said that an energy economy based on hydrogen could help satisfy these needs.
Hydrogen produced from renewable sources such as biomass or wind power can provide almost unlimited energy with little impact on the environment. Hydrogen produces near zero emissions and is based on diverse, domestically available resources.
Abraham said he understands that achieving the "hydrogen economy" will be a long term process that neither government nor industry can undertake on its own. Future steps will include the development of detailed research and development plans for hydrogen production, delivery, storage, conversion and end use applications.
Abraham was joined in his announcement of a "New Vision for the 21st Century Truck Partnership" by officials of the Departments of Transportation and Defense and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as industry executives from the heavy duty truck and bus industry.
"Our goal is to dramatically improve the energy efficiency and safety of trucks and buses, while maintaining a dedicated concern for the environment," Abraham said. "The expanded 21st Century Truck Partnership will center on advanced combustion engines and heavy hybrid drives that can use renewable fuels."
The National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap is available at: http://www.eren.doe.gov/hydrogen
-------- environment
California Town Launches Diaper Recycling
November 13, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-13-09.asp#anchor8
SANTA CLARITA, California, The city of Santa Clarita has launched the nation's first diaper recycling program, which will turn soiled diapers into building materials and other products.
Recycling diapers in Santa Clarita will soon be as easy as recycling soda cans, newspapers or yard trimmings. About 200-500 residents, selected by the city, will participate in a free, six-month pilot program, placing used diapers in special plastic bags and/or curbside bins to be picked up on their regular trash pick up day.
A process developed by Knowaste LLC will sanitize and recycle the diapers' primary components. The recycled plastic can be used in the production of plastic wood, roof shingles and vinyl wood siding.
Knowaste says the long fibrous wood pulp from the diapers can be used in many different applications, including wallpaper, shoe insoles and oil filters.
"This marks the first time a municipality in the United States has decided to make recycling diapers an environmental priority and provided a solution to the overwhelming amount of diapers in the waste stream," said Santa Clarita Mayor Frank Ferry. "Santa Clarita has a long history in environmental stewardship and leadership and we are very pleased to add one more innovative component to our city's overall recycling strategy."
California faces shrinking landfill capacities, compounded by a rising population that is estimated to add 25 million new residents by the year 2040. Local cities and communities are mandated via state legislation to reduce their trash diversions to landfills by 50 percent or face stiff financial penalties, so innovative recycling concepts are required.
Some cities, such as Santa Clarita, have stated their intent to divert as much as 75 percent of trash from landfills.
Disposable baby diapers, used by about 98 percent of all parents, are one of the largest single contributors still going to landfills, after excluding components routed to existing recycling programs. Almost 20 billion disposable baby diapers, almost seven billion pounds, enter landfills each year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and research indicates that a single diaper can take almost 500 years to decompose.
The environmental impacts of disposable diapers are also severe - it takes almost a quarter of a million trees to meet the annual demands for diapers in the U.S. every year.
The diaper recycling program was made possible by state and local matching grant funds. Santa Clarita chose Knowaste's program for its proven track record, first in Canada and the Netherlands, and now in Santa Clarita, in handling and recycling millions of diapers.
The Knowaste processor in Santa Clarita will be a small-scale version of the company's Netherlands facility and will be capable of processing up to a ton of diapers per hour.
"We are delighted that the city of Santa Clarita has chosen the Knowaste technology to recycle disposable diapers," said Roy Brown, president and chief executive officer of Knowaste LLC. "As environmental and land use planning concerns mount, there is obviously a compelling need nationwide for municipalities to explore new recycling opportunities and technologies, expanding our current efforts beyond soda cans, glass and paper goods."
----
Staples to Sell Eco-Friendly Products
Reuters
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47500-2002Nov13?language=printer
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (Reuters) - Staples Inc., the No. 2 U.S. office products retailer, has formally committed itself to selling paper products made up of recycled materials in a bid to help protect forest resources, the retailer announced this week.
Staples said customers who turn in empty printing ink jet cartridges at its more than 1,400 stores will get a free ream of its private-label copy paper, with 30 percent recycled content. The offer goes through Nov. 16.
Staples, which ranks behind industry leader Office Depot Inc., said its forest protection initiative would be underpinned by a promotion of recycled content products, chain-wide recycling initiatives, energy conservation programs and educational initiatives for customers and employees.
The initiative announced on Tuesday comes at a time when environmental groups are urging big business to integrate environmental protection measures into their business plans to help save natural resources.
Staples said in a statement it currently offers about 1,000 recycled content products -- from copy paper to corrugated boxes to remanufactured ink cartridges.
Shares of Framingham, Massachusetts-based Staples closed on Tuesday at $15.25 on the Nasdaq stock market, where they have traded between $11.68 and $22.45 over the past 52 weeks.
-------- health
Heart re-starter approved for homes
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 13, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021113-12284712.htm
Federal health officials have approved the sale of the first defibrillator specifically for at-home use, a machine designed to help people jump start the heart of a collapsed loved one before paramedics arrive.
Every year about 220,000 Americans collapse and die of cardiac arrest; without warning, their hearts suddenly stop beating. CPR buys victims crucial time but only a defibrillator, with its jolt of electricity, can restart a heart.
Every minute spent waiting for paramedics to arrive with a defibrillator lowers the chance of survival by 10 percent. Portable versions of the electric shock paddles are common in airports, shopping malls and amusement parks. They are so easy to use that untrained passersby have simply picked one up and saved lives.
Doctors also occasionally prescribed those devices for heart disease patients to keep at home, in the hope that a relatives or visitor would revive them if they collapsed.
But now the Food and Drug Administration has approved one manufacturer's version, a smaller and slightly less-expensive model, for home use, which maker Philips Electronics and some heart experts hope will begin to make home defibrillators as common as smoke alarms and fire extinguishers.
Sales of the HeartStart Home Defibrillator will begin within six weeks, a Philips spokesman said yesterday. A doctor's prescription is required.
The home defibrillator will cost $2,295, compared with $3,500 for today's portable defibrillators. Philips will initially sell the home version directly to patients who have prescriptions via the Internet or telephone but CVS pharmacies are expected to begin stocking the devices early next year.
It's not yet clear whether insurance companies will pay for home defibrillators.
But because most cases of cardiac arrest occur in the home, some heart experts have long recommended them for homes.
Others have cautioned that putting defibrillators in so many untrained hands could be risky, for example, if a distraught spouse spends precious minutes hunting the defibrillator instead of dialing 911.
The FDA spent months working with Philips to rewrite instructions for the home defibrillator so they are even easier to understand than models used in airports and shopping malls, said FDA cardiovascular chief Dan Schulz. The instructions are supposed to be understandable by a sixth-grader.
Turn on the machine and it provides talking instructions, beginning with the reminder to take off the victim's shirt and then directions on how to place the shocking pads in the right spot on the chest.
----
Growth Hormone Alters Aging
Study Shows Risks Include Diabetes, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45893-2002Nov12?language=printer
Injections of human growth hormone, which have become increasingly popular as a virtual "fountain of youth," do reverse some of the common physical attributes of aging, a new federally sponsored study has found. But the shots also have potentially serious side effects, including increasing the risk of developing diabetes and carpal tunnel syndrome.
In the most extensive clinical trial so far of the hormone -- which is available at the many "anti-aging" clinics opening around retirement centers -- researchers concluded that the growth hormone treatment was not ready for widespread use, although it showed a "promising" ability to increase muscle and decrease fat in older people.
"There may be benefits to some older people in the use of growth hormone, but the safety is not established, and it should only be used in controlled trials," said Marc R. Blackman of the National Institutes of Health, who led the study. "This is not ready for prime time."
Human growth hormone has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration only to treat severe hormone deficiencies in children and adults, and for wasting in AIDS sufferers. But officials believe it is also being widely prescribed for older people who believe aggressive advertisements that promise the hormone will help keep them feeling and looking young. Black-market, and often counterfeit, growth hormone is used as well by athletes and body builders, FDA officials said. Federal officials said there are no firm statistics on the overall use of the growth hormone, but some have estimated the number of older adults injecting the hormone to be 25,000 to 35,000. Some doctors involved in the business say the overall use exceeds 100,000 people when black-market sales are included. The black market consists of people getting the hormone without a prescription, or getting versions of the hormone made by counterfeiters. Yearly growth hormone sales have been estimated to be as high as $2 billion.
The new study, published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, followed 131 men and women 65 to 88 years old. The subjects who were injected with the hormone developed significantly more muscle and lost significantly more fat than the placebo group, the researchers found. But 18 of the men on growth hormone developed diabetes or glucose intolerance, while only seven men who were not receiving the hormone developed those conditions. Carpal tunnel syndrome and swelling of limbs were also notable side effects.
Human growth hormone is made in the pituitary gland, a pea-sized structure located at the base of the brain, and is believed to be essential to the normal development of tissues and organs. The two sex hormones, testosterone and estrogen, work in combination with growth hormone to bring on puberty and maturation in teenagers.
Researchers such as Blackman believe a similar interaction occurs as men and women age, and that the level of both the growth hormone and sex hormones naturally decline. With the decline in growth and sex hormone levels, muscle mass tends to decrease and body fat increases. Some have also linked the hormone declines to decreased sexual drive and mood changes.
When growth hormone was initially developed as a medication, it was harvested from the pituitary glands of human cadavers. It has subsequently been produced by genetically engineered bacteria endowed with the gene for growth hormone.
In the new study, which was conducted by a team directed by the NIH's National Institute on Aging and Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, researchers found that both the positive and negative effects of growth hormone treatment were present in men and women. They also found that men given both growth hormone and testosterone -- but not growth hormone alone -- had significant improvements in their ability to exercise.
Despite the improvements in body composition regarding fat and muscle with the growth hormone, Blackman said that there was no measurable improvement in actual body strength. He said that could be explained by the relatively short duration of the trial.
S. Mitchell Harman, a study leader formerly with the NIH and now with the Kronos Institute for Longevity Research, warned that use of growth hormone should be seen as experimental research, rather than clinical therapy. "If you are taking it as an anti-aging miracle cure, you are fooling yourself," he said.
He called the business in growth hormone pills and sprays is "snake oil." He said the growth hormone molecule is too large to pass into the bloodstream unless it is injected.
Alan P. Mintz, head of Cenegenics Medical Institute in Las Vegas, one of the country's largest anti-aging centers, disputed the study findings. He said his patients have had great success and few side effects with growth hormone treatment, which he always gives in conjunction with broader hormone therapy.
He said that Cenegenics has about 4,000 patients, and about one-third spend $400 to $500 a month for growth hormone injections. He said the injections only bring patients up to a normal level of growth hormone, although he acknowledged there is dispute about what that is. He said his patients have seen improvements in body mass (the ratio of muscle to fat), in ability to exercise, to sleep and to enjoy sex.
The FDA has sent out at least two warning letters to companies advertising growth hormone in recent months, and a spokeswoman said misuse of the product was a clear concern for the agency.
-------- ACTIVISTS
A Call to Arms By an Enemy of War Against Iraq
By Courtland Milloy
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Washington Post; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46288-2002Nov12?language=printer
Scott Ritter, the ex-Marine and former U.N. arms inspector, peppered his Veterans Day talk at the University of Maryland with the kinds of questions and challenges that are known to fire up an audience.
"The average age of a lance corporal is 20," Ritter said. "The average age of a college student is 20." Calling the students in the audience "just kids," he asked who among them could wake up the next morning, look in the mirror and honestly say that "what's going on in Iraq is worthy of my life."
At the same time, did the students really know enough about Iraq to sit back silently while others go off to die for them? And did they really understand that war is not the Nintendo game that we see on television, that it is, in fact, about "terminating life" and nothing more?
Hundreds of people had filled a ballroom inside the Stamp Student Union to hear Ritter, a military man turned anti-war advocate who has been denounced by hawks as unpatriotic for his views. He was invited to speak by a campus organization, and his appearance drew a wide range of students from dozens of countries.
Ritter contended that it was ridiculous for an uninformed Congress to give President Bush sole power to wage war: "It's like going to a doctor who says you have a brain tumor and that he needs to chop off your head so he can dig it out. You say, 'Wait, that's kind of extreme. May I see the X-rays?' And the doctor says, 'Don't worry about X-rays. Just trust me on this.' "
The students laughed, but Ritter cut them off, saying: "Don't blame Congress or Bush. You are the government. They just represent you. What they are doing is happening in your name."
Drawing on his experience as an intelligence officer during the Persian Gulf War and on his seven years as a U.N weapons inspector in Iraq, Ritter painted a disturbing picture of what has been happening in that country since the Gulf War and the imposition of economic sanctions.
He talked about babies drinking water contaminated by sewage because purification plants have been bombed. Mothers carry them to doctors and are told that nothing can be done. Medicines have gone bad because refrigerators don't work; bombs have knocked out electric power plants as well.
"Keep this in the back of your head: About 3,000 Iraqi children are starving to death each month -- outside the view of American heartstrings," Ritter said. "Suppose every month 3,000 Iraqi children were lined up and we threatened to shoot them if Saddam Hussein didn't do what we wanted. Suppose we gave orders for the Marines to shoot them. Well, nothing would happen because Marines don't shoot kids. But that doesn't mean America doesn't kill children. We just starve them to death.
"But we're only talking about dead brown people," Ritter added sarcastically. "Don't let that little fact get in the way. If 250,000 white babies were going to starve to death, this sanctions policy wouldn't last long at all. But somehow a child's death doesn't hurt brown mothers as much as it hurts white mothers."
Ritter made the case that America is hellbent on war with Iraq no matter what U.N. arms inspectors find if readmitted to that country. Why? We want to control Mideast oil.
"We see the world as one big grocery store," he said. When the United States needs another country's natural resource, he said, we will make friends with oppressive regimes to get it, steal it or take it by force.
Ritter said we obtain copper "by propping up African dictators who send their people into copper mines where they die by the thousands just so our lives can be made more comfortable."
Instead of hunting down terrorists with Predator drones, only to see them replaced by more terrorists, better to ask why and how people become terrorists in the first place, Ritter said.
"The anti-American sentiment is out there, and it's not because people are jealous of us," he said. "People don't like us because we're a bunch of obnoxious, ignorant bullies."
He closed by asking the students whether they really wanted such oppressive, undemocratic practices carried out in their names.
"Hell no!" came the response.
"Then it's not too late to send a message that this is not a war that we will stand for," he said, bringing many students to their feet in applause.
E-mail: milloyc@washpost.com
----
Protests Grow in Iran Over Death Sentence for Professor
November 13, 2002
New York Times
By NAZILA FATHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/13/international/middleeast/13IRAN.html
TEHRAN, Nov. 12 - About 5,000 angry students gathered at Tehran University today as protests grew over the death sentence issued to a reformist scholar close to President Mohammad Khatami.
"We wish they'd realize that one day, people's patience will end and that we are the last generation who speaks to them in this language," a student said over the microphone to cheers from protesters carrying a portrait of the scholar, Hashem Aghajari.
Mr. Aghajari was sentenced to death last week after a closed trial, charged with apostasy for a speech he gave in August in which he challenged the rule of hard-line clerics.
The protests, which began four days ago, have spread to two other major universities in Tehran, Amir Kabir and Shahid Beheshti, where meetings were held today. The daily newspaper Hambastegi reported that on Monday, there also were protests in Kerman, Tabriz, Isfahan, Orumieh and Hamedan.
Students said today that the sentence was an insult to the university community and violated freedom of speech, and they demanded Mr. Aghajari's immediate release. They chanted slogans against Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the hard-line chief of the country's judiciary, and threatened an uprising.
The demonstrations are the largest since 1999, when students staged a week of protests throughout Iran after a dormitory in Tehran was attacked by vigilantes and a student was killed.
Many Iranians say it is unlikely that Mr. Aghajari will be executed. Politicians have said the hard-liners' intention is to intimidate reformers and to force President Khatami to withdraw two proposed laws that would limit the power of the hard-line Guardian Council, which has the power to reject laws and candidates for office, and the judiciary.
One speaker at the protests today, Meysam Yousefzadeh, urged Parliament and Mr. Khatami's government to stand firmly behind the two bills or resign.
One professor at Tehran University who joined the march said the mood was tense and frustration high. Students had become outspoken in expressing political opinion in class, he said, and had indicated they were weary of the continuing suppression.
The demonstration today lasted over six hours and ended peacefully. A large number of security forces and riot police were stationed outside the campus. Students said that six protesters had been arrested on Monday and that one was badly beaten. Another demonstration is planned Wednesday.
As the protests widened, Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said he would call on "the public force" to intervene if problems were not solved by the regular police forces.
He did not elaborate, but the term "public force" generally refers to the hard-line Revolutionary Guards and the militia, which fall under his authority. The militia was used to suppress the 1999 student uprising.
Ayatollah Khamenei also warned judges to be mindful of how the judiciary conducted its operations "in order to avoid giving pretext to enemies or friendly criticism for challenges."
In a news conference today, Mr. Aghajari's political party, the Organization for Islamic Mujahedeen of the Revolution, urged protesters to exercise restraint.
"We urge students not to let their demonstrations get beyond peaceful civil protests, because there are groups that wish to use such circumstances to militarize the situation," said Behzad Nabavi, a leading reformist and member of the party.
----
Protests Grow for Iranian Professor
Thousands of Students Challenge Conservatives
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45677-2002Nov12?language=printer
ISTANBUL, Nov. 12 -- Students at Tehran University today protested the death sentence of a popular professor for a fourth straight day in a mounting challenge against the conservative judiciary that has sought to prevent liberalizing reforms in Iran.
The protests were described by sources in Tehran as the most intense public demonstrations since 1999, when students protesting the closure of a newspaper were harshly put down by informal militias tied to the government. Observers in the Iranian capital reached by telephone said the new round of protests appeared to be spontaneous, beginning as a complaint against the quality of cafeteria food before taking up the cause of the condemned professor.
Several thousand young people have participated in Tehran, the sources said, and the protests were reported to have spread to the provincial cities of Hamadan, Oroumieh, Isfahan and Tabriz. Police so far have not cracked down.
Hashem Aghajari, a history professor and prominent reformist politician allied with President Mohammad Khatami, was sentenced to death by hanging last week after being convicted of insulting the prophet Muhammad during a speech in which he questioned the authority of conservative clerics who wield decisive power in Iran. The decision was picked up by the students as a symbol of the judiciary's power to impose its conservative views on this nation of 66 million.
"Execution of Aghajari is execution of thought in Iran!" the students chanted in protests that witnesses and news reports said extended past midnight. "Our problem is the judiciary!"
Two decades after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led a mass uprising against the secular, U.S.-backed rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Islamic Republic of Iran has become in many respects a divided country. Hard-line conservative clerics hold powerful appointive positions in the government, including in the judiciary and military, and insist on maintaining the most stringent rules of Islamic behavior. Atop the theocracy stands Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader chosen by Khomeini as his successor.
A number of reformers, many of whom are also clerics, control the presidency and parliament and are leagued against the hard-liners. Swept into office by electoral landslides in 1997 and 2001, the reformers favor loosening strictures on dress and behavior and reducing Iran's international isolation in hopes of stimulating its economy. Their core constituency is people who were born after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, now a majority of the population, and would like to see its leadership evolve.
"The students traditionally do represent the thinking of the majority," said Shirzad Bozorgnehr, editor of the Iran News. "They are holding what they call a street tribunal. A podium is set up and people come and talk, mostly students. So far it's been peaceful, [but] it's like a tinderbox."
But despite the support they have earned in the elections, reformers in parliament and the executive branch have been stymied by the judiciary. Conservative clerics routinely jail journalists, politicians and other clerics deemed threats to the system.
After five years of frustration, Khatami last month introduced legislation designed to bring the jurists under his control. One bill moving through parliament would allow the president to suspend any judicial ruling he deemed unconstitutional. A second would remove clerics' authority to decide who can stand for election. Both measures are expected to pass easily. But before becoming law, the bills must be ruled on by bodies dominated by the very people whose power they would reduce: those who sit on the Guardian Council, followed by members of the Expediency Council.
Analysts said Khatami thus has little choice but political confrontation after trying in vain to nudge Iran's theocracy toward liberalization by more discreet methods. The president's private weekly meetings with the supreme leader have produced little, reformers say.
"The fact that Khatami has been pushing these two bills shows behind-the-scenes dialogue hasn't worked, and they need to be more upfront about pushing their agenda," said a Western diplomat, speaking by telephone from Tehran. "The regime is showing signs of strain and the stakes are very high right now."
The State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said Aghajari's sentence represents "a breach of accepted international standards of due process."
He added: "We're gravely concerned about the case, which indicates a deteriorating human rights situation in Iran. Public executions, stonings, punitive amputations and the persecution of reformers and the press have increased over the last several months. The United States stands with the people of Iran in their quest for greater freedom, prosperity, judicial due process and the rule of law."
The constitutional showdown became the backdrop for the student protests. With the judiciary already in the spotlight, outrage over the harsh sentence for Aghajari, by a provisional judge in Hamadan, appeared to damage the conservatives' standing, analysts said. Two members of parliament from Hamadan announced they were resigning in protest. The speaker of the parliament, Mehdi Karrubi, expressed disgust at the verdict in a live radio address. In a chant heard Monday, students urged Khatami to resign if he proves unable to push forward his agenda.
"There's a strong reaction from even inside the government, which is new," said a European diplomat in Tehran, who suggested the hard-liners are losing ground. "All these things are linked together."
----
Access to Bishops Limited
Survivors of Abuse Note Contrast With Meeting in Dallas
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 13, 2002; Page A09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46264-2002Nov12?language=printer
As scores of U.S. Catholic bishops left a downtown Washington hotel Monday evening to board buses for a Mass, a group of nearly 100 demonstrators -- including several who had been sexually abused by priests years ago -- offered candles to each of the prelates and asked for their prayers.
A few bishops took the candles, but most kept their gaze straight ahead.
Some protesters said the experience brought back feelings of rejection they thought were in the past. "As each one refused to take a candle and walked right past me, it solidified the pain," said Melissa Price, 32, of Tampa, who said she had been sexually abused by a priest for eight years as a child.
The scene illustrated how the bishops this week have maintained their distance from victims' groups and other church critics, in contrast to the atmosphere at the bishops' landmark meeting in Dallas five months ago.
The Dallas conference invited victims of sex abuse by priests to meet with small groups of bishops and cardinals. Lay Catholics spoke at the bishops' formal sessions and publicly rebuked them for their handling of pedophile priests.
At the conference at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill, which began Monday and ends tomorrow, there have been no such invitations and speeches. Those who had voiced hopes after Dallas for a new relationship between the laity and the prelates said they are dismayed.
"It's clear to us that Dallas was an aberration," said David Clohessy, executive director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, an advocacy group. The meeting in Washington "feels like meetings 10 years ago when we were out in the hall trying to meet individual bishops as they went to lunch or the bathroom. Survivors are discouraged; our members feel very betrayed."
Representatives of Catholic lay groups seeking reform in church governance said they also feel frustrated about their lack of access to the bishops this week.
"It's a very strange experience because there is no way to connect," said Susan Troy of Wellesley, Mass., a member of the Catholic lay group Voice of the Faithful. "So we just sort of loiter in the lobby."
Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Washington, said it was not possible to arrange meetings between the bishops and all the groups seeking to address them. Before arriving, she added, "all the bishops have spoken with victims and have heard from the victims."
The bishops are to vote today on Vatican-requested changes to the child sex abuse policy they adopted with much fanfare in Dallas. They have argued that the changes will not weaken the policy, which called for the permanent removal from ministry of any priest who had sexually abused a minor.
"The idea that a person who perpetrates in this terribly bad fashion will be back in ministry is some kind of a myth," Archbishop Harry J. Flynn of St. Paul-Minneapolis, chairman of the bishops' ad hoc committee on sexual abuse, said Monday.
Groups representing abuse victims disagree. Clohessy said his group wants the bishops to challenge the changes demanded by the Vatican, particularly a proposal for church tribunals to hear allegations against priests. The tribunals, he said, "will discourage victims from coming forward because they are secretive and composed of priests instead of lay people."
The bishops, he added, "should negotiate with Rome, not capitulate to Rome. . . . Instead of hiding behind Vatican bureaucrats and canon law, they need to persuade Vatican bureaucrats and change canon law."
Like several other activists, the Rev. Gary Hayes of Kentucky, who is associated with Link Up, another organization of victims of clerical sexual abuse, was told by church officials that he could not give television interviews inside the Hyatt Regency, a more restrictive policy than the one followed at the Dallas conference. "They are circling the wagons against what they see as some kind of threat to their authority," Hayes said. "That's sad."
Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a press official for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said about 325 media representatives were given credentials to cover the 250 or so bishops attending the meeting. She said on-camera interviews were banned in the hotel lobby so that people could easily walk through it.
Despite tight security at the hotel, about a dozen people from Soulforce, an organization calling for a more liberal church stance on homosexuality, staged an impromptu demonstration in the hotel lobby yesterday. When they refused to disband, District police led away three of the protesters as their supporters broke into applause. The three were charged with unlawful entry.
At a news conference yesterday, officials of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests demanded that bishops begin to hold themselves accountable for the sexual abuse scandal. The organization said it would like to see some bishops resign and other bishops publicly censure colleagues who retained sexual abusers in ministry.
At the same time, the group praised eight bishops for taking steps such as increasing outreach to victims, public disclosure of priests removed for child abuse and disclosure of financial settlements with victims. Among the eight was Baltimore Cardinal William Keeler, who is the only church prelate so far to publicly name all the priests credibly accused of child abuse in his archdiocese.
"We're encouraged by that, and we're asking that [other bishops] do more of the same," said Barbara Blaine, president of the survivors group. Although "the Dallas document was a major step in the right direction," she added, "at this point, it appears to us that every proposed measure offering any strength to that document is related to priests. There's not one mention of strengthening anything in the document that would impact victims. . . . We will continue to challenge the bishops to do better."
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Bishops Turn to Writing Antiwar Policy
November 13, 2002
New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/13/national/13BISH.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 - The nation's Roman Catholic bishops turned their attention today from the sexual abuse crisis to devising a statement to express moral reservations about going to war against Iraq.
This is the kind of global concern that used to preoccupy the bishops before this year, when the church was overwhelmed by the scandal over some bishops' failure to discipline priests who had sexually abused children and teenagers.
Today, on the second day of their annual fall conference, Cardinal Bernard F. Law of Boston, the leader at the center of the abuse scandal, presided over the debate on whether action in Iraq qualified as a "just war," even as abuse victims' groups called for his resignation.
As chairman of the bishops' committee on international policy, Cardinal Law will have the main role in drafting a statement for a group that is clearly not of one mind.
Some bishops urged the panel to do more than raise questions and to provide clear moral guidance that could help advise the government and Roman Catholics in the armed forces.
"We are on the brink of war," Bishop Walter F. Sullivan of Richmond, Va., said, "and I think we have to be very very clear that all of us are against the war in Iraq. We need to be strong. We need to be forceful and not equivocate."
Former Archbishop Philip M. Hannan of New Orleans, said, "I think we ought to be very cautious about saying we are entirely against war."
Archbishop Hannan, who has opposed the bishops' pacifist positions before, said that based on his experience helping at concentration camps in World War II he could back a pre-emptive attack on a "despotic power" like Saddam Hussein.
Cardinal Law said his group would produce a statement that was highly likely to reflect the letter that Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, sent to President Bush on Sept. 13. It warned that a war against Iraq could have "unpredictable consequences" for civilians and for stability in Iraq and the Mideast.
The bishops also passed a plan to stem the defections of Hispanic immigrants to evangelical and Pentecostal churches. The bishops did not discuss their new abuse policy that was revised in a meeting at the Vatican. The vote on the policy is scheduled for tomorrow, and the revision is highly likely to pass intact.
The bishops' conference has often taken stands on war and peace. It condemned the Vietnam War in 1971 and issued a pastoral letter on nuclear weapons in 1983, said Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton of Detroit.
"Since then," Bishop Gumbleton said, "we have become more and more wary about standing up to the government. We have many more bishops who are more concerned about internal church matters than social justice issues."
Cardinal Law said the new statement, likely to be issued on Wednesday, would be a "moral reflection on this issue, raising questions" about whether an Iraq war fit the criteria of a "just war." Catholic teaching imparts a strong presumption against using force. For a war to be deemed just it has to have a just cause, legitimate authority for those who initiate the war, strong prospects of success and "proportionality," which the catechism says means that it "must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated."
As the bishops began trickling out of their morning session, three gay Catholic protesters knelt in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel and opened their hands as if waiting to receive holy communion. The organizer, the Rev. Mel White, a former ghostwriter for the Rev. Jerry Falwell who now leads a gay civil disobedience group, Soulforce, said the three protesters were denied the eucharist on Monday at the Mass for the bishops in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
After the three ignored warnings from hotel security, they were arrested, as was Mr. White. The group had traveled across the country to protest against some Vatican and American Catholic officials who have faulted gay priests for the sex abuse scandal.
A priest denied the three communion because they wore rainbow lapel pins and were mistaken for another gay rights group that tries to receive communion to protest church teachings, said Susan Gibbs, a Washington Archdiocese spokeswoman.
"The policy in Washington," Ms. Gibbs said, "has been that those who indicate they intend to receive communion as a sign of protest are denied. For us, communion is a sign of unity and the most important part of our faith, and not a sign of protest."
At the hotel across the street from where the bishops are, another group, Survivors First, released a list of more than 573 priests accused of abusing minors since 1976.
Yet another group, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, called SNAP, demanded that the bishops most culpable for protecting abusive priests like Cardinal Law resign as bishops or at least be stripped of leadership positions in the bishops' conference.
In a new tactic, SNAP also praised eight bishops who, it said, "have begun to break ranks with their colleagues, and take tangible steps toward healing and prevention."
They are Bishop Frank J. Rodimer of Paterson, N.J., and Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of Milwaukee, for having "listening sessions" with victims; Bishop James M. Hoffman of Toledo, Ohio, for letting SNAP advertise a meeting of a support group in his diocesan newspaper; Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore, for releasing a list of abusive priests in his diocese; Bishop Robert E. Mulvee of Providence, R.I., and his staff, for meeting one on one with victims; Cardinal Francis George of Chicago and Archbishop Justin Rigali of St. Louis, for saying they would lobby to extend the statutes of limitations in their states; Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, for disciplining two priests who hid the location of an accused priest; and Bishop Gregory, of Belleville, Ill., who gave an accounting for the costs of the scandal in his diocese.
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Up to Four Protesting Students Die in Clashes With Afghan Police
November 13, 2002
New York Times
By DAVID ROHDE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/13/international/middleeast/13KABU.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 12 - As many as four university students were killed and dozens of others were wounded Monday night when Afghan police opened fire with automatic weapons on students who were throwing stones and demanding the restoration of water and electricity in their derelict dormitory.
The clashes continued this morning with police firing bullets over students' heads, blasting them with water cannons and pummeling whomever they could catch.
After an emergency meeting with senior officials, the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, ordered an investigation into both the protests and the killings. "I offer my condolences to the family of the one who was martyred," Mr. Karzai said in a statement read today on state television. "I again emphasize that a university is not a place of politics."
Just what touched off the violent protests and the police response was unclear today. Police officials and students offered wildly divergent accounts. Students said that after having no electricity and running water in their dormitory for seven days they decided to march to Mr. Karzai's palace Monday night. At a time when Afghans are fasting from dawn to dusk during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the lack of electricity makes preparing traditional predawn meals nearly impossible.
An economics student who identified himself as Khan said the police firing was unprovoked. "The police said stop and we stopped," he said. "Without saying anything they shot."
But officials said that the police started firing over the heads of the students after they threw rocks. Taj Muhammad Wardak, the country's interior minister, said the police fired over students' heads after one of them tossed a hand grenade. When the students continued to advance, he added, police fired at the ground, hitting students in the legs.
He said that armed students, not police, shot the student who died. "He was shot in the head," Mr. Wardak said. "Most probably he has been shot by the other students."
But none of the hundreds of students who protested the killing this morning appeared to be armed. The version of events announced on state television along with Mr. Karzai's call for an investigation made no mention of Mr. Wardak's accusations.
Mr. Wardak also said he believed that people with ties to Al Qaeda or the militant Islamic leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, incited the students. In his statement, Mr. Karzai concurred, saying, "I know there is something from the outside involved in this incident."
Some officials pointed out that most students in the dormitory are ethnic Pashtuns from outside Kabul. Ethnic Pashtuns formed the backbone of the Taliban movement. But in a series of interviews today, students did not raise ethnic issues. And the officials at the center of the dispute, the higher education and interior ministers, and Mr. Karzai himself, are all Pashtuns.
Whatever their cause, the clashes appeared to reflect rising frustration as the American-led effort to rebuild Afghanistan fails to improve the lives of average people.
Angry Kabul University students called the police murderers and accused government officials of corruption. "When the United Nations gives the money to the government, they hide the money in their own pocket," said Shah Mahmood, an 18-year-old engineering student.
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Protests Start in Sydney Over WTO Mini - Summit
November 13, 2002
By REUTERS
Sophie Hares
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-trade-australia-wto.html
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Anti-globalization protesters gathered in Sydney's central business district on Thursday to begin two days of demonstrations as a World Trade Organizationmini-summit began in the city.
Police have launched Olympic-style security for the November 14-15 meeting of 25 trade ministers, locking down the conference site at Sydney Olympic Park with a ring of steel fencing and concrete barriers.
Police have banned street marches fearing violence, but protesters gathering on Thursday said they planned to stage a peaceful march through Sydney's business district.
``We are committed to a peaceful protest but police have refused us march permits. We hope police aren't trying to provoke some confrontation,'' said march organizer Simon Butler.
``We have the right to free speech and the right to march in the streets to take our message to as many people as possible,'' he said. ``The WTO exists to benefit first world corporations and first world business interest at the expense of the third world.''
Around 1,000 protesters gathered in Sydney's Martin Place pedestrian mall before the march.
In a carnival atmosphere, music blared, protesters chanted ``Shut down WTO,'' and some danced and meditated. The demonstration also included protests against any U.S.-led war on Iraq and pro-refugee/boatpeople groups.
Two protesters wearing President Bush face masks pushed around a mobile missile, while three women stripped naked and splashed red paint on their bodies outside the U.S. Consulate, chanting ``stop the war on women.''
``Essentially we don't want to see people in Iraq suffer in a war which is not really about terrorism but about oil and power in the Middle East,'' said Ben Stevenson from the Socialist Alternative.
Only a handful of protesters covered their faces with balaclavas and scarves, but protest medical and legal teams prepared for the worse.
``Increasingly police tactics are becoming more paramilitary and it makes us a necessity for modern protests,'' said registered nurse Change Upton.
``Unfortunately we have to bring out the stretchers.''
The WTO mini-summit will be the first by global trade ministers since the Doha round of trade talks last year and will aim to reach agreement on freeing up medicines to third world countries to fight HIV-AIDS and tuberculosis.
It will also aim to smooth the way to the next full WTO conference in Mexico in 2003.
The meeting will be attended by WTO director-general Supachai Panitchpakdi, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Takeo Hiranuma.
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Army Corps Silences Whistle - Blower
November 13, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Corps-Controversy.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Army Corps of Engineers whistle-blower honored Wednesday for his role in stalling a $1 billion river construction project was warned by the corps not to talk about any past, present or future projects.
Corps economist Don Sweeney charged two years ago that top agency officials doctored a $54 million study of the upper Mississippi River navigation system to justify a $1 billion expansion of barge locks.
The Army's inspector general later confirmed the allegations and accused three top officials of fixing the study in part to please powerful agribusiness interests who wanted faster, cheaper trips for grain-laden barges. The officials, two of them retired, were reprimanded for their actions.
Sweeney was in Washington Wednesday to receive a 2002 Service to America medal from the Partnership for Public Service. Other recipients included FBI agents who secured convictions of two men who bombed an Alabama church almost 40 years ago and a Coast Guard official who directed the seaborne evacuation of lower Manhattan after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The partnership credited Sweeney with saving taxpayers more than $1 billion by making his charges, which ultimately resulted in the corps delaying its recommendations to Congress.
Sweeney planned to appear at an environmental group's news conference on Capitol Hill Thursday to criticize the corps for moving ahead with the river study without using Sweeney's original economic model.
``I just think they're doing the taxpayers a disservice by going back to this old model that will overstate the benefits of these projects,'' Sweeney said Wednesday.
However, he said an agency lawyer warned him that he must refer questions about any corps project, including the upper Mississippi navigation study, to an agency spokesman.
Any published statements by Sweeney about corps projects would violate an agreement between the corps and the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where Sweeney is on loan as a visiting scholar, according to the e-mail he received from a corps lawyer.
A group called the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which nominated Sweeney for the service award, released the e-mail to the media.
``This gag order illustrates how corrupt and out-of-control the corps has become,'' said the group's director, Jeff Ruch.
The corps' chief counsel, Robert M. Anderson, said the missive was not a gag order, but merely advised Sweeney of a legal agreement he and his attorney had agreed to when he went to the university. Anderson would not say whether the corps would act on Sweeney's comments.
Anderson said the corps never falsified anything and disputed the idea that Sweeney's allegations saved money for taxpayers.
``He didn't save anybody anything, because the study is ongoing; all of the options are still under study,'' Anderson said. ``We will have to do something on the system, the question is what. And that was not something we had decided to do even when the allegations were raised in the first place.''
On the Net:
Army Corps of Engineers: http://www.usace.army.mil/
Service to America Medals: http://www.govexec.com/pps/
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Fifteen Arrested in Sydney Anti-WTO Protest
Reuters
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
By Sophie Hares
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian police arrested 15 people Thursday after scuffles broke out when about 1,000 anti-globalization protesters staged a chaotic demonstration in Sydney's business hub at the start of a World Trade Organization mini-summit.
The street protest halted traffic in the city before ending in an anti-WTO rally in Sydney's Hyde Park.
Fearing violent protests, police have imposed Olympic-style security for the November 14-15 meeting of 25 trade ministers, locking down the conference site at Sydney Olympic Park with a ring of steel fencing and concrete barriers.
Protesters plan to target Sydney's 2000 Olympic site on Friday when trade ministers formally meet.
Police said those arrested faced charges ranging from violent disorder and assault to flag burning.
"There has been an element of them (protesters) who have come here today very determined to cause major disruption and to provoke police ...," said police superintendent Glen Harrison.
A woman newspaper journalist fell to the ground in one scuffle with police and protesters and was trampled by two police horses. She was taken to hospital with abdominal injuries.
Street marches have been banned in Sydney, but protesters under heavy police surveillance were allowed to march through Sydney's business district Thursday.
"We have the right to free speech and the right to march in the streets to take our message to as many people as possible," said march organizer Simon Butler.
"The WTO exists to benefit first world corporations and first world business interest at the expense of the third world."
CARNIVAL PROTEST
The protest had a carnival atmosphere, with music blaring, protesters chanting "Shut down WTO," and some dancing and meditating. The demonstration also included protests against any U.S.-led war on Iraq and pro-refugee/boatpeople groups.
Two protesters wearing President Bush face masks pushed around a mobile missile, while three women stripped naked and splashed red paint on their bodies outside the U.S. Consulate, chanting "stop the war on women."
"Essentially we don't want to see people in Iraq suffer in a war which is not really about terrorism but about oil and power in the Middle East," said Ben Stevenson from the Socialist Alternative.
After about two hours of wandering around city streets, the protesters rallied in Hyde Park to listen to anti-WTO speeches.
"The WTO, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank should be reformed root and branch," said trade unionist Doug Cameron to applause and cheers.
"We believe these organizations have to become transparent, they have to become democratic and they have to become accountable," Cameron said.
"They must force corporations to adopt some social responsibility. We want fair trade not free trade."
AUSTRALIA-U.S. FREE TRADE TALKS
The WTO mini-summit is the first by global trade ministers since the Doha round of trade talks last year and will aim to reach agreement on freeing up medicines to third world countries to fight HIV-AIDS and tuberculosis. It will also aim to smooth the way to the next full WTO conference in Mexico in 2003.
The meeting will be attended by WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Takeo Hiranuma.
On the sides of the conference, Australia and the United States agreed Thursday to formal talks on a free trade pact as they seek to boost annual trade worth more than US$20 billion.
Australia has pushed for years for free trade talks with the United States, its second largest trading partner, and estimates it would boost the domestic economy by $2 billion a year due to greater access to the world's largest economy.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian police arrested 15 people Thursday after scuffles broke out when about 1,000 anti-globalization protesters staged a chaotic demonstration in Sydney's business hub at the start of a World Trade Organization mini-summit.
The street protest halted traffic in the city before ending in an anti-WTO rally in Sydney's Hyde Park.
Fearing violent protests, police have imposed Olympic-style security for the November 14-15 meeting of 25 trade ministers, locking down the conference site at Sydney Olympic Park with a ring of steel fencing and concrete barriers.
Protesters plan to target Sydney's 2000 Olympic site on Friday when trade ministers formally meet.
Police said those arrested faced charges ranging from violent disorder and assault to flag burning.
"There has been an element of them (protesters) who have come here today very determined to cause major disruption and to provoke police ...," said police superintendent Glen Harrison.
A woman newspaper journalist fell to the ground in one scuffle with police and protesters and was trampled by two police horses. She was taken to hospital with abdominal injuries.
Street marches have been banned in Sydney, but protesters under heavy police surveillance were allowed to march through Sydney's business district Thursday.
"We have the right to free speech and the right to march in the streets to take our message to as many people as possible," said march organizer Simon Butler.
"The WTO exists to benefit first world corporations and first world business interest at the expense of the third world."
CARNIVAL PROTEST
The protest had a carnival atmosphere, with music blaring, protesters chanting "Shut down WTO," and some dancing and meditating. The demonstration also included protests against any U.S.-led war on Iraq and pro-refugee/boatpeople groups.
Two protesters wearing President Bush face masks pushed around a mobile missile, while three women stripped naked and splashed red paint on their bodies outside the U.S. Consulate, chanting "stop the war on women."
"Essentially we don't want to see people in Iraq suffer in a war which is not really about terrorism but about oil and power in the Middle East," said Ben Stevenson from the Socialist Alternative.
After about two hours of wandering around city streets, the protesters rallied in Hyde Park to listen to anti-WTO speeches.
"The WTO, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank should be reformed root and branch," said trade unionist Doug Cameron to applause and cheers.
"We believe these organizations have to become transparent, they have to become democratic and they have to become accountable," Cameron said.
"They must force corporations to adopt some social responsibility. We want fair trade not free trade."
AUSTRALIA-U.S. FREE TRADE TALKS
The WTO mini-summit is the first by global trade ministers since the Doha round of trade talks last year and will aim to reach agreement on freeing up medicines to third world countries to fight HIV-AIDS and tuberculosis. It will also aim to smooth the way to the next full WTO conference in Mexico in 2003.
The meeting will be attended by WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Takeo Hiranuma.
On the sides of the conference, Australia and the United States agreed Thursday to formal talks on a free trade pact as they seek to boost annual trade worth more than US$20 billion.
Australia has pushed for years for free trade talks with the United States, its second largest trading partner, and estimates it would boost the domestic economy by $2 billion a year due to greater access to the world's largest economy.
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