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NUCLEAR
China invites foreign bids for four nuclear power plants
THE CHINESE ARE CHANGING
Question of Justice
Living by the Fence
Uranium removed from mothballed Bulgarian reactor
British officials saying Saddam was duped over weapons: report
Israel relieved at Libyan move, braced for pressure to follow suit
North Korea hikes military spending as nuclear crisis rumbles on
Indian Point Is Criticized for Shutdowns
Kucinich Stresses Civil Liberties
US advises rogue states to "get smart" and follow Libya's example
MILITARY
China set to get 2.8 mln dollars from Japan over weapons incident
Musharraf's 'Real Democracy' Still Elusive in Pakistan
Pakistani Leader Agrees To Relinquish Army Role
China Arrests 43 Alleged Spies
Fact-checkers blamed for Bush's uranium 'goof'
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Security Boosted at Area Sites After Alert
Paris-L.A. Flights Canceled; Security Tightened in Calif.
ACTIVISTS
The Little Peace Center That Could
Protests Mix With Festivities in Bethlehem
EGYPT: RALLY FOR REFORM
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- china
China invites foreign bids for four nuclear power plants
BEIJING (AFP)
Dec 24, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031224024508.xwkqqigd.html
China is to invite foreign companies to bid for the design and construction of four nuclear power plants in contracts worth billions of dollars, state media said Wednesday.
China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC) and Guangdong Nuclear Power Corp drafted tender documents and sent them to the State Council for approval, CNNC general manager Kang Rixin was quoted as saying by the China Daily.
"We will start international bidding once the proposal is approved," Kang said, adding that China will insist on using domestic technology in the plants when selecting international partners.
Foreign companies such as Electricite de France, Westinghouse of the United States and Japan's Mitsubishi have been scrambling for a piece of the action since Beijing, spurred by a growing power crisis, announced plans for new nuclear facilities earlier this year.
Construction of four 1,000 megawatt pressurized water nuclear power facilities is expected to begin in Sanmen, in eastern Zhejiang province, and Lingdong, in southern Guangdong province in 2005.
With concerns running high about the impact of the power shortage on the country's economic development and the national security implications of its reliance on Middle East oil, China is looking to diversify its power base under a long-term plan.
The country has set an ambitious goal of having a nuclear capacity of 36,000 megawatts by the year 2020 -- four times its current level.
Nuclear power now accounts for just 1.3 percent of China's electricity supply.
Eight of the 11 nuclear power plants currently operating in China have been built by foreign companies.
----
THE CHINESE ARE CHANGING
China's role in pushing Pakistan to talk to India
Jairam Ramesh,
Thursday, December 25, 2003
Calcutta Telegraph
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1031225/asp/opinion/story_2714345.asp
Bonhomie between India and Pakistan is in the air yet again. Somewhat unexpectedly, the rhetoric emanating from Islamabad is subdued, moderate and even statesmanlike. Many believe that American pressure is finally paying off and that Pakistan is, at last, beginning to fall in line to the dictates of the Bush administration. But could there be other pressures on General Musharraf as well? Evidence is accumulating that China too has, in its own way, told Pakistan "enough in enough", that it should crack down on its sponsorship of export-oriented terrorist outfits and that it should open a dialogue with India. A few days back, based on high-level background briefings in all three countries, The Asian Wall Street Journal highlighted the Chinese role in the new opening between Islamabad and New Delhi. The following quote, from the article of December 8, is significant.
"'Chinese leaders advised President Musharraf to be forward-looking and to respond positively' to India's latest overture, says a Pakistani official who made the trip. This official says the Chinese were visibly irritated when Mr Musharraf raised the issue of China's growing business ties with India. 'We had decided some 25 years ago to concentrate on economic development,' one Chinese official told Mr Musharraf, according to the Pakistani official, implying that Pakistan should do the same."
Why have the Chinese changed? It is true that in both the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars, China's support to Pakistan consisted largely of rhetoric. But China played an important role in building up Pakistan's nuclear and missile capability particularly in the Eighties. China and Pakistan share a warm relationship with the Chinese, never having forgotten the pivotal role played by Pakistan in re-establishing Sino-US ties in 1969-72. For a while, in the Eighties, as it was re-emerging on the world scene, China also used Pakistan as a bridgehead to the oil-rich Middle East, especially to Saudi Arabia and Iran. But in spite of the close friendship, things have begun to change.
The first evidence for this was provided on December 2, 1996, when President Jiang Zemin addressed the Pakistani senate and said "if certain issues cannot be resolved for the time being, they may be shelved temporarily so that they will not affect the normal state-to-state relations". The reference to Kashmir was unmistakeable. The Chinese president's spokesman later elaborated on China's position on Jammu and Kashmir even more directly and explicitly thus: "China's consistent policy is that the issue should be solved through peaceful consultations. It should be settled by these two countries (that is, India and Pakistan). Our position remains unchanged and the issue (that is, of Kashmir) should be settled through peaceful means. It is a problem left over from history. Pakistan and India have some differences. Kashmir is a very complicated and sensitive issue".
Thereafter, during the Kargil War of 1999, in many ways a defining moment in Sino-Pak ties, the Chinese were very subdued and refrained from making any public statements in support of Pakistan. This was in spite of India's ill-considered remarks on China as the cause of its going overtly nuclear in May 1998. Echoing Jiang Zemin, the Chinese premier, Zhu Rong- ji told his visiting Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, in June 1999 that the Kashmir problem is "an issue left over from history concerning territory, ethnic nationalities and religion". Hence, the "rebuke with Chinese characteristics" that General Musharraf received is part of an emerging pattern. Chinese scholars and diplomats, like Cheng Ruisheng, writing in Chinese publications repeatedly invoke the "Deng" formula to stabilize Indo-Pak relations. This was the formula suggested by Deng Xiaoping to Atal Bihari Vajpayee in February 1979 and to Rajiv Gandhi in December 1988 to bring India and China closer together - set intractable issues aside, keep negotiating on them in good faith, but simultaneously concentrate on trade and investment. The Chinese are at great pains to appear even-handed in the sub-continent. The unprecedented joint Sino-Indian naval exercises last month off Shanghai, for instance, were preceded by a similar Sino-Pak manoeuvre.
Why are the Chinese changing? Three main reasons. First, they are being hurt considerably by Islamic terrorism in Xinjiang, where Uighur separatists, trained by the taliban and by Pakistan-based outfits, are very active. Xinjiang is important to China not just geographically as a gateway to central Asia, but also economically, since it is rich in natural resources like oil and gas. The three evils as the Chinese call it - extremism, separatism and terrorism - are linked closely to Pakistan. Second, India itself looms large on China's radar screen. Already, the volume of Sino-Indian trade is over three and a half times the volume of Sino-Pak trade. But much more than growing trade and investment, the Chinese have new-found respect for India because of our success in software and high-tech. The Chinese would not like to sabotage a promising arena of economic cooperation, even if there is competition. Third, changing Sino-Pak ties symbolize a new Chinese approach to regional and global diplomacy, an approach that seeks to make up for its historical commitment to narco-militarist states like Pakistan, North Korea and Myanmar, and to assuage "fears" of its galloping economic might.
China is not about to abandon Pakistan after having helped it build up a comprehensive strategic capability through the Eighties, that included supply of heavy water, assistance for research reactors, plutonium reprocessing and uranium, and transfer of missile production technology as well as supply of missiles themselves. Whatever China's protestations may be now, the evidence for its support to Pakistan in nuclear and missile technology is incontrovertible. This support has ended, strategic links remain. Just last month, an agreement was signed for a second 300 megawatt nuclear reactor at Chashma, southwest of Islamabad. Plans for building a deep-water port at Gwadar, off the coast of Baluchistan, are still active, although, with the palpable American influence over Pakistan now, how the plans actually fructify remains to be seen.
China's foreign policy is in great flux. It is all part of a single-minded focus on economic development, oriented to making China an economic superpower in every respect (except, perhaps per capita income) in the next two decades. China realizes that peace in its region - east Asia, south Asia and central Asia - is essential for sustaining such a unidirectional effort. It is all part of the new PRC syndrome - not the old People's Republic of China, but a new Peaceful Rise of China. The Chinese establishment's mantra is heping jueqi - peaceful ascendancy. The new PRC will not be facilitated if it is seen to be extending support to forces ostracized by the international community. What the Chinese will do when they achieve overwhelming economic dominance is a separate issue. But for now, the substance is economics, the language is peace and stability, the style is constructive diplomacy. Economic clout and military muscle notwithstanding, or perhaps precisely because of that, the Chinese want to be seen as good neighbours and sober citizens of the world. But there are two big question marks. Economic success is breeding an aggressive nationalism, that could easily run amok. And Taiwan's politics can still get the Chinese into apoplectic fits, as recent events have demonstrated, and this, in turn, fuels global fears of China.
-------- depleted uranium
Question of Justice
Khilafah.com Journal
25 December 2003
http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=8937&TagID=1
By bringing Saddam to task the west can demonstrate to the world that "Justice has been done". They have fought and brought this evil dictator to trial, and they want to take credit for this act. They expect the world to laud them for the their works. The capture of Saddam has highlighted the issue of justice. What is meant by just, and what is meant by equitable are matters of grave disparity and are open to subjectivity.
Most would agree that, in its simplest form, justice is that which is in accordance with particular criteria. The converse is injustice, which is that which violates these criteria. So it would follow that in this situation, where the global opinion and support is sought by the US and UK, international law is the criteria that they would want to comply with. Their view may be that justice would be done when the violators of international law are brought to book. The Anglo American coalition has proposed that the Iraqi Council will decide. However some western politicians have called for an international tribunal to be set up by the UN and Saddam to be tried according to international law.
How laughable it would be, to try Saddam by international law. Over the last few years it is the Anglo-American coalition that has shown the greatest disregard for international law. If Saddam is to be tried for violating international law, then Bush and Blair should be caught in the same net. They instigated a war against a sovereign nation and killed thousands of civilians in clear breach of international law. They intend to interrogate Saddam over issues such as his involvement in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. But why do they have to interrogate him, Saddam's antics are well documented. The US knows all the details, Ronald Reagan's special envoy to Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld, should surely be completely clued up about the chemical attacks that happened at the time of his last meeting with Saddam..
In stark reality international law is merely the law of the most powerful nation. It follows the golden rule. Those with the gold make the rules. The violation of human rights and crimes against humanity are laws based on the capitalist creed and defined by the capitalist nations. Only they believe in these laws and pretend to adhere to them.
What kind of justice can we expect from the UN? Over the last decade the UN's own sanctions have killed more Iraqi children (over600 ,000) then Saddam has over 3 decades. The Anglo-American alliance in its bid to serve justice bombed to death more than 10 times (55, 000- Medact report) the number Saddam killed in Halabja. In their bid to bring Saddam to justice they out did Saddam:
- Napalm bombs used - 30 canisters of Napalm used in 30 days of war (Monitor-TV7 /8/ 03- Independently reported napalm attack on Safwan Hill near Kuwait Border10 /8/03).
- Cluster bombs -3 , 664bombs used, some of them have as many as 147 sub-munitions (anti-tank and fragmentation bomblets).
- Depleted uranium (DU) - over 500 tonnes and300 , 000DU bullets used.
- The "shock and awe" justice which they brought to Iraq meant that in the first day3 , 000lethal bombs and cruise missiles rained down on Iraqi cities.
For Muslims, Justice is not some nebulous concept without substance. It is not about revenge nor is it a tool to justify controversial foreign policy. All this cheapens the term. Justice for us is serious. Justice, for us, is central to life itself, as it is synonymous with Islam and Islam is a code for life. Justice is achieved when the law of Allah (Subhanahu wa ta'ala) is implemented.
Allah (subhanhu wa ta'aala) says,
"And let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just, that is next to piety and fear Allah, for Allah is acquainted with all you do" [TMQ Al-Ma'idah:8 ]
----
Living by the Fence
December 25th
From: Wildfire Jo <gurneyernie@yahoo.co.uk>
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wildfirejo/
Dr Jinan at the clinic in Abu Ghraib says there are patients coming in with illnesses that she and her colleagues can't diagnose. Patients are referred to the main hospital complex at Baghdad Medical City but they return with still no diagnosis and having had no treatment. In particular, there have been patients presenting with bubbles on the skin. They "become hot, like burning coals, get hard and spread." She said they don't understand it.
There's been an enormous increase in allergenic respiratory and skin problems with no apparent trigger. In particular there has been a rise in three conditions - alopeicia (hair loss), psoriasis and viteligo (skin problems). These are not infections spreading through the community but auto-immune, caused by the body attacking itself, to put it simply. They are related to nerves, so fear and stress could be a factor in the increase, but environmental factors are also believed to be important.
In the row of houses closest to the airport fence every single household reported some kind of skin or breathing problem. Probably the most common was white patches on the skin, which started, for most people, between April and July. Or spots on the skin, which turn black and then the skin peels off. Or the blisters or bubbles on the skin that Dr Jinan mentioned, with or without fluid.
Women brought us inside, away from the men, took off their hijabs and showed us bald patches on their heads. The water is contaminated and, to combat that, it's filled with chemicals. It means you can drink it without spending the rest of the week in the toilet but it wrecks your skin. One of the women brought us to her small son whose scalp was like a toadstool of red skin and white pustules under the hair, insanely itchy but too painful to touch.
Immediately after the bombing of the airport, people said, thousands of trucks started removing the soil from the complex. No one can tell us where it was dumped. Other trucks brought fresh soil from elsewhere to replace it and tarmac trucks came in to cover it over. About a month after the bombing, the trucks started leaving their loads closer to the fence, tipping rubble, metal, broken crockery and general debris in the 1st June sector. Kids play and men forage in the heaps between the houses.
One said "There are no jobs. Sometimes useful things are dumped and we come and find them and sell them." Some of the kids told us about sweets, food and mineral water being thrown out. They go and eat the sweets and bring home the water and military ration MREs (Meals Ready to Eat). "No you don't," scolded one of the mothers. "I do," the child said with a gleeful grin. She went red and said "Well, sometimes."
The November 2003 study by the Uranium Medical Research Committee (UMRC) said: "Witnesses living next to the airport report 3,000 civilians were incinerated by one morning's attack from aerial bursts of thermobaric and fuel air bombs. Since the cessation of the main phase of battle, several of the Baghdad area battlefields... [were] landscaped by the US forces and Iraqi contractors, thus preventing a thorough examination."
One family living near the fence told us that all their chickens died on the day of the bombing. "There was no harm to their bodies, they were still complete, but they were dead." The grandmother's eye ruptured during the bombing. A thermobaric weapon - stop eating before you read this - is essentially a fireball which sucks out all the oxygen in the area. Among other things it sucks out eyeballs and suffocates victims.
"On the day of the bombing the smoke went in his eye and it ran for a week and then stopped and the doctor said he can't operate because the nerves are already destroyed." The five-year-old boy watched us with his other eye and his 22-year-old sister stood in silence as their mother told us she was already deaf and mute from birth. She had her first fit during the bombing at the airport and has had them regularly, every week or ten days, since then. The mother is one of the women who have had several miscarriages in recent years.
The Dairy Buildings on the other side of the airport are a little further from the fence, the Dairy provided a buffer. Less illness was reported there: the same conditions but less concentrated. In 1st June sector as well, the frequency of problems seemed to decrease in the second and third rows of houses as you move back from the fence.
Health statistics are few and basic. We could get the rate per year of cancers, all types and all ages, for in patients at the hospital (one or none each year from 1991 to 1996, 7 in 1997, 3 in 1998 and then 11, 16, 15, 19 and 20 respectively for each of the last five years). We could get the monthly incidence of skin and breathing problems for in patients at the hospital.
We could get nothing about out-patients treated in the clinic, nothing to compare the monthly data for this year with previous years, nothing about the geographical distribution of sufferers, let alone any details of the majority who never go for diagnosis or treatment because they can't afford it, which is why we were chatting about health with the women of the community in the first place.
Because of the threats made, we weren't able to test water, soil and air to map the environmental contaminants which might be responsible and to work out a clean up scheme, but I didn't come here to whine about the nigh-impossibility of doing any research so I'll give it a rest there. What we did achieve was a general picture of health conditions and some of the environmental clean up work that might be needed.
Zakia asked us, "Why don't you tell them to tarmac the road?" That would be an improvement over the mud slide in front of her home, but they need decent drainage as well to get rid of the pools of manky water. They need the piles of rubble taken away so the kids can play somewhere safe and clean.
And they need and they need and they need. A tiny child called Melaak (Angel) was carried by her mum and her brothers and sisters, too weak to walk, suffering from a failure to thrive. She needs vitamins. Her mum's pregnant again with the ninth child, the oldest being 17, out of school and working in a shop so now they've got a heater, after 8 years without even that.
Christmas day has been quiet after a night of low flying planes, rather than the usual helicopters, and frequent explosions. At the shop last night Ali said the Sheraton Hotel had been hit. This morning our neighbours told us it was hit again about 6am. In the Dora area there was bombing from the air and fire from an anti aircraft gun.
Baghdad's Christians are mostly having a quiet one. Clusters of people by the churches on a Thursday and longer-than-usual queues in the international telephone centres are the only real clue. Firas celebrated last night with basturma. It's meat, mixed with garlic, stuffed in socks to make it the right shape. He says they use women's socks. Somehow this is supposed to make it sound better. The full sock is hung on a line to dry out and then the mixture is sliced and fried with eggs. He says it's the best thing. The sock thing is putting me off. Maybe I'm just too squeamish.
We celebrated Reema's 18th birthday instead. Parties happen in the daytime because it's too difficult and dangerous to go out at night, so we went to a restaurant and ate cake. It was great. It was normal.
-------- europe
Uranium removed from mothballed Bulgarian reactor
12/25/03
Veselin Toshkov
Associated Press
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/107234978956150.xml
Sofia, Bulgaria- U.S. and Russian experts removed a cache of highly enriched uranium from a mothballed Bulgarian reactor and whisked it out of the country, part of an international plan to keep loosely guarded nuclear material out of terrorists' hands, officials said yesterday.
It was the third such U.S.-Russian operation, aimed at securing uranium from reactors run with fuel from the former Soviet Union. In Washington, deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said more such removals are planned.
The nuclear and security experts, helped by Bulgarian special police, took 37 pounds of uranium from the Institute of Nuclear Sciences just outside the capital, Sofia, Ereli and Bulgarian and Russian officials said.
From a remote airport in eastern Bulgaria, a Russian AN-12 cargo plane flew the material to a Russian reprocessing center to be made into commercial nuclear reactor fuel.
Washington and Moscow have launched a program to rein in nuclear materials, focusing on 24 reactors built in 16 countries and fueled with help from the former Soviet Union.
Such reactors are of concern because they offer a ready source of the material needed to create a nuclear bomb. Security at some of them is lax because of cost-cutting that has accompanied the collapse of communism more than a decade ago.
The reactors and facilities are designed to use highly enriched uranium to create nuclear isotopes used for medical treatments and other peaceful purposes.
The research reactor near Sofia was shut down in 1989, but the uranium remained there. Now experts will take the material and "repatriate it to Russia, where it's converted into a form that isn't readily usable in a weapon," said Mark Gwozdecky, the spokesman for the U.N. nuclear agency, which coordinated the mission.
Bulgarian officials said the highly enriched uranium would have been enough to develop a small nuclear warhead, but Gwozdecky said the uranium would have had to be enriched further to become weapons grade.
Experts worry that terrorists or hostile nations may get their hands on enough uranium or plutonium to build a nuclear bomb from one of hundreds of research reactors around the world.
There are also fears that terrorists could obtain nuclear materials and use it to build a "dirty bomb" - a conventional explosive strapped with radioactive materials. Experts fear such an attack could cause widespread panic. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the IAEA began pressing governments to keep all radioactive materials under close guard to prevent such a scenario.
-------- iraq / inspections
British officials saying Saddam was duped over weapons: report
LONDON (AFP)
Dec 24, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031224010804.1ehe50ms.html
British officials are claiming that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein may have been duped into believing that Iraq did possess weapons of mass destruction, a leading London newspaper said Wednesday.
According to the left-wing Guardian daily, the latest theory doing the round in government circles is a result of an attempt to find what one source called a "logical reason" why no chemical and biological weapons have been found in Iraq.
The theory, according to the same source, says that Saddam and his senior aides were told by lower-ranking Iraqi officers that his forces were equipped with usable chemical and biological weapons.
The officers, according to the theory, did not want to tell their superiors the truth -- that the weapons were either destroyed or no longer usable.
This would explain, British government officials say, why the intelligence gleaned by their secret service agents -- from informants close to Saddam's inner circle -- was also erroneous.
"A delicious irony if true," is how the hypothesis was described by Gary Samore of the London-based thinktank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, quoted by The Guardian.
Samore said he was familiar with the idea being put out by British officials "trying to figure out why Saddam behaved in such an irrational fashion."
-------- israel
Israel relieved at Libyan move, braced for pressure to follow suit
By Gil Sedan,
Dec. 22, 2003 (JTA)
http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=13598&intcategoryid=1
JERUSALEM - Libya's announcement that it would end its capacity for developing weapons of mass destruction brought both relief and concern to Israel: relief that an implacable enemy was apparently moderating its outlook, concern that Israel would come under pressure to end its own reported nuclear capability.
After nine months of secret negotiations with Britain and the United States - and years of crippling sanctions - Libya announced last Friday that it welcomed international inspections and pledged to destroy whatever capabilities it had.
President Bush said the agreement would bring Libya back into the "community of nations."
In agreeing to sign what is known as the additional protocol of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Libya must now allow for tougher, short-notice visits of nuclear sites by officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran signed the same protocol last week.
It is believed that Libya does not have atomic bombs, but was close to developing a nuclear weapons capability.
Addressing the Herzliya security conference last week, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said, "An eye must be kept on Libya."
The United States and Israel have been discussing Libya's nuclear program since May 2002. On a number of occasions, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned that Libya might become a nuclear power even ahead of Iran.
The good news from Libya won praise around the world. Even Israel, usually cautious about Arab peace overtures, joined the choir. Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom praised the move at the weekly Cabinet session.
Mofaz was more reserved, taking a "wait-and-see" approach, and gave the credit for the Libyan action to "American determination and the capture of Saddam Hussein."
Mofaz used the opportunity to point at what Israel perceived as the real threat in the region - Iran.
"Iran's agreement for inspections does not mean that it has given up its nuclear project," said Mofaz.
Israel is concerned that while the United States was concentrating its efforts on preventing Russian nuclear aid to Iran, Iran had quietly equipped itself with equipment and know-how from another nuclear power - Pakistan.
Still, the Israeli intelligence community was relieved.
"The very fact that Libya will stop dealing with ballistic and strategic weapons as well as nuclear threats means a serious load off the strategic threat over Israel," said retired Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael, a former army intelligence official now at Tel Aviv University.
Libya operates a Soviet-supplied research reactor at the Tajura Nuclear Research Center, located about 40 miles east of Tripoli. The 10-megawatt reactor started operation in 1983 and is open to international inspection.
Libya already had signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but the United States suspected that Libya was determined to find ways to build the bomb.
So why the change of course?
Yehudit Ronen of the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University suggested that Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi had realized that the only way to preserve his regime is to drastically improve his country's economy.
Such improvement is not possible without removing the economic sanctions imposed on Libya and renewing normal relations with the United States.
Contrary to his image, Ronen said, "Gadhafi is not at all a lunatic."
Gadhafi's concession was the latest stroke in a picture of a new, less threatening neighborhood for Israel.
Iraq's strategic threat has been defused, Iran has also accepted international supervision over its nuclear programs and Syria's President Hafez Assad is suggesting a return to the peace table.
Israelis were nonetheless braced for new pressures to sign on to the nuclear treaty.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was quick to demand that Israel, too, give up its alleged nuclear potential.
"I have raised the issue several times with Israeli leaders such as Shimon Peres and they told me once the conflict is over, there will be no need for mass destruction weapons," he said. "I hope the conflict goes in the direction of a solution."
Mubarak's foreign minister, Ahmed Maher, visiting Jerusalem this week for the first time in two years, was expected to raise the issue in his talks with Israeli leaders.
For its part, a top Iranian official said that "it was time for the world to exert similar pressure on Israel - the main threat in the region."
Israel's official policy supports "a nuclear-free zone in the region," but only as part of a gradual and long-term process, after a regional peace has been achieved.
Israelis were closely watching whether the United States would link the Libyan and Iranian agreements to demands for Israel to open up its nuclear facilities to inspection.
So far, that looked unlikely. White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to be drawn into linkages between Israel and Libya.
"The long-held position of the United States is the universal adherence to the Nonproliferation Treaty, McClellan said Monday, but "in terms of specifics about the Israeli government, you need to refer those questions to the Israeli government."
Israel, meanwhile, is closely watching discussions among senior U.S. officials about a possible re-evaluation of the proposed international treaty to freeze the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons, meaning high- level plutonium and enriched uranium.
The proposed Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty is directed mainly at reining in the nuclear programs of Israel, India and Pakistan, which have all opted out of international monitoring.
So far, Israel has opposed the treaty, describing it as "a danger to its security."
Gerald Steinberg, an Israeli analyst, said that Israel was committed never to using such weapons first - and should therefore not be held to the same level of scrutiny.
"Calls on Israel to follow suit ignore the fact that, unlike Libya and Iran, Israel is not an NPT signatory and has not violated any of its international obligations," Steinberg wrote this week in an item for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
"As long as Iranian and other leaders continue to seek Israel's elimination, Israel remains the only country in the Middle East whose physical existence is still threatened by states seeking weapons of mass destruction."
-------- korea
North Korea hikes military spending as nuclear crisis rumbles on
SEOUL (AFP)
Dec 25, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031225084859.p2pbzd7c.html
The tense stalemate over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs prompted the impoverished communist country to increase military spending this year, an official said.
The spending helped North Korea to produce the modern weaponry needed to head off a US attempt to remove its "nuclear deterrent," North Korean Deputy Prime Minister Ro Tu-Chol said late Wednesday.
"This year the US resorted to all sorts of vicious moves to force (North Korea) to completely dismantle its nuclear deterrent force though it was built to cope with the US threat," he said through Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
North Korea reacted to Washington's "nuclear threat and pressure" with tough counter-measures such as lifting a freeze on its nuclear program, he said.
North Korea's parliament initially set aside 15.4 percent of this year's budgetary expenditure for the armed forces but actual defense expenditure rose to 15.9 percent of the budget, he said.
He said North Korea's defense industry has been reinforced to successfully manufacture "modern offensive and defensive means."
North Korea's state coffers were already virtually empty because of years of economic crises which have been aggravated by the nuclear standoff with the United States.
The Stalinist state has relied on outside handouts to feed its 22 million people since a series of natural disasters caused widespread famine in the mid-1990s.
North Korea has also stepped up propaganda to put its people on a war footing in preparation for what they fear is an impending US attack.
Drills and blackouts have been common in North Korea this year, with supreme leader Kim Jong-Il giving top priority to defense in what has been called his "military-first" policy.
On Wednesday, the KCNA praised Kim for continuing his inspection tour of army units.
"In recent days alone, he inspected army units almost every day and took good care of servicemen's life," it said.
The nuclear standoff also prompted US and South Korean troops to bolster firepower.
The United States, under a 50-year-old mutual defense treaty, stations 37,000 troops in South Korea, and has performed key military functions since the end of of the 1950-53 Korean War.
Those roles will gradually be reassigned to South Korean forces under a realignment plan that will see US troops pulled back from the frontier with North Korea over the next several years.
For its part, South Korea agreed to boost its defense spending for 2004 by 8.1 percent, the biggest increase in seven years.
The crisis began in October last year when Washington accused Pyongyang of running an enriched uranium program in violation of a 1994 nuclear freeze accord.
Washington insists Pyongyang must verifiably scrap its atomic weapons, while North Korea has sought a non-aggression pact with the United States and other benefits in return for giving up its nuclear arsenal.
The United States believes North Korea already has one or two crude nuclear bombs and could speedily build more using a stockpile of spent nuclear fuel at its Yongbyon nuclear complex.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new york
Indian Point Is Criticized for Shutdowns
By STACEY STOWE
December 25, 2003
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/25/nyregion/25NUKE.html?pagewanted=print&position=
he Indian Point nuclear plant had three times as many unplanned shutdowns in a 12-month period as any other plant in the nation, an official of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said yesterday. The agency said in a report released a day before that a failure to follow protocol, insufficient quality control and poor contractor oversight contributed to the shutdowns at the plant in Buchanan, N.Y.
The report, which was first reported yesterday by The Journal News, was initiated after the plant's reactors - Indian Point 2 and 3 - experienced a combined total of eight unplanned shutdowns in a period of a year and a half, a spokesman for the regulatory commission said. The national average for shutdowns at a power plant is 0.64 per year, he said.
The Indian Point plant, in northern Westchester County on the Hudson River, has been a focus of concern since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It was later discovered that one of the hijacked planes had flown close to the plant on its way to the World Trade Center.
The 47-page report, which examined shutdowns from late December 2001 to August 2003, says diesel generators in offices at the plant failed during the blackout of Aug. 14, forcing technical support and emergency response crews to relocate and use contingency plans. Both systems were previously identified as problematic but were never repaired, the report said.
"The failure affected their emergency response facilities, but in a real-world scenario, there was no safety implication to that," said Neil A. Sheehan, the spokesman for the regulatory commission.
The report, completed Oct. 24 after a one-month inspection, identifies six problems at the plant, including poor preventive maintenance and failure to follow emergency procedures and proper protocol in response to unplanned shutdowns.
In one case, poor protocol during a shutdown resulted in improper handling of pressure levels in the reactor coolant system, the report said. Each of the findings was categorized by the commission as posing the lowest safety risk in its four-tier category. Entergy Corporation, the New Orleans company that owns Indian Point, has 30 days to issue a response to the report, Mr. Sheehan said.
James Steets, a spokesman for Entergy, said the company plans to improve oversight of its contractors, many of whom supplement its 1,500 employees by working in such areas as high-voltage electricity repair and maintenance. He said that the long inspection and ensuing report found what he called relatively minor problems. "They really found very little," Mr. Steets said. He added that the areas cited in the report either have been addressed or are being addressed. "We're not where we want to be, but we're working toward that," he said.
But at least one environmental group said the report was one more piece of evidence that should lead to the shutting down of the plant. Kyle Rabin, a senior policy analyst for Riverkeeper, the Hudson River watchdog group, criticized both Entergy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for minimizing the significance of the report's findings, which he said illustrate serious safety issues at the plant.
"This is just more ammunition for elected officials representing the public in this region to call for the closing of Indian Point," he said.
Mr. Rabin said the disclosure that the backup generators had failed on Aug. 14 contradicted a statement released by Entergy that said generators at the plant had been operational. Mr. Steets said yesterday that the statement referred to the emergency diesel generators used for the reactors, not in offices.
One longstanding problem at Indian Point is the switch yard, an electrical substation operated by Con Edison, where power is transmitted from the plant to the power grid, the report said. Entergy has "failed to take appropriate and timely corrective actions to avoid grid-related reactor trips," the report said. At least half of the unplanned shutdowns can be attributed to the switch yard or off-site electrical problems like the blackout, Mr. Steets said.
"More strides should have been made by now," Mr. Sheehan said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will conduct an annual inspection of Indian Point next spring.
The plants at Indian Point, 2 of 103 operating reactors at 68 sites in the nation, produce enough energy to power two million homes, Mr. Steets said. There are three reactors, but Indian Point 1 has been shut down since the 1970's. Indian Point 2 and 3 are licensed to operate for the next decade and are eligible to apply for license renewal, Mr. Sheehan said.
-------- us politics
Kucinich Stresses Civil Liberties
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 24, 2003; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25960-2003Dec23?language=printer
Fifth in a series of occasional articles
In the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Justice Department moved swiftly to expand its policing powers, and most members of Congress were eager to enact such legislation. But Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) took to the House floor in protest.
"Let freedom ring even as we travel through the valley of the shadow of terrorism, for freedom is a sweeter melody," Kucinich said. "Let freedom ring. If freedom is under attack from outside sources, then let us not permit an attack from within."
Kucinich has taken his mantra on the presidential campaign trail in Iowa and New Hampshire. In speech after speech, he accuses the Bush administration of overreaching its authority.
"This is one of the hottest issues in this country right now," he said in an interview. "Americans have a sense their liberty is under attack."
Civil liberties may seem an improbable rallying cry for a presidential campaign. But Kucinich is an improbable candidate for the highest office: a maverick who takes pride in challenging authority. The Bush administration, he tells all who will listen, is encroaching on citizens' privacy rights. "This administration has overreached in the area of civil liberties," he said. "Government shouldn't have that power. It's not consistent with what we are as a nation."
To press the matter legislatively, Kucinich has forged an unusual alliance with Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter (R-Idaho), who listened to Kucinich's protest during the initial House debate on the USA Patriot Act.
As Otter recalled, "it wasn't something where we sat down and said, 'Let's work on this together.' Dennis and I both recognized we were of a like mind on the need for protection of civil liberties."
More than a year later the two drafted an amendment to the Commerce, Justice and State spending bill that would prohibit the Justice Department from carrying out the Patriot Act's "sneak and peek" provisions, which allow federal authorities to search someone's home or office without prior notice.
They targeted their natural constituencies, with Otter speaking to the House's Liberty and Western caucuses and Kucinich appealing to the Progressive Caucus. The House approved the amendment, 309 to 118, but it never became law.
Kucinich also has taken on the FBI. He accused the bureau of infringing on civil liberties after the New York Times reported the FBI had collected information on antiwar demonstrators. "I will continue to attend every peace rally possible, and I expect that I will see millions of Americans there standing proudly and openly against these fear tactics," Kucinich said.
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and others have defended the Patriot Act, saying critics exaggerate its impact on civil liberties. "The charges of the hysterics are revealed for what they are: castles in the air, built on misrepresentation, supported by unfounded fear, held aloft by hysterics," Ashcroft told a gathering of police and prosecutors in Memphis this year.
Nonetheless, Kucinich has offered legislation to repeal the act. Americans, he said, are starting to take note of the government's new powers to search business records, including those in libraries and bookstores, in the name of fighting terrorism.
"Congress is ready for decisive action to defend the civil rights of Americans," Kucinich said at a news conference.
Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark (D-Calif.), who attended the event, predicted that other Democratic presidential candidates would conclude, "We wish we had thought of this first."
Several Kucinich rivals have leveled criticism of the Patriot Act, but not as regularly and forcefully as Kucinich. His doggedness has won some fans in Iowa, home of the first presidential caucus. Shanna Drew, 32, a student at Upper Iowa University, said she was won over by Kucinich's attacks on the Bush administration's civil liberties stance.
"Dennis Kucinich is the only candidate I know who wants total repeal of the Patriot Act," Drew said at a Kucinich campaign event. But she added that it is difficult to spread the word. "Unfortunately a lot of people don't know what's in the Patriot Act. When you call something a Patriot Act, to be opposed to it seems unpatriotic."
Matt Tapscott, another Kucinich supporter who opposes the Patriot Act, said that only "fairly well-informed voters understand that issue."
Kucinich also supports gay rights, pushing for nondiscrimination in hiring and federal benefits for domestic partners of federal employees. He has sought advice and support from the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP, among others.
Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU's Washington office, called Kucinich "an important voice for civil liberties." His voting record is not perfect in the ACLU's eyes, however, because Kucinich supported a constitutional amendment to ban the burning of the American flag, as well as legislation to ban procedures that critics call "partial-birth abortion."
Still, Murphy said he was a key warrior in the fight to protect privacy. "He's a coalition builder, but he's also someone who's leading by example," she said.
For Kucinich, the battle over the Patriot Act symbolizes a larger fight over how President Bush and his lieutenants relate to the American people. The candidate has accused the administration of terrifying voters through questionable allegations such as Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"My candidacy really challenges the fear that has been promoted in this country," Kucinich said. "They have built up a climate of fear in this country. Fear itself is forcing us to sacrifice our liberties."
Political researcher Brian Faler contributed to this report.
----
US advises rogue states to "get smart" and follow Libya's example
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Dec 24, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031224070549.sxzzg7et.html
The United States late Tuesday urged North Korea, Syria and Iran to "get smart" and follow Libya's example in pledging to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programs and join the rest of the world in productive cooperation.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tripoli's decision had put the United States and its allies "on a bit of a roll," and states still pursuing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons would be better off if they followed suit.
"We hope that the North Koreans are watching all of this, and realizing that others are getting smart, and it's time for them to get smart too," Powell said in an interview with syndicated radio talk show host Michael Reagan, son of former US president Ronald Reagan.
The same thing applied to Iran, the secretary of state pointed out, adding that Syria needed "to get out of the hole that you have been in for all these years."
Libyan leader Colonel Moamer Kadhafi issued a similar appeal to the three nations on Monday.
Powell, who is currently recovering at home after prostate cancer surgery, attributed success with Libya to the right mix of diplomatic and military pressure employed by the administration of US President George W. Bush and vowed to continue using both of these tools.
"So, diplomacy, force and diplomacy -- they have to be married up and each used in the service of the other," he said.
Kadhafi stunned the world last Friday, when he announced that his country had renounced its quest for all chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and would allow thorough international inspection to prove its good will.
The announcement, confirmed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Bush, capped nine months of secret diplomacy by the United States and Britain aimed at bringing about Libya's turnaround.
Powell said Syria has been doing a better job working with US troops along the border with Iraq but needed to change its behavior in other areas.
"Syria still doesn't get it that they have to abandon support of terrorist activity," said the secretary of state. "They've got to return any Iraqi monies that they might have in their bank, and they've started to take some minor actions in that regard."
He did not elaborate, but the dispute reportedly involves about 250 million dollars in Iraqi funds deposited in the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria.
Syria acknowledges the funds exist, but argues they must first be used to pay private Syrian companies to which the deposed Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein owed money, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month.
Powell said he believed Iran "has now been more forthcoming" toward the international community "and starting to acknowledge that it had programs that it had denied it possessed earlier."
Iran signed a protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty last week, which allows surprise inspections of its nuclear sites by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The secretary of state called the stalled Middle East peace process "the most vexing challenge" he is facing on his job, but said that while the United States has not made progress on the roadmap to peace, there was, as he put it, "a lot of churning going on now."
He said he hoped Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, and his Palestinian counterpart, Ahmed Qorei, would meet in coming weeks and promised a vigorous push next year toward a negotiated settlement in the region.
"We'll be making this a major priority along with the global war on terror, and along with making sure that we consolidate our victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then with all the other many items that are on the president's foreign policy agenda," Powell stated.
-------- MILITARY
-------- chemical weapons
China set to get 2.8 mln dollars from Japan over weapons incident
BEIJING (AFP)
Dec 25, 2003
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031225084655.9keue5aa.html
China said Thursday it was about to receive 300 million yen (2.8 million dollars) in compensation from Japan over a chemical weapons spill that killed one Chinese and injured 43 earlier this year.
The money, promised by Japan two months ago, would be paid to the victims of an accident in northeast China in August when workers dug up a cache of World War II-era weapons left by fleeting Japanese armies, Xinhua news agency said.
While noting that the money was on the way, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao was quoted by Xinhua as saying China would continue to urge Japan to clean up the weaponry left in the mainland for nearly 60 years.
More than 700,000 chemical bombs and grenades are estimated by Japan to have been abandoned in China by its armies.
Chinese experts dispute this figure, saying as many as two million are still buried, giving China the world's largest stockpile of abandoned chemical weapons.
Since beginning work to search and destroy these old weapons about a decade ago, Japan has retrieved about 36,000 chemical bombs on the mainland, according to previous reports.
A Japanese team was recently in Qiqihar, the location of the August accident, to dispose of the newly-discovered weapons there.
Sino-Japanese tensions, never far below the surface of the tortured bilateral relationship, have flared up again in recent months.
One reason for the renewed tension is public outrage in China over a sex orgy in September that implicated hundreds of Japanese tourists and Chinese prostitutes, and happened to coincide with a sensitive war-time anniversary.
-------- pakistan / india
Musharraf's 'Real Democracy' Still Elusive in Pakistan
After Four Years in Power, Promised Freedoms Are More Tenuous Than Ever, Many Citizens Say
By John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 25, 2003; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28840-2003Dec24?language=printer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Amir Mir, a journalist, wrote an article in last month's edition of the Herald newsmagazine suggesting that Pakistan had given refuge to a notorious gangster wanted on terrorism charges in India. A few days after the article appeared, Mir said in an interview, he received a call from an official of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency warning that "you should stop writing on these touchy issues."
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, complained about the article on Nov. 20 at a private dinner with prominent newspaper editors, according to two people who were present, although one of them said he did not interpret the comment as a threat. Two days later, Mir said, three men pulled up in a Toyota in front of his house in the city of Lahore, sprinkled gasoline on his car and set it ablaze.
Information Minister Rashid Ahmed denied official complicity in the incident. "I've never seen such freedom of the press as I see now, and if someone says there is no freedom, I think it's very sad," he said.
Musharraf has won plaudits abroad for Pakistan's roundup of about 500 al Qaeda fugitives since Sept. 11, 2001, but his record at home -- especially when it comes to restoring democracy -- is less clear. More than four years after he seized power in a bloodless coup, pledging "real democracy" in place of corrupt civilian rule, democratic freedoms in this volatile, nuclear-armed and mostly Muslim nation of 150 million remain tenuous and in some areas may even be in retreat, according to human rights monitors, opposition politicians and many ordinary Pakistanis.
They cite the arrest on sedition charges this fall of a leading opposition lawmaker, Javed Hashmi, and note a recent uptick in arrests and harassment of journalists. They also point to Musharraf's continuing efforts to manipulate the country's constitution and parliament -- elected last year in a contest that European Union observers described as having suffered from "serious flaws" -- to ensure that the army retains ultimate power.
In a Dec. 2 letter to Musharraf, New York-based Human Rights Watch said that "the arrest of editors and reporters from local and regional newspapers on charges of sedition is becoming increasingly commonplace." It said that "the crackdown is now expanding to the mainstream Pakistani press."
The Bush administration has generally said little, at least in public, on the topic of democracy in Pakistan. That angers many Pakistanis, who accuse President Bush of betraying his pledge to promote democracy in the Muslim world by recognizing that "in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty," as Bush put it in a landmark speech last month.
"The United States has very little credibility on the count of democracy because of its track record," said Mushahid Hussain, former information minister, who spent 440 days in jail after Musharraf toppled the elected government. "The general view is the United States is more comfortable with a military regime because they feel decisions are easier to come by. They don't have to go through the messy process of getting votes."
Pakistan is not as repressive as many Muslim countries, including such prominent U.S. allies as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Despite considerable self-censorship, for example, the news media are free-wheeling in their treatment of Musharraf, whose caricature appears frequently on editorial pages. And even some of Musharraf's critics hold out hope that he eventually will allow a transition to civilian rule.
Hussain is among those who suggest that continuing negotiations between the government and opposition parties on a power-sharing arrangement could lay the groundwork for "a more legitimate political order" after half a century of failed civilian governments and military coups. "In Pakistan, I'd rather see a half-opening than no opening," said Hussain, who was educated at Georgetown University and now serves in the Pakistani senate as a member of the main pro-government party.
For the Bush administration, promoting democracy in Pakistan is an especially ticklish challenge given the urgent needs of fighting terrorism and preventing the leakage of Pakistani nuclear technology to such hostile countries as North Korea and Iran.
Musharraf's government, in any case, has shown little regard for international opinion when it comes to pressuring political opponents, especially those who challenge the army's preeminent role.
On Oct. 29, for example, a European Union delegation was visiting the capital to assess the state of Pakistani democracy when police arrested Javed Hashmi, a member of parliament and the head of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, a coalition of opposition parties, as he left the parliamentary housing complex one night.
Hashmi had released copies of a letter purportedly written by army officers critical of Musharraf and other top generals. It described Musharraf's government as "a band of thieves and looters," citing, among other things, distribution of prime real estate to uniformed members of the president's inner circle.
For two weeks, Hashmi was physically abused by his captors, forced to sleep on a bare concrete floor and prevented from notifying his family or lawyer as to his whereabouts, according to his lawyer, Zafar Ali Shah, and his daughter, Memoona Hashmi, also a member of parliament.
He was shifted to Adiala jail near here and has been charged with multiple offenses, including forgery -- prosecutors assert the letter was a fake -- inciting mutiny in the army and sedition, which carries the possibility of a life sentence. Prosecutors have asked that his trial be held at the jail, where it would be off-limits to the news media and the public.
"Javed Hashmi was arrested for informing people and mobilizing public opinion," his daughter said in an interview. "This is not democracy. In a democracy, elected legislators are allowed to express their views."
U.S. Ambassador Nancy Powell has avoided direct criticism of the arrest, although in a speech in Karachi last month she expressed hope that Hashmi's case "will be handled in a fair and transparent manner." Embassy officials said they were watching the case closely and that the matter had been raised privately with Pakistan's foreign ministry.
In an interview, Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat disputed the allegations of mistreatment and defended the legitimacy of the charges. "Javed Hashmi was arrested because he was involved in activities prejudicial to national security," he said.
Special correspondent Kamran Khan in Karachi contributed to this report.
----
Pakistani Leader Agrees To Relinquish Army Role
By Sheree Sardar
Reuters
Thursday, December 25, 2003; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28841-2003Dec24?language=printer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 24 -- Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, agreed Wednesday to step down as army chief of staff by the end of 2004, resolving a dispute with an opposition Islamic alliance that had virtually paralyzed parliament.
Musharraf said the decision was difficult.
"I realize that it's time. I have decided that I will give up my uniform by December 2004 and will step down," he said on state television.
Speaking in Urdu and wearing a military uniform, Musharraf added: "These are all historic decisions. Nobody has won or lost because of these decisions. Democracy has won, and the victory is Pakistan's."
Musharraf made the decision as part of a deal with the opposition Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six Islamic opposition parties, that has promised to abstain in a vote of confidence in the government expected early next year.
The agreement is likely to extend the general's term in office until 2007, although any weakening of his links to the military could undermine his position.
Although he does not come away from the deal empty-handed, Musharraf's concessions could raise eyebrows in the West. A key ally in the U.S. war on terror, Musharraf has been hailed as instrumental to Pakistan's economic recovery and its crackdown on Islamic militancy, both domestic and international.
The move answers a key demand by the Commonwealth organization of former British colonies for Pakistan, which is suspended from the group, to be readmitted. It comes after months of wrangling with the MMA religious bloc over constitutional changes giving the president sweeping powers.
The package of amendments, called the Legal Framework Order, gave Musharraf the power to dissolve parliament and dismiss the prime minister.
The religious coalition, which has supporters of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban government among its leaders, has virtually paralyzed parliamentary proceedings with stormy protests and rallies against the president.
The deal "will improve Pakistan's image abroad and give the world the impression that Pakistan is moving toward democracy," said Fazlur Rahman, an MMA leader.
-------- spies
China Arrests 43 Alleged Spies
Move Increases Effort to Undermine Taiwanese President
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 25, 2003; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28830-2003Dec24?language=printer
BEIJING, Dec. 24 -- China stepped up its campaign to undermine President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan on Wednesday by announcing the arrest of 24 people from the island and 19 Chinese citizens on charges of espionage, one of the largest roundups of alleged spies ever acknowledged by the country's security services.
The announcement, made by the official New China News Agency and the government's Taiwan affairs office, did not identify those detained or provide other details of the arrests. It came at a time of increased tensions in the region. Chen has launched a pro-independence reelection campaign and Beijing, in return, has threatened war.
Taiwan's leading spy agency, the Military Intelligence Bureau, denied any of its personnel had been arrested, and a presidential spokesman, James Huang, said in a telephone interview that Chen had received no information suggesting China had detained a large number of Taiwanese residents.
But opposition lawmakers in Taiwan said they had been in contact with the families of five Taiwanese businessmen who disappeared in China this month. They said China's State Security Ministry served a written notice to the family of one businessman indicating he had been arrested on spying charges, and they provided reporters with a copy of the document, which appeared authentic.
China and Taiwan separated during the Communist takeover of the mainland in 1949. Beijing claims Taiwan is part of China and has threatened to go to war if the self-governing island of 23 million formally declares independence. Tensions between the two have been running high for weeks.
With Taiwan's presidential election in three months, Chen has been using increasingly strident anti-China rhetoric in his campaign speeches and plans to hold a referendum demanding Beijing stop aiming missiles at Taiwan. China has condemned the referendum as a move toward independence, and the Bush administration has urged Taiwan to cancel the vote, which it has described as destabilizing and unnecessary.
A Hong Kong newspaper, the Ming Pao Daily, which Chinese officials use to leak information, reported the arrests Monday and quoted sources as saying Taiwanese spies were exposed after Chen specified in a Nov. 30 speech the location of Chinese military bases with 496 missiles aimed at Taiwan.
Chen's aides rejected the claim, saying the information about China's missile deployment was publicly available.
In a telephone interview, Elmer Fung, an opposition politician in Taiwan with close ties to China, accused Chen's government of ignoring the businessmen who may have been helping Taiwan's intelligence agencies and have disappeared. He said five families have sought his help, but he declined to name them, saying they had requested anonymity.
"Regardless of whether they are spies, the president can't deny that these people are missing and probably have been arrested," Fung said. "He's done nothing to help them and instead is trying to escape responsibility."
Reached by telephone, the wife of one of the missing businessmen said she lost contact with her husband in mid-December and soon discovered that two of his friends in other Chinese cities had vanished at about the same time. She said her husband was innocent of the spying charges, and she was worried Chinese authorities detained him by mistake in the crackdown.
"We're just ordinary people," said the woman, who asked that she and her husband not be identified because she feared Chinese authorities might punish her husband. "After so many years of reform and opening up, we hope the Chinese government can close the case quickly and let him go."
Taiwan and China have spied on each other for years, and the United States relies in part on intelligence gathered by Taiwan. Over the past two months, Taiwan has announced the arrests of three agents for China on the island. Four years ago, China executed an army general and a colonel for selling secrets to Taiwan.
Special correspondent Tim Culpan in Taipei contributed to this report.
-------- propaganda wars
Fact-checkers blamed for Bush's uranium 'goof'
From Dana Bash
CNN
Thursday, December 25, 2003
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/24/white.house.uranium/index.html
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board has concluded that his 2003 State of the Union address included information about Iraq's weapons program that wasn't checked carefully, a source involved in the investigation and findings said Wednesday.
CIA Director George Tenet took responsibility this summer for allowing the information to make it into the presidential address, but the new report suggests the White House bears responsibility too.
"No one checked their facts carefully," said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It was a mistake that propagated itself. They should have known better to check and ask more questions about the information."
In an effort to draw support for waging war with Iraq, Bush told the nation in his January speech: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
The source said the report concludes there was no intention to deceive; instead it was "a goof" as the administration searched for examples to share with the public of why the United States believed Iraq was attempting to build a nuclear program.
The Bush administration initially defended the inclusion of the sentence under pressure to explain how the speech was written based on information that was known to be unreliable.
After Ambassador Joe Wilson, who had been sent on mission to Niger to investigate the claim, said publicly it was false, the White House acknowledged in July that the line should not have been included in Bush's speech.
The president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory board, which gives confidential advice and reports to Bush, was asked by the White House to investigate how the information made its way into his speech. 'They trusted what came out of the CIA'
The board, according to the source, talked to officials at the White House and in the intelligence community over the course of a few months this fall in effort to recreate the "chain of events" that led to the information appearing in the State of the Union address.
"They truly believed when it landed on their desk it was right, but they should have checked the information, asked more questions," the source said of senior White House officials. "They truly believed what landed on their desk; they trusted what came out of the CIA."
Tenet admitted to Congress that he never read the speech before it was delivered, sources who attended the July hearing told CNN. (Full story)
The president's Intelligence Advisory Board's reports are private, and never released on the record to the public.
Former President Bush's national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, chairs the board. He refused to comment on the issue, first reported in Wednesday's Washington Post.
"This is an issue that has already been publicly discussed at length," a White House spokesman said.
After the White House admitted the claim, which Bush officials said relied on British intelligence, officials said they would change the way the speechwriting and intelligence vetting process at the White House works.
A U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein after U.S. and British officials accused Iraq of developing weapons of mass destruction in violation of U.N. resolutions that ended the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Bush used the State of the Union speech to outline his arguments for military action.
No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, despite efforts led by David Kay to find them.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is also looking into the Niger claim as part of a broad investigation of pre-war intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
A source familiar with that investigation says a final report will be made public early next year, likely in February, and is on track to blame not just the White House for not asking enough questions, but also the intelligence agencies for passing along information that was not properly checked.
The Justice Department is also investigating who leaked the name of Wilson's wife, who was a CIA operative. Her identity had been classified until Wilson made his statements about his trip to Niger. His wife's name then ended up in "Crossfire" co-host Bob Novak's nationally syndicated newspaper column. (Full story)
The White House has pledged to cooperate in the probe.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- homeland security
Security Boosted at Area Sites After Alert
By Michael Amon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 25, 2003; Page SM01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23561-2003Dec23.html
Southern Maryland emergency officials ramped up security around power plants, military installations and other potential targets this week after federal officials increased the national alert status to orange, or "high risk."
Local officials said the chance of a terrorist attack in Charles, Calvert or St. Mary's counties is low compared with the risk for higher-profile locations such as the District of Columbia or New York. But with Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant and two major Navy bases in the area, police stepped up patrols and asked residents to report suspicious activity.
"Nothing would be too insignificant for us to investigate," Charles County Sheriff Frederick E. Davis said.
Local officials also prepared for the possibility of a mass exodus from the Washington area into Southern Maryland in the event of a major terrorist attack in the District. Area schools would be converted into shelters for those fleeing their homes, said St. Mary's Sheriff David D. Zylak.
"We would see increased traffic," Zylak said. "We would have an issue of managing people, and we have plans for that."
U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials increased the threat level from yellow, or "elevated," on Sunday after intelligence showed that al Qaeda and other groups may be planning a major attack during the holiday weeks. Federal officials told reporters that intelligence showed al Qaeda is trying to penetrate foreign airports.
But echoing Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, local officials said residents should carry on with Christmas travel plans and celebrations.
"It's important that we remain vigilant and continue to live our lives," Davis said.
In Charles, the Maryland State Police increased patrols near government-owned buildings such as the Motor Vehicle Administration office in Waldorf and the Department of Social Services headquarters in La Plata, said Lt. Michael Hawkins. He said a recent break-in at a Prince George's County MVA office made it clear that all government institutions need to be secure during a heightened alert.
"We don't need people breaking in there and making fake licenses" like those carried by some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Hawkins said.
Sheriff's officers, who are already patrolling in greater numbers because of the holidays, were to make checks at the St. Charles Towne Center shopping mall, where large numbers of shoppers are buying last-minute gifts, officials said.
"If the bad guys are going to do something, it would be a great time to do it," sheriff's Capt. Joseph C. Montminy said.
Police were providing more patrols around Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative buildings and other utilities, officials said. And for the first time, a sheriff's officer is working side-by-side with FBI and state intelligence agents analyzing threat information until the alert is lowered, Montminy said.
In St. Mary's, the sheriff's office and Maryland State Police worked with the Patuxent River Naval Air Station to increase security around the region's largest employer. As in past orange alerts, officers also scrutinized anything suspicious near the Gov. Thomas Johnson Bridge over the Patuxent River and an oil terminal on the Potomac River at Piney Point, officials said.
"There will be no specific pattern to the patrols. They will be as random and will occur as often as possible," said state police 1st Sgt. Michael Thompson.
Officials were unwilling to talk in detail about specific security plans. In Calvert, state police commanders would not comment when asked if a trooper was being stationed near the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant. But officials said plant security is a high priority.
"We have increased our vigilance at the power plants incredibly," said state police Lt. Homer R. Rich. "They require full attention and full resources."
Officers who have holiday vacation will be on call, and future leave has been restricted until the elevated risk is lowered, police officials said. Police agencies are handling the increased security requirements without putting more officers on duty, officials said.
"We still have robberies and burglaries we have to solve too," Montminy said.
Ridge and other federal officials said the extra security prompted by an orange alert has thwarted terrorist attacks in the past. But the alerts have also frustrated some Southern Maryland officers who are not sure what to look for when asked to be vigilant for "suspicious activity."
"Good question," said Zylak, when asked what constituted suspicious activity. "It's a judgment call on the officer's part."
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Paris-L.A. Flights Canceled; Security Tightened in Calif.
U.S. Intensifies Anti-Terrorism Activity
By John Mintz and Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 25, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29993-2003Dec25?language=printer
A French airline canceled six flights between Paris and Los Angeles yesterday out of fear of terrorist hijackings, and U.S. officials ordered the emergency installation in California of additional sensors that sniff the air for biological pathogens that could be used in an attack.
With teams that would respond to use of weapons of mass destruction on standby alert, high-ranking federal officials have held nearly round-the-clock meetings in recent days to sift through intelligence reports that suggest the possibility of terrorist activity in the United States this holiday week.
U.S. officials said intelligence gleaned from overseas electronic intercepts and other means points to California as the location of highest concern. U.S. officials expressed fears over the possible use of a range of devices that included biological or chemical weapons and a radiological, or "dirty," bomb, officials said.
Department of Homeland Security officials decided the threat was credible enough to order the immediate placement in California of additional outdoor air-sampling sensors that are designed to warn of any release of deadly microbes into the atmosphere. Hundreds of such Biowatch sensors have been in use in a number of California cities and in dozens of others, including Washington and New York, since March.
Military and civilian emergency teams that respond to possible terrorist plots involving weapons of mass destruction have been placed on heightened alert around the country since Sunday, when the government raised the national threat status to orange, or "high risk."
Under their new orders, the teams must be ready to respond in two hours rather than four. Should a crisis appear imminent, they would board military transport jets and fly to the trouble spot.
While U.S. officials have expressed their most pointed concerns about California, they remain worried about possible attacks in other cities, including Washington, New York and Las Vegas, and numerous parts of the nation's critical infrastructure.
Across the country, Christmas vacations for many FBI and other federal agents were canceled. In Washington, cars around the U.S. Capitol were stopped and drivers were asked to submit to voluntary searches. Government officials who have been attending the virtually dawn-to-dawn crisis meetings about the terrorism alert expressed serious alarm about the intelligence on which they are being briefed.
"I'm gravely concerned," said one official whose days have been a blur of briefings in secure installations since Saturday morning, the day before Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge placed the nation on orange alert. "I haven't gotten a lot of sleep for days," the official said.
Another high-ranking official who also has spent the past week being briefed on the government's efforts said: "Lives are at stake here. I'm very worried about it."
On Sunday, officials repeated previously announced concerns that terrorists might try to use planes hijacked outside the United States as missiles against targets here. Officials also have expressed fears that people sympathetic to foreign terrorists may have infiltrated foreign flight crews. They have demanded that airports abroad step up precautions.
The unusual decision to cancel the flights between Paris and Los Angeles on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day came the day after authorities at Los Angeles International Airport intensified security to an extent not seen since the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The airport has banned curbside drop-offs and pickups for at least the next two weeks, the only airport in the nation to do so. Vehicles are being diverted to parking garages at the center of the horseshoe-shaped airport terminal area.
On Tuesday, airport officials ordered an arriving Air France flight to park at a remote area, where police surrounded it. Authorities screened all the passengers before allowing them off the plane, according to one aviation source.
The pervasive new restrictions created traffic gridlock, lengthy passenger lines and a mood of mixed resignation and frustration.
On roads to the airport, which more than 2 million travelers are expected to use during the holiday season, heavily armed police randomly stopped vehicles and forced motorists to open trunks and hoods. Some vehicles were inspected again at parking garages next to airline terminals.
Many passengers had to wait more than an hour to get through metal detectors, as slow-moving lines snaked outside the airport onto curbs soaked by recurrent rain.
Gregg Rinsler, a Los Angeles resident traveling to Hawaii, went to the airport three hours before his flight and spent two hours working his way through checkpoints. But he was not angry.
"Security is the most important thing," he said. "As long as they're doing their job, this is what I have to do, and that's fine."
Other passengers were tense, fatigued or confused. One man who saw a woman apparently cut in line kicked her luggage off a cart. "People are getting a little rowdy," said college student Felicia Alexander.
Air France canceled three outbound flights from Paris and their return journeys, or six flights in all, after days of consultations between U.S. and French officials. [An Air France spokeswoman said flights to Los Angeles would resume on Friday as normal, Reuters reported Thursday morning.]
The decision to cancel was made because the names of some passengers on at least two of the Air France flights into Los Angeles raised suspicions that they were connected to terrorists, a ranking U.S. official said. But accounts differed over whether the names appeared on U.S. terrorist watch lists.
Other intelligence had flagged Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as the possible time of a terrorist attack in this country, officials said.
Despite strained relations between the Bush administration and the government of French President Jacques Chirac, officials on both sides said yesterday that the governments cooperated impressively and decided together how best to address the threat.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who infuriated U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell during the debate over the Iraq war, called him yesterday to report that France had agreed to call off the flights. Powell thanked de Villepin for his help, spokesmen for the two governments said.
The Los Angeles airport has been on al Qaeda's list of American targets for years, officials said. Ahmed Ressam, a convicted terrorist from Algeria with ties to al Qaeda, had planned to bomb the airport around New Year's Eve in 1999. His plot was foiled when border agents in Washington state found explosives in his rental car as he crossed into the United States from Canada.
Staff writers Susan Schmidt, Peter Slevin, Vernon Loeb, Debbi Wilgoren and Gregory Vistica in Washington and staff writer Rene Sanchez and special correspondent Kimberly Edds in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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The Little Peace Center That Could
by Andrew Varnon
December 25, 2003
Valley Advocate
http://valleyadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:47795
Springfield, MA - This summer, as American troops occupied Baghdad, Traprock Peace Center was working in high gear, organizing protests and educational events.
Over the past year, the volume of traffic on Traprock Peace Center's Web site has increased tenfold. Last year, the site averaged about 100 visitors a day, but this year it has had over 1,000 visitors a day, according to Director Sunny Miller. The vast majority of those visitors are coming on the website not from the Valley, but from around the country and from other countries. And they often have the idea that the peace center is bigger than it is, Miller said.
"People will send us e-mails and from the tone, I can tell they imagine we're a sizeable organization," she said.
In fact, the peace center operates on a shoe-string budget of around $60,000 per year. And Miller reports that she has cut back her salary as director to "below taxable levels" in order to spend more money on peace activities.
With the country on a war footing, Traprock has been visible nationally in the peace movement, campaigning about the dangers of depleted uranium weapons that the U.S. military first used in the first Gulf War, and helping to organize peace demonstrations and educational events.
Last week, Traprock brought former United Nations weapon inspector Scott Ritter back to the area to speak at high schools in Buckland and Amherst. Ritter has been stumping across the country arguing that the U.S.'s motivation for invading Iraq -- weapons of mass destruction -- doesn't exist. He has yet to be proven wrong.
But it was a national speaking tour featuring Gulf War veteran and depleted uranium expert Doug Rokke that helped establish Traprock on the national peace map. Traprock sponsored Rokke's talks in 30 cities across the country, speaking about the munitions he was exposed to in Iraq. Rokke headed a team assigned to clean up after depleted uranium munitions in the first Gulf War and says he has six times the radioactive exposure that would require medical treatment. That has turned him into a warrior speaking for peace, he says.
The past year has also seen the formation and growth of the Campus Anti-War Network, a group that Traprock has played a key role in developing. The network is comprised of over 100 campus anti-war organizations from around the country.
For the upcoming year, Traprock is joining Ground Zero Center for Non-Violent Action in calling for the Department of Transportation to lift the exemption that allows the military to ship depleted uranium munitions without labeling them "radioactive." The current exemption expires in June.
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Protests Mix With Festivities in Bethlehem
By GREG MYRE
December 25, 2003
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/25/international/middleeast/25MIDE.html?pagewanted=print&position=
BETHLEHEM, West Bank, Dec. 24 - The tortured politics of the Middle East seeped even into Christmas Eve festivities here on Wednesday, when schoolchildren banged their drums and blew bagpipes while leading clerics on a parade through Manger Square.
The bearded man featured on a large banner looking down on the square was Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader who was a regular Christmas Eve visitor until Israel clamped travel restrictions on him in December 2001.
And among the children prancing in Santa suits, several Palestinian families held a protest to demand the return of their relatives, militants whom Israel has deported to Europe and the Gaza Strip.
Santa is depicted climbing a brick wall toward outstretched hands on the far side, a reference to the barrier that Israel is building in the West Bank, including near Bethlehem.
"Don't convert Bethlehem into a ghetto," said another banner hanging near the Church of the Nativity, built over the grotto where tradition holds that Jesus was born.
Several thousand Palestinians and a smattering of foreigners filled less than half the square, a modest turnout compared with the tens of thousands of tourists and pilgrims from around the world who packed the plaza at Christmas-time before the current Middle East bloodshed began in September 2000.
If the mood was not quite festive, at least it was relaxed. Israeli troops pulled out of Bethlehem in July, and Palestinian security forces patrol the streets, one of the few Palestinians towns where this is still the case.
The Israeli soldiers remain at the outskirts of Bethlehem, still manning checkpoints. But the military said it was attempting to facilitate tourism, and there were no long lines.
"Neither Israeli nor Palestinian wants war and bloodshed," said the Rev. Michel Sabbah, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, in his Christmas message. "Israelis are in search of their security and Palestinians are in search of their land and liberty."
But the patriarch, a Palestinian who is head of the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land, called on Israel to take down the barrier, which Israel says is necessary to prevent suicide bombings and other Palestinian attacks.
"The separation wall that is being erected is a measure that pushes peace further away, delaying peace until this same wall comes falling down," the patriarch said.
While tourists are still scarce, another factor limiting attendance is the dwindling number of Christians in Bethlehem and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Bethlehem's mayor, Hanna Nasser, says an estimated 2,000 Christians in Bethlehem have emigrated during the past three years of Middle East fighting.
Bethlehem, overwhelmingly Christian a half-century ago, now counts only about 11,000 Christians among its 28,000 residents, officials say.
The shrinking Christian population now accounts for about 2 to 3 percent of the people in both Israel and the Palestinian areas, a small fraction of what it was decades ago.
"People are leaving because of the bad situation," said George Hazboun, a 23-year-old Bethlehem native. "For someone with children, it's tough to stay when there are no jobs."
Bethlehem is dependent on tourism, and Mr. Hazboun, a chef, works perhaps one day a month when there is a special event at Bethlehem's most upscale hotel, the Jacir Palace Inter-Continental.
His wife is Italian, and he could leave if he wanted. But he plans to stay put for now.
While Palestinians said they hoped next Christmas would be better, many have grown pessimistic.
"The tourism won't pick up until there's an improvement in the political situation," said Joseph Giacaman, whose family has closed three of its five souvenir shops due to a lack of business.
And the political news was not promising Wednesday. The Palestinians postponed a planned meeting between aides to the Palestinian and Israeli prime ministers. The session was to have set up talks between the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, and his Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon.
According to Palestinian officials, the move was a protest against Israel's military incursion Tuesday into Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. Nine Palestinians, including militants and civilians, were killed, Palestinians said.
Israel said it carried out the raid to find and destroy a large tunnel that it said was being used to smuggle weapons from neighboring Egypt.
A car blew up Wednesday in the West Bank city of Nablus, killing one man. But Palestinian police said the blast was inadvertent, as explosives under transport detonated prematurely.
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EGYPT: RALLY FOR REFORM
December 25, 2003
(NYT)
by Abeer Allam
World Briefing: Middle East
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/25/international/middleeast/25BRIE5.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Opposition leaders and human rights activists staged a protest in Tahrir Square in Cairo to demand political reform. About 100 protesters, surrounded by at least 1,000 security men, asked for direct presidential elections, limits on the president's powers, the release of political prisoners and the lifting of emergency law, which gives the police broad powers. The protesters wanted to march to the presidential palace but security forces stopped them.
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