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NUCLEAR
Experts Say New Desktop Fusion Claims Seem More Credible
Third incident in month plagues nuclear plant
MALAYSIA - U.S. plea to control nuke exports rejected
Swedish nuclear watchdog allays fears about missing uranium
IAEA chief ElBaradei hopes Iran has told the whole nuclear truth
U.S., Europe at Odds on Strategy on Iran
U.N. Inspectors Seek Lessons From Iraq
8 Japanese Workers Exposed to Radiation
US wants expansion to missiles, human rights in North Korea talks
China seeks all-party consultation on broader Korean nuclear talks
Bush Meets With FM Ban
Bush Envoy Briefs Panel After Talks on A-Bombs
North Korea to Consider U.S. Nuke Demand
UN casts wary eye at global growth of nuclear power
50 Years Later, Nuclear Blast Felt on Bikini Atoll
Relicensing: Retrofitting Nuclear Edsels
Nuclear panel halts uranium mining at Navajo sites
NRC Eyes Possible Restart of Davis-Besse Reactor
Request for Military Spending Faces Cuts by Budget Leaders
Panel Plans Blueprint to Cut Bush's Budget Bids
MILITARY
Thousands of Girls Fighting on Front Lines
Afghanistan seeks more international help to expand national army
Afghanistan's poppy fields thrive
Senate rejects gun-maker legislation
Vietnam, Laos pledge to improve military relations
NATO discovers missiles in Bosnian weapons stash
Sarin, a Lethal Gas Used by Aum, Developed by Nazis
US-style terror alert ruled out
3 senators demand documents from Boeing tanker-lease deal
Pentagon orders nearly 2.2 billion dollars in fuel
A fight not finished for vets
Romania signs accord on providing airbases for US
Georgian leader vows to restore order in surprise military inspection
Haiti: A Case History
Marines Block Haiti Rebels From Officials
Rebel Claims Control Over Haiti's Security
Aristide's Departure: The U.S. Account
Iran charges US over military action
'Troops will stay in Iraq for two years'
Iraqi oil exports reach nearly $6 billion
Five large explosions rumble Baghdad
At Least 143 Die in Attacks at Two Sacred Sites in Iraq
Shiites Massacred in Iraq Blasts
Murder of 'Arafat's spy' raises fears of descent into anarchy
Three Hamas Members Killed in Israeli Missile Strike
Senior U.S. Officials Returning To Israel
Venezuelan Protests Intensify After Ruling
Poland hopes for NATO decision by June on NATO forces in Iraq
Belgium hails Bosnia's preparations for EU takover of NATO mission
Aussie bank denies U.S. veterans' claim
Pakistani police uncover stash of arms
Gunmen in Pakistan Kill Scores of Shiites
Pakistan stirs a tribal war
Philippines says military plot "nipped in the bud" with arrests
Russia Weapons Debt Threatens Putin's Army Reforms
CIA invests in start-ups. The dividend?
National Guard Seeing Fewer Recruits
Veterans Groups Critical of Bush's VA Budget
Bush should 'come clean' on Iraq weapons: Kay
Cheney, in Television Interviews, Tries to Counter Criticism
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
9/11 Panel Rejects White House Limits on Interviews
Justice Scalia Gets Cheney Case Recusal Request
Homeland Security Grants - A Not So Funny Joke
President Urges Renewal of the Antiterrorism Law
China issues human rights record of the US
Records Gap Leaves Borders Vulnerable Report Says
Terror Suspect's Ambitions Worry U.S. Officials
'Torture Lite' Takes Hold in War on Terror
ENERGY
MoD chiefs threaten wind power
OTHER
EPA Air Model Underestimates Cancer Risk
Researchers give access to stem cell lines
NIH: Few Stem Cell Colonies Likely Available for Research
Cancer Health Risk Significantly Underestimated
Research Needed Into Rising Teen Cancers
Shortage of Childhood Meningitis Drug Continues
ACTIVISTS
Activists fight Patriot Act
Supporters Trek Across the Country in Name of Kucinich
ITALY - 26 protesters face trial for G-8 riots
G8 Actions in Georgia 2004: Request for support
Documentary Wins Oscar
-------- NUCLEAR
Experts Say New Desktop Fusion Claims Seem More Credible
March 3, 2004
New York Times
By KENNETH CHANG
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/03/science/03FUSI.html
Scientists are again claiming they have made a Sun in a jar, offering perhaps a revolutionary energy source, and this time even some skeptics find the evidence intriguing enough to call for a closer look.
Using ultrasonic vibrations to shake a jar of liquid solvent the size of a large drink cup, the scientists say, they squeezed tiny gas bubbles in the liquid so quickly and violently that temperatures reached millions of degrees and some of the hydrogen atoms in the solvent molecules fused, producing a flash of light and energy.
"It can do some interesting science stuff as is," said Dr. Richard T. Lahey, a professor of engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an author of a paper describing the findings that will appear in the journal Physical Review E.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
The experiment could conceivably shrink the science of fusion - slamming hydrogen atoms together, producing heat and light - from giant, expensive reactors to the tabletop.
When this team of researchers made the same claim in an article in the journal Science two years ago, many scientists reacted with skepticism, even ridicule. But new experiments, using better detectors, offer more convincing data that the phenomenon is real.
"We've addressed all the issues and now they all speak for themselves with far greater intensity than they did before," said Dr. Rusi P. Taleyarkhan, the scientist who conducted the experiments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and is a professor of nuclear engineering at Purdue University.
Skepticism remains, but Dr. Lawrence A. Crum, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington who was highly critical of the Science paper, said the new work was "much better" and deserved attention to determine whether the effect could be reproduced.
"It's getting to the point where you can't ignore it," Dr. Crum said.
For decades, physicists have dreamed of harnessing the ferocious alchemy of the Sun as a clean, limitless energy source. Most experiments have been conducted in giant, expensive reactors using magnetic fields to confine the ultrahot gases.
In contrast, the new experiment, which cost less than $1 million, uses the power of sound to create energy comparable to the inside of stars.
To many scientists, however, the phenomenon, nicknamed sonofusion, bears uncomfortable similarities to "cold fusion," which has now been discredited.
Sonofusion has already achieved more scientific respectability than cold fusion ever did, with two articles published in major journals.
And unlike cold fusion, sonofusion is based on known science. Scientists have long observed a phenomenon known as sonoluminescence, in which a burst of ultrasound causes a bubble in a liquid to collapse and emit a flash of light; some have speculated that the gases trapped in the collapsing bubbles could be heated to temperatures hot enough for fusion to occur.
Still, controversy enveloped the Science paper two years ago. The new research by Dr. Taleyarkhan and Dr. Lahey provides a much clearer picture of neutrons that are ejected when fusion occurs.
Many scientists like Dr. Glenn Young, head of the physics division at Oak Ridge, said the experiment was solid, but still incomplete.
"Neutrons are slippery little rascals," he said. "They can fool you. They can bounce and show up around corners you don't expect."
-------- accidents and safety
Third incident in month plagues nuclear plant
Max Jarman
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 3, 2004
http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/0303paloverde03.html#
A metal alloy with known structural defects is being blamed for a radiation leak Sunday that shut down Unit 3, one of three units at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, 50 miles west of Phoenix.
It was the third leak of radioactive material at the plant in a month.
The second leak, on Feb. 19, prompted a special investigation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Regulators are concerned about several unexpected problems that occurred while the leak inside the unit's steam generator was being repaired. The first leak, on Feb. 4, involved a valve on a bleed line on Unit 1's reactor cooling system.
Victor Dricks, a spokesman for the NRC, said the three incidents are unrelated and don't reflect underlying maintenance or safety problems at the plant.
"Overall, they have an excellent operating and safety record," he said.
A preliminary inspection has concluded Sunday's leak was caused by stress corrosion cracking, the same phenomenon that caused the Kinder Morgan gasoline pipeline rupture in July.
James M. Levine, Arizona Public Service Co. executive vice president in charge of generation, explained that Iconel 600, a nickel alloy used to make the heater sleeves and other components inside the plant, has been found to be particularly susceptible to stress corrosion cracking.
Meanwhile, Dricks said the NRC called for an investigation of the Unit 2 leak because of several problems encountered during repairs
Specifically, plugs used to cut off the supply of water to the steam generator's heating tubes didn't fit properly, delaying repairs for several hours. That caused air to get into the line; the air had to be vented into an auxiliary building.
The air was scrubbed and treated before it was released to the atmosphere, Levine said.
He attributed the ill-fitting plugs to bugs in the two new 800-ton steam generators that were installed at Unit 2 during the fall. The two generators cost $230 million.
"You don't expect them, but they occur," he said.
The tube leak that shut down the plant Feb. 19 was either the result of a factory defect or damage caused as the equipment was shipped from Italy and slowly brought over land from a port in Mexico.
The tubes carry water heated to 620 degrees. When the tubes come into contact with water inside the steam generator, an explosive burst of steam is produced and used to turn electric turbines.
As for air getting into the cooling system, called the hot reactor water system, Levine said it is a normal occurrence.
Still, Dricks said the NRC wants to make sure that is the case and that the air didn't enter the line in some other way. The agency also wants to be sure the plant's operator, APS, reacted properly to the ill-fitting plugs and subsequent problem with air in the lines.
"The NRC staff has decided to conduct a special inspection to evaluate the adequacy of the APS' response to the situation," Dricks said.
On Feb. 29, workers found traces of boron on a heater sleeve attached to a pressurizer for the unit's reactor cooling system. Boron absorbs neutrons and is used to control the rate of nuclear fission inside the reactor. Its presence on the heater sleeve indicates a leak of radioactive material. APS spokesman Jim McDonald said the radiation was hardly detectable and poses no safety risk for the plant's employees or the general public.
Discussing Iconel 600's tendency toward stress corrosion cracking, Levine said, "We're aware of the problem, and we look for it."
Dricks said that the NRC also is aware of the problems with Iconel 600 and has mandated that plant operators regularly test components made of it.
"It's a common phenomenon and generally does not pose a safety concern," he added.
Evidence of stress corrosion cracking was found on another Unit 3 heater sleeve during a refueling outage last spring and on several sleeves in Unit 2 when its two steam generators were replaced in the fall. Affected components in the new steam generators, including about 13,000 tubes that carry water heated by the unit's reactor, are made of more durable Iconel 690. While the 800-ton generators were being installed, Levine said APS went through the unit and replaced all of the Iconel 600 parts with those made of Iconel 690.
While the recent leak was minor, stress corrosion cracking was blamed for a 1993 heating tube rupture inside Unit 2 that dumped 100 gallons of radioactive water per minute into the reactor's steam generator and was vented into the atmosphere.
Dricks said stress corrosion cracking of components made of Iconel 600 has been blamed for recent leaks at the South Texas Project near Houston and at Seabrook Station in New Hampshire.
The NRC suggests that particularly damaged components be replaced, but has not required that Iconel 600 components be replaced industrywide.
APS' Levine said the leaking Unit 3 heater sleeve will be repaired, but not replaced until 2007 when new steam generators will be installed. Iconel 600 components in Unit 1 will be replaced with a new steam generator next year, Levine said. Units 1 and 3 also contain heating tubes made of Iconel 600.
Each of the three units at Palo Verde is capable of generating about 1,300 megawatts of electricity, enough to light 400,000 homes.
Defect shutters Palo Verde unit
Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station
Description: Three-unit, uranium-fueled, steam-electric nuclear generating station. Palo Verde is a pressurized water reactor.
Location: 50 miles west of Phoenix.
Owners:
a.. APS, 29.1 percent.
a.. SRP, 17.5 percent.
a.. El Paso Electric Co., 15.8 percent.
a.. Southern California Edison, 15.8 percent.
a.. Public Service Co. of New Mexico, 10.2 percent.
a.. Southern California Public Power Authority, 5.6 percent.
a.. Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power, 5.7 percent.
Operator: Arizona Public Service Co.
Power is distributed based on percentage of ownership.
Capacity: 3,890 megawatts from two 1,270 MW units and one 1,360 MW unit. It is the largest nuclear power plant in the country.
Plant construction: Construction began in June 1976. Unit 1 was completed in January 1986, Unit 2 in September 1986 and Unit 3 in January 1988.
Construction costs: $4.7 billion for construction and $1.2 billion for pre-operational and start-up testing, for a total of $5.9 billion.
Emissions: Palo Verde is a zero-emissions facility.
Plant life: 40 years with a possible 20 additional years.
Spent-fuel storage: On site until Yucca Valley repository in Nevada is completed.
Regulation: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Three NRC inspectors are on site. Arizona Corporation Commission has authority over the plant as it affects utility rates.
Employees: 2,000.
-------- asia
MALAYSIA - U.S. plea to control nuke exports rejected
March 03, 2004
Washington Times
World Scene
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene.htm
KUALA LUMPUR - A high-ranking U.S. envoy urged Malaysia's leaders yesterday to crack down on nuclear trafficking, but the country's foreign minister said there was no immediate need to tighten export controls to prevent the spread of technology.
The discussions follow the seizure of a shipment of nuclear centrifuge parts made by a Malaysian company controlled by a son of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
-------- europe
Swedish nuclear watchdog allays fears about missing uranium
STOCKHOLM (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040303153804.x8rejg7a.html
Sweden's nuclear watchdog on Wednesday rejected claims, attributed to a US secret service agent, that up to 100 kilos of Swedish uranium may have fallen into the wrong hands.
"We keep close tabs on this stuff. None of the uranium is missing," said Anders Joerla, a spokesman for the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI).
SKI has disclosed that the Swedish company Ranstad Minerals, which recycles nuclear waste into uranium, has shown some discrepancies in records on the amount of nuclear waste treated and the amount of uranium it has in store.
Since the 1990s, as much as 100 kilos (220 pounds) of the potentially bomb-making material is unaccounted for, Joerla said.
But he said such descrepencies were often due to calculation errors and there was nothing to indicate that the uranium had actually gone missing.
"When you produce uranium from nuclear waste, it's a very complex process," Joerla told AFP. "It's very difficult to calculate how much uranium is actually in the nuclear products... If you overestimate how much uranium is in the products, records will show less uranium than expected."
Reports in the Swedish press on Wednesday said the US Central Intelligence Agency feared that the uranium that remains unaccounted for may have fallen into "terrorist" hands.
A CIA agent quoted by the Swedish daily Expressen also charged that Ranstad Minerals was a "security risk".
"We have acted at a high level to get the Swedes to stop the company in Ranstad," the agent, whose name was not revealed, told the paper. "It is incredible that the the Swedish security police haven't stopped (this) company."
Joerla however insisted that SKI keeps all dealings with nuclear material under tight supervision.
"We don't have much faith in the CIA," he added. "They couldn't find any (nuclear weapons) in Iraq, and they're not going to find any missing uranium in Sweden."
-------- iran
IAEA chief ElBaradei hopes Iran has told the whole nuclear truth
LONDON (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040303005445.ucpav6sb.html
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said Tuesday that he hoped omissions by Iran in disclosing details of its nuclear program would be their last.
"I trust, I hope that this was the last time that something would come trickling down again from their past activities," ElBaradei said in an interview with the BBC's Newsnight programme.
"Large or small, it's important that they declare everything to build the confidence," he said.
The IAEA said late last month that Iran had failed to report possibly weapons-related atomic activities despite promising full disclosure.
It said Tehran had not told the IAEA it had designs for sophisticated "P-2" centrifuges for enriching uranium, nor that it had produced polonium-210, an element which the agency said could be used as a "neutron initiator (to start the chain reaction) in some designs of nuclear weapons."
ElBaradei told the BBC he "would not have conceived" proliferation on the scale that emerged in February when Pakistan's Abdul Qadeer Khan admitted supplying nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
"I think it is coming as a total shock to pretty much everybody," he said.
"It was really beyond anybody's imagination, at least beyond my imagination, that this -- such a sophisticated complex network of black markets in nuclear facilities, in even bomb design -- has been going on underground," he said.
It was "still an open question" whether other countries had acquired nuclear equipment or knowledge, ElBaradei said.
"We need national laws to criminalise any effort by any individual or companies that aim to illicitly traffic in equipment or material that could lead to nuclear weapons proliferation," he said.
As for Libya, which late last year decided to abandon all weapons of mass destruction programmes, ElBaradei was in no doubt that it was only a matter of time before they developed a nuclear weapon.
The IAEA chief said the Iraq war had benefited his work because it showed that the country had been effectively disarmed through inspection, and people now realised he needed more time to do his job.
"I think maybe the positive message that came out of Iraq maybe was that the international community will not tolerate proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," he said.
In the wake of spying accusations levelled against Washington and London, ElBaradei said he took it for granted that he had been bugged.
"It doesn't make you feel good because there is an invasion of privacy clearly," he said.
--------
U.S., Europe at Odds on Strategy on Iran
March 3, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-nuclear-usa-iran.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Key European allies have rejected a U.S. push to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions due to its nuclear activities but Washington still hopes some sort of tough statement calling Tehran to task will be adopted next week, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
Although the United States and its allies have expressed concern about Iran's nuclear pursuits, the issue is sowing new transatlantic divisions, with Washington demanding tougher action against the oil-rich Islamic republic than the Europeans are willing to consider.
``Everybody is a little bit shy about what to dobecause the European Union 3 (Britain, France and Germany) has hijacked the process,'' one U.S. official told Reuters.
``What this has done ... is to drive a wedge between the United States and the EU3. It creates a lot of uncertainty ... There are countries out there who are always going to give Iran the benefit of the doubt,'' he said.
The 35-member board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will meet on March 8 with Libya and Iran key items on the agenda.
Late last year, Iran acknowledged it was secretly developing a broad range of nuclear capabilities for 18 years.
In November, however, the IAEA board opted not to sanction Iran for these disclosures after Tehran, in negotiations with the EU3, pledged new cooperation, including snap inspections and a temporary halt to enriching uranium, a bomb fuel.
Since then, there have been new revelations about Iran's program and an IAEA report last week concluded Tehran still had not answered key questions about its programs.
LOOKING TO JUNE
Iran, which insists its nuclear programs are peaceful, made another pledge to halt all uranium enrichment.
The United States insists evidence is mounting that Tehran is bent on producing nuclear weapons but IAEA Director General Mohammed ElBaradei this week hailed a ``sea change'' in Iran and voiced confidence it would make good on its new pledges.
U.S. officials said previously that the IAEA board might not be ready at its March meeting to declare Iran in non-compliance with its international obligations and refer the issue to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
But Undersecretary of State John Bolton, the top U.S. non-proliferation official, was in London for new talks this week and President Bush has also weighed in in phone calls to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other leaders.
``We did our darndest to get a non-compliance resolution,'' one official said.
U.S. officials and experts fear that failing to take action against Iran would undermine the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, a bedrock against the spread of nuclear weapons.
Now U.S. officials said they are looking to have the IAEA board adopt a statement that keeps Iran on the agenda and underscores concern about the new revelations.
``We want to be tougher (than the Europeans) and call Iran to task for past failures. The question is whether it will be tough enough to meet our standards and to convince Iran we really do mean business,'' one U.S. official said.
U.S. officials say if they are patient now, they will be in a stronger position to advocate censuring Iran at the next IAEA board meeting in June.
But a European diplomat disagreed. ``It wouldn't make sense to set unrealistic deadlines, especially if we knew the IAEA would not have time to do a full technical analysis of the data'' on Iran, he said.
At next week's meeting, the United States, Britain and Libya will sponsor a resolution praising Libya for its recent decision to abandon its nuclear programs and highlight by comparison Iran's refusal to do so, a U.S. official said.
Significantly, the board will refer the Libya issue to the U.N. Security Council because that is what the NPT demands in any case of a violation, and it sets a precedent for possible future action against Iran, he added.
-------- iraq / inspections
U.N. Inspectors Seek Lessons From Iraq
March 3, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Weapons-Inspectors.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- U.N. inspectors are analyzing Iraq's past weapons programs for insight on how to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, according to a report Tuesday to the U.N. Security Council.
The quarterly report by the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, outlines key elements in a summary of Iraq's weapons programs.
These include the political environment that led Saddam Hussein's government to establish chemical and biological weapons programs, the degree to which Iraq saw the programs as being a deterrent, and their role in the country's military doctrine. ``While Iraq followed the same general routes and experience as other states, it did adopt some unique methods and activities,'' the report said. ``Iraq's programs reveal elements which it is essential to understand if wider nonproliferation efforts are to be strengthened.''
According to the report, Iraq diverted research projects undertaken for defensive purposes to offensive activities.
Iraq's Chemical Corps was created in the mid-1960s to protect troops and civilians from nuclear, biological and chemical attacks. It established a laboratory to gain practical experience in the synthesis of chemical warfare agents as part of its defensive research, the report said.
That laboratory trained Iraqi experts who were instrumental in future chemical weapons research and production, it said.
Iraqi industry and its conventional weapons programs also contributed to the development of chemical and biological weapons.
For example, a building used to produce vaccine for foot and mouth disease was transformed later for the large-scale production of botulism toxin, which can be used as a biological weapon, the report said.
UNMOVIC said that in several instances, ``Iraq created cover stories or actual parallel projects to ensure that suppliers or those providing technical assistance would not become aware of the true nature of the facilities where their equipment or expertise was to be used.''
The report also found what former chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has said -- that Iraq's chemical and biological weapons were destroyed largely before 1994.
``It's just confirmation,'' Blix told The Associated Press in Stockholm by mobile phone from Kiev, Ukraine. ``It's no secret that no weapons have been destroyed since 1994. The last report that I signed in May last year, in an appendix there is information that points in the same direction.''
``There was nothing that ruled out the possibility'' that banned weapons did exist, he said. ``We never denied that they could exist. It's now after the war that it seems that there are no weapons.''
UNMOVIC spokesman Ewen Buchanan said Blix's final report showed that the things that were destroyed after 1994 ``were basically production equipment and facilities.''
``The small finds of weapons in the second half of the 1990s were deemed to be just remnants of old programs, and not indications of hidden stockpiles,'' Buchanan said.
-------- japan
8 Japanese Workers Exposed to Radiation
March 3, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-Radiation-Exposure.html
TOKYO (AP) -- Eight workers were exposed to low-level radiation at a power plant in northwestern Japan last month when they were accidentally sprayed with contaminated water, an official said Wednesday. The doses were not considered dangerous.
The Feb. 25 accident at Japan Atomic Power Co.'s Tsuruga plant, 205 miles northwest of Tokyo, was reported for the first time Wednesday in the company's monthly report of minor incidents, Fukui prefecture spokesman Shiro Konishi said.
Konishi said nuclear plant operators are only required to file immediate reports about high-level radiation exposure.
Tests on the workers showed the radiation doses they received were about one-twentieth the allowable limit, he said. They were examined and released by doctors.
The plant workers had turned off a pump to repair a hose used to pump water between pools where spent plutonium rods are kept, Konishi said. Another worker switched the pump on before they reconnected the hose, drenching their faces and safety suits with contaminated water, he said.
They immediately rinsed with clean water, he said.
Resource-poor Japan relies on nuclear power for about 30 percent of its electricity.
-------- korea
US wants expansion to missiles, human rights in North Korea talks
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040303020427.xshlpnqz.html
The United States insisted Tuesday that six-nation North Korea crisis talks had made progress despite the lack of a breakthrough, and said the forum should be expanded to cover contentious issues like missiles and human rights.
Talks fizzled out in Beijing last week after four days with only an agreement to establish working groups and to convene again before June.
But US Secretary of State Colin Powell put a positive spin on the meeting, and told North Korea it could expect a wide range of benefits if it ditched its nuclear crusade.
He said during a speech to a luncheon hosted by the Heritage Foundation that the meeting between the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and China, had made "a good deal of progress."
"We haven't got where we need to be, what I am especially pleased about is that we have institutionalised the process with working groups and we are already getting ready for the next meeting."
Powell said the five parties had made clear to the starving communist state that it could join the Northern Pacific community and receive assistance if it ended its nuclear programs.
Washington has consistenly warned since the crisis erupted over a year ago that it will not reward North Korea for breaking anti-nuclear agreements.
But it has signalled it may not object to some kind of formula in which other parties to the talks provide inducements to North Korea -- as long as nuclear demobilisation is under way.
Unlike the United States, North Korea had felt there was a lack of progress at the talks and accused Washington of maintaining a hardline stance towards it.
US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly was also upbeat about the Beijing talks although he said key, substantial differences remained and needed to be addressed in further discussions.
Speaking at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Kelly said the six-nation forum should in fact be expanded to cover missiles, conventional forces and human rights.
He said while the Beijing talks focused on the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear programmes, "we also made clear that there are other issues that, as the nuclear issue begins to unfold, can be discussed with the United States."
"Missiles, conventional forces and serious human rights concerns could be discussed, and progress could lead to full normalisation," he said.
North Korea and the United States, Cold War foes for more 50 years currently have no diplomatic ties and establishing such links has been a key demand from Pyongyang.
Kelly also said that Washington, which has accused the Stalinist state of launching a program to enrich uranium in defiance of a 1994 anti-nuclear pact, had stressed to North Korea at the talks to emulate Libya's recent decision to disarm.
Committee chairman Dick Lugar cautioned that any satisfactory agreement with the North Koreans on permanently ending their nuclear program must ensure absolute verification.
"As talks continue, we must begin to think about how a negotiated settlement to the North Korea nuclear question could be effectively implemented," Lugar said.
Terence Taylor, a representative of the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies in the United States, suggested that any disarmament by North Korea be monitored by a UN inspection commission or by the five parties discussing the nuclear issue with Pyongyang.
Taylor stressed that the verification process should demonstrate early a genuine commitment to disarm.
"The trap for the US and North Korea's neighbours engaged in the six party talks to avoid is to be drawn into a lengthy process while, for example, a clandestine uranium enrichment process continues enabling enough fissile material to be produced to equip a small arsenal of nuclear weapons," he said.
----
China seeks all-party consultation on broader Korean nuclear talks agenda
BEIJING (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040303111238.ki57vqcp.html
China said Wednesday a decision on broadening the agenda for six-nation talks on the North Korean nuclear issue should be made in consultation with all parties involved in the negotiations.
The Chinese foreign ministry's remark came after the United States suggested that it wanted the six-party talks to be expanded to cover missiles, conventional forces and human rights.
"The six-party talks provide a framework for the peaceful solution of the nuclear issue through dialogue, and each party can raise its own concerns," the ministry said in a faxed response to AFP.
"But the parties must consult with each other about how to set the agenda items."
US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, the top American envoy to the six-party talks in Beijing, told a US Senate hearing Tuesday that other issues apart from North Korea's nuclear program could be put on the agenda.
"Missiles, conventional forces and serious human rights concerns could be discussed, and progress could lead to full normalization," he said.
A second round of six-nation talks, involving China, the United States, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia, ended last week in the Chinese capital with agreement to establish working groups and meet again before the end of June.
----
Bush Meets With FM Ban
Mar. 3, 2004
Chosun Ilbo
(Joo Yong-joong, midway@chosun.com )
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200403/200403030017.html
The meeting between Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki-moon and United States President George W. Bush was not a planned one. Ban was initially at the White House to talk with National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice. It is extremely rare for the U.S. head of state to meet with visiting foreign ministers other than during summit gatherings. The meeting lasted for approximately thirty minutes and was attended by Rice, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, and Michael Green, Director of Asian Affairs for the National Security Council.
President Bush asked Ban four questions, reported Kim Sook, head of the Korean foreign ministry's North American affairs bureau. He asked two questions; how Korea views the results of last week's six-way talks in Beijing, and whether Korea thinks the North really has any intention of renouncing its nuclear program. To the first question, Ban said while Korea entirely satisfied with the results of the six-way talks, there were nevertheless a few positive signs, and to the second question, he responded by telling Bush that he believes ultimately North Korea will give up its nuclear designs.
Bush reportedly said he felt the talks were able to deliver the North a clear and common message about the need for it to forego its nuclear program, and that he has come to be confident that the North Korean nuclear issue can be resolved peacefully.
Bush then asked whether the Korean people are still nervous about the relocation of U.S. troops, to which Ban responded by saying that some in Korean society are indeed nervous about the moving of the U.S. military installation currently in Seoul's Yongsan neighborhood, but that "U.S. and Korean military authorities are working in agreement to quiet the concerns.
Bush then said that during a visit to Seoul, he was surprised to see an American military base in what for Korea must be expensive real estate. He said that the decision was made to relocate the installation because some Koreans were upset at the inability to put the land there to proper use.
Finally, Bush asked if the inter-Korean relationship had developed to the point where both sides were able to communicate by telephone. Ban told him that there ere 38 official contacts in 2003, and that there would be opportunity for contact in a multiparty context during the Association of Southeast Nations meeting this year.
Bush said he believes US-Korean relations are developing on a firm foundation, and praised President Roh Moo-hyun for his contributions to the relationship, saying he values the special relationship he believes he has with Roh. About the possibility he might visit Seoul this year in response to an invitation from Roh, however, Bush did not give a firm answer, saying only that he expects to be very busy.
----
Bush Envoy Briefs Panel After Talks on A-Bombs
March 3, 2004
New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/03/politics/03KORE.html
WASHINGTON, March 2 - President Bush's chief negotiator with North Korea told a Senate panel on Tuesday that it was "quite possible" that the country had turned all 8,000 of its spent nuclear fuel rods into plutonium to fuel nuclear weapons.
The assessment, by James A. Kelly, the assistant secretary of state for Asia, who just returned from negotiations with North Korea in Beijing, left open the possibility that while the Bush administration has been conducting painstakingly slow negotiations with the North, the government there made good on its threats to produce several new atomic bombs.
But after his testimony, Mr. Kelly said that formal intelligence assessments of North Korea's arsenal had not changed, and that "the operative phrase I used is, `We don't know for sure.' "
Until Tuesday, the administration's public position had been that it believed that North Korea, at worst, had turned only a portion of the spent fuel rods into nuclear fuel.
The rods were under international inspection until Jan. 1, 2003, when North Korea ordered the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspectors to leave the country. After that, the rods were moved from storage at Yongbyon, the country's main nuclear complex.
Ever since, the American intelligence agencies have been wrestling with the question of how many rods have been reprocessed and how quickly North Korea's nuclear arsenal has grown.
The country is believed to have produced one or two weapons in the early 1990's during the administration of Mr. Bush's father. If it has now produced five or six more, as some intelligence officials estimate, that could create a far more difficult disarmament challenge: the North could hide several, and perhaps sell one or two, as it has periodically threatened to do.
President Bush has said he would never tolerate a nuclear North Korea. But Tuesday morning, meeting South Korea's new foreign minister, Ban Ki Moon, Mr. Bush did not appear impatient with the slow pace of the talks.
"He understood this is going to take time," said a senior Asian official familiar with the meeting.
Mr. Bush's tone seemed to convey a sense that the talks could continue for much of this year. Asian officials say they suspect that the North Koreans may be delaying in hopes that Mr. Bush will not be re-elected, or to complete more nuclear work during the election, a period in which they believe Mr. Bush will not risk a military confrontation.
In his testimony, Mr. Kelly said the North Koreans continued to deny the existence of a second nuclear weapons program, one involving highly enriched uranium and based on technology obtained from Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist. But he said those denials were less vociferous than in the past, perhaps because the North Koreans knew that Mr. Khan had delivered a detailed confession of his activities.
Mr. Kelly suggested that, slowly, the North Koreans might be willing to include the uranium program in the talks, even though he did not explain how they could do this without acknowledging its existence. "It was clear by the conclusion of the talks that this is now very much on the table," he told the senators.
Last week, speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said the results of the Pakistani investigation were bolstering American efforts to get North Korea to acknowledge a second nuclear effort.
"Now the North Koreans should also recognize that, with the unraveling of these proliferation networks, the A. Q. Kahn network, what the Libyans are now freely admitting and talking about, that their admissions and what they say is not the only source of information about what's going on in North Korea," Ms. Rice said. "And it's probably a good time for the North Koreans to come clean."
--------
North Korea to Consider U.S. Nuke Demand
March 3, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Korea-Nuclear.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- North Korea agreed in the latest nuclear weapons talks to consider a U.S. demand that it dismantle its programs based both on plutonium and uranium, the chief U.S. negotiator told lawmakers Tuesday.
``The North Koreans came to the table denying a uranium enrichment program,'' Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
But, in a reversal, he said, ``It was clear by the conclusion of the talks that this is now very much on the table.''
Kelly cited the developments in Beijing as evidence of ``a very different, promising atmosphere'' in the latest round of negotiations.
As Kelly spoke, Secretary of State Colin Powell avoided specifics but offered an upbeat assessment of the talks and said cooperation at the negotiating table with South Korea and other allies was unprecedented.
In a speech to an Asian studies group, Powell said North Korea can expect good relations with its neighbors in the North Pacific once it ends its program and embraces a policy of political and economic openness now sweeping the area.
While the Bush administration has ruled out concessions to North Korea as a payoff to end its nuclear weapons program, Powell said without elaboration: ``We want to help the people of North Korea, who are in such difficulty now.''
Referring to the U.S. partners in the six-nation talks that recessed last week in Beijing, Powell said the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia ``have made it clear to North Korea that a better future awaits them, that none of these nations is intent on attacking them or destroying them.''
There was a good deal of progress at the latest round, Powell said. ``We haven't gotten where we need to be,'' he said, ``but what I am especially pleased about is that we have institutionalized now the process with working groups and we're already getting ready for the next meeting.''
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the six-party talks ``produced a noticeable step forward'' toward a nuclear weapons-free Korean peninsula. He said the four-day meeting ``opened a pathway to full-fledged and continuing negotiations aimed at a comprehensive approach to durable peace in the region.''
Only Monday in Seoul, however, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun spoke of creating a foreign policy more independent of the United States. ``Step by step, we should strengthen our independence and build our strength as an independent nation,'' he said in a nationally televised speech.
On Tuesday, the new South Korean foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, met with President Bush and Powell at the White House. U.S. officials provided no account of the meeting.
The main theme of Powell's speech to the Asia Studies Center of the Heritage Foundation, a private research group, was that democracy was on the rise in Asia.
Just 40 years ago, he said, only one genuine democracy existed in East Asia, Japan, and two incomplete democracies, the Philippines and Malaysia.
In the rest of Asia, he said, only India had a solid democratic tradition.
The common conclusion, accepted even by some Asians, was that Asian societies had no interest in democratic government, Powell said.
Then came democratic successes in South Korea and Thailand and later Mongolia and Indonesia, Powell said. Taiwan followed, and then East Timor, and last year half a million people marched through Hong Kong in peaceful opposition to legislation that would have curbed civil liberties, he said.
Powell, in a pointed message to China, said Hong Kong must remain open and tolerant, even though the former British colony is under Chinese law.
He said in another message that the United States strongly opposes any use by China of force or threats across the Taiwan Strait, meaning against Taiwan.
The secretary said, however, that the United States does not support independence for Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province.
-------- treaties
UN casts wary eye at global growth of nuclear power
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
By Reuters
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-03-03/s_13658.asp
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Tuesday there were signs of a possible increase in the use of nuclear power, despite concerns about the safety of atomic power and the proliferation of arms technology.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said there were indications the stagnation in the construction of atomic power plants may be ending.
"Current expansion and growth prospects for nuclear power are centered in Asia," ElBaradei said in comments prepared for delivery at a European Parliament conference on Europe's energy choices.
"Of the 31 (nuclear reactors) under construction worldwide, 18 are located in India, Japan, South Korea and China - including Taiwan. Twenty of the last 29 reactors to be connected to the grid are also in the Far East and South Asia."
ElBaradei said memories of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster at a reactor in then-Soviet Ukraine continued to influence public perceptions of nuclear power in some countries.
But some analysts saw an increasingly strong case for nuclear power in an environmentally conscious Europe because it produced "virtually no greenhouse gases."
Whether European governments chose to shut down existing plants or build more nuclear reactors, ElBaradei said they would receive the support of the U.N. agency.
The Risk of Proliferation
In addition to nuclear safety and security concerns, ElBaradei reiterated the global nonproliferation regime was under stress.
ElBaradei was referring to the discovery of the existence of a global nuclear black market that has sold weapons-related technology to states like Iran and North Korea, suspected of having atom bomb programs, and Libya, which admitted to trying to build a nuclear weapon and has agreed to disarm.
The IAEA chief said that unfortunately under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty a state could develop the capacity to make nuclear weapons and then withdraw from the treaty to put the final touches to its atomic arsenal.
"If a state with a fully developed fuel-cycle capability and highly industrialized infrastructure were to decide ... to break away from (the NPT), most experts believe it could produce a nuclear weapon within a matter of months," he said.
For that reason, he repeated his proposal that no single country be permitted to develop the entire nuclear fuel cycle. Rather, only multinational entities should engage in sensitive fuel-cycle activities such as the enrichment of uranium.
------ u.s. nuc weapons
50 Years Later, Nuclear Blast Felt on Bikini Atoll
Story by Ben Gruber
REUTERS MARSHALL ISLANDS:
March 3, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24077/story.htm or http://www.enn.com/news/2004-03-03/s_13655.asp
BIKINI ATOLL, Marshall Islands - At first glance, it looks like a tropical paradise: an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where palm trees encircling a pristine blue-green lagoon sway in the breeze.
But to the native islanders, Bikini Atoll is more like an exhausted, scorched wasteland, where they eke out an existence in a place that today is forgotten by much of the world. But on March 1, 1954, it became ground zero during the Cold War.
A half century ago yesterday, the United States conducted its largest nuclear test. Code-named Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb detonated on Bikini Atoll, producing an intense fireball followed by a 20-mile-high mushroom cloud.
The hurricane-force winds generated by the blast stripped the branches and coconuts from Bikini's remaining trees. A small fleet of ships, including the USS Saratoga and the Nagato, Japanese Admiral Yamamoto's flagship, were engulfed in the nuclear explosion and plunged to the bottom of the lagoon.
Radioactive fallout spread quickly, drifting toward Rongelap, an inhabited island nearby. Survivors remember the event vividly.
"It was the first time I saw the sun rise in the West," recalls Lemyo Enob, age 14 at the time. "At first, I did not know what it was, but then I understand it was a big bomb."
The 'sun' that day was a thousand times more powerful than the blast at Hiroshima, the Japanese city where the first atomic bomb was dropped and prompted the end of World War II.
He also remembers the effects of the fallout from the bomb: "Something like powder fell on us, Some of the people got nausea, some had diarrhea and they became red."
Although the U.S. nuclear testing campaign at the islands ended in 1958, its legacy became more evident in the years that followed, with the slow emergence of long-term health effects of the islanders' radiation exposure.
Jack Niedenthal, as the trust liaison for the people of Bikini, tries to represent their interests to governments thousands of miles away.
SUFFERING ALL AROUND
"There are a lot of cancers out in the Marshall islands," Niedenthal says. "I can just go down the list of my wife's family. ... My wife's mother died of cancer of the uterus, my wife's uncle died of thyroid cancer." Nearly every islander can scan his family and see the same suffering, he said. With only a few doctors, the hospital on Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, is repeatedly overwhelmed. Hundreds of people line up to wait for appointments with the understaffed medical team.
Niedenthal says the long-term effect of radiation is only one of the health hurdles the Marshallese face. The introduction of processed foods to people who had once subsisted solely on fish and fruits has created unwanted medical conditions: diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.
And for the Bikinians, life has never been the same since the U.S. military moved them from their homes in 1946, when the Cold War started. The atoll became a test site for what would turn out to be a total of 23 atomic and hydrogen bomb tests to gauge the effects the blasts would have on warships and to maintain America's nuclear superiority.
But it would prove more devastating to the people.
The Bikinians were moved to Rongerik Atoll, which had a much smaller food supply, and within weeks they faced starvation. They eventually asked to be returned to their native land, but their homes were now located on radioactive wasteland.
Over the next 20 years, the Bikinians were moved several times. In 1967 some 150 people were returned to Bikini, only to be evacuated again when it was discovered that radioactive Cesium 137 had contaminated the food chain.
A SCATTERED PEOPLE
Today Bikinians remain scattered throughout the Marshall Islands. On Ejit Island, bare-footed children play marbles outside shanty homes as women wash plastic dishes in aluminum containers. The children swim in the lagoon and eat indigenous fruit such as pandanas and coconuts after returning from school where they learn English from foreign volunteers.
There is little economic activity to bring in foreign capital. Ironically, the testing left a treasure trove for dive enthusiasts who explore the sunken U.S. and Japanese aircraft carriers, warships and submarines off Bikini Atoll.
While fish from the lagoon are considered safe for consumption, tourists are not allowed to eat local vegetation, still considered toxic because of radioactive elements.
"People always ask me if I glow in the dark," joked head dive master Tim Williams.
However, tourism earnings are not enough to sustain the islanders. More than half of the country's income is derived from U.S assistance, and most Marshallese live on less than a dollar a day, said one Marshallese official. The people of Bikini Atoll want the U.S government to fulfill a promise it made more than half a century ago - to restore their homeland to the way it was prior to nuclear testing. But a Bush administration official in February could not confirm that U.S. promise.
Niedenthal, who has visited Washington with Bikinian leaders, says the fight for reparations has not been easy.
Under agreements between the United States and the Marshall Islands, a Nuclear Claims Tribunal was established to assess and award damages to victims of the nuclear tests. In 1999, the tribunal awarded more than $500 million to the people of Bikini and to complete its cleanup.
But the tribunal has never had the cash to fully compensate the Marshallese for the damage done, although a Bush administration official said U.S. assistance to the Marshall Islands is "one of the largest aid packages per capita in the world."
Officials in the Marshallese government say it would take $1.5 to $2.5 billion to complete the cleanup and to compensate the victims of the tests - a fraction of the billions to be spent rebuilding Iraq.
Tomaki Juda, a Marshallese senator, notes the U.S. expenditures to help rebuild the infrastructure destroyed by the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Why won't they do the same for us?" he asks.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Relicensing: Retrofitting Nuclear Edsels
Status of License Renewal Applications and Industry Activities
Three Mile Island Alert
By Eric Joseph Epstein
3-3-4
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications.html
Applications Currently Under Review:
H.B. Robinson Nuclear Plant, Unit 2 - Application received June 17, 2002
R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant, Unit 1 - Application received August 1, 2002
V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, Unit 1 - Application received August 6, 2002
Dresden, Units 2 and 3, and Quad Cities, Units 1 and 2 - Application received January 3, 2003
Farley, Units 1 and 2 - Application received September 15, 2003
Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2 - Application received October 15, 2003
D.C. Cook, Units 1 and 2 - Application received November 3, 2003
Browns Ferry, Units 1, 2, and 3 - Application received January 6, 2004
Millstone, Units 2 and 3 - Application received January 22, 2004
Point Beach, Units 1 and 2 - Application received February 25, 2004
Future Submittals of Applications:
Nine Mile Point, Units 1 and 2 - May 2004
Beaver Valley, Units 1 and 2 - September 2004
Brunswick, Units 1 and 2 - December 2004
Monticello - January-March 2005
Not Publicly Announced - January-March 2005
Entergy Plant - July 2005
Not Publicly Announced - July 2005
Entergy Plant - December 2005
Susquehanna, Units 1 and 2 - July-September 2006
Entergy Plant - July 2006
Not Publicly Announced - July 2006
Wolf Creek - September 2006
Harris - October-December 2006
Not Publicly Announced - January 2007
Vogtle, Units 1 and 2 - June 2007
Hope Creek - July-September 2007
Salem - July-September 2007
Nuclear power plants were designed, constructed and licensed to operate for 40 years. Dozens of plants have been forced into early retirement due to accidents, mechanical problems and technical flaws; including, Dresden-1, Fermi-1, Fort Saint Vrain, Indian Point-1, San Onfore-1, Three Mile Island-2, and Trojan.
In fact the energy source that was once touted as 'being to cheap to meter', has priced itself out of competition. 'Consumers Energy closed Big Rock simply due to economics. In a deregulated utility environment, the small size of the plant was likely to make continued operation uneconomical (Consumers Energy, Press Release). Economic pressures have forced Haddam Neck, Humboldt Bay, Main Yankee, Millstone-1, Rancho Seco, and Zion 1 & 2, to close 'prematurely'.
Shoreham, operated for two full-power days, or .000136986% of its estimated operating life, and closed before it could begin commercial operation. America's aging nuclear fleet continues to produce approximately 20-30 metric tons of toxic, high-level radioactive waste per year, per reactor. The technology and funds necessary to safely manage and isolate nuclear sewage does not exist. Yet most plants have devoted their 'scare' resources to 'uprates', or increasing their generating capacity factor.
Continued: http://rense.com/general49/retrdd.htm
-------- new mexico
Nuclear panel halts uranium mining at Navajo sites
Wednesday, March 3, 2004
Indianz.Com
http://www.indianz.com/News/archive/000454.asp
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday ordered a company to stop mining at two sites on the Navajo Nation pending approval of a new financial assurance plan.
Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining and Southwest Research and Information Center intervened against Hydro Resources Inc. A three-judge panel of the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board said the company must correct several deficiencies at its Church Rock and Crownpoint sites in New Mexico.
Uranium mining on he Navajo Nation has killed many Navajos and caused cancer in others. Navajos attribute toxins in water and the environment to the mines.
Get the Story: Feds halt U-mining (The Gallup Independent 3/2)
Relevant Links: Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining - http://www.endaum.org
-------- ohio
NRC Eyes Possible Restart of Davis-Besse Reactor
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
March 3, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2004/2004-03-03-09.asp#anchor2
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will soon issue a decision on whether or not to allow the restart of the problem plagued Davis-Besse nuclear reactor plant near Oak Harbor, Ohio.
The plant, operated by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company has been shut down since February 2002 and has become a ready target of anti-nuclear power forces.
Critics say the plant should not be restarted and believe its history is a sad testimonial to the inadequacy of the commission.
"The Davis-Besse nuclear reactor is a reminder of the inherent problems and extreme risks of nuclear power," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "It is time for the NRC to do its job and impose the harshest penalty possible: withdrawal of the plant's operating license."
The Davis-Besse plant has a long history of problems, stretching back to 1985 when it was shut down due to a compromised cooling system.
Internal reports have shown the NRC knew that Davis-Besse was highly susceptible to cracks and leaks, in particular because since the same type of problems had occurred at similar reactors.
The federal agency established a December 31, 2001 deadline for full shutdown of the plants that it believed were of highest risk - including Davis-Besse.
But the NRC granted the company's request for a delay and did not issue a shutdown order for Davis-Besse until February 16, 2002, when the plant was scheduled for routine maintenance.
In March 2002 plant operators discovered that boric acid from a leaking nozzle had created a hole six inches deep and nearly five inches wide in the reactor lid - a problem past history predicted.
Since then, the reactor has experienced a plethora of operational problems ranging from faulty fire protection systems to weaknesses in crucial reactor coolant pumps.
The NRC's Office of the Inspector General, its internal investigative agency, judged the agency's actions as improper.
The inspector general found that the NRC knowingly permitted Davis-Besse to operate with reduced safety margins for the industry's "practical" convenience, and the agency could not assure protection of the public's health and safety due to these decisions.
FirstEnergy's managers face indictments over decisions that allowed the acid-burned hole to form in the vessel head of the Davis-Besse reactor.
A disclosure form filed November 21, 2003, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed that a federal grand jury had been meeting in Cleveland to consider indictments.
Hauter says in light of this pending legal action, FirstEnergy, which owns and operates two reactors in Ohio and two reactors in Pennsylvania, should not be permitted to run any nuclear plant until the Ohio grand jury has ruled.
"FirstEnergy's violations in the operation of the Davis-Besse reactor have been egregious, and the NRC has failed to act as the strict regulator that the public expects it to be," Hauter said. "The NRC can prove it is a serious regulator of the nuclear power industry and work to safeguard public health and safety by revoking FirstEnergy's operating license."
-------- us politics
Request for Military Spending Faces Cuts by Budget Leaders
March 3, 2004
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/03/politics/03BUDG.html
WASHINGTON, March 2 - The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee will introduce a budget resolution on Wednesday that trims President Bush's request for a 7 percent increase in military spending, Senate aides said Tuesday.
The Senate resolution and similar decisions by budget writers in the House reflect significant political pressure confronting lawmakers in the face of deficits that Congressional budget analysts say could total $2.75 trillion in the next decade.
The resolution to be introduced Wednesday by Senator Don Nickles, the Oklahoma Republican who is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, will increase military spending by $20 billion, or 5 percent, Senate aides said. That is about $7 billion less than Mr. Bush's proposal of about $402 billion, the aides said.
The House Budget Committee chairman, Representative Jim Nussle, Republican of Iowa, said he planned to cut 0.5 percent from Mr. Bush's requests on the military and domestic security. Spending on other discretionary programs - which exclude benefit programs like Medicare and Social Security - would be frozen at last year's level, Mr. Nussle said, compared with Mr. Bush's request for an increase of half a percent.
Budget leaders in both chambers also plan to outline costs for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, something the White House did not include in its budget for 2005. Mr. Nussle, whose committee will draw up its budget resolution next week, said that figure would be as much as $50 billion; Senate aides say Mr. Nickles plans to budget about $30 billion, a number suggested by some Democrats.
The House and Senate resolutions will establish the proposed framework for the actual tax and spending legislation Congress will consider this year.
Mr. Nussle said his resolution would cut the deficit by close to half in four years, and aides said Mr. Nickles' plan could do it in three years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated the 2004 deficit at $478 billion and said Mr. Bush's plan would cut it to $242 billion in three years but that it would grow after that and still be $289 billion in 2014.
Both the House and Senate proposals would cover only 5 years, in contrast to recent budgets of 10 years, a move that would spare Republicans from having to take a stand on whether to extend the Bush tax cuts, which are due to expire in 2011.
But in the Senate, budget writers plan to allow for $144 billion in tax cuts, including a proposal to accelerate the repeal of the estate tax, a priority of Mr. Bush, by one full year.
The Senate resolution will include a provision costing $3.5 billion allowing repeal of the estate tax in 2009. Under current law, the tax is to be eliminated in 2010 but reinstated the next year.
The resolution proposed by Mr. Nickles would extend three tax cuts due to expire this year: Increasing by $1,000 the amount of income subject to the 10 percent rate; keeping the child tax credit at $1,000, or $300 more than it would otherwise be; and changing the tax structure for married couples so that couples with more than $58,100 in taxable income would pay about $900 less in taxes.
Under the Senate resolution, those three cuts, along with the acceleration in the estate-tax repeal, would cost about $80 billion. Mr. Nickles' proposal also includes, at a cost of $64 billion, provisions including a one-year change to reduce the number of people who pay the alternative minimum tax.
Chad Kolton, spokesman for the White House Budget Office, said administration officials were pleased by reports that House and Senate budget writers were "serious about restraining spending and preventing tax increases."
But the pressure Republican lawmakers feel, even in wartime, to trim the White House military proposal could make it harder for Mr. Bush to portray his Democratic opponent as weak on defense for supporting military budget cuts.
Mr. Nickles' plan would increase spending on domestic security by about $4 billion and would raise spending on other discretionary programs by about $2 billion. Both of those increases are similar to the White House's requests. The Senate resolution will include cuts to slightly slow the rate of growth of entitlement programs, aides said.
But Thomas S. Kahn, Democratic staff director on the House Budget Committee, said, "What you're seeing is huge tax cuts, and the price you're paying for them is deep cuts in critical domestic services and very large deficits as far as the eye can see."
--------
Panel Plans Blueprint to Cut Bush's Budget Bids
Draft Would Trim Defense Requests
Wednesday, March 3, 2004; Page A25
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24661-2004Mar2.html
House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) plans to draft a 2005 budget blueprint that pares back President Bush's defense and homeland security requests by more than $2 billion, shaves $2 billion more from domestic programs than the president would, and orders up billions more in savings from entitlement spending.
Unlike the president's budget, the House Budget Committee plan would include funding for as much as $50 billion in war costs for next year, even as it cuts this year's deficit in half within four years, Nussle said yesterday.
The committee chairman said the budget plan would extend some expiring tax cuts -- the "marriage penalty" cut, the $1,000-per-child tax credit and the expanded 10 percent bracket -- through 2009. But Nussle would not commit to extending three other provisions in the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, a college tuition tax credit, expanded tax deductions for small-business investments, and the sharp reductions in capital gains and dividend tax rates.
The Senate Budget Committee is expected to begin drafting its tax-and-spending plan today, and that panel's chairman, Don Nickles (R-Okla.), said it would be "pretty close" to Nussle's.
But neither chairman said it would be easy to hold their colleagues in line.
The chairman and the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee are already pushing for a significant increase in Bush's defense request. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) suggested yesterday that he would simply ignore the spending caps, especially on defense.
"You cannot live within those kinds of caps," he said.
-- Jonathan Weisman
-------- MILITARY
Thousands of Girls Fighting on Front Lines
Wed Mar 3, 2004
By Bernard Woodall
(Reuters)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20040303/wl_nm/arms_girls_un_dc
UNITED NATIONS - Tens of thousands of young girls are fighting on front lines across the developing world and not just serving as cooks and sex slaves to male soldiers, according to a study released on Wednesday.
"There is a tendency to overclassify girls in the countries where we worked as sex slaves when in fact they are more often front-line fighters," said Dyan Mazurana, one of the study's authors.
Mazurana and fellow U.S.-based researcher Susan McKay wrote "Where are the Girls?" after three years interviewing more than 300 girls under 18 in northern Uganda, Sierra Leone and Mozambique. Their study, funded by the Canadian government, also looked at wars from Nepal to the Middle East to Colombia.
Girls are in battle and also in domestic service as cooks, a job that often includes providing sex on demand to male fighters, Mazurana said in an interview on the sidelines of a meeting of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.
To help such girls, who are usually kidnapped and forced into service, international aid agencies must address their often-hidden presence and role as front-line fighters, the study said.
In northern Uganda, children make up about 80 percent of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army, and up to half of those are girls, Mazurana said.
"The majority of the girls in northern Uganda, in the LRA, are 10 to 13 years old," she said.
ABDUCTIONS
Two weeks ago, the LRA, which says it wants to win a better life for Uganda's northern Acholi people but has never clearly stated its demands, killed as many as 230 people in a raid on a camp for Ugandans left homeless by the 17-year insurgency.
Girls were active in such raids, Mazurana said.
"People are not willing to join the LRA and as a result it is much more efficient for them to simply capture people and force them to participate," she said. "An accurate estimate is 50,000 people abducted by the LRA."
"In sub-Saharan Africa, if we want to understand the kind of war economies and what is at the foundation of these conflicts and how they operate, we absolutely have to pay attention to the role of youth -- boys and girls."
In Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war, which ended two years ago, 22,500 of the rebel Revolutionary United Front's 45,000 members were children, and 7,500 of them girls, the study found. A second Sierra Leone rebel group, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, had 10,000 soldiers, half of whom were children and about 1,700 were girls.
The rebel groups were infamous for their brutal tactics, including hacking off the limbs of civilians and forcing children to kill their parents and fight while high on drugs.
After the war, U.N. peacekeepers helped disarm 47,000 fighters, many of them children inured to violence.
The program set up to help the former soldiers return to civilian life helped only 5 percent of the girls linked to the two main rebel groups, Mazurana and McKay found.
Girls in Sierra Leone, Uganda and Mozambique spent from several weeks to as long as 10 years or more in the service of rebel armies and government-sponsored paramilitary groups, with the average stay being six years, Mazurana said.
-------- afghanistan
Afghanistan seeks more international help to expand national army
KABUL (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040303144456.2vz75fzt.html
Afghanistan Wednesday called for greater international support to help expand its fledgling National Army and for establishing peace, security and accelerating reconstruction in the war-torn country.
"We know reconstruction is very important in Afghanistan and we can not do that without the support of the internaional community," Afghanistan's Deputy Defence Minister General Abdul Rahim Wardak told a gathering of diplomats, ISAF and US-led coalition officers at Kabul's military training center.
"Without an army we can not secure the country which is very important for the reconstruction," Wardak said.
He said help was needed because the government planned to accelerate the process of recruitment and training of soldiers for the Afghan National Army (ANA) which currently numbered at 7,500.
"What we have done is significant, but we need to do more to accelerate the building of an army."
Kabul military training center which is run by foreign troops under a US-led program currently trains three battalions of 850 soldiers each at a time, defense ministry spokesman, General Azimi told AFP.
He said the number of ANA for Kabul central corps would reach 10,000 in few weeks after the passing out of another three battlions. He said it was planned to train more battlions possibly up to six during each training course.
Azimi the ministry also planned to establish new corps in violence-prone southern provinces of Kandahar and Paktia.
The government and the international community want the ANA to grow to be 70,000-strong and, following the disarmament of the 100,000-to-200,000 militiamen in the country, become the dominant military force in Afghanistan.
ANA soldiers regularly take part in operations in southern and eastern Afghanistan.
The troops performed military exercises, showing the skills they have learnt from their foreign trainers.
The US is leading international efforts to build Afghanistan an army to help the country with security and stability.
ANA recruits receive 50 US dollars a month during training and a minimum of 70 dollars per month after that, not a bad income in impoverished Afghanistan.
In addition to their imported uniforms and equipments, soldiers receive a seven-dollar-a-day food allowance and 60 dollars a month if they go on exercises outside the capital, Kabul. A handful of generals receive top salary of 850 dollars a month.
----
Afghanistan's poppy fields thrive
03.03.2004
New Zealand Herald
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3552518&thesection=news&thesubsection=world&thesecondsubsection
Afghanistan's poppy crop has reached unprecedented levels despite stepped-up efforts by the United States-backed Government in Kabul to stem a burgeoning drugs crisis, a US Government report says.
"Given the profound destruction brought about by more than 20 years of conflict, the lack of many viable alternative crops to opium, and the limited enforcement capacity of the central Government, poppy cultivation this year approached the highest levels ever registered," said the State Department's 2004 international narcotics strategy report.
It said that international and US surveys indicated that last year, Afghanistan produced three-quarters of the world's illicit opium.
-------- arms
Senate rejects gun-maker legislation
March 03, 2004
By Brian DeBose
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040302-113415-1251r.htm
The Senate yesterday rejected a bill to grant gun manufacturers immunity from civil-liability claims after several amendments left it unpalatable to both gun rights and gun control supporters.
The final vote on the legislation, which failed 90-8, showed more division than it did uniformity in the Senate.
Senate Democrats despised the bill as a "special-interest giveaway" - what they called a unique exemption for gun makers - even though they successfully amended the bill with three measures dear to them: an extension of the assault-weapons ban, mandatory handgun trigger locks and the removal of the gun-show loophole.
Still, most Democrats voted against the bill. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans were unwilling to accept the amendments and decided that the underlying immunity bill should be scrapped and the issue raised another day. The original bill was designed narrowly to protect gun manufacturers and licensed dealers from frivolous lawsuits.
But Senate Democrats wanted the amendments debated on the Senate floor, not in conference committee as the Republican leadership had asked for.
"When it became clear we could not get a clean bill to the president and that [Democrats] would not participate in the conference on these amendments, we weighed it down," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, said.
The quick turn of events is highly unusual in national politics said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Larry E. Craig, Idaho Republican. The judgment of interest groups also shifted just as quickly.After the gun-show and assault-weapons amendments were attached, Americans for Gun Safety, an organization that touts itself as supporting "centrist" gun-safety measures, endorsed the bill. But hours later, the group praised the defeat of the bill, calling it a "victory for [the] gun-safety movement."
The National Rifle Association, which supported the base immunity bill, changed their position after the assault ban and gun-show amendments passed. NRA officials sent a letter to senators encouraging them to vote against the bill.
"While we will continue to work to save the firearms industry, we have said from the start that we would not allow this bill to become a vehicle for added restrictions on the law-abiding people of America," NRA Executive Vice President Wayne R. LaPierre wrote.
Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat, said he was shocked but not surprised that the bill was killed after reading the letter.
"When the NRA pulls the chain in their office, that chain pulls right here in this body," Mr. Lautenberg said. "This is a moment of truth for America that constituents don't control what goes on here. Decisions are made elsewhere."
Mr. Craig, whose term as an NRA board member expires this year, downplayed the significance of the letter in his decision to kill the bill. He said the lack of commitment from Minority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, to assign conferees and the fact that the House leadership has said it would not send a bill muddled with amendments to the president were his reasons.
"The NRA, typical of any lobby, will send out e-mails to any senator one way or the other," the Idaho senator said. Mr. Craig said his job was to send a "clean bill" either with a floor vote or in conference, "but the process would not have been allowed to go on."
He also downplayed the appearance and votes cast by Democratic presidential candidates Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina, but said gun laws are clearly now a presidential election issue.
The two candidates broke from their Super Tuesday campaigning to appear on the floor and vote for the first time this session.
Both sided with Democrats to continue the current ban on assault weapons - defined as semiautomatic handguns and rifles that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition in the magazine - and close the gun-show loophole.
And the two votes made little difference as the reauthorization of the ban passed 52-47 with 10 Republicans crossing the aisle, while the amendment to close the loophole, authored by Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, passed 53-46.
"I believe the [National Rifle Association] leadership is defending the indefensible," Mr. Kerry said in what became somewhat of a campaign-stump speech. "President Bush promised to support the gun-show loophole and assault-weapons ban, and now under pressure, he is running away from his promise."
Democrats and Republicans said they were shocked by what happened on the Senate floor when the surprise negative vote began.
"I've never seen anything like this," said Mr. McCain who said he would have voted for the bill no matter what was on it.
The author of the bill to reauthorize the assault-weapons ban, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, said yesterday morning that she was "elated" when her amendment passed. But by the end of the day, she was nearly speechless about the defeat of the bill.
"My emotions are bizarre. For this to have happened is amazing. This scenario never entered my mind," Mrs. Feinstein said.
-------- asia
Vietnam, Laos pledge to improve military relations
HANOI (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040303062118.q4st1fb7.html
Vietnam and Laos have agreed to further improve relations between their two armies this year, including stepping up joint training and information exchanges, state media said Wednesday.
The pledge came in a memorandum of understanding signed in the Lao capital of Vientiane by Vietnam's army chief of staff General Phung Quang Thanh and his Lao counterpart Major General Kenkham Senglathon.
Thanh, who is also Vietnamese deputy defence minister, arrived in neighbouring Laos on Monday on a three-day visit.
He held talks Tuesday with Lao Prime Minister Boungnang Vorachit, the Vietnamese army's Quan Doi Nhan Dan newspaper said.
The countries are among the last of the world's surviving communist regimes.
Last month, during a visit to Hanoi by Soutchay Thammasith, acting Lao security minister, Vietnam pledged to work together with the Lao military to maintain security along their common border
Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai said strengthening cooperation was essential for nation building and maintaining security.
Vietnam maintained an official military presence in Laos until 1989 and continues to exert considerable political influence in the country.
Hanoi, however, has repeatedly denied that its troops are still active there, despite claims to the contrary by insurgency groups inside Laos.
Some 50,000 Vietnamese troops helped the Lao military savagely crush a guerrilla army in 1978 that had been mobilised by the US Central Intelligence Agency to fight its secret conflict in Laos during the Vietnam War.
But with the support of exile groups, mainly based in the United States, the guerrillas, mostly from the Hmong minority, have continued a low-level insurgency for nearly three decades.
-------- balkans
NATO discovers missiles in Bosnian weapons stash
BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Hercegovina (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040303142428.2k7szkl3.html
NATO-led peacekeepers said Wednesday they had found 10 surface-to-air missiles in a large stash of illegal weapons remaining from the Bosnia's 1992-95 war.
The NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) and local police discovered the arms during a five-day search in the northwest of the Balkan country, SFOR spokesman Ron Carson told a press conference.
The stash also included 147 small arms, 127 anti-tank rockets, 12 landmines, dozens of mortar rounds, hand and rifle grenades, five mortar tubes and more than six kilos (13.2 pounds of explosives.
Many of the weapons were found in two caches, one in a hut in a forest and the other in a wood factory, in the Serb-run town of Dubica, Carson added.
The peacekeepers said Tuesday they had destroyed some 3,000 surface-to-air missiles collected in northwestern Bosnia from the armies of the country's two post-war entities -- the Muslim Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska.
"Some 3,000 missiles have been destroyed as they are no longer required by the entities' forces," another SFOR spokesman, Richard Morris, told AFP.
"This is seen as a positive sign, because this means there is no danger of these weapons falling into the hands of extremists."
Some 75 percent of the destroyed surface-to-air missiles belonged to the Bosnian Serb army, he said. The Bosnian Serb government announced in January it would destroy its entire arsenal of 4,000 surface-to-air missiles.
Foreign diplomats have voiced concerns that Bosnia needs to make sure its leftover shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles do not end up in the wrong hands.
Peacekeepers are trying to retrieve all illegal weapons left over from the war.
-------- biological weapons
Sarin, a Lethal Gas Used by Aum, Developed by Nazis
REUTERS JAPAN:
March 3, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24105/story.htm
TOKYO - Here are some key facts about sarin, a lethal nerve gas that was used by the Aum Shinri Kyo doomsday cult in an attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995 that killed 12 people and made thousands ill.
The Tokyo District Court will deliver a ruling on Friday against the cult's leader, Shoko Asahara, who has been accused of ordering the attack.
- Sarin, developed but not used by the Nazis during World War II, is an extremely toxic substance that affects the nervous system by overstimulating muscles and vital organs. It can be inhaled as a gas or absorbed through skin.
- In high doses, it suffocates victims by paralysing the muscles around the lungs.
- A single drop can kill a person in a few minutes if an antidote is not administered. Death is preceded by convulsions, excessive salivation and blurred vision.
- Saddam Hussein's Iraq is believed to have used the colorless and odorless gas against Kurdish Iraqis in the 1980s.
- Before the Tokyo subway attack, the Aum cult released the gas in 1994 in a residential area in Matsumoto city in central Japan, killing seven and making 144 ill.
-------- britain
US-style terror alert ruled out
3 March 2004
This is London
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/PA_NEWPOLITICSTerrortu18alertsy?source
A US-style system of national terror alerts has been ruled out by Home Secretary David Blunkett because it could trigger panic similar to Orson Welles'' infamous adaptation of "War of the Worlds".
Mr Blunkett told MPs that he was not considering a broad hierarchy of "green, amber and red" alerts as adopted in the States.
"Without being facetious some of us are old enough to remember Orson Welles," he said. "We have got to be very careful that we don't trigger anything like that."
Mr Blunkett was referring to the dramatisation of HG Wells' novel, broadcast in 1938, which used a documentary style so realistic that people across America believed the planet had been invaded by Martians.
"We took the view that constant public reports of the changing levels (of risk) would not be helpful," Mr Blunkett told a joint session of the home affairs and defence select committees.
Asked what measures the Government had taken for evacuation of towns and cities in the event of a mass terror attack, he said terrorists aimed not only to kill but to cause fear, disrupt lives and damage economies.
"At all costs we try to avoid that taking place.
"Evacuation plans are part of preparation under the resilience programme and we would have these plans in place.
"But they have to be balanced in relation to what would happen if panic ensued."
Cheryl Plumridge of the Cabinet Office's civil contingencies secretariat said: "Mass evacuation is one of the things that we plan for but it's not a panacea in itself. It's something we're very aware of and, indeed, plan for but it's fraught with difficulties."
-------- business
3 senators demand documents from Boeing tanker-lease deal
By CHARLES POPE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
Wednesday, March 3, 2004
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/162911_tanker04.html
WASHINGTON -- Three senators yesterday demanded that the Air Force turn over internal documents connected to the controversial purchase/lease of Boeing aerial tankers, insisting the information is needed to resolve whether the planes are needed and the $20 billion deal is fiscally sound.
The request was made by John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; John McCain, R-Ariz., a leading critic of the Boeing deal; and Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the committee.
"We are a co-equal branch of government and we have our functions to perform, and it's essential that we have the appropriate documents to do our oversight," Warner said.
McCain has been seeking the documents for months, but the Air Force has been reluctant to provide them. McCain, moving to pressure the Air Force, has vowed to block confirmation of four Air Force Pentagon nominees until the documents are provided.
According to a source who has discussed the document request with McCain's staff, the documents include an internal Air Force evaluation of the likely lifespan of the existing fleet of KC-135. Those planes would be replaced by 100 767 tankers from The Boeing Co., with 80 of the planes bought outright and the remaining 20 leased.
The source, who spoke only if he were not identified, said the Air Force study McCain has requested concludes that the KC-135 fleet could serve until 2040 if adequately maintained and, in some cases, equipped with new engines.
The Air Force has insisted that the fleet must be replaced on an urgent basis. The fleet's average age is 40 years.
The Boeing tanker deal is in limbo as the Pentagon and Justice Department conduct investigations into Boeing's behavior as the deal was being negotiated and other possible conflicts of interest with Pentagon officials.
McCain is blocking confirmation of four Pentagon nominees -- including Lawrence Di Rita as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's top spokesman -- who already were approved by the Senate panel.
The committee has declined to consider Air Force Secretary James Roche's transfer to Army Secretary. P-I Washington correspondent Charles Pope can be reached at 202-263-6461 or charliepope@seattlepi.com
----
Pentagon orders nearly 2.2 billion dollars in fuel
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040302230835.kprtdtnr.html
The Pentagon Tuesday awarded 14 oil refining companies nearly 2.2 billion dollars in fuel contracts for delivery over the next year.
The largest single contract was for 757,888, 204 dollars and went to Shell Oil Products US of Houston, Texas.
The other contracts awarded by the Defense Energy Support Center at Fort Belvoir, Virginia went to refining companies in Aruba, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Colorado, Minnesota and Illinois.
-------- canada
A fight not finished for vets
Canada apologizes to ex-soldiers for chemical tests of last century. But for many, it's not enough.
By Doug Alexander
The Christian Science Monitor
March 03, 2004
http://csmonitor.com/2004/0303/p14s01-woam.html
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA - It was almost 60 years ago, but Bill Tanner is still haunted by memories of being gassed during World War II. On July 3, 1945, he and nine other Canadian soldiers stood under the sweltering sun awaiting orders as artillery fire echoed across the field.
"There were mortar shells bursting in the distance, forming craters 8 to 10 feet deep," the veteran recalls. "We were told to crawl into those craters on our bellies and back out." They weren't told that those craters were choked with mustard gas.
Mr. Tanner wasn't gassed by the enemy on some foreign battlefield - it was by his own country at an isolated facility in the Canadian prairies. He was one of 3,500 "volunteers" for secret chemical warfare experiments conducted by the Canadian military between 1942 and the 1970s.
None of the soldiers was told he'd be exposed to toxic chemicals. They were, however, promised extra pay, better food, and time off. They were also sworn to secrecy, and for years endured in silence various health problems, including diagnoses of lung disease and cancer.
"To meet me you'd think I was perfectly normal, but I'm not better," Tanner says from his Kelowna, British Columbia, home. "I'm hurt and very disappointed and I'm insulted that my country would treat me the way they did."
Last month, after decades of inaction, the Canadian government made the veterans a $50 million (Canadian; US$37 million) apology. Those subjected to chemical testing have been offered C$24,000 apiece in a "recognition program."
"We're finally setting things right for the chemical-test veterans," Defence Minister David Pratt said at the Feb. 19 announcement. "Today, we show our appreciation for these extraordinary veterans, who served so that their comrades in arms might be spared the horrors of chemical warfare."
The offer comes after years of lobbying by veterans, threatened legal action, and political pressure, at a time of low public approval for a scandal-struck government seeking reelection.
Canada's National Council of Veteran Associations, which represents 48 veteran groups, was quick to applaud the government's offer.
"I have two words: One is wonderful and the other is surprise," said NCVA chairman Cliff Chadderton.
Mr. Chadderton credits his organization's move to raise the issue for the UN Human Rights Commission with forcing the government's hand.
Other veterans say the gesture is too little, too late. Harvey Friesen, for one, is not impressed.
"I have mixed feelings about the offer," he says. "It's a good settlement for those who had minor injuries, but not for others who were more seriously injured."
Mr. Friesen sustained severe injuries in spring 1945 from a trial in which he was ordered to stand in a cloud of mustard gas. He spent the next six months in the hospital and suffered skin problems for 12 years.
Five years ago, Friesen set out to gather the names of other veterans who were at that testing facility in Suffield, Alberta, an effort that united him with Tanner. The two have since spent four years seeking recognition and compensation for the veterans, only to see the issue shuffled between government departments. Last year, they turned up the heat by hiring attorney Rodney Pacholzuk to represent them and some 450 others in a class-action lawsuit.
The government "recognition program," they say, has not persuaded them to drop their suit.
"The offer is not good enough," says Mr. Pacholzuk. "When you take into account that there were 3,500 victims and a large proportion had lifelong injuries from these trials and were denied the opportunity to apply for a pension for years ... it's pretty inadequate."
Canadian soldiers were subjected to tests with mustard gas, chlorine, and other toxic chemicals at the isolated facility in Suffield, mostly between 1942 and 1945. Experiments involved aerial spraying, gas chambers, and field tests that required soldiers to crawl across ground soaked with mustard gas or stand in chemical clouds. Lab tests were also conducted during the war at a military facility in the capital, Ottawa.
"We have a situation where the injuries that occurred are the direct result of the actions taken by the Canadian government against its own citizens, without their informed consent," Pacholzuk says. "If what we did to these veterans had been done to prisoners of war, it would have been a direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions - it would have been a war crime."
The government maintained a veil of secrecy around the experiments for decades, denying that such research had occurred until declassified material archived in Britain, Canada, and the United States exposed this history in the late 1980s.
What happened in Canada wasn't unique. Britain had been testing mustard gas on troops at Porton Down in southern England since the 1920s, although trials increased in 1940. Within two years, the British had set up field trials with mustard gas in Australia and Canada. The US also used American servicemen for mustard gas trials starting in 1942.
At the time, these trials were justified as a wartime necessity to defend against chemical warfare. The end of the war brought about the 1947 Nuremberg Code, which defined limits on human experimentation and set the foundation for future codes of conduct in the medical field.
It wasn't until the veterans' legal threat, though, that Ottawa seemed to take notice.
In January, Andre Marin, Canada's military ombudsman, submitted a report to Defense Minister Pratt criticizing as inadequate government efforts to resolve an issue he called "a shameful saga" and "a blot on our history."
Four days later, Pacholzuk filed documents in British Columbia's Supreme Court launching the class-action suit. Within three weeks, the government responded with its "recognition program," announced five days before the public release of Mr. Marin's damning report.
Despite the timing, Marin acknowledged the effort as a positive step.
"After years of secrecy and delay, the package announced today by the Department of National Defence may in some small measure remedy the wrongs done during World War II to Canadian soldiers by their own military," he said.
Still, Friesen, Tanner, and scores of other veterans say they will pursue the suit. "We're prepared to be reasonable," says Pacholzuk. "$24,000 is not the number. But we're prepared to sit down with the government and discuss the matter."
The 450 veterans he represents, Pacholzuk says, "don't think they will get a fair shake unless they can be heard."
-------- europe
Romania signs accord on providing airbases for US
BUCHAREST (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040303205255.ej94i5wv.html
The Romanian defence ministry said Wednesday it had signed an accord with American defence manufacturer Northrop Grumman as part of plans for a relocation of US airbases to Romania.
The document was part of technical discussions with Washington on "the possible installation of American bases in Romania," said Defence Minister Ioan Mircea Pascu.
If the United States decides favourably, "this memorandum will enable us to discuss concrete details with this company," he said.
Northrop Grumman Corporation, a 28-billion-dollar global defence company headquartered in Los Angeles, is Washington's official partner in the setting-up and runnning of military bases.
It provides technologically advanced, innovative products and services in systems integration, defence electronics, information technology, advanced aircraft, shipbuilding and space technology.
With employees and operations in 25 countries, Northrop Grumman serves US and international military, government and commercial customers.
American officers and technical experts last month visited the Romanian town of Constanta on the Black Sea to examine existing infrastructures and facilities at the port and nearby airbase of Mihail Kogalniceanu, already used by US forces during the war against Iraq.
The Pentagon has been working for some years on the reorganisation of American units so that they can be deployed rapidly in the event of crises in any country.
It is also considering setting up bases in two other former Soviet bloc states, Bulgaria and Poland. The last is already a member of NATO.
----
Georgian leader vows to restore order in surprise military inspection
TBILISI (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040303011929.9jx9yteh.html
Georgia's new US-educated leader Mikhail Saakashvili early Wednesday vowed to restore order in the country's armed forces during a surprise overnight inspection at a military base in the capital Tbilisi.
"I shall bring back order to the armed forces, and to the whole country," Saakashvili said.
The Georgian leader, accompanied by Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania and other cabinet members, unexpectedly showed up at Tbilisi's interior forces base at one in the morning (2100 GMT) and sent some 1,000 soldiers rushing, ordering them to get ready for a drill.
After the soldiers managed to get ready, gather their equipment and board trucks, all within 18 minutes, Saakashvili congratulated them.
"Even troops in the Soviet armed forces would not have been so fast," he said.
Saying he would carry out more inspections, he added, apparently discarding any idea of immediate military action against Georgia's two breakaway regions: "These inspections are not indications as to our future intentions, but I want the armed forces to be combat-ready."
Georgia has two separatist regions, Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia.
Saakashvili said: "There used to be no discipline within the armed forces and corruption was rife, but now, soldiers are paid in time, and there will be order."
A Georgian private earns some 200 dollars (164 euros) a month. The average monthly salary in the impoverished former Soviet republic is about 20 dollars.
Saakashvili, who was elected by a landslide as president in January, swept to power after leading the popular protests dubbed the "rose revolution" that toppled veteran Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze in late November.
He has launched a high-profile anti-corruption drive, throwing into jail former top officials and even Shevardnadze's son-in-law, a businessman who controls the country's top mobile phone operator.
Opponents say he is cracking down on critical media outlets and waging an all-out campaign against private business interests linked to the previous administration.
-------- haiti
Haiti: A Case History
The failure of the interventionist project
by Justin Raimondo,
March 3, 2004
Antiwar.com
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=2082
How many times has the U.S. "restored order" in the "republic" of Haiti? I would say none, since there never was any order to restore: only brief pauses punctuating the normal flow of chaos. The country has always been ungovernable, and will continue to be in the foreseeable future. So what, pray tell, is the point of sending in the Marines yet again?
The great problem with interventionism abroad is the same one faced by central planners on the home front: the resulting disaster always requires more intervention to "fix" the problem caused by meddling in the first place. A good example, and one that I hope will sufficiently challenge if not enrage my left-wing readers, is rent control: housing is scarce, and costly, because demand is high. The rent controllers intervene, fix prices at a certain level, further limiting the supply of available housing - and causing acute shortages. The same principle of "blowback" operates in the foreign policy realm: we intervene in the name of pursuing "American interests," establishing "democracy," fighting terrorism, or whatever, and the result is the exact opposite of the intended result. During the cold war era we intervened in Afghanistan, armed the Islamist Mujahideen, and essentially created a monster that would come back to bite us some 20 years later.
That the same pattern has recurred in Haiti several times over the course of the 20th century is perhaps due to its geographical proximity to the continental United States. Enveloped since its inception in a penumbra of political and financial exploitation disguised as moral and economic uplift, the nascent Haitian nation was smothered in its crib.
When President Clinton ordered 20,000 troops into Haiti to "uphold democracy" and install Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the Presidential Palace, he was trying to undo the results of decades of U.S. intervention on behalf of "Papa Doc" Duvalier, a dictator propped up by U.S. subsidies, whose style of rule was summed up by his remark that "I know the Haitian people because I am the Haitian people." But U.S. meddling predated the Papa Doc/cold war era, with the roots of the present crisis stemming from the early part of the last century.
Haiti has, much to its misfortune, been considered our front yard since at least 1910, when the National Bank of Haiti, capitalized by the French, went broke, and the National City Bank of New York moved into the vacuum, taking over de facto administration of the Haitian treasury. U.S. railroad interests soon followed, and it wasn't too long before a host of American business interests, including W. R. Grace Corp., lobbied President Woodrow Wilson to demand the revenue coming in from Haitian customs as repayment for the government's debt: in effect, turning over the administration of Haiti's independent government to the U.S.
A key mover and shaker behind this interaction of private capital and public policy was Roger L. Farnham, vice president of the National City Bank of New York, as well as Haiti's National Bank and National Railway. Farnham held the threat of U.S. military intervention over the emerging Haitian democracy like a veritable Sword of Damocles, demanding that the custom house revenues be turned over to National City Bank, without much success - until the outbreak of World War I.
Farnham raised the specter of German influence in Haiti - a small group of German businessmen had established a tiny enclave - and this was the pretext, in 1914, for a detachment of U.S. Marines to come ashore and relieve Haiti's National Bank of two strongboxes containing half a million dollars in Haitian currency - which was promptly transported to a New York City safe deposit box. The Haitian government was now literally the captive of the New York banks: it was a policy of annexation by financial abduction.
In 1915, Haiti went through one of its periodic eruptions of volcanic violence, when the tyrant Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was overthrown in a revolution, and Wilson intervened to make Haiti safe for democracy - and the New York banks. A 19-year occupation ensued, which even Farnham realized was a brutal and counterproductive injustice. To get some historical perspective, check out this fascinating piece from the November 9. 1924 issue of The Nation:
"How Haiti was reduced to the state of a conquered province; how the process was prepared in Washington long before intervention began; how little excuse there was for American intervention, and how little America has accomplished there apart from killing Haitians - these things have become a matter of public record, as told by the men responsible for the intervention and as revealed in the United States Navy's secret dispatch-book, in the hearings before the Senate Commission on Haiti and Santo Domingo, Medill McCormick, chairman, these past weeks. The newspapers for some reason have been silent, but here are the facts as they have become part of the record."
The brutality of the occupation gave rise to the Haiti-Santo Domingo Independence Society, as a direct outgrowth the Anti-Imperialist League's opposition to the conquest of the Philippines. The early leaders of the NAACP, as well as The Nation under Oswald Garrison Villard's tutelage, were the leaders of this movement, which included a significant libertarian element. What is interesting is that they took the exact opposite position of today's liberals and African-American leaders by staunchly opposing U.S. intervention root and branch.
Reverend Jesse Jackson berates the Bush administration for not intervening early enough to save Aristide's "democratic" thug-ocracy: the U.S., he says, "has a history of intervening on the wrong side." He wants us to intervene on the "right side."
Jackson, the Congressional Black Caucus, and their fellow liberal Democrats dutifully echo the Wilsonian arrogance of Franklin Delano Roosevelt who once remarked:
"You know I had something to do with running a couple of little republics. The facts are that I wrote Haiti's constitution myself and if I do say it, I think it is a pretty good constitution."
The occasion, as Jim Zwick points out in a lucid essay on Haiti and the anti-imperialist tradition, was the election of 1920, when Roosevelt was running for vice president. It was, remarks Zwick, "one of the more notable gaffes of the campaign."
Also a revealing one. The mentality of liberal interventionism is not, either in principle or effect, all that different from its neoconservative first cousin. It is merely a question of style, and scope. The various "humanitarian" interventions undertaken by the Clinton administration - Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Haiti, et al - were small incursions undertaken with no guiding strategic orientation other than opportunity and caprice.
The neocons, on the other hand, operate on a much grander scale, and their ideology determines a relatively narrow strategic focus on the Middle East. It is the difference between "soft" and "hard" Wilsonianism, with the former cultivating an image of genteel multilateralism and the latter leaning toward an imperious unilateralism. Whatever their other differences, however, both the Bush administration and Jesse Jackson agree that Haiti is, somehow, our responsibility.
This is true only in the sense that we are responsible for drawing the right lessons from nearly a century of failed interventionism in Haiti. How many times must we rescue that nation from incipient chaos before we realize that not even Sisyphus, who displeased the gods, was deserving of such a fate? And what sin, pray tell, have we committed?
Hubris, a sacrilegious arrogance, was considered a grave sin by the ancient Greeks, and it was often punished directly by the gods, as in the case of Sisyphus, and others. Returned to Olympus, in this, the age of pagan decadence, it could be that, with Haiti, the gods are punishing the Bush administration for its "unipolar" conceit.
I will not go into the various permutations of the current crisis, which are already breaking out and promising a long and possibly quite bloody stand-off between rival gangs loosely disguised as political factions. I will only note the call-up of fresh National Guard units to Iraq, and the prospect of another interminable and ultimately futile occupation. As a case history of the interventionist project, the story of the American attempt to implant "democracy" in Haitian soil is one of massive crop failure.
The ideologues who agitated for what they call the "liberation" of Iraq predicted "falling dominoes" throughout the Middle East as a result. It serves them right that the first domino to fall is not Syria, or Iran, but ... Haiti. After the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. is the rescuer of last resort when it comes to "failed states." Although I'm waiting for some leftist type to come up with the requisite "it's all about oil" mantra, I'm not aware of any oil reserves to speak of in Haiti. Here is a U.S. intervention born of pure conceit.
As for the claims by Aristide and Rev. Jackson that what happened in Haiti amounted to a U.S. "coup," I have my doubts. At any rate, the idea that Aristide was "abducted" by the U.S. military instead of being driven out by his own thuggish ex-supporters seems dubious, at best: according to Rep. Charles Rangel - hardly a Bush shill - this impression on Aristide's part is somewhat "subjective." To say the very least.
Not that the U.S. is above that sort of thing, God knows, but due to the somewhat stretched-to-the-limit condition of U.S. forces overseas, and Bush's opposition to Haitian nation-building in the 2000 election, the idea of a U.S.-engineered coup seems counterintuitive. Why bother with Haiti, when this administration has so much else on its plate? No new war in '04 - that's what Karl Rove would like, at any rate.
But that's just the problem with running a global empire: we don't control events. They control us.
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Marines Block Haiti Rebels From Officials
March 3, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Haiti-Uprising.html?hp
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- U.S. Marines blocked rebels from chasing officials of exiled leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide as they fled to the airport Wednesday, apparently the first action of American forces in Haiti to prevent further bloodshed.
With rebels patrolling the streets of Port-au-Prince and their leader threatening to arrest the prime minister, U.S. forces said their mission in Haiti had expanded beyond protecting American citizens and interests to include protection of Haitian civilians from reprisal attacks.
There was no sign of American or French forces, however, as a gunbattle erupted Wednesday between rebels and militant loyalists in the Aristide stronghold of La Salines, a seaside slum of the capital
A day after declaring himself Haiti's new military chief, rebel leader Guy Philippe met briefly with U.S. Ambassador James Foley at the envoy's residence on Wednesday. Neither side would comment about the contact.
Haiti's latest violence started four weeks ago with a bloody, popular uprising leading to the Aristide's flight into exile Sunday. The death toll rose Wednesday to at least 130, with workers at the Port-au-Prince hospital saying 30 more bodies had been brought to the morgue since Sunday.
At the airport, Marines stood holding their weapons outside the main terminal when rebels arrived, preventing them from reaching dozens of officials Aristide's Lavalas party who had just gone inside, witnesses said.
Marking a shift in U.S. policy, Staff Sgt. Timothy Edwards said at the airport that the Marines' mission now also aimed ``to protect Haitians from reprisal attacks.''
Also, U.S. Marine Col. Dave Berger told a news conference that the Marines -- who began arriving Sunday night hours after Aristide fled to Africa -- will increase their presence throughout Haiti after Philippe's declaration of power and threat against the prime minister.
``The country is in my hands!'' Philippe announced Tuesday on the radio in between touring the capital in the back of a pickup truck and greeting throngs of admiring Haitians.
Two U.S. Chinook helicopters slowly circled Tuesday over Philippe's base, the rebel-held northern port of Cap-Haitien, on an apparent reconnaissance mission, said a resident reached by telephone. Some U.S. Marines patrolled Port-au-Prince's seaport, which was being looted, in a Humvee.
American and French troops in Haiti -- the vanguard of an international peacekeeping force authorized by the U.N. Security Council -- have no orders to disarm Haiti's factions, said Berger and the commander of the French forces.
``We are not a police force,'' said Berger.
The Pentagon said there would be some 400 Marines in Haiti by Tuesday. Chile said it was sending 120 special forces to Haiti on Wednesday, the first of about 300. France said it would have some 420 soldiers and police in place by the end of the week.
Speaking in Washington, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Roger Noriega said Philippe had no real power even as his rebels sought to take advantage of the political chaos.
``He is not in control of anything but a ragtag band of people,'' Noriega told lawmakers Tuesday.
The buildup of the U.N.-authorized international peacekeeping presence in Haiti will make Philippe's role ``less and less central in Haitian life. And I think he will probably want to make himself scarce,'' Noriega said.
``We have sent that message to him. He obviously hasn't received it,'' he said.
Philippe, who arrived in Port-au-Prince in a rebel convoy on Monday, apparently plans to transform his fighters into a reconstituted Haitian army, which Aristide disbanded in 1995.
The rebel leader has said he was ready to follow the orders of interim President Boniface Alexandre, installed Sunday. But on Tuesday, he incited followers to rally against Prime Minister Yvon Neptune demanding his arrest.
``The head is gone, but the tail remains!'' the crowd of 300 chanted outside Neptune's office, guarded by several U.S. Marines. The crowd again demanded Neptune's arrest.
The whereabouts of Neptune, a top member of Aristide's Lavalas party and his former presidential spokesman, were unknown. Radio reports said he had been evacuated by helicopter.
Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected leader since independence from France, resigned after an uprising that has killed more than 100 people since early February. Opponents accused Aristide of breaking promises to help the poor and masterminding attacks on opponents by armed gangs -- charges he denied.
Inside the seaside capital, patrolling rebels pointed guns at pedestrians who raised their arms or lifted their shirts to show they were unarmed.
Killings continued, with two more bodies on the streets of Port-au-Prince Tuesday. Charred barricades remained, erected by militant Aristide supporters who rioted and -- with many ordinary poor people -- looted food warehouses before the president fled.
By Wednesday, no permanent home had been found for Aristide. The ex-leader was staying in the presidential palace in the Central African Republic, the African country's foreign minister, Charles Wenezoui said.
``Aristide really likes to read'' and has slept a lot, said Wenezoui. ``We're about to give him a television and satellite dish so that he can monitor news around the world.''
Haiti's army ousted Aristide in 1991 and instituted a rule of terror until he was returned to power in an intervention by 20,000 U.S. troops. Washington strongly denies Aristide's claim that this time, the United States forced him out of office.
Associated Press writers Paisley Dodds and Ian James in Port-au-Prince contributed to this report.
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Rebel Claims Control Over Haiti's Security
By Kevin Sullivan and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 3, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22601-2004Mar2?language=printer
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 2 -- Rebel leader Guy Philippe declared on Tuesday that he was in control of Haiti's security forces, then watched as his followers looted a downtown museum to the roaring approval of thousands of supporters outside the National Palace.
As violence escalated in Port-au-Prince, bodies lay at intersections, in downtown warehouses and unclaimed at the morgue. Several hundred U.S. Marines, in Haiti as part of an international peacekeeping force, did not patrol streets, but guarded the port and government buildings, and escorted diplomats around the city.
Philippe's declarations and the occupation of the former army headquarters appeared to signal an increase in the ambitions of the rebels, many of whom were members of security forces that once terrorized the country. The move also challenged U.S. efforts to establish a new consensus government led by civilians from the opposition and the former ruling party.
"I am commander in chief of the national resistance front -- military chief," Philippe, 36, said at a morning news conference. He also claimed to accept the authority of the new civilian president, Boniface Alexandre, who was sworn in Sunday after his deposed predecessor, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, fled the country. But Alexandre has not been seen in public since he took office, and the structure of a future Haitian government was far from clear.
Philippe, a former military officer and police chief linked to previous coup attempts, appeared early Tuesday afternoon on a second-floor balcony of the country's former military headquarters. He did not speak, but another rebel commander vowed in a screaming, fist-waving speech that the rebels would arrest Aristide's followers, including "the chief of the thugs and the criminals," referring to Prime Minister Yvon Neptune. Neptune, an Aristide ally, remains in the country to participate in the formation of an interim government with the backing of the new president and the U.S. government.
With Marines watching from the roof and grounds of the nearby National Palace, a frenzied crowd that included rebels rampaged though the elegant two-story former army headquarters, which Aristide had turned into the Women's Affairs Ministry.
Aristide disbanded the army, long identified with repression under the 29-year rule of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, known as "Baby Doc." A former parish priest and champion of the poor, Aristide was deposed in a military coup in 1991 after seven months in office. A U.S. military force restored him to power in 1994 and he was reelected president in 2000. He left the country for the Central African Republic on Sunday, after a three-week rebel insurgency left more than 70 people dead.
The former military building had been used to house an exhibition of folk art celebrating Haiti's 200th anniversary of independence from France. Members of the crowd dropped paintings, wooden crosses, decorative coffins and other Haitian folk art from the balcony before setting the objects on fire. The political spree of destruction recalled the period following the 1986 fall of the Duvalier family dictatorship -- known as the "uprooting" for the widespread pillaging and political killings that ensued.
"These guys are primitive," said Bernard, 42, who declined to give his full name. He said he was unemployed and had been deported back to Haiti from the United States. "This is the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. They are sacrificing the new regime at its baby stage."
U.S. diplomats on Tuesday worked with Alexandre, Neptune, and other allies and civilian opponents of Aristide to form an interim government that would steer the country through a period of violent upheaval.
Meeting with reporters before his ride downtown in a convoy that included members of Haiti's national police, Philippe said he supported the country's transition to a new civilian administration, following what Aristide's opponents said was three years of autocratic, corrupt and often brutal leadership by Aristide.
But after the rally, several hundred rebel supporters massed outside the prime minister's office. Reached by cell phone, Neptune said he was safely inside and was being guarded by the Marines. He said he was committed to the broad agreement among Aristide's supporters, his opponents and foreign diplomats to form a new government.
"The international community has to do what it has committed to do so the whole thing can go on peacefully," he said.
Hans Tippenhauer, a leader of a coalition of business and civic leaders that had been pressing for Aristide's peaceful resignation for more than a year, said that closed-door negotiations to craft a transitional government continued slowly on Tuesday. He said members of his movement, along with U.S. officials, members of Aristide's Lavalas party and others were trying to finalize details of an interim government. He said the negotiations could take two or three more days. He also expressed concern about the rebels' intentions.
Human rights activists said they were deeply suspicious of Philippe and other rebel leaders. Some of them, including Louis Jodel Chamblain, a former death squad leader, have been convicted of terrorizing and killing many Haitians. Many are former officers of the Haitian army, which was the chief tool of terror of the brutal Duvalier family dictatorship from 1957 to 1986.
Reached by telephone in France by a Miami television station, Jean-Claude Duvalier, forced into exile in 1986, said he wanted to return to Haiti as soon as possible, the Reuters news agency reported. Running for president is "not on my agenda," Reuters reported him as saying.
The violence on Tuesday came after a day of relative calm. The capital city of 1.3 million people was convulsed with looting and killing on Sunday after news spread of Aristide's departure. But on Monday, when Philippe and his rebels arrived in the capital, police appeared to have restored order to much of the burned-out downtown. There were scattered reports of reprisal killings by police -- working with the rebels and other armed civilians -- against Aristide supporters.
Edner Nonez, 29, police chief of the downtown Cafeteria section, which includes the city's port and the vast La Saline slum, said he welcomed help from the rebels. He said his 125 officers had only four working cars and that combining forces was "helpful."
"I would like to believe that we could converge our forces to bring peace," Nonez said. Several downtown areas were again wracked by looting and killings Monday night. In the Lakoutea district, at least seven bodies lay in the rubble of still-smoldering concrete warehouses burned and looted since Sunday. Some warehouse owners, returning to their properties for the first time, dug through the debris with their hands, apparently looking for anything worth salvaging.
On Avenue John Brown, a main commercial street leading to the National Palace, a dead man lay in an intersection with a gunshot wound to the head. On Boulevard Jean-Jacques Dessalines, another main thoroughfare, the charred bodies of two police officers who were shot and then burned on Monday lay in the bed of a burned-out Toyota pickup truck. The nearby police station in the Saint Joseph district in the city center was burned out overnight.
A small group of people, many of them carrying photographs, gathered outside the state morgue looking for missing family members. The morgue's director, Merite Merilien, said there were at least 15 bodies inside, and many more had probably been taken to private hospitals or homes during the violence since Friday.
He said the morgue had been without electricity for days and the lack of lights and refrigeration made it impossible to allow family members inside to identify the corpses. And he said the continued fighting in the streets made it difficult to bury them.
"Buried? Are you kidding?" he said. "This is still going on. It's impossible."
---------
Aristide's Departure: The U.S. Account
By Peter Slevin and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 3, 2004; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24346-2004Mar2?language=printer
It was shortly after 4 a.m. on Sunday, U.S. diplomat Luis Moreno recalled, when he pulled up to the gate of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's walled compound in the suburb of Tabarre. He was traveling with a fellow U.S. diplomat and six State Department security officers.
The lights were on, Moreno said, and Aristide was awake. The bespectacled former Roman Catholic priest met Moreno, the U.S. Embassy's second-ranking officer, at the door with his suitcases packed.
"You know why I'm here," Moreno recalled saying in Spanish, the language they had spoken to each other during 10 years of professional association.
"Yes, of course," he quoted Aristide as replying, also in Spanish.
Moreno, dispatched to escort Aristide to a U.S. jetliner that would fly him into exile, said he told Aristide that security was bad on the airport road and they should leave right away. They climbed into separate vehicles, Moreno said, without saying more than a few words to one another.
Aristide's version of that final encounter was rather different.
He said he was kidnapped by U.S. forces and expelled from Haiti.
"I believe they perpetrated a coup here," Ira Kurzban, Aristide's Miami attorney, said in an interview. "We're demanding the return of the president to Haiti -- the democratically elected leader of Haiti."
Now that Aristide is gone, his final hours in power are being dissected for clues about how he fell and what it says about the maneuvering of an autocrat and a U.S. government that ultimately pressed him to quit.
Aristide's early insistence that he was hauled from power against his will led to calls for an investigation from members of the Congressional Black Caucus. In later interviews, he altered the suggestion that he had been physically kidnapped, saying instead that the Bush administration had conducted a "a coup d'etat, a modern way to have a modern kidnapping."
Aristide described conversations with U.S. officials who were warning him, as were his own aides, that order had broken down in the Haitian capital on Saturday. Rebel militias demanding Aristide's ouster were not far from the city. The streets were becoming more violent and the president's safety was growing more uncertain.
"American agents talked to me. Haitian agents talked to me," Aristide told CNN from exile in the Central African Republic. "And I finally realized it was true. We were going to have bloodshed. And when I asked how many people may get killed, they said thousands may get killed."
With that, Aristide told the network, he decided to resign. Attempts to reach Aristide through Kurzban yesterday were unsuccessful.
U.S. authorities adamantly denied abducting the Haitian leader. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell called the allegation "absurd." White House press secretary Scott McClellan derided the claim as "complete nonsense."
"President Aristide was not kidnapped. He absolutely was not taken forcibly," said Ken Kurtz, chief executive of the Steele Foundation, a U.S. company that provided Aristide's security force at Haitian government expense.
In a sequence described by administration officials, Aristide's security team members met with embassy security personnel on Saturday as violence spread. They were told that if Aristide wanted American help in leaving, he had to decide quickly.
That day -- two days after Powell signaled that the Bush administration would no longer back a power-sharing arrangement -- an Aristide emissary contacted U.S. Ambassador James Foley to say the Haitian leader was considering stepping down.
U.S. officials said Aristide wanted to know what Foley thought would be best for Haiti. The ambassador discussed the situation with Powell and told Aristide that his position was politically unsustainable and personally perilous. If Aristide waited until the rebels reached Port-au-Prince, Foley told him, the Bush administration could not guarantee his safe departure.
Aristide consulted with his wife and agreed to leave.
U.S. officials said they knew Aristide had already begun getting ready when he told Foley that he could not send him an e-mail message because his computer was packed.
It was after midnight when Foley called Moreno and asked him to drive to Tabarre to accompany Aristide and his American wife Mildred to the airport, where a jetliner chartered by the U.S. government would pick them up.
When Aristide greeted him at the house, Moreno said he asked the president for a resignation letter. He said Aristide did not give him the letter right away, but promised to give one to him before he was airborne.
"You have my word and you know my word is good," Aristide said, according to Moreno.
Moreno said they then drove to the airport in separate vehicles. Aristide's young children, who are U.S. citizens, had already been sent to the United States.
The caravan arrived at the airport and waited in the dark for the U.S. plane. When Moreno received word that the plane was about 20 minutes from landing, he said he walked over and tapped on the window of Aristide's car.
"I need the letter," he recalled telling the Haitian president. Aristide reached into his wife's purse and handed him a letter written in Creole. Moreno said he passed it to a Creole-speaking embassy political officer, who confirmed that the document was indeed a letter of resignation.
"The Constitution should not drown in the blood of the Haitian people," said the letter, signed by Aristide, according to a White House translation.
"That is why, if tonight it is my resignation that can avoid a bloodbath, I agree to leave with the hope that that there will be life and not death. Life for everyone. Death for no one."
Moreno said he chatted with Aristide for the next few minutes. He said he reminded the president that he had been at the U.S. Embassy in 1994, when American military forces restored Aristide to power.
"I expressed sadness that I was here to watch him leave," Moreno recalled. Aristide, answering in English, said, "Sometimes life is like that."
"Then I shook his hand," Moreno said, "and he went away."
Aristide and his wife boarded the plane and left Haiti at about 6:15 a.m.
Wilson reported from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
-------- iran
Iran charges US over military action
Lawyers say US marines killed two Iranian 'martyrs'
Wednesday 03 March 2004
Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/90C84965-A36A-41BF-AE69-E5601366FA8F.htm
A Tehran court has ordered the United States government to pay $1.2 billion in damages in connection with military actions against the Islamic republic in the 1980s, a report said on Wednesday.
"We obtained a conviction against the American government to pay 400 million dollars for its part in the deaths on the martyrs Nasr Allah Shafiie and Nadir Mahdavi," lawyer Nassrin Niktash was quoted as telling the student news agency ISNA.
"We have asked the foreign ministry to follow this dossier to obtain payment," he said.
He said that Shafiie and Mahdavi were killed by US Marines in the 1980s, but the report did not elaborate.
According to ISNA, the court also ordered the United States to pay $800 million to two Iranians who were "kidnapped" by US forces and "suffered damage," also without elaborating.
Similar penalties
The verdicts come following a series of cases lodged against Tehran in US courts. The Islamic republic has been ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages following 21 such lawsuits.
In one of the most high-profile cases, a US court ruled last September that Iran had to pay more than $420 million to a dozen US victims of a 1997 bombing in Jerusalem carried out by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, which the court alleges is supported by Iran.
In March 2000, a US federal judge ordered Iran to pay $341 million to journalist Terry Anderson and to members of his family.
Anderson, who had been Beirut bureau chief for the Associated Press, was kidnapped by another Palestinian resistance group, Islamic Jihad, and held for more than six years.
-------- iraq
'Troops will stay in Iraq for two years'
03/03/2004
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/03/ustock.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/03/03/ixportaltop.html
Britain's senior envoy in Iraq has predicted that British and American troops would remain in the country for at least two years to cope with the threat to security. Sir Jeremy Greenstock: 'We have got a job to do and we are going to finish it'
Sir Jeremy Greenstock predicted "bloody" days in the run-up to the handover of sovereignty to a local authorities at the beginning of July following the murders of at least 180 were killed in bomb attacks yesterday.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the people behind the bombings were intent on derailing the process of creating a democratic Iraq.
"The intention to intensify violence in the months leading up to the handover of authority was expected and is very difficult to stop," he said.
"This is a crunch period for the future of Iraq. Iraqi society has got to realise that they have got to unite against it."
The transitional law agreed by the Iraq Governing Council earlier this week was a vital step towards a democratic state, said Sir Jeremy.
Yesterday's attacks were part of "the last desperate struggle of the violent people to try to destroy this before we hand over power".
Sir Jeremy said he was "amazed" by the determination of Iraqi people to rebuild their society in the face of repeated terror attacks.
"It is that determination to create a new Iraq that we are depending upon and fostering by our presence here," he said. "We will stay here after June. We are not going to leave."
Asked how long British troops would be in Iraq, he replied: "My prediction is at least another two years, maybe more than that. They will come down in numbers as the Iraqi capacity grows. There will be a correlation between those things.
"But as in the Balkans, we will need to be around for longer than we originally planned. I think Britons and Americans need to realise that. We have got a job to do and we are going to finish it."
----
Iraqi oil exports reach nearly $6 billion
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
By Reuters
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-03-03/s_13657.asp
UNITED NATIONS - Baghdad has exported just under $6 billion in crude oil since the fall of Saddam Hussein's government nearly a year ago, the U.S.-led authority governing Iraq disclosed Tuesday.
The Coalition Provisional Authority said in an Internet posting that it had deposited $5.99 billion in its Development Fund for Iraq as of last Friday.
That was $357 million more than deposited as of the previous week, according to the CPA Web site which is updated weekly.
Under a May 22 U.N. Security Council resolution, the CPA is required to deposit all the proceeds of Iraqi oil exports into the fund. The resolution was intended to ensure Iraq's secretive U.S.-led civil administration was not engaged in any dubious practices in marketing Iraq's oil and using the money to rebuild the shattered country.
International law allows Iraq's U.S. and British occupiers to use the oil money only for the benefit of the Iraqi people and bars any long-term marketing commitments.
Some Security Council members have complained they are not given enough information to judge whether the CPA is complying with those requirements.
An International Monitoring and Advisory Board, created by the council to monitor oil sales, has yet to begin its work due to differences with the CPA over its powers and the selection of an auditor.
Iraqi oil exports are currently running about 1.8 million barrels a day, about the same as what it was exporting before the war began last March, according to the Iraqi authorities.
Related Link
Coalition Provisional Authority Export Data
http://iraqcoalition.org/budget/DFI-27feb2004.xls
--------
Five large explosions rumble Baghdad
3/3/2004
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-03-03-baghdad-blasts_x.htm
BAGHDAD (AP) - Five large explosions rumbled through the center of Baghdad late Wednesday, and sirens sounded from the green zone where the headquarters of the U.S.-led occupation authority is located.
The blasts, which happened in quick succession just after 8 p.m., came nearly two-and-a-half hours after two explosions were heard. The blasts were followed by a siren and a warning in English to "take cover."
The U.S. military press office said no planned detonations of confiscated weapons had been planned but officials had no information where the blasts occurred.
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At Least 143 Die in Attacks at Two Sacred Sites in Iraq
March 3, 2004
By JOHN F. BURNS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/03/international/middleeast/03IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 2 - Suicide bombers and other attackers detonated mortars, grenades and roadside bombs on Tuesday among crowds of Shiite Muslims gathered for one of the holiest occasions in the Shiite calendar.
Within a few hours, the death toll was at 143; counts made in the evening put it as high as 170. Some of the dead were reportedly pilgrims from Iran.
It was the deadliest day in the 11 months since American troops toppled Saddam Hussein's Sunni Muslim-dominated government. Both attacks began around 10 a.m., at mosques in Baghdad and Karbala, a Shiite holy city some 70 miles southwest of the capital.
Scenes of horror at the sites caused waves of anger and hysteria, much of it focused on the American occupation. In Baghdad, streaks of blood and bits of flesh were strewn across the walls of golden tile and stone floors at the shrine to Imam Musa al-Khadam, considered the city's most sacred Shiite site. In Karbala, groups of wailing survivors outside two revered mosques loaded the dead and wounded onto wooden carts, leaving trails of blood as they rushed in search of help.
The highest previous toll during the American occupation was the 105 people killed in two bombings of Kurdish political gatherings in the north, at Erbil, on Feb. 1.
Senior officials in the American occupation authority pointed a finger at Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born Sunni militant. Last month, American officials released a letter they said had been written by Mr. Zarqawi to senior leaders of Al Qaeda asking for help in starting a "sectarian war" in Iraq by attacking Shiites in order to prompt a counterattack by them against the Sunnis.
One of the four suicide bombers was arrested when his explosive-laden vest failed to detonate. Witnesses said he appeared to be a foreigner, but the occupation authorities declined to state his nationality.
But Iraqis on the streets blamed the Americans, rather than the Sunnis. Angry crowds denounced the United States for failing to protect them. Occupation authorities said they had pulled American troops away from holy sites during the religious celebrations after discussions with Shiite leaders.
There was also a devastating attack on Tuesday on Shiites celebrating the same holy day, Ashura, in Pakistan. There, three assailants threw grenades and sprayed gunfire at a procession in Quetta, in the southwest. At least 40 people were killed and 150 wounded, officials said. [Page A10.]
In Washington, an intelligence official said there was no indication of any link between the attacks in Pakistan and Iraq.
At the Khadamiya hospital in Baghdad, groups of anguished family members pushed past rifle-wielding guards and rushed to a low-lying concrete building used as a refrigerated morgue.
"For Allah's sake, tell me about Hussein, is he O.K.?" one young man shouted as he approached two brothers clasping each other, weeping, outside the morgue. "No, he is dead," one replied.
In Karbala, Salah Jabber, a 30-year-old factory worker from Basra, lay in a hospital with seven chunks of shrapnel in his broken left leg, and recalled the swiftness of the onslaught.
"I heard a remote explosion near Baghdad Street, maybe a kilometer and a half away," he said. "After a minute, there was another explosion that was nearer. After yet another minute, another explosion. The fourth one was next to me."
Men are the main celebrants of Ashura, in which the death of the Shiite hero Imam Hussein in A.D. 680 is honored with re-enactments and ritual cutting of the scalp. Therefore men heavily outnumbered women and children among the dead.
But at the Khadamiya hospital, several women in black robes lay crumpled among the dead and on bloodied stretchers outside. At the Karbala hospital, after the morgue overflowed, bodies were stacked in an office, alongside a filing cabinet, as pools of blood gathered.
For hours, people pushed opened the doors and stepped among the dead, collapsing with grief when they found loved ones.
Just outside the hospital in Karbala, workers laid bodies in a jagged line on the sandy rubble along one wall, shrouded in tarpaulins and plaid blankets.
"We have lots of people who have come to give blood," a worker told Ali Hussein, the hospital's deputy director.
"I don't need people to give blood," Mr. Hussein told him. "I need people to carry bodies."
By early evening, a steady stream of rough coffins flowed into the hospital yard.
In classified reports last month, American officials in Washington said, United States intelligence agencies warned that Ashura, culminating on Tuesday, could attract new attacks on Shiites, who account for 60 percent of Iraq's population of 25 million.
But American commanders said extensive discussions with Shiite leaders had led to an agreement that American troops should respect "cultural differences" by staying well back from religious sites.
In Baghdad, the American military presence in the hours that preceded and followed the attacks was mainly in the form of helicopters that circled warily overhead.
In Karbala, the command of allied military units lies with Polish troops, who similarly stayed back from the mosques. Iraqi police and religious paramilitary groups had closed the city center to cars and set up checkpoints for those walking to the shrines. But the searches of people and bags were rushed, and the crowds were vast.
The attacks intensified fears that the American deadline for turning over sovereignty to the Iraqis by June 30 could lead to chaos as a divided provisional government confronts a mounting drumroll of attacks.
President Bush agreed in November to move up the date under intense pressure from Iraqis and from foreign governments. Before the latest attacks, a new optimism had been spreading among top occupation officials, particularly after Iraqi leaders agreed early Monday to an interim constitution that will serve until elections can be held.
American officials have repeatedly predicted an intensification of attacks against American and Iraqi targets as the transfer date approaches. But the intensity of the two Iraq attacks, and their careful coordination, appeared to shock some American officials.
L. Paul Bremer III, the chief American administrator, issued a statement expressing American sympathy for the victims and offering renewed assurances that Iraqis will not be left to chaos and bloodshed after June 30. "We pray for your strength in this time of sorrow," he said. "We of the coalition will not abandon the people of Iraq."
He also referred obliquely to the Zarqawi letter.
"Terrorists have murdered and maimed on one of the holiest days of the year," he said. "We know they did this as part of an effort to provoke sectarian violence among Muslims," because, he said, "they believe it is the only way they can stop Iraq's march towards the democracy that the terrorists fear."
Shiites from as far as Uzbekistan had converged on Karbala during the last week. In Tehran, Interior Ministry officials said at least 20 of the dead, and possibly as many as 50, were Iranians, part of a large pilgrimage to Karbala and Najaf, another Iraqi city holy to Shiites.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a spokesman for the American command, said the latest attacks bore all the earmarks of an operation led by Mr. Zarqawi, with multiple suicide bombings closely sequenced to kill as many people as possible, and, in Karbala, added strikes with mortars, grenades and roadside bombs.
"This was not a pick-up team; this was not an organization that was just started," he said. "All the indications we have is that Zarqawi is a prime suspect, if not the prime suspect."
American officials say his previous attacks included the devastating suicide bombings last year of the Baghdad headquarters of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, which together killed more than 40 people, including the chief United Nations representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
But the intelligence official in Washington said it was not yet clear who might have been responsible. "Something like this would seem to fall in line with the strategy laid out by Zarqawi in his letter," the official said. "But at this point, it isn't clear who was responsible."
General Kimmitt said little about the suicide bomber who was captured alive. But witnesses at the Imam Musa al-Khadam shrine said some members of a crowd that dragged a man away after grenades had been thrown from a hotel overlooking the shrine, beating him senseless as they went, were shouting that the man was a Yemeni.
After the Baghdad bombing, Iraqi officers summoned help from the Americans at a joint operations center set up with Iraqi agreement half a mile away. A convoy of United States military vehicles approached the shrine, including an armored ambulance and several Humvees, only to be barred from approaching by an angry crowd throwing stones and shouting curses against America.
Later, American officers said, a crowd marched on the operations center, pelting soldiers and tanks with stones, and was met with warning shots.
An Iraqi witness, Ali Haider, said he saw two Iraqis shot and wounded, but American military spokesmen said they had no record of any injuries. A second attempt to storm the high-walled operations center was repulsed, Mr. Haider said, when American soldiers leveled their rifles and drove the protesters back.
And yet the violence did not stop the pilgrims, many of whom remained to honor Imam Hussein. Only four hours after the explosions, they once again filtered through the roads toward the shrine in Karbala, beating their breasts and singing his name.
They passed three blast sites; at each lay a mound of shoes and slippers, left from the dead and wounded.
Jeffrey Gettleman contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article and Neela Banerjee from Karbala.
--------
Shiites Massacred in Iraq Blasts
Attacks in Two Cities Kill, Maim Hundreds
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 3, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24423-2004Mar2?language=printer
BAGHDAD, March 2 -- Simultaneous suicide bombings ripped through dense crowds of Shiite Muslim worshipers in Baghdad and Karbala on Tuesday, killing at least 143 people and injuring more than 400 others in the deadliest day of attacks since the fall of former president Saddam Hussein.
The synchronized attacks, which also involved planted explosives and possibly mortars, transformed two of the world's most sacred Shiite shrines into scenes of carnage. Wooden carts used to ferry elderly pilgrims were stacked with bloodied victims. Body parts landed atop three-story buildings. Piles of shoes from the dead were stacked near the site of each blast.
"After the blast, all you could see was death everywhere you looked," said Ahmed Kamil Ibrahim, a guard at the Imam Kadhim shrine in Baghdad. "It was horrible."
No group asserted responsibility for the attacks, which occurred on Ashura, the holiest day of the year for Shiites. Although U.S. and Iraqi security officials said they had not identified the culprits, angry survivors at both shrines blamed Sunni Muslim extremists for perpetrating the blasts and faulted U.S. forces for not doing enough to prevent them. At the shrine in Baghdad, dozens of young men threw rocks and shoes at American soldiers who arrived after the explosions.
The attacks prompted strident denunciations of U.S. military policy from several senior Shiite leaders, who have expressed grudging tolerance of the occupation that has kept the anti-American insurgency from spreading to Shiite-dominated southern Iraq. The country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, released a statement Tuesday night accusing U.S. troops of "noticeable procrastination in controlling the borders of Iraq and preventing infiltrators" as well as failing to supply Iraqi security forces with "the necessary equipment to do their jobs."
Iraq's U.S.-appointed political leadership said the twin attacks were designed to provoke Shiites into fighting American troops and to spark a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis. Several members of the country's Governing Council said they believed the blasts were the work of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant linked to the al Qaeda terrorist organization. He is alleged to have written a letter to al Qaeda leaders outlining plans to fuel sectarian strife in Iraq by striking Shiite targets.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad, said Zarqawi was a "prime suspect" in the attacks, but that there was not yet any concrete evidence implicating him.
Kimmitt said seven suspected attackers had been apprehended and were in the custody of Iraqi police, including one man at the Baghdad shrine whose explosive vest did not detonate. This might help investigators quickly determine the individual or organization behind the attacks.
The blasts in Baghdad and Karbala, 60 miles to the south, might have been part of a larger plan for violence against Shiites on Tuesday. Police in the southern port city of Basra said they arrested four would-be suicide bombers, among them two women wearing explosive belts. In Najaf, another sacred Shiite city, Iraqi officials said police defused a bomb on Monday night that might have been timed to explode on Tuesday.
The explosions appeared to provoke a new sense of despair among Iraqis -- Sunnis and Shiites alike -- already anxious about their nation's future. The Governing Council declared three days of national mourning and postponed the signing of an interim constitution that had been scheduled for Wednesday.
"What is happening to our country?" one woman wailed near the Kadhim shrine. "These were just innocent people who came here to pray."
The U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, said the bombers were trying to interfere with the country's transition to a sovereign democracy by fueling religious tension. "We know they did this as part of an effort to provoke sectarian violence among Muslims," he said in a statement. "We know they chose this day so that they could kill as many innocents as possible."
U.S. and Iraqi officials said it was likely the final death toll could be significantly higher than 143. Many of the bodies were blown into small bits and others were taken directly for burial, making an official count difficult. Hospital morgues in Baghdad and Karbala were overflowing with bodies, many of which remained unidentified.
With Tuesday's attacks, about 1,000 Iraqis have been killed in suicide bombings and other attacks since major combat ended in Iraq on May 1, according to figures compiled by Iraq's Interior Ministry and news reports.
The pilgrims had converged on the shrines to commemorate the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad, in a 7th-century battle in Karbala. His death solidified the division of the Muslim world into Shiites loyal to Hussein and orthodox Sunnis.
Iraqi security officials estimated that 2 million Shiites streamed into Karbala over the past week to pray at Hussein's gold-domed tomb on Tuesday. Pilgrims from neighboring Iran joined Iraqis, along with visitors from elsewhere in the Shiite world -- Pakistan, India, Lebanon and the Persian Gulf countries. Many Baghdad residents who could not make the trip to Karbala chose instead to observe the day at the Kadhim shrine.
The blasts in Karbala and Baghdad occurred at 10 a.m. as waves of boisterous worshipers surged toward the shrines. In Karbala, six blasts rocked the city, each about a minute apart. In Baghdad, the suicide bombers blew themselves up within a minute.
Kimmitt said the attacks in Karbala, which killed at least 85 people and wounded about 230, involved one suicide bomber and the detonation of explosives hidden along roads used by the worshipers. He said mortar rounds might have been fired from positions outside the city.
"It was obviously pretty coordinated, from what we've seen," said Sgt. Jason Vankleeck of the 194th Military Police Company, which arrived about two hours after the attack. "It wasn't a bunch of guys doing random things."
Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers at the scene said they believed at least three attacks were carried out by suicide bombers, and residents recovered ball bearings they believed were used in the belts strapped to the bombers. The explosions struck some of the most crowded spots in the cities.
"It was corpses and flesh -- burnt flesh," said Heidar Awainat, a physician with the Health Ministry who, with other doctors, set up a makeshift clinic inside the shrine. "They just took flesh from the scene."
Pilgrims fled in panic as security guards tried to restrain crowds from stampeding over areas littered with corpses and body parts. Blood mixed with puddles of water, and security officials packed pieces of bodies into plastic bags. Mosque loudspeakers beseeched pilgrims to give blood to help treat the wounded.
At the Shurufi Hotel, off Karbala's main thoroughfare, a blast blew out the windows. Brick walls were stained with blood. Ahmed Naama, a 55-year-old shopkeeper, said he was sweeping the sidewalk across from the hotel when he heard the blast.
"I saw the flames racing toward me. It was like somebody throwing water at me," he said. He patted his ears. More than an hour later, he said he could still not hear.
One of the worst attacks appeared to occur at the entrance to the city. Hassan Hadi, a 22-year-old guard, said he saw a bearded man with a cape run toward a crowd of pilgrims beating their chests in a ritual of mourning. Just feet away, he detonated a belt that appeared to be tied around his waist. The bomber's head was thrown about 25 yards, Hadi said, and his legs were severed and cast next to the bodies of his victims.
"He went into the middle of the crowd," Hadi said, shaking his head in disbelief.
There were similar scenes of carnage in and around the Kadhim shrine, where U.S. officials estimated 58 people were killed and more than 200 wounded.
Witnesses and guards said the first explosion occurred inside the shrine's large courtyard, near a booth for people to check their shoes before walking into the mausoleum of Imam Kadhim. As panicked pilgrims surged toward large wooden doors to leave the courtyard, two other bombers blew themselves up near the exits.
"It was planned to inflict the maximum number of casualties," said Khalil Shakir, a guard at the shrine's main gate.
Hisham Salman Abboud, another guard, said security officers working for the shrine were instructed by their superiors not to search worshipers because it would delay people from getting inside. "It was a very big mistake," he said.
Kimmitt said U.S. troops had set up an "outer cordon" several blocks from the shrine but had given responsibility for security around the compound to the police and shrine guards. Guards at the shrine said police officers had left the area early Tuesday after a dispute.
Security in Karbala -- handled by religious volunteers and militia members, not the Iraqi police -- was tighter than at any time since the fall of Hussein. Traffic into the sacred city was stopped at several points outside the city, where militiamen with rifles and pistols checked trunks and hoods for explosives. Inside the city, men frisked pilgrims and rummaged through the bags of tourists.
"We were expecting this," said Thamer Maaraj, a 38-year-old guard. "We intensified our security 100 percent. But you can't guard against everything."
Shadid reported from Karbala. Staff writer Ariana Eunjung Cha in Baghdad contributed to this report.
-------- israel / palestine
Murder of 'Arafat's spy' raises fears of descent into anarchy
By Eric Silver and Sa'id Ghaazali in Jerusalem
03 March 2004
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=497306
Amid mounting fears of a descent into anarchy, Ahmad Qureia, the Palestinian Prime Minister, last night promised to crack down on Palestinian gunmen after one of Yasser Arafat's most loyal supporters was shot dead.
Khalil al-Zaben, a 59-year-old magazine publisher, was hit by 12 bullets at 1am yesterday as he left his home in the Sabra district of Gaza City. He was a man with many enemies, including dissident members of Mr Arafat's Fatah. His magazine, An-Nanashra, campaigned against the Syrian regime, Islamic extremists, Palestinian left-wing groups and local NGOs, which he accused of corruption.
Mr Zaben, who boasted that he was "Arafat's spy", sent a detailed report to the Palestinian President after a recent attempt on the life of another Fatah activist, Ne'iman al-Shanti. Last week he distributed a leaflet denouncing the "gangs of professional killers" he held responsible.
Tawfiq Abu Khousa, deputy chairman of the Gaza journalists' association, described Mr Zaben as a "martyr of the word", the latest victim of an epidemic of politically motivated assaults on media personnel.
Yesterday's ambush reflects a power struggle, which is eroding Fatah's authority as the leading Palestinian nationalist movement. It came on the heels of attacks on the official television station, where armed men demanded jobs at gunpoint, and the land registration department, where others ordered clerks to transfer property to them.
After an emergency meeting of the Palestinian Government and National Security Council, Mr Qureia denounced the murder as "the greatest of crimes". Mr Arafat condemned it as a "dirty assassination". Sa'eb Erakat, the chief peace negotiator, said the chaos was "undermining the struggle to establish an independent state".
The Israelis are worried that their proposed Gaza pullout will precipitate civil strife and a takeover by Islamic extremists. Britain, which shares their concern, is floating the idea of international supervision.
Mr Qureia ordered "serious measures" against the publisher's killers. He pledged to unify the multiple security forces and to pay their men's salaries into their individual bank accounts, reforms long resisted by Mr Arafat, who preferred to divide and rule and to exercise the patronage of paying them through their respective commanders. Critics are waiting to see whether Mr Qureia has either the will or the power to turn words into deeds.
Last weekend, Ghassan Shakah, the mayor of Nablus, the biggest West Bank city, resigned in protest at the authorities' failure to rein in the thugs he said were terrorising their own people.
"Nablus is living in chaos," he said. "I don't want to stand idly by and see my city collapsing." Rival gangs are reported to have killed at least 30 people there in the past few months.
Bassem Eid, director of the Palestine Human Rights Monitoring Group, said: "The West Bank and Gaza are left without any kind of control, neither by the Israelis nor by the Palestinian Authority. Palestinians feel people can take the law into their own hands. That is why the whole revenge phenomenon is increasing. Human rights groups raised the issue of internal violence a year ago, but nobody listened."
Mr Eid feared it was too late for Mr Qureia's government to impose discipline. "Only outside intervention might keep the Palestinian streets under order," he said. "We need international protection, which must include Arab forces from countries including Jordan and Egypt, or even Muslims from Turkey."
--------
Three Hamas Members Killed in Israeli Missile Strike
March 3, 2004
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/03/international/middleeast/03CND-MIDE.html
Three members of the Hamas militant movement were killed today in the Gaza Strip after the car they were driving in near a Jewish settlement was hit by an Israeli missile. The group called for retaliation against Israeli forces, according to statements on its Web site.
The Israeli Army said that its air force had attacked the vehicle transporting "senior Hamas terrorists" who were recently involved in attacks against Israeli targets and who were planning further attacks. An army spokeswoman reached by telephone in Tel Aviv did not give their names.
Palestinian security officials quoted by Reuters said the three men were Hamas members.
Hamas identified one of them as Ibrahim al-Deiri, and said one of his relatives and another Palestinian in the car were also killed. Explosions shook the area around Netzarim, a Jewish settlement near Gaza City, followed by the screeching of ambulances after the missile strike, it said.
Israel says Hamas is the main group behind the persistent mortar and rocket fire at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and communities just outside Gaza's boundary fence.
Hamas has said that it is retaliating against the Israeli occupation. It is officially committed to Israel's destruction, and has launched scores of suicide bombings and other attacks during the Palestinian uprising.
--------
Senior U.S. Officials Returning To Israel
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 3, 2004; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24355-2004Mar2.html
Three senior U.S. officials plan to return to Jerusalem next week for more talks with the Israeli government on its plan to disengage from the Palestinians, signifying an intensive period for settling details of the plan, U.S. officials disclosed yesterday.
U.S. and Israeli officials insist they are not negotiating over the plan, which involves Israel's vacating possibly all of Gaza and some isolated settlements on the West Bank. But the talks have amounted to a form of shuttle consultancy, with almost weekly visits by each side to prepare the groundwork for an eventual White House visit by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The group of senior Israeli officials, including Sharon's chief of staff Dov Weisglass, spent five hours at the White House on Monday, including three hours with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley. The Israeli officials, who came carrying maps, also met for about an hour with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Assistant Secretary of State William Burns.
Hadley and Burns, along with White House Middle East specialist Elliott Abrams, last visited Jerusalem two weeks ago to meet with Sharon about his proposal, after an earlier trip to Washington by Weisglass. An Israeli official said Weisglass plans to return to Washington in two weeks.
"The talks were very helpful, and we will continue them in the coming weeks," said White House National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack. "The prime minister's ideas are promising, and the discussions are very useful to examine the details and the many ramifications."
McCormack added: "The prime minister's proposals have the potential to be historic."
U.S. and Israeli officials have described the plan as "an interim arrangement" in which the Israelis would take a number of unilateral steps and then wait for the Palestinians to make corresponding moves. U.S. officials have said they view the proposal as a way of encouraging Palestinians and Arabs to take their own steps toward peace.
As part of the plan, Israel is considering giving Egypt responsibility for security on the Gaza border and moving a planned fence separating Israelis and Palestinians closer to Israel's 1967 borders. Israeli officials are seeking assurances the United States would not support other diplomatic initiatives, such as an unofficial plan known as the Geneva Accord, until Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is removed from power. Israeli officials also would like to receive greater flexibility in building housing in West Bank settlements it would seek as part of a final peace deal.
-------- latin america
Venezuelan Protests Intensify After Ruling
By FABIOLA SANCHEZ
Associated Press
Mar 3, 2004
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VENEZUELA?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Demonstrators hurled rocks and gasoline bombs at soldiers as protests intensified after Venezuela's elections council ruled against an opposition petition to force a presidential recall referendum.
Opponents of President Hugo Chavez say they submitted more than 3.4 million signatures. Some 2.4 million are needed for a recall election.
But council President Francisco Carrasquero announced Tuesday that just 1.83 million signatures were deemed valid. Another 876,016 signatures may be valid - if citizens confirm that they indeed signed the petition, Carrasquero said.
The decision triggered demonstrations by citizens banging pots and pans and exploding fireworks throughout the capital, Caracas, where thousands took to the streets.
Rioting - which began earlier Tuesday as the opposition anticipated the ruling - also was reported in several of Venezuela's most important cities in the hours after the council's decision.
National guard troops in armored personnel carriers rolled through several cities as demonstrators burned tires and threw rocks and gasoline bombs at soldiers. Sporadic gunfire was heard for a second straight night in Caracas.
The local Globovision television channel broadcast footage of several vehicles burning in a parking lot in Caracas' Los Ruices district, where troops fired rubber bullets at protesters who fought back with Molotov cocktails and threw rocks.
Globovision reported that protests continued in eastern city of Puerto La Cruz with troops firing rubber bullets at protesters, who were chanting "He's leaving, he's leaving," referring to Chavez.
Many opposition leaders had said they would not accept a decision requiring voters to confirm their signatures. The measure was allegedly not included in rules established for the verification process, they said.
The council said that voters would have between March 18 and March 22 to report to voting centers to confirm that they indeed had signed the petition.
Venezuela's opposition claims that such a monumental task, involving hundreds of thousands of citizens, would postpone the referendum or derail it entirely.
Protests have forced private banks to shut 20 branch offices, prevented garbage collection, caused traffic jams and hampered transit by emergency vehicles, keeping thousands from work.
Chavez's foes have been blocking traffic throughout Caracas since Friday to protest what they view as a government plot to derail the referendum - their last chance of legally ousting Chavez before the next elections in 2006.
At least one person has been killed and 60 wounded since Friday. Dozens have been arrested.
Chavez's foes say the populist former paratrooper has mismanaged the country and become increasingly autocratic, while his supporters accuse the opposition of trying to mount a coup.
Venezuelans had been waiting since Sunday for the council to release its findings.
Prodded by the Organization of American States and the U.S.-based Carter Center, the government and the opposition agreed in May on ground rules for an eventual recall referendum.
The petitions were delivered in December. But electoral authorities continue to delay an announcement on whether the recall effort can go ahead.
If Chavez, who was re-elected to a six-year term in 2000, loses in a referendum held before mid-August, the midway point for his term, new presidential elections must be held. But if he loses in a vote held after mid-August, Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel would take over for the rest of his term.
Opponents fear if that happens, Chavez would merely rule behind his right-hand man for the rest of his term.
The opposition charges the elections council belatedly changed the rules to disqualify hundreds of thousands of signatures. The council says observers were told not to allow voters to simply sign already filled-out forms. But thousands of signatures were delivered that way.
After Tuesday's decision, the OAS and Carter Center - which have said they saw no evidence of fraud - insisted they would ensure everyone who signed for the referendum will have their signature count.
Despite "some discrepancies" with the council decision, especially over placing the burden of proof on citizens being asked to confirm their signatures, the OAS and Carter Center will insist on "an electoral solution" to Venezuela's political crisis, OAS delegate Fernando Jaramillo said.
-------- nato
Poland hopes for NATO decision by June on NATO forces in Iraq
WARSAW (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040303151447.a0bcm1qk.html
Poland hopes NATO will decide at a June summit in Istanbul to take over from Polish forces in command of the multinational division in Iraq, Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said Wednesday.
The multinational military force in south-central Iraq -- comprising troops other than those of the United States and Britain -- is currently headed by Poland until July 1.
Szmajdzinski told journalists he would raise the question of the Atlantic Alliance relieving Poland when he meets NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer for talks here Thursday.
"Discussions will last until the Istanbul summit when the leaders will have to take a decision which will be of major importance," he said:
"Early statements are encouraging because nobody has so far imposed a veto although some member-countries do not wish to participate."
Szmajdzinski said Poland wanted to start reducing its military contingent in Iraq from 2005 on, but was meanwhile preparing to send in fresh personnel to relieve the present garrison this year.
Nearly 2,500 Polish personnel are serving with the 9,000-strong multinational division, with other units supplied by Spain, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Latin American countries.
The Polish minister declined to confirm reports from Iraq that militants arrested by Polish troops for alleged involvement in terrorist acttacks were linked to the Al-Qaeda network.
Spain, with 1,300 men deployed in Iraq, is also pondering whether to take over command from Poland of the multinational force stationed there, Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio said last week.
The Spanish government, facing a general election on March 14, "is working with other NATO members because we consider it important for the Alliance to have a major presence in Iraq if so wished, and as long as it is organised in accordance with both the Iraqi authorities and the UN," she said.
Madrid has so far made no commitments to take over the command of the multinational force, although Defence Minister Federico Trillo said last September his country would consider taking over the job from next September.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said last week a NATO presence in Iraq would depend on two crucial elements, namely transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi govenrment on July 1 and the UN's increasing role.
"Important developments are going to take place in Iraq in the sense that the date of the first of July is the set date for the transfer of sovereignty in Iraq," he said: "After that day, we will have a sovereign Iraqi government.
"If it is the case that after the transfer of sovereignty, that (Iraqi) government comes to NATO to participate in the stabilisation force, I think the allies will have a very serious discussion, starting with a positive attitude.
"Do not forget that 18 out of the 26 future NATO nations have at the moment forces on the ground in Iraq," the NATO official noted.
----
Belgium hails Bosnia's preparations for EU takover of NATO mission
SARAJEVO (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040303185828.86ulmr8b.html
Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel hailed Wednesday Bosnia's preparations for the takeover of the NATO mission in the country by the European Union.
"I'm very impressed with the wish of my colleague Mladen Ivanic that Bosnia is involved in the preparations" for the takeover, Michel told journalists.
Michel, who signed a bilateral accord on protection of investments during his one-day visit, also recalled "good relations" between the two countries.
He added that two other accords, on avoiding double taxation and on abolishing visas for diplomats, are being prepared.
The EU and NATO have been engaged in consultations on clearing the way for the takeover of the NATO mission in Bosnia by the EU, expected to take place at the end of the year.
The 12,000-strong NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia should be reduced to 7,000 by the end of March.
NATO forces have been deployed in Bosnia since the end of the country's 1992-95 war.
Michel was scheduled to visit neighbouring Croatia on Thursday for talks with his Croatian counterpart Miomir Zuzul, President Stipe Mesic and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader.
-------- pacific
Aussie bank denies U.S. veterans' claim it bankrolled Iraq weapons program
March 3, 2004
AP
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2004/03/03/367919-ap.html
SYDNEY, Australia - Australian bank Westpac denied Wednesday a claim made in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of thousands of U.S. veterans of the first Persian Gulf War that it helped bankroll Iraq's chemical weapons programs.
"We absolutely deny and reject any proposition that we...lent any finance for the purpose of selling of weapons of mass destruction to Iraq," Westpac spokesman David Lording said. He said Westpac investigated the claims and does not believe it financed Iraqi weapons programs. Westpac is seeking to be removed from a long list of defendants in the lawsuit, which was filed last year in a New York City court, Lording said.
Ken McCallion, a U.S. lawyer involved in the class action told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio Wednesday the case is seeking multimillion-dollar damages for the "wanton and reckless or malicious conduct of those who financed and sold Iraq the chemical weapons used to make poison gas."
The writ said more than 100,000 Gulf War veterans have suffered injury as a result of exposure to chemical weapons during the conflict.
Research has shown Gulf War veterans are more likely to suffer from a variety of chronic problems, including memory loss, fatigue, joint pain, depression, anxiety, insomnia, headaches and rashes.
However, no conclusive cause for these symptoms has been found, despite hundreds of studies. The theories range from stress and low-level nerve gas exposure to pesticides and depleted uranium from armour-piercing ammunition.
Papers backing up the action allege Westpac was among about 30 banks that helped finance Iraq's weapons programs. The case also lists chemical companies as defendants.
"The identification of the banks that were named came from various documents that we obtained from Iraqi sources, as well as were named in various UN documents which identified banks that financed various chemical acquisitions and equipment manufacturers who provided chemicals and equipment to the Iraqi regime prior to the first Gulf War," McCallion said.
"The theory of the complaint is that the banks knew or should have known from the level of detail relating to the financing of the chemicals that these were chemicals that were being used by the Iraqis, particularly during the late 1980s against the Kurdish population, as well as from time to time against Iran."
Lording said Westpac, Australia's fourth-largest bank, had no business in Iraq.
"We have never had an office in Iraq, never traded their currency," he said.
-------- pakistan / india
Pakistani police uncover stash of arms
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040303080419.lmltec78.html
Pakistani police seized a massive arms cache smuggled from the northwestern tribal area, police said Wednesday.
The haul included 240 rifles including 55 kalashinikovs, 12 small guns, 51 pistols and more than 10,000 rounds, police spokesman Riaz Ahmed said.
"The arms were being smuggled for possible terrorist activities," Ahmed told AFP.
The weapons were found hidden under crushed stone and sand in a truck which was intercepted at a checkpost outside Peshawar late Tuesday, he said.
The arms were being smuggled from Darra Adam Khel arms market town in the northwestern tribal region, bordering Afghanistan.
--------
Gunmen in Pakistan Kill Scores of Shiites
By John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 3, 2004; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21631-2004Mar2.html
KARACHI, Pakistan, March 2 -- Men armed with automatic rifles fired on Shiite Muslim worshipers as they marched through the city of Quetta on Tuesday, killing at least 42 people and wounding more than 150 in an incident that underscored the continuing threat of extremist violence against religious minorities in Pakistan.
The attack came as Shiites around the world marked the 7th-century death in battle of Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad. It is one of the most important and emotion-filled days of the Shiite calendar. The bombings in Quetta coincided with a series of coordinated bombings against Shiite worshipers in Iraq that left at least 143 people dead in Baghdad and Karbala, a Shiite holy city.
The attack on Shiites in Pakistan was the worst in the country since July, when members of a Sunni Muslim extremist group blew themselves up at a mosque in Quetta, killing dozens of worshipers.
Sunni Muslims constitute a majority in Pakistan. In recent years, hundreds of people -- most of them Shiites and other religious minorities -- have been killed in sectarian violence.
The attack in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern province of Baluchistan, began when gunmen on an apartment balcony opened fire on hundreds of Shiites as they marched along a busy commercial thoroughfare in observance of Ashura, the holiest day of the holy month of Muharram, authorities said.
Witnesses quoted by news agencies said the attackers also threw grenades and that two of the assailants blew themselves up before they could be captured. Some Shiite worshipers reportedly returned fire.
"Normally the procession moves at a certain time, and there were some miscreants" in a building along the procession route, Interior Secretary Tasneem Noorani said in a telephone interview from Islamabad.
Riaz Khan, the police deputy inspector, said: "Terrorists started firing from a balcony on the participants of the procession. When the terrorists saw themselves surrounded, at least two of them blew themselves up. I saw their bodies dangling from the balcony over the electrical wires."
One or two people have been arrested, Noorani said, but no group has asserted responsibility for the violence.
Shiites rioted after the attack, burning shops, several cars, a Sunni mosque and a television network office. Witnesses said the city echoed with the sound of explosions and fierce gun battles, according to news services. Security forces dispersed the crowds with tear gas, and police used loudspeakers to announce a curfew and order people into their homes.
Citing hospital officials in Quetta, the Associated Press reported that at least 42 people were killed in the violence and that more than 150 were wounded. The Reuters news agency put the number of dead at 44.
Noorani said that extra security had been deployed in advance of the march in Quetta, a bustling if somewhat austere city on a high, arid plain. He said, however, that with "literally thousands" of similar processions taking place across the country on the same day, "this kind of thing happens. Emotions are running high."
To the north of Quetta, a shootout broke out as Shiites marched in the town of Phalia in Punjab province, the Associated Press reported. The fighting between Sunnis and Shiites left two people dead and at least 40 injured.
The incidents will likely increase pressure on Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, to do more to fulfill his pledges to rein in extremist groups that maintain a formidable presence in the country. On several occasions over the last two years, Musharraf has announced bans on such groups, but some have simply reconstituted under different names.
In October 2002, Azam Tariq, the leader of a banned Sunni extremist group, was even allowed to run for parliament, "despite more than 20 charges of terrorism registered against him in various courts," the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization that monitors global conflicts, noted in a report in January. Tariq, who won a seat from Punjab province, had previously said it was permissible to kill Shiites because they were not true Muslims. Tariq was assassinated in October 2003 in an apparent retaliatory killing by Shiite militants.
--------
Pakistan stirs a tribal war
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Asia Times
Mar 3, 2004
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FC03Df01.html
KARACHI - The weekend's incident of "mistaken fire" in which Pakistani soldiers killed at least 11 people in a shooting incident in Wana in the tribal region of South Waziristan near the Afghan border has virtually overnight changed the rules of the game in the region.
The Pakistani army says that its soldiers were firing back at militants who had attacked an army camp, but tribesmen say that the troops opened fire on two vehicles that failed to stop at a road block; local people and Afghans were among the dead.
The Pakistani army last week launched a fresh offensive against al-Qaeda, Taliban and key Afghan resistance suspects in the tribal areas, a highly sensitive move at the best of times in the semi-autonomous region where the writ of Islamabad does not apply.
The Pakistani operation is being conducted in conjunction with United States-led troops across the border in Afghanistan, whom, it is believed, will round up any fleeing fugitives from Pakistan. Last week, Pakistani officials said that they had arrested about 20 people, but no details were given.
The operations in the tribal region were considered a precursor to bigger ones in Afghanistan in April and onwards when the weather improves, but now the tribal regions themselves could become a part of the problem.
Although President General Pervez Musharraf was quick to set up a commission of inquiry and announce compensation packages (US$1,700 for the families of the 11 dead, half that amount for those injured) tribals are now likely to take on the Pakistan military. Some rocket attacks on Pakistani military targets have already been reported over the past few days.
Tribal law
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province are located on the Pakistan side of the 2,400 kilometer long and porous border with Afghanistan.
The tribal areas had a population of 5.7 million according to a 1998 national census. There are seven tribal areas: Khyber, Kurram, Orakzai, Mohmand, Bajaur, North Waziristan and South Waziristan, all dominated by Pashtun tribes.
The tribal areas, or agencies as they are often called, were created by the British to serve as a buffer between undivided India and Afghanistan. The British devised a special system of political administration to govern the Pashtun tribes who resisted colonial rule with fierce determination.
The tribal people were granted maximum autonomy and allowed to run their affairs in accordance with their Islamic faith, customs and traditions. Tribal elders, known as maliks, were given special favors by the British in return for services such as maintaining peace and apprehending anti-state and anti-social elements. Basically, this system still exists today, and the Pakistani courts and police have no jurisdiction in tribal areas.
Broadly, people in the tribal areas can be categorized as being pro-Pakistan, or not. The former, or religious element, can be found mostly in South Waziristan and North Waziristan, and they also support or are sympathetic to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. A sizeable, though not a majority, of the population opposes the Taliban and al-Qaeda. They could be termed as Pashtun nationalists and they are generally against the Pakistan establishment and army.
Before the latest operations began in the tribal areas, Pakistani authorities mainly contacted the religious element and convinced them (falsely) that Pakistani military intervention was unavoidable, or the US would bomb Pakistani territory. The authorities assured the leaders that the Pakistan army would only flush out foreign fighters from Pakistan into Afghanistan, and would not let US forces into Pakistan territory. On this argument, the tribals agreed not to be hostile towards the army.
Meanwhile, the US cultivated the nationalistic Pashtun element. With tangible "inducements", the tribals provided the US with intelligence on the presence of foreign fighters, al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistani territory. Yet as soon as Pakistani troops began their operations, US agents used this as an example of Pakistan intervening in the tribal areas.
With the weekend's killing of 11 tribals, sentiment among even the pro-establishment tribals has changed, and they find themselves on the same "side" as the nationalists, and political and religious affiliations have been blurred. (This was fueled in part by unconfirmed reports that US soldiers had been involved in the shooting and were being given a free run in the tribal areas.)
Now tribals threaten that if there is another major mobilization of Pakistan troops in the area, "Pakistani forces will only take their own body bags back home".
Across the border
With much of the world's media focussed on the highly-publicized hunt for Osama bin Laden in the mountains that divide Pakistan and Afghanistan, another, more secret operation was undertaken on Afghan soil in the Kunar Valley, with the target former premier, mujahideen veteran and resistance leader Gulbuddin Hekmatayr.
However, a week-long operation proved fruitless, and the coalition forces and their Afghan counterparts remain as clueless as ever on the whereabouts of Gulbuddin and a close band of loyalists said to accompany him wherever he goes.
The coalition is also more than keen to rope in other resistance leaders, such as Kashmir Khan, Jalaluddin Haqqani and Saifullah Mansoor, as the capture of any one of these would be a major setback for the resistance and a possible lead to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Until then, the resistance continues to consolidate, and grow.
-------- philippines
Philippines says military plot "nipped in the bud" with arrests
MANILA (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040303080228.76wqp4q2.html
A destabilization attempt against President Gloria Arroyo has been "nipped in the bud" with the arrest of three military officers, her spokesman said Wednesday.
The military on Tuesday announced that an Army colonel and two lieutenant colonels were being questioned over an alleged plot to recruit soldiers for anti-government protest actions.
Arroyo is seeking a six-year term in the May 10 vote after surviving a military rebellion last year.
"The latest destabilization attempt has been nipped in the bud and is being dealt with by routine disciplinary measures," Arroyo's spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, said.
Destabilization plots "are doomed to failure", Bunye said, adding that the overall military chain of command remained loyal to government.
The three officers were arrested last month after they were found trying to recruit reservists for planned protests backing the opposition candidate, movie star Fernando Poe, in case he was disqualified, the military said.
The Supreme Court is set to decide shortly on a petition to have Poe barred from standing on grounds he is not a "natural-born Filipino citizen."
The officers were detained at the army headquarters of Fort Bonifacio while their possible links to other military plotters or to opposition politicians are investigated.
Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Lucero stressed that under the constitution, the military is barred from engaging in "partisan political activities."
He said intelligence operatives have been monitoring the three and have gathered enough evidence to warrant a full-blown investigation.
Opposition candidate Poe, considered the country's John Wayne, commands a huge following among the country's majority poor. His candidacy is the biggest threat to incumbent Arroyo.
Poe's followers had warned of civil unrest if he was barred from running.
-------- russia / chechnya
Russia Weapons Debt Threatens Putin's Army Reforms
March 3, 2004
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-arms-russia.html or
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4488878
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Unpaid bills of $600 million for weapons threaten the future of Russian arms firms and further undermine President Vladimir Putin's efforts to revive the crumbling military, the arms industry's chief said Wednesday.
Alexander Nozdrachev, general director of the Conventional Weapons Agency, said the government's failure to make payments for two months to the umbrella agency of arms companies compounded fears that more than one third could go bankrupt.
Putin, certain to win a second term in a March 14 presidential election, has promised an overhaul of the military, including upgrading aging equipment and creating a professional army.
``In January and February we didn't receive a single rouble, neither for work carried out nor in advance,'' Nozdrachev told reporters, saying weapons firms were feeling the squeeze of the 17 billion rouble ($600 million) debt.
He said more than a third of the companies faced bankruptcy. Close to another third were in some financial difficulty.
Putin's reform attempts have been dampened by the failure of three missile launches last month at Russia's biggest military exercises in more than 20 years, at which he made a highly publicized appearance.
Monday, he urged the defense ministry to re-run them.
He has promised to equip his armed forces with a new generation of long-range weapons, matching those of the United States and hopes to make the forces a respected symbol of the state again.
Nozdrachev said the government's failure to pay up destroyed confidence in its attempts at military reform. ``This problem hinders us, worsens our financial position and discredits the government's own efforts to bring about order,'' he said.
Russia is the world's largest arms exporter, providing 36 percent of global deliveries, but domestically it struggles with a reputation of having inefficient and old equipment.
Accidents such as the sinking in 2000 of the Kursk, the country's newest nuclear submarine, at a cost of 118 lives and frequent military helicopter crashes have led many to view the forces as a national disgrace.
A lack of funds prompted Putin to say Russia would explore prospects of working with the United States in developing its missile defenses.
Russia had previously resisted U.S. plans for a missile defense system and criticized its abandonment of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a first stage in the project.
-------- spies
CIA invests in start-ups. The dividend?
Technology Agency acts as a venture capitalist to get early look at innovations and help U.S. spies do their jobs better
By Kevin Maney
USA TODAY
March 3, 2004
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20040303/5972650s.htm
SOMEWHERE NEAR WASHINGTON -- Inside this busy office building, no signs and no directory listings point the way to the tenant known as In-Q-Tel. To do this story, USA TODAY had to agree not to reveal the office's location.
It's just one of many odd mutations that have resulted from one of the most radical government programs today: In-Q-Tel is the venture-capital arm of the CIA.
That's right: The CIA is investing in tech start-ups. At a time when the CIA has come under fire for intelligence lapses, In-Q-Tel offers a promising path to technology that might help the agency spot trouble sooner and make fewer errors.
In-Q-Tel, set up in 1999, invests about $35 million a year in young companies creating technology that might improve the ability of the United States to spy on its nemeses. It has kept a low profile and is not much known outside of the intelligence community and Silicon Valley.
Though In-Q-Tel started as a five-year experiment, it has been so successful that the CIA wants to extend In-Q-Tel's charter. That's up to Congress, which is likely to approve. In-Q-Tel has become a new darling in Washington. The Defense Department even wants to duplicate the In-Q-Tel model for the military.
What does In-Q-Tel invest in? ''It's not like in the James Bond movies, making a car invisible or something,'' says Gilman Louie, who runs In-Q-Tel. Instead, many of the technologies are focused on finding and sorting data -- a gigantic problem for intelligence agencies. Every three hours, U.S. intelligence sweeps up enough information to fill the Library of Congress, according to a report in Technology Review.
So one In-Q-Tel-backed company, Language Weaver, is helping by developing a new kind of capability for instantly translating documents from, say, Arabic into English. Another, Inxight, is like a smarter Google -- a search engine that can sort online documents into categories. In all, In-Q-Tel has invested in 59 start-ups.
The result is an idiosyncratic blend of tech and spies. For instance, In-Q-Tel isn't run by a CIA operative. Louie previously founded a couple of video game companies. Here in In-Q-Tel's modern black and tan offices, Louie endures a constant string of quips from CEOs and investors who are unused to being in the CIA's presence. '' 'I can tell you, but I'd have to kill you,' '' Louie says mockingly. ''I get that all the time.''
The board of directors is a mix of famous maverick capitalists and political operatives, including James Barksdale, the one-time CEO of Netscape Communications; Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin; and William Perry, who was secretary of Defense under President Clinton.
At the tech companies that In-Q-Tel has funded, executives relish the cloak-and-dagger aspect of working with this new kind of partner. Ask the companies how the CIA is using their stuff, and you get silence, often accompanied by a grin.
''We never talk about 'the customer,' '' says Robert Shaw, CEO of ArcSight, a security software company In-Q-Tel funded. In an interview, Shaw won't even say the term ''CIA.''
Regaining its edge
In-Q-Tel exists because the CIA knew it was losing its edge in information technology.
In December 1998, CIA Director George Tenet and his executive director, Buzzy Krongard, called on Augustine, the respected builder of Lockheed Martin. As Augustine recalls, Tenet explained that the CIA and government labs had always been on the leading edge of tech. But the Internet boom poured so much money into tech start-ups, the start-ups leapt ahead of the CIA. And scientists and technologists who had innovative ideas went off to be entrepreneurs and get rich -- they didn't want government salaries at the CIA.
At the same time, tech companies were booming and didn't want the hassle of dealing with the government's procurement process. Most never thought of contacting the CIA. Tech companies didn't know what the CIA might need, and the CIA had no idea what the tech companies were inventing -- a dangerous disconnect with lives on the line.
Augustine, Tenet and Krongard -- a former investment banker -- came up with a potential solution. It was ''one with a new ingredient that had never been tried before,'' Augustine says. ''We'd create a company that would take equity positions in these little tech companies.''
Why do that instead of just buying the latest technology?
In Silicon Valley, venture capitalists -- known as VCs -- see business plans when start-ups are nothing but a hot idea. The VCs then put up money to help them get going. If the CIA could elbow into the VC clique, it could get an early glimpse of technologies that might be helpful to the agency, and it could make sure those technologies are funded.
In a way, the VC route lets the CIA use the whole technology industry as a lab.
The mission was never to make money on the investments. It was to lasso cool new technology for intelligence work.
To lead this new entity, the CIA found Louie. He had built the popular flight simulation game Falcon F-16, and in the 1980s imported the wildly successful game Tetris from, of all places, the Soviet Union, then a Cold War enemy.
At the time, Louie was head of Hasbro's video game group. Tenet appealed to his patriotism.
''He convinced me that if we didn't solve this information problem for the CIA, it would be overloaded,'' Louie says.
He took the job and launched In-Q-Tel. The name is an homage to Q, the scientist in Bond films who gives 007 the cufflink cameras and shoe guns. In-Q-Tel is ''intel'' -- short for ''intelligence'' -- with Q in the middle.
''We went through a very tough start because it was so different,'' Augustine says. Congressional investigators wondered whether the principals were out to make a profit. Tech entrepreneurs were suspicious of the CIA's intentions.
Then Sept. 11 happened. ''That was the turning point,'' Augustine says.
The Sept. 11 factor
In-Q-Tel is not inside the CIA -- it's more like an appendage.
Many of In-Q-Tel's 55 employees don't have security clearances. Inside the CIA is a separate group of 13 actual agents called the QIC, which is short for In-Q-Tel Interface Center. The QIC tells In-Q-Tel what kinds of technology the CIA needs. In turn, when In-Q-Tel funds an interesting start-up, it tells the QIC, which introduces the technology around the CIA.
Louie and most In-Q-Tel employees work out of the Washington-area office, which is kept out of view. More visible is In-Q-Tel's eight-person Silicon Valley office. In Menlo Park, it sits on Sand Hill Road, where just about every other major VC firm resides. A sign on the door says ''In-Q-Tel.''
It's that door that tech entrepreneurs beat down after Sept. 11.
Three or four business plans came in each day -- a 1,000-per-year average that hasn't abated. Technologists who previously gave no thought to helping the CIA suddenly felt a desire to contribute.
The CIA welcomed the rush. After Sept. 11, ''All of a sudden, the agency was in a world of hurt,'' Louie says. ''The only way they could see their way through it was to use technology.''
Around the same time, one other factor pulled In-Q-Tel and the tech industry closer: the bursting of the tech bubble. By 2001, money from traditional sources for starting new tech companies had all but dried up.
In-Q-Tel had the CIA's money to invest. It also brought along a hungry market for technology -- the CIA needed this stuff -- at a time when most tech buyers were cutting spending.
By 2002, In-Q-Tel was embraced as a Silicon Valley player.
'They find you'
Like a lot of In-Q-Tel firms, security company ArcSight never intended to play with the CIA. ''You don't go looking for them,'' CEO Shaw says. ''They find you.''
The company was founded in 2000 to develop security software for corporations. It would track all the network breaches, hacker attacks and other threats to a corporation's system, then look for patterns. That might help the corporation anticipate future threats or even track down hackers.
Shaw, once a top executive at Oracle, says In-Q-Tel had stealthily scouted the company for a year. ''Then out of the blue they called me,'' he says. ''By the time they knocked on our door, they knew a lot about us.''
That sounds typical. In-Q-Tel has become known for being thorough yet furtive. These days, when a young company is making a presentation at an event, an unknown man or woman might come in, listen intently, then disappear. Such is In-Q-Tel's mystique that entrepreneurs often believe those are In-Q-Tel scouts even when they're not.
Once In-Q-Tel invests, it takes a more hands-on role with its companies than many traditional venture-capital firms. At ArcSight, In-Q-Tel reps made suggestions about the software. The suggestions made the product better for the CIA, but also for corporate customers, ArcSight says. ''They are by far the most proactive, helpful investor we have,'' Shaw says.
In-Q-Tel companies sell to businesses and consumers, not just the CIA or the government. That's important. In-Q-Tel works to make its companies viable, healthy businesses. ''The agency would be reluctant to rely on technologies developed by fragile companies,'' says Stephen Mendel, who runs In-Q-Tel's Silicon Valley office. He adds that the CIA doesn't want to be left with discontinued technology when ''there are lives at stake.''
What is success?
The hard part is measuring In-Q-Tel's success. Will it make money? Probably. A number of In-Q-Tel's companies are doing well. Of 59 investments, 39 companies are still up and running. Silicon Valley insiders say In-Q-Tel's success rate is actually better than that of most leading VC firms.
If In-Q-Tel returns a profit, the money goes back into investing in other companies. Louie hopes In-Q-Tel will eventually fund itself, requiring little taxpayer money.
But the money isn't what matters here. The real measure of In-Q-Tel's success is how much technology it inserts into the CIA and whether it helps the U.S. intelligence effort.
''We're investing to make a difference in something very big,'' In-Q-Tel's Mendel says.
However, that success is impossible to see. The companies won't talk about specifics and often don't know what happens inside the CIA's walls. ''We can surmise they must like (our product) because they keep ordering more,'' Inxight CEO John Laing says.
CIA watchers can't find out, either. ''I honestly don't have a very clear picture,'' says Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists. Even so, he says it was a good idea for the CIA to tap into private sector technology.
And the CIA's view? ''We are extremely pleased and satisfied,'' Krongard says. ''I can't get into specifics, but In-Q-Tel has made significant contributions.''
Louie offers this rundown: In-Q-Tel has invested $150 million, and the result is 22 new technologies inserted into 40 government programs. That's as detailed as he'll get.
''It has far exceeded anything I could've hoped for when we had that first meeting,'' Augustine says. But he adds a note of caution, apropos for the CIA, which had been stuck for too long in old ways of finding new technology. ''No idea is good forever,'' Augustine says. ''We'll have to see how it holds up with time.''
-------- us
National Guard Seeing Fewer Recruits
Mar. 3, 2004
KSL Television & Radio, Salt Lake City UT
Jed Boal Reporting
http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?nid=5&sid=78820
Military action in Iraq and Afghanistan is taking a heavy toll on reservist troops across the country and here in Utah. In the midst of deployments, recruiting has slipped, and the National Guard hopes to even out the burden among the states. Several hundred Utah troops are headed for the battlefield this year, hundreds more are coming home. National Guard troops are shouldering quite a load.
Phase three of Operation Iraqi Freedom is shuttling hundreds of Utah soldiers in and out of the Middle East; 150 from an artillery unit leave in May.
The Utah Guard leads the nation in percentage of troops deployed--as high as 80 percent, closer to 50 percent right now.
Lt.Col. Brad Blackner, Utah National Guard: "It's been a high percentage, but it's because of the types of units and quality of soldiers. We don't like to be in those percentages, but we're prepared to do what we have to help with this cause."
A new plan would keep half of each state's forces available. The other half would be held back for emergencies at home.
Lt.Col. Brad Blackner: "I'm sure the soldiers and their families would support that."
As far as recruiting goes, it's dropped off nationwide. It's as hard as it's ever been in Utah, but they say they're still getting the job done.
Lt.Col. Dallen Atack, Recruiting and Retention Commander: "On a six-month average, we're about 80 bodies short of where we were this time last year."
Young recruits are hesitant, but some still join. Nathan Meinzer is a 17-year-old Junior in high school who's eager to serve.
Nathan Meinzer, New Guard Member: "Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to join the army or the army national guard."
Utah is one of only six states right now that meets the Army's strength expectations, but it's an ongoing to challenge. Retention is also going to be a challenge in the National Guard as more members become combat veterans and decide they've had enough. Attrition, so far, has not hurt the Utah Guard.
----
Veterans Groups Critical of Bush's VA Budget
Dismay Over Higher Fees and Staff Cuts Could Be Boon for Democratic Nominee
By Edward Walsh
The Washington Post
Wednesday, March 3, 2004; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24665-2004Mar2?language=printer
Military veterans have already played a prominent role in the 2004 presidential campaign, helping to propel one of their own -- Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts -- close to the Democratic nomination. If he is the nominee, Kerry is counting on strong support from his fellow veterans in the general election battle against President Bush.
And Kerry may be getting an unintended boost from the Bush administration's proposed budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs in the next fiscal year.
After three years of mostly cordial relations with the administration, leaders of veterans' organizations and a union that represents VA workers are voicing strong criticism of Bush's fiscal 2005 budget plan. They assert that the budget would only worsen the backlog in processing disability claims, reduce the number of VA nursing home beds just as the number of veterans who need long-term care is swelling and force some veterans to pay a fee simply to gain access to the VA health care system.
In a statement issued shortly after the budget was released, Edward S. Banas Sr., commander in chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, called the VA's health care spending proposal "a disgrace and a sham."
VA officials reply that spending for health care will increase under the budget, but that tough choices had to be made because of the soaring budget deficit and limits on spending.
According to John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the VA is calling for a reduction of 540 full-time jobs in the Veterans Benefits Administration, which handles disability, pension and other claims by veterans.
"VBA is under such pressure to get the caseload down, and now they are going to cut the staff," he said. "These things don't make sense on their face."
Mark Catlett, the VA's principal deputy assistant secretary for management, said only 35 of the jobs that would be eliminated through attrition involve employees who process disability claims, in which the backlog problem is most severe. He said the elimination of many of the jobs would be the result of a consolidation of the department's pension processing functions.
Catlett said the lower staffing levels proposed in the budget assume an increase in productivity by VA employees.
"We clearly have a responsibility to get more productive," he said.
The more contentious issue involves the VA's sprawling health care system. The budget calls for spending $29.5 billion for veterans' health care in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, a 4.2 percent increase over current spending.
But critics in the veterans' organizations say the budget would effectively cut health care spending because about $2.4 billion of the total would not come from congressional appropriations but from fees and other charges collected from third parties and from veterans themselves.
Under the budget, some veterans would have to pay $250 a year to use the VA health care system; their co-payments for a 30-day supply of a prescription drug would also more than double, from $7 to $15. The proposed changes would affect only the veterans with no service-related health problems whose relative high income places them in the two lowest priority classifications.
VA officials estimate that the new "user fee" would produce about $268 million a year and that the higher pharmacy co-payment would add about $135 million a year in revenue. They also project that these higher costs will prompt about 200,000 of the affected veterans to drop out of the system and get their health care elsewhere.
John McNeill, deputy director of the VFW, credited the Bush administration with increasing the VA's health care budget during the last few years. But, he added, "just as they are getting close [to the needed level of spending], this proposal retrogrades everything. It doesn't even take care of the inflation factor."
Linda Bennett, AFGE's legislative director, was equally critical of the proposed cuts in nursing home care, which she said would reduce the number of full-time VA nursing home beds to 37 percent below the level set in law by Congress in 1998. She said the VA has been trying to move more veterans into state-run nursing homes and "non-institutional" settings, such as home health care programs.
"I look at it as a signal that the VA would like to get out of the business of taking care of veterans in their old age," Bennett said.
But Catlett said long-term care at home is usually "better and preferred" to a nursing home, and that the VA is directly or indirectly providing long-term care to more veterans than ever.
"We're trying to get the right balance," he said. "There will always be VA nursing homes."
Catlett also said the user fee and higher co-payments for the lowest priority veterans would help the department pay for its core mission -- to care for low-income veterans, especially those with service-related health problems.
Last year, Congress rejected a similar proposal for a user fee and higher co-payments and may do so again. But the congressional debate will almost certainly become embroiled in presidential politics as Bush and his Democratic opponent vie for the allegiance of veterans.
Bob Wallace, executive director of the VFW's Washington office, said that even veterans who would not be affected by the budget proposals "hear that their comrades are affected by it, and it bothers them."
Whether that will hurt Bush in the fall is not clear, but American Legion National Commander John Brieden said, "This sure doesn't help him. The PR on this is not good. I expect the Democrats, whether it's Kerry or whoever, to beat Bush over the head with this."
-------- propaganda wars
Bush should 'come clean' on Iraq weapons: Kay
LONDON (AFP)
Mar 03, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040303012220.3pbrr625.html
The former chief of the group of experts responsible for finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, David Kay, told a British newspaper on Wednesday that US President George W. Bush should "come clean" and admit that he was mistaken about Iraq's weapons arsenal.
"It's about confronting and coming clean with the American people, not just slipping a phrase into the state of the union speech," Kay told the Guardian in an interview in Washington.
"I was convinced and still am convinced that there were no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction at the time of the war," he said.
"There were continuing clandestine activities but increasingly driven more by corruption than driven by purposeful directed weapons programmes."
Kay resigned in January and has blamed intelligence failures, not political leaders, for the much-publicized accusations that Saddam possessed chemical and biological weapons and sought nuclear arms -- the core of Bush's case for war.
Despite clearly admiring Bush and believing he went to war in Iraq in good faith, according to the Guardian, Kay thinks the president has to go further to regain public trust.
"He (Bush) should say: 'We were misunderstood and I am determined to find out why,'" he said.
"When you don't say you got it wrong, it leads to the general belief that you manipulated the intelligence and so you did it for some other purpose.
"I think we lost the credibility of our intelligence. The next time you have to go and shout there's fire in the theatre people are going to doubt it," Kay said.
The former head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), the team searching for weapons which continues to comb the country, shocked the Senate on January 28 by saying they had almost all been "wrong" on Iraqi weapons.
Subsequently London and Washington have announced inquiries into the quality of the intelligence used by the governments to justify the decision to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein.
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Cheney, in Television Interviews, Tries to Counter Criticism
March 3, 2004
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/03/politics/campaign/03CHEN.html
WASHINGTON, March 2 - On the busiest primary day of the election year for the Democrats, Vice President Dick Cheney sat for three nationally televised cable interviews on Tuesday, an unusual schedule for an official who does not often take questions from national reporters.
The appearances gave Mr. Cheney an opportunity to counter months of Democratic criticism of President Bush by explaining and defending administration positions on major issues, including rebuilding efforts in Iraq, the transfer of power in Haiti and the president's support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriages.
In response to a question on MSNBC, Mr. Cheney said Mr. Bush had "made clear what the administration position is" on gay marriage, "and I support him." Mr. Cheney, who has a daughter who is a lesbian, said in 2000 that he thought the issue of should be left to the states.
The interviews on MSNBC, CNN and Fox News also provided a forum for Mr. Cheney to make a case for himself. Recent opinion polls have shown his popularity declining, in part as a result of his strong support for waging war against Iraq and his past leadership of Halliburton, a company widely criticized for its role in postwar Iraq.
To that end, he dismissed suggestions that he had become a drag on the ticket, confirming that he intended to run again with Mr. Bush.
"There's no way you can do one of these jobs, now for three years going on four years, without stirring up certain controversy," Mr. Cheney said on MSNBC.
As for serving a second term, he said: "If I thought I were a drag on the ticket, I'd be the first to recommend to him that, that he needs to consider alternatives. That's not been the case. He's decided he wants me to run again."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
9/11 Panel Rejects White House Limits on Interviews
March 3, 2004
By PHILIP SHENON
The New York Time
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/03/politics/03PANE.html
WASHINGTON, March 2 - The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is refusing to accept strict conditions from the White House for interviews with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and is renewing its request that Mr. Bush's national security adviser testify in public, commission members said Tuesday.
The panel members, interviewed after a private meeting on Tuesday, said the commission had decided for now to reject a White House request that the interview with Mr. Bush be limited to one hour and that the questioners be only the panel's chairman and vice chairman.
The members said the commission had also decided to continue to press the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to reconsider her refusal to testify at a public hearing. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are expected to be asked about how they had reacted to intelligence reports before Sept. 11, 2001, suggesting that Al Qaeda might be planning a large attack. Panel members want to ask Ms. Rice the same questions in public.
"We have held firm in saying that the conditions set by the president and vice president and Dr. Rice are not good enough," said Timothy J. Roemer, a former Indiana congressman who is one of five Democrats on the 10-member commission.
Mr. Roemer said that former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore had agreed to meet privately with the full bipartisan commission, and that Samuel R. Berger, Ms. Rice's predecessor, would testify in public.
"It's very important that we treat both the Bush and the Clinton administrations the same," he said.
The White House has declined to discuss details of the limitations it has sought on the interviews with Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney but has said the administration wants to cooperate fully with the commission, known formally as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
A spokesman for the National Security Council, Sean McCormack, said Tuesday that the White House believed it would be inappropriate for Ms. Rice to appear at a public hearing as a matter of legal precedent. "White House staff have not testified before legislative bodies," Mr. McCormack said. "This is not a matter of Dr. Rice's preferences."
Even as panel members warned of a possible confrontation with the White House, there was fresh evidence that the commission had averted a showdown on Capitol Hill. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, said Tuesday that he planned to shepherd a bill granting the panel a 60-day extension for its final report. Mr. Hastert had vowed to block the extension.
Mr. Hastert met Tuesday with the commission's chairman, Thomas H. Kean, a Republican and a former governor of New Jersey, and the vice chairman, Lee H. Hamilton, another former Democratic congressman from Indiana, and said at a news conference later that he would try to secure House approval of the extension, a proposal already accepted in the Senate.
With the extension, the commission would have until July 26 for its final report. The panel had warned that if it was held to its original deadline of May 27, as mandated by Congress, it would be unable to complete a full investigation and would have to curtail public hearings.
Mr. Hastert denied suggestions from Congressional Democrats that he had tried to block the extension as a favor to the White House, given Republican fears that the report might embarrass President Bush during his re-election campaign. Mr. Hastert said he had no direction from the White House.
"I didn't want it to become a political football," Mr. Hastert said of his initial opposition to the extension, adding that he had been chagrined when the White House said in February that it would back the extension.
Referring to the commission, Mr. Hastert said he had changed his mind last week "after it became apparent that they couldn't get their work done."
Commission officials said that if the White House continued to insist on limitations on the interviews with Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, there might be little that the panel could do to force the issue and that the commission might have to accept the White House's terms.
And they said that despite internal conversation about the possibility of issuing a subpoena for Ms. Rice's public testimony, that move was unlikely. Ms. Rice provided several hours of private testimony last month and has suggested that she is willing to answer additional questions behind closed doors.
-------- courts
Justice Scalia Gets Cheney Case Recusal Request
Story by James Vicini
REUTERS USA:
March 3, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24099/story.htm
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court said this week it referred to Justice Antonin Scalia a request that he remove himself from a case about Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force because their recent duck-hunting trip raised questions about his impartiality.
The Sierra Club environmental group, which sued Cheney for the task force papers, filed a motion last week asking that Scalia disqualify himself from the case because the January trip had created "an appearance of impropriety."
It said Scalia's removal would "restore public confidence in the integrity of our nation's highest court."
The justices said in a brief order, "In accordance with its historic practice, the court refers the motion to recuse in this case to Justice Scalia." It was not clear when Scalia would respond to the request.
He has defended his decision to go on the trip and said his impartiality could not be reasonably questioned.
According to the motion, Scalia and his daughter were Cheney's guests on Air Force Two on a Jan. 5 flight to Louisiana. Cheney and Scalia were guests of the president of an energy services company on a duck-hunting vacation.
Cheney is being sued by the Sierra Club and another group. They want him to release documents about White House contacts with the energy industry in 2001. The vice president has appealed to the Supreme Court a ruling ordering him to produce the documents.
In mid-December, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Cheney's appeal. Oral arguments are expected in April.
If Scalia removed himself from the case, it would raise the prospect of a possible 4-4 vote. When the high court deadlocks, the lower court's ruling - in this case the U.S. appeals court decision that went against Cheney - is upheld.
At the end of last week, Scalia faced new questions about another trip he took in November 2001 to Kansas, where he also went hunting.
The Los Angeles Times reported on Friday that Scalia also spoke to the University of Kansas law school. At the time, its dean was serving as a lawyer for the state in two cases pending before the high court.
Scalia has removed himself from one high-profile case before the high court this term.
He is not taking part in the case that will decide whether recitation in public schools of the Pledge of Allegiance represents an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion because of the phrase "under God."
Scalia removed himself after giving a speech in which he questioned both the appeals court's ruling in the case and whether courts should remove religious symbols and phrases from public life.
-------- homeland security
Homeland Security Grants - A Not So Funny Joke
by Jennifer Gritt
March 3, 2004
http://antiwar.com/orig/gritt.php?articleid=2078
I live in Appleton, WI, and I'll bet each and every American $5.00 that not one member of al-Qaeda can locate it on a map. Now I'm sure there are few football fans out there who might take me up on that bet seeing how Appleton lies just southwest of its more famous cousin Green Bay. And everyone knows Osama and company are not exactly Packer fans, now are they. So I shouldn't be so quick to bet on something like that, right? Yeah, well, I'll take my chances.
Yet even if Appleton or Green Bay or the collection of little towns, villages, and cities that make up the entire Fox River valley are potential targets for a terrorist attack, rest assured I can sleep well tonight. Why? Because the Homeland Security Department was established to protect me against such atrocities in my neighborhood. And how are they going to do that, you ask? By donating millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to my local governments so that they can buy the fire fighting and police equipment they've always wanted. "The Homeland is more secure when each hometown is more secure," Director Tom Ridge recently told a bunch of nodding heads. I don't know about you, but I feel safer from international terrorism already.
This is how it works. First, $41.34 billion of taxpayer money is poured into the Homeland Security Department via your political "pals" in Washington (with a proposed $47.4 billion slated for the next round). Next, Wisconsin (or insert your own state here) receives several millions under the guise of protecting Americans against terrorism. Then the state disburses X amount of dollars to the separate counties who in turn divvy up the monies to individual municipalities in true "each according to their need" fashion. Who says federalism doesn't work. Except in this case, it's taxpayer money - not power - being distributed through the different tiers of government. Karl Marx would be pleased.
And just what is this money really being used for? Here are just a few examples.
A ten minute car ride east takes me to a lovely little village called Combined Locks. A lucky recipient of Homeland Security grant money, the first responders there decided that the best way to protect residents from a biological attack was to install bulletproof glass in its police headquarters. And all I can say is, it's about time! Because the total number of drive-by shootings at that building last year came to a disturbing zero. The fire department of the neighboring village of Little Chute received $38,000. They used that money to purchase brand new air tanks even though I'm pretty sure they would have already been equipped with ones that worked seeing how they are firefighters and all.
Now don't worry because Wisconsin is not the only state receiving millions of taxpayer dollars to distribute to small town communities like the ones that surround me. Small towns all over the U.S. such as those scattered throughout New Hampshire, Nevada, Illinois, and Wyoming are benefiting as well. Of the $2 million that's slated for New Hampshire, a chunk of that is going toward making sure local police departments "get access to satellite television channels that transmit continuous news." Gee, I wonder if I became a flag-waving, Bush-saluting member of the Americorps if I could convince the federal government to pay for my digital cable too? And it doesn't require a doctorate in mathematics to calculate how much federal grant money is being dumped into the coffers of local governments nationwide to pay for stuff like this. A point of fact that becomes even more irritating when our major airports and water ports are still facing significant security challenges. But I guess Americans have been convinced that these small town first responder units really need this grant money so that they are better prepared for terrorist attacks. Never mind that disasters such as those that befell New York and Washington on 9-11 are probably not going to be unleashed upon the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center. And even if a terrorist bombing did occur here, first responders in this area already have the equipment and training they need. These units have fully functioning emergency vehicles and they know how to rescue people from a burning building and treat the wounded. So what it comes down to is that this money is being used to buy equipment local fire and police departments could never afford or could never convince their local governments (and us residents) that the items were necessary. In addition, the money is being used for extra training in how to deal with future terrorist-related disasters even if these first responders live in a rural town with a population of 300 and that includes the cats, dogs, horses, and cows. And it's "free money" these local first responder units are not going to readily want to give up.
But not everyone in my hometown area is taking part in the Homeland Security grant free for all. Police Chief David Peterson heads up the Fox Valley Metro police department which serves both Little Chute and neighboring Kimberly. When asked what he thought about the Homeland Security Department and the current grant frenzy, he replied: "In a nutshell, I think it's a joke." Pointing out that the national debt has reached a record-breaking, heart-stopping $7 trillion, Peterson sees the Homeland Security grants as nothing more than a colossal waste. "We're supposedly trying to cut back on a deficit," he stressed, but at the same time "every state wants a piece of the pie." For this police chief, the Homeland Security grants are nothing more than job security for Senators. Peterson, who has kept his police department's budget running in the black for the past several years, stressed that if more politicians and other civil servants operated the same way, America wouldn't be facing such a huge national deficit. "Could I upgrade some equipment here?" Peterson said, "Sure. But I'll do it the right way."
Now to be fair, there are others out there who are beginning to realize that the Homeland Security grant program is a bit flawed. Overall though, local first responders are taking advantage of the taxpayer money being made available to them. But what's more important is that it doesn't matter how many new air tanks, tazer guns, and other equipment local police and fire departments purchase with this grant money - none of this is going protect Americans from the acts of terrorism that devastated New York and Washington. Suicide missions cannot be easily deterred as our soldiers in Iraq - not to mention everyone living in and around Jerusalem - have learned. For that, we're going to have a take a cold, hard look into how and why America is an enemy to these terrorist groups in the first place.
But hey, at least the police headquarters in Combined Locks is well protected.
Jennifer A. Gritt is a freelance writer and antiwar activist from Appleton, WI.
--------
President Urges Renewal of the Antiterrorism Law
March 3, 2004
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/03/national/03BUSH.html
WASHINGTON, March 2 - President Bush called Tuesday for Congress to renew major parts of the antiterrorism law, setting up an election year fight over national security and civil liberties.
In a speech for the first anniversary of the Homeland Security Department, Mr. Bush cast the renewal of the law, the USA Patriot Act, as essential to protecting the United States from terrorist attacks.
"Key provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire next year," Mr. Bush warned in his remarks to 200 employees of the security department at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center on Pennsylvania Avenue. "The terrorist threat will not expire on that schedule."
The law has met growing opposition from many Democrats and some Republicans, who say it robs Americans of civil liberties. The law, passed by Congress in 2001 weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, broadens federal powers to conduct wiretaps, demand financial records and use other investigative tools against people suspected of terrorism.
Mr. Bush has sought to use the renewal of the law to further the perception that he will be far tougher on terrorism than the Democrats, an idea that aides see as his greatest strength going into the November election. Crucial provisions of the law are not set to expire until Dec. 31, 2005, more than a year after the election, but Mr. Bush called for the renewal in his State of the Union address in January.
On Tuesday, a day when the Democrats dominated headlines with delegate selections in 10 states, the president expanded on that call and warned again that America was not safe. But his corollary was that he was in a powerful position to protect the country because of what he had learned from leading the nation after 9/11.
"We are relentless," Mr. Bush said. "We are strong. We refuse to yield. Some two-thirds of Al Qaeda's key leaders have been captured or killed. The rest of them hear us breathing down their neck. We're after them. We will not relent. We will bring these killers to justice."
Mr. Bush spent much of his speech praising the work of the Homeland Security Department, a Democratic idea that he initially opposed. But Mr. Bush signed on in the spring of 2002, when the idea gained unstoppable strength on Capitol Hill, and said in the summer and fall of 2002 that the Democrats were using union rules to hold up the creation of the department.
-------- human rights
China issues human rights record of the US
By News Report
Mar 3, 2004,
Axis of Logic
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_5436.shtml
March 1, 2004-China issued the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2003 Monday in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2003 issued by the US on Feb. 25. The Human Rights Record is the fifth Chinese report in responseto the annual country reports on human rights by the United States.
China issued the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2003 Monday in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2003 issued by the U.S. on Feb. 25.
Released by the Information Office of China's State Council, the Chinese report listed a multitude of cases to show that serious violations of human rights exist on the homeland of the United States.
"As in any previous year, the United States once again acted as'the world human rights police' by distorting and censuring in the'reports' the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions across the world, including China. And just as usual, the United States once again 'omitted' its own long-standing malpractices and problems of human rights in the 'reports'. Therefore, we have to, as before, help the United States keep its human rights record," said the report.
The report reviewed the human rights record of the United States in 2003 from six perspectives: Life, Freedom and Safety; Political Rights and Freedom; Living Conditions of US Laborers; Racial Discrimination; Conditions of Women, Children and Elderly People; and Infringement upon Human Rights of Other Nations.
This is the fifth consecutive year that the Information Office of the State Council has issued human rights record of the United States to answer the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices issued annually by the State Department of the United States.
Laborers' rights not well-protected in the US
The United States has turned a blind eye to the rights and interests of common laborers, leading to serious problems like poverty, hunger and homeless people.
The disparity between the rich and the poor keeps widening in the US, says the record, the fifth of its kind issued by China, in response to the annual country reports on human rights by the United States.
A 2003 report by the Office of Management and Budget under the US Congress acknowledged that the gap between the rich and the poor in the country today is wider than anytime in the past seven decades, with the wealth of the country's richest 1 percent population exceeding the overall possessions of the needy, who account for 40 percent of the population. In 2000, the rich people's wealth make up 15.5 percent of the country's overall national income, as against 7.5 percent in 1979. A report by the US FederalReserve also showed that between 1998 and 2001, the wealth gap between the country's richest and poorest had widened by 70 percent.
The population living in poverty and hunger in the United States has been on a steady rise, says the record. According to statistics from the 2003 economic report of the US Census Bureau, the impoverished population in the United States had been increasing for two consecutive years, reaching 34.6 million, or 12.1 percent of the total population, in 2002, up 1.7 million over the previous year. The country's poverty ratio in 2002 had increased by 0.4 percentage points over the previous year.
In October, 2003, the United States Department of Agriculture released a report, which showed that in 2002 there were 12 million American families worrying about their food expenditures and 3.8 million families with members who actually suffered from hunger.
According to the human rights record, the homeless population continues to rise in the United States. According to information released by the US National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty,more than 3 million people were homeless in the United States in 2002. A survey released by the US Conference of Mayors in December2003 shows that requests for emergency shelter assistance increased by an average of 13 percent in the past year. Moreover, 88 percent of the cities surveyed predicted that the situation would be even worse in 2004.
Besides, the record points out there is a lack of work safety in the U.S.. New York Times quoted a survey of the US Occupational Safety & Health Administration as saying that in 20 years from 1982 to 2002, there were 1,242 cases involving the death of workers caused by the employers' "intended" violation of safety rules, yet 93 percent of the cases were not brought to the court.In these two decades, there were a total of 2,197 accidents caused by employers' violation of safety rules and resulted in death of the workers in the United States, yet the combined prison terms for employers involved were less than 30 years, says the record.
The situation of health insurance worsened among the American laborers, says the record. According to figures released by the US Census Bureau in September 2003, the number of Americans without health insurance climbed by 5.7 percent over 2001, to 43.6 millionin 2002, the largest single increase in a decade. Overall, 15.2 percent of the Americans were uninsured in 2002, the record says.
Rights of women, children and elderly people lack protection in the US
Little can be spoken of the human rights record in the US in view of protecting the rights of women, children and elderly people, according to the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2003.
It says American women can not enjoy the same rights as men to take part in government and political affairs, says the record. Statistics from the Center for American Women in Politics indicated that in 2003, women hold 59, or 13.6 percent, of the seats in the House of Representatives and 14, or 14 percent, of the seats in the Senate.
According to the record, in the United States, women are not entitled to equal treatment with regard to employment and income. American women are still largely pigeonholed in "pink collar" jobs, such as secretary, shop attendant and waitress, according toa report released by the American Association of University of Women in May, 2003.
Statistics from the US Department of Labor indicated that in 2002, the average weekly earnings for women aged 16 and above were 530 US dollars, or 77.9 percent of the 680 dollars for their male counterparts. The department said that there were twice as many as women whose earnings were below the Federal minimum wage, compared with men. There has been serious domestic and sexual violence against women, says the record.
According to a study by the US National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 92 percent of American women rank domestic and sexual violence as one of their top worries. One out of every three women experiences at least one physical assault during adulthood, however, only one out of seven cases of domestic violence drew the attention of the police.
According to the record, the protection of children provided inthe US is far below international standard. The United States isone of the only two countries in the world that have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of Children. Since 1980s, all the states in the US have lowered the age of criminal culpability against juvenile offenders, and in some states, juvenile offenders aged 10 even stood on trial in adult courts.
The US is the country that has handed most of the death penalties to juvenile offenders and carried out the executions in the world, the record says. According to a report released by theAmnesty International on Jan. 21, two-thirds of the documented executions of juvenile offenders in the world occurred in the US. Up to date, there 80 such juvenile prisoners on the death row waiting to be executed.
Moreover, among the developed nations, the United States ranks the first in the number of children living under the poverty line and the last in the span of its children's life expectancy. According to statistics released by the US Census Bureau in September 2003, 10.4 percent of all US minors lived in poverty by the definition of income in 2002, up to 13 million. And according to the United Nations Children's Fund, of the 27 well-off countries in the world, the United States ranks the first in the number of deaths of its children as result of violence and negligence.
The under-aged population are under threat in terms of physicaland mental health and they are usually the victims of sexual assault, says the record. According the US Federal Government, of all the children under the age of 18, 10 percent suffer from psychological illness of various levels. But only one fifth of them have been provided with medical treatment.
According to others reports, at least 1000 people were arrested in the United States for accused acts of eroticism targeting children since June 2003.
The record also reveals how the gray-haired are prejudiced against and mistreated, which led to higher rate of suicide among them. In the United States, people over the age of 65 account for 13 percent of the national population, and of all the people who committed suicide, the senior population account for 19 percent, it says.
US blamed on trampling human rights in other countries
The image of the United States has been tarnished by numerous misdeeds of human rights infringement in other countries, said the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2003.
The record considered it a result of unilateralism the US had been practicing in recent years, which made it indulged in military aggression around the world and brutal violation of sovereign rights of other nations.
In March 2003, without authorization by the United Nations, theUS unilaterally waged a large-scale war on Iraq based on its claim that the Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
The record says that the U.S. army dropped many bombs on residential areas, shopping malls and civilian vehicles in its wanton and in discriminate bombing of Iraq.
It quoted Britain's Independent newspaper as saying the war on Iraq killed more than 16,000 Iraqis, including 10,000 civilians.
However, it's only a small consequence of the US' active sabre-rattling. According to the record, it has resorted to the use of force against other countries 40 times since 1990s.
Statistics in the book "Rouge State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower" by well-known US journalist and writer William Blum also showed that since 1945, the U.S. has attempted to overthrow over 40 foreign governments, suppressed over 30 national movements, in which millions of people have lost their lives and many more were pushed into misery and despair.
The reckless use of depleted uranium (DU) shells and cluster bombs was another evidence cited by the record.
Last December, the Human Rights Watch disclosed that the 13,000cluster bombs US troops used in Iraq contained nearly 2 million bomblets, causing over 1,000 causalities. The quantity of depleted uranium shells it dropped and the residue of their pollutants also far exceeded those of the Gulf War in 1991.
The record points out that the US placed some of its prisoners "beyond the law". It put behind bars in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba 680 alleged die-hard Al-Qaida elements from 40-odd countries, who the US government said were not "prisoners of war" and therefore not subjected to the protection of the Geneva Conventions.
A report entitled People the Law Forgot, carried on the British Guardian newspaper last December, depicted the mental and physicaltortures suffered by the 600-odd foreign detainees.
Meanwhile, the record also listed frequent violations of local people's rights by the US overseas troops.
Last year, the US military authority received 88 reports about "misbehavior" of its overseas troops. In the past dozen years, over 100 soldiers of the US Marine Corps in Okinawa of Japan have been reported of committing rapes. Troops in Australia and Iraq were also accused of sexual harassment or beating and insulting local people.
Statistics show the US is the nation with the most troops stationed overseas, about 364,000 troops in over 130 countries andregions.
In addition, the record also says the US was the largest exporter of arms. It quoted a report of the New York Times as saying that the US export of conventional arms accounted for 45.5 percent of the world's arms trade volume in 2002, ranking the first in the world. A Capitol report also said the US sold 8.6 billion US dollars worth of conventional arms to the developing nations, or 48.6 percent of all the arms procured by the developing world in 2002.
Presuming to be the "Judge of Human Rights in the World", the US publishes "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" every year and denounces unreasonably human rights status in other countries, regardless of the disparities among different countriesin politics, economy, history, culture and social development, says the record.
"Meanwhile, it has turned a blind eye to its own human rights problems. This fully exposed the dual standards of the US on human rights and its hegemonism," the record says.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5798.htm
-------- immigration / refugees
Records Gap Leaves Borders Vulnerable Report Says
U.S. Border Patrol Won't Get Complete FBI Fingerprint Files for Years
Associated Press
Wednesday, March 3, 2004; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24284-2004Mar2.html
The United States remains vulnerable to infiltration by known criminals and terrorists because of chronic delays in making millions of FBI fingerprints available to the Border Patrol, Justice Department investigators reported yesterday.
It probably will take at least four more years for the FBI and Border Patrol systems to be combined in a way that would allow for a quick, automated check of fingerprints for the 1 million illegal immigrants who are caught each year, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine determined.
That means thousands who could be prosecuted for crimes or detained as security risks will be returned to their home countries, free to try to reenter the United States, the report found.
"We believe this continues the significant risk that aliens who should be detained . . . instead will be released because Border Patrol agents will not learn of their significant criminal or deportation history," Fine said in the report.
The report is only the latest to find fault with U.S. efforts to secure airports, seaports and border crossings in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It was released the same day President Bush marked the first anniversary of the creation of the Homeland Security Department, saying progress is being made.
The FBI's fingerprint database contains about 43 million 10-finger sets of known criminals' prints. Ten-finger sets are considered superior because police often find only a single print at a crime scene. Although Border Patrol agents can check detained people against the FBI's database now, the process is slow, and the agents must select out those to be checked.
The Border Patrol's separate fingerprint system contains about 6 million two-finger sets of prints and is focused on catching those who repeatedly cross borders illegally. A second Border Patrol database contains an unspecified number of 10-finger sets of deported and criminal aliens.
Even with these limitations, from January 2002 to April 2003 the Border Patrol caught 4,820 people who were wanted for criminal offenses and 3,440 from countries thought to pose security risks to the United States, the Justice Department report said.
The problems with the current system were underscored by the case of Victor Manuel Batres, who was stopped by Border Patrol agents twice in January 2002 but was returned twice to Mexico without having his fingerprints checked against the FBI files. Had the agents done so, they would have discovered he had a long criminal history and could have turned him over to state or federal prosecutors.
Instead, Batres made it across the U.S.-Mexico border illegally a third time in 2002 and rode freight trains to Klamath Falls, Ore., where he raped two Roman Catholic nuns and killed one of them, Sister Helen Lynn Chaska, 53. Batres is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to murder and rape.
-------- terrorism
Terror Suspect's Ambitions Worry U.S. Officials
Zarqawi May Be Looking Beyond Iraq
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 3, 2004; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24354-2004Mar2?language=printer
The Jordanian-born jihadist who quickly became a suspect in yesterday's bombings in Iraq also wants to assume a leading, independent role in future terrorist operations in other countries, according to senior intelligence officials.
Abu Musab Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for two dozen bombings in recent months and was on record threatening new attacks against Iraqi Shiites before yesterday's attacks. But U.S. officials are also increasingly concerned about Zarqawi's ambitions beyond Iraq. Although Zarqawi has worked with al Qaeda in the past, officials say it is increasingly clear he operates independently of Osama bin Laden's organization and has developed his own network of operatives.
"He is a thinker" and "a good organizer" who "sees Iraq as a springboard into broader and more jihadist actions in the region," said one senior intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Reflecting the concern, the United States announced in February that it had doubled -- from $5 million to $10 million -- the reward it would pay for information leading to Zarqawi's death or capture.
The focus on Zarqawi, his network and his longer-term plans had intensified before yesterday's attacks. It comes as U.S. intelligence officials recalibrate their tactics in the fight against terrorists, paying particular attention to the emergence of such smaller, largely autonomous groups.
CIA Director George J. Tenet told a Senate panel Feb. 24 that the battering of al Qaeda's leadership has "transformed the organization into a loose collection of regional networks" that pursue shared, though not always identical, goals. The groups "pick their own targets, they plan their own attacks," he said.
Although al Qaeda may have been wounded, one senior intelligence analyst said, "there has been no comparable weakening in the wider Islamic jihadist movement."
U.S. intelligence officials consider Zarqawi's most immediate threat to be in Iraq, "which he is using as a recruitment poster," said the senior analyst. Bin Laden and his top al Qaeda deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, are believed to be on the run somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, leaving Zarqawi to become what one U.S. official described as the unofficial "umbrella leader" of Islamic resistance groups in Iraq. Zarqawi has used foreign fighters and former members of Saddam Hussein's Baathist Party, and claims to have carried out a series of bombings there.
In early January, Zarqawi met with Hassan Ghul, a trusted bin Laden emissary, to discuss whether al Qaeda would participate in future Iraq operations, according to the senior intelligence officials. Ghul's mission was to determine whether the tide was already turning against the jihadists in Iraq, or whether al Qaeda should join the fight as an opportunity to reassert its leadership role in the region, officials said.
Ghul was captured in mid-January in the Kurdish border area carrying a 17-page letter in which Zarqawi conveyed his views on the situation in Iraq to al Qaeda leaders. That letter has given the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies insights into the Jordanian terrorist leader's plans for the next three months and hints about his broader long-range plans.
Zarqawi's letter said the "zero hour" for stepped-up insurgency attacks in Iraq would come at the end of June, when the United States plans to relinquish sovereignty to an interim government that Iraqi leaders and U.S. and U.N. officials are still figuring out how to create.
That is "when we will begin to appear in the open, gain control [of] the land at night and extend it into daylight," Zarqawi said. But should that fail, he said, "we will have to pack our bags and break camp for another land in which we can resume carrying the banner."
As for bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders, Zarqawi said, "We do not see ourselves as fit to challenge you," but instead his group would be "the spearhead, the enabling vanguard and the bridge on which the [Islamic] nation crosses over to the victory that is promised."
Zarqawi said that if al Qaeda adopts his approach in Iraq, he would swear "fealty to you [bin Laden] publicly and in the news media." But if bin Laden's group does not join in, the document said, "the disagreement will not spoil [our] friendship."
Intelligence officials say Zarqawi is considered dangerous in part because he has a history of violent action, and not just in Iraq.
A 37-year-old Sunni who trained in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, Zarqawi established his own extremist group -- called al Tawhid -- several years ago in Jordan.
There his group attempted at the turn of the millennium to carry out terrorist bombings against hotels used by Jewish and American tourists. In 2002, he is believed to have arranged for the murder of Laurence Foley, a U.S. Agency for International Development official, for which he was convicted in Jordan in absentia. He was first publicly mentioned in October 2002 by President Bush as a terrorist associated with al Qaeda who was receiving medical treatment in Baghdad.
Zarqawi also has been tied by U.S. intelligence to Ansar al-Islam, the terrorist group that before the war was based in the Kurdish area of Iraq. He has been linked more recently to Jordanian members of al Tawhid who are on trial in Germany for plotting attacks against Jews in that country.
U.S. intelligence officials believe Zarqawi's vision for the jihadist movement differs somewhat from that of bin Laden. Bin Laden has remained focused on waging attacks in the United States, as well as against Americans and Europeans in the Middle East.
Zarqawi, U.S. officials said, sees Israel and Jews as main targets. His wider goal is to resurrect fundamentalist Islamic rule throughout the Middle East, officials said.
His main goals "include getting the U.S. out of the Arab heartland, promoting Sunni [against Shiite] predominance within the Islamic community" and targeting "Israel as the basis for evil," said a senior intelligence official.
In the letter that was seized, Zarqawi called Iraq "a political mosaic, an ethnic mixture," where for centuries "only a strong central authority and an overpowering ruler have been able to lead."
The Shiite majority, led by their religious leaders, "have befriended and supported the Americans" and therefore are "the proximate, dangerous enemy of the Sunnis." He continued: "As far as the Shia, we will undertake suicide operations and use car bombs to harm them."
Zarqawi also wrote that he has prepared publicity material "so that we can come out into the open . . . and become an arena of jihad in which the pen and the sword complement each other." Meanwhile, he wrote, he is working in the Sunni areas, "racing against time to create companies of mujahidin."
The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad has displayed the Zarqawi letter on its Web site and released excerpts in Arabic in Iraqi newspapers. CPA officials stress Zarqawi's plan to create turmoil by attacking the Shiite majority and his words that "with the deployment of [Iraqi] soldiers and police, the future has become frightening."
Yesterday, CPA spokesman Dan Senor reiterated the U.S. view that Zarqawi's letter shows he and other terrorists are threatened by the prospect of democratic rule in Iraq and the end of the U.S. occupation June 30.
As L. Paul Bremer, the CPA administrator, told reporters last month, "Zarqawi and all the others know they are falling behind in a race against time, a race against Iraqi self-government, when he says, 'Democracy is coming and there will be no excuse thereafter for the attacks.' "
Juan R.I. Cole, a Arab specialist at the University of Michigan, had a different view of the letter's meaning and did not see it as an expression of desperation. He said in an interview that the "democracy is coming" phrase was not stated as Zarqawi's sentiment, "but what he imagines the Shiites will be suckered into thinking by those wily Americans, who will still actually be running things" after the U.S. occupation ends. Cole said the U.S. government translation missed the nuance of the Arabic text and the rhetorical device of the writer temporarily adopting the voice of the Shiites.
Cole also said the seized Zarqawi letter indicates that he has not been in close touch with bin Laden and al Qaeda in recent years and in fact is "a rival to the bin Laden group." Although Zarqawi went through the al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan in the 1980s, he does not come across in the document as subservient to bin Laden, Cole said.
The Jordanian, he said, "is now in the position of being a small corporation looking to an older, larger corporation with a joint project in mind." But, Cole added, the letter makes it clear that Zarqawi is not calling off his Iraq operation if he does not get al Qaeda support.
-------- torture
'Torture Lite' Takes Hold in War on Terror
Reuters
Wednesday, March 3, 2004; 8:29 AM
By Dan Williams
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25762-2004Mar3?language=printer
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Rock music at full blast and the smothering darkness of a hood are sometimes enough to break a will already frayed by lack of sleep. If not, the subject can be slapped and shaken senseless, just short of permanent injury.
Honed against Arab suspects in Israel and decried widely as "torture lite," such interrogation methods are now a prevalent part of the U.S.-led war on terror, human rights groups say.
Yet many experts defend them as a last resort in a race to stop suicide attacks by al Qaeda, whose diffuse ranks have been notoriously hard for Western intelligence agencies to penetrate.
"Faced with terrorism, every democracy will resort to torture if it thinks this will prevent attacks against its civilians. The issue is whether such methods are used with deniability or accountability," said Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard University law professor.
Washington denies its forces use torture, despite increasing Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports of abuse in U.S. military stockades in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
British troops in the Gulf have been similarly accused.
The most recurrent complaints include deprivation of sleep or food, and being forced to sit for hours shackled and hooded in a contorted position. Many suspects also say their captors beat and shook them, enough to jar and bruise but not to maim.
These methods -- which U.S. officials describe as "stress and duress" rather than torture -- recall the "moderate physical pressure" Israel's Shin Bet security service uses on detainees believed to be withholding information about impending attacks.
According to Israeli security sources, the Shin Bet has shared interrogation expertise with American counterparts since the mid-1990s amid fears of new Islamist violence on U.S. soil.
"The Americans were not equipped for cracking this brand of fanaticism," a senior Israeli source said. "We helped."
"UNWILLING" INFORMANT GAVE UP SADDAM
Security officials do not give details of interrogations in the war on terror, making it impossible to gauge their efficacy.
Dershowitz, who has written extensively on legal challenges facing counter-terrorism agencies, said judicial scrutiny of U.S. methods is hobbled by the foreign location of many interrogation centers.
For even greater discretion, he said, U.S. forces transfer some detainees to Third World client states where "torture heavy" is the norm. Amnesty has also reported such "outsourcing" of interrogations.
Coercion clearly played a part in at least one U.S. coup: the capture of Saddam Hussein last December after the deposed Iraqi dictator's whereabouts were extracted from an informant.
"This guy was in interrogation. He wasn't willingly giving stuff up," one U.S. officer told the Washington Post.
A source who oversaw Shin Bet interrogations for four years said that out of dozens of suspects subjected then to "moderate physical pressure," only one did not divulge details that led directly to the prevention of a suicide bombing or gun attack.
"He was either innocent or too tough," the source said.
According to one Arab affairs expert, such state-sanctioned tactics risk deepening the enmity they purport to tackle.
"They (U.S. forces and their allies) are only making more and more people disbelieve in democracy and the so-called international standards of human rights," said Azzam al-Tamimi of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London.
Anti-torture campaigners further insist that use of force is as likely to yield false information as anything truly useful.
"There is an assumption that torture is an effective way of interrogation, but torture is not always an effective technique. People being tortured will say anything to stop the pain," said Amnesty International secretary-general Irene Khan.
RUSES, NOT ABUSES
With the war on terror in its third year, Osama bin Laden still at large and alerts over attacks by his al Qaeda network unabated, security experts are increasingly circumspect about the U.S.-led campaign -- and employment of torture in any form.
"We are fighting for our existence ... against Islamists that could be armed with weapons of mass destruction. But even in those circumstances, I think that we would find that we were both not being effective and undermining the things that we really stand for by using torture with prisoners," said R. James Woolsey, a former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
"Any unorthodox (interrogation) methods should be ruses, not abuses," he told Reuters.
Former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon agreed that even "moderate physical pressure" should come after psychological manipulation has been tried first. "A good interrogator knows how to play with a terrorist's mind so he ends up cooperating," Ayalon said.
According to security sources, "truth serums" -- drugs that reduce the subject's inhibitions -- are self-defeating because separating fact from fantasy in the ensuing wash of information can be impossible. With doping ruled out, duping remains an option.
One retired Shin Bet interrogator, Michael Koubi, recounted in an interview with Atlantic Monthly last year how he terrified suspects into talking by simply staging beatings within earshot.
"People are afraid of the unknown. They are afraid of being tortured, of being held for a long time," he told the magazine.
Another trick was to mention a secret about the suspect and tell him it was obtained from one of his jailed comrades. With the stigma of collaboration eroded, the suspect would usually be keen to cooperate himself and end the interrogation, Koubi said.
But Koubi told the magazine it was most important to impose a sense of intimacy with the subject through common language. "I try to create the impression that I use his mother tongue even better than he does," he said. "This embarrasses him very much."
In high-level Washington hearings on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that prompted the war on terror, U.S. officials linked the lack of forewarning to intelligence shortfalls -- including too few agents with knowledge of Arabic and Afghan dialects.
While this gap is bridged, U.S. interrogators may have had to make do with physical coercion, Dershowitz said.
"The United States has had to use more blunderbuss methods, as it lacks, for now, the sophistication Israel has in dealing with the cultural challenges posed by terrorist suspects," he said.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
MoD chiefs threaten wind power
Story by Stuart Penson
REUTERS UK:
March 3, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24076/story.htm
LONDON - Ministry of Defence may be blowing off course the government's targets on expanding the use of wind energy by blocking the construction of dozens of turbines, the wind power industry and a group of the country's top scientists say.
The government, as part of its bid to curb greenhouse gas emissions, wants to expand the fleet of wind farms to help to raise to 10 percent the amount of the country's power supplied from renewable energy by 2010.
But Ministry of Defence (MoD) objections, on the grounds that turbines can interfere with aircraft radar systems, are hampering the wind industry's growth, said the Royal Society.
"A key issue that needs to be resolved is the apparent conflict of interests between wind farm developers and aviation requirements related to potential radar interference and safety," wrote professor David Wallace, vice president of the Royal Society, in a letter to the head of the defence estates.
The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) said the MoD objected to 48 percent of pre-applications to build onshore wind farms last year. Companies to test the water before embarking on more expensive formal planning applications file pre-applications.
"Both military and civil aviation stakeholders are adopting an onerous precautionary principle which continues to severely constrain wind projects both on and offshore," said Chris Tomlinson, the BWEA's head of onshore wind.
An MoD spokesman confirmed the 48 percent figure for objections to pre-application cases but said it was misleading to quote this figure.
"It is not unusual for companies to propose multiple sites to the MoD for possible windfarms on the understanding that some will not be appropriate, and with the intention to build only one farm," he said.
"For this reason, the number of objections we make to informal proposals is a misleading figure, since it does not directly relate to final numbers built."
He said the MoD last year blocked less than five formal planning applications for wind power projects but declined to give details on specific cases.
"The MoD is absolutely committed to working with industry, local authorities and other Government departments to meet the Government's targets on renewable energy," the spokesman added.
The row over MoD objections to wind farms came after a government report on Friday said Britain was failing to meet its target for renewable energy despite a government-backed scheme to encourage green power launched nearly two years ago.
Britain generated 1.8 percent of its power from green sources in the year April 2002 to March 2003, the first year of the Renewables Obligation scheme, compared with a target of three percent, according to the report.
-------- environment
EPA Air Model Underestimates Cancer Risk
BALTIMORE, Maryland, (ENS)
March 3, 2004
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2004/2004-03-03-09.asp#anchor1
The cancer risk from exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) is underestimated by current models that rely solely on ambient emissions, according to researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The researchers found that cancer risk figures based on actual measured exposure for communities in Baltimore, Maryland were as much as three times greater than estimates given by models.
The study is the first of its kind to directly compare the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Assessment System for Population Exposure Nationwide (ASPEN) model results to indoor, outdoor and personal exposure measurements.
ASPEN is being used nationally to assess the public health impact of ambient air toxins.
"The public health implications of our findings loom large," said Dr. Timothy Buckley, the senior author of the study and an associate professor in the School's Department of Environmental Health Sciences. "ASPEN has already shown that for many U.S. census tracts, risk from ambient air toxins exceeds acceptable levels. Now our data indicates that because of significant indoor source contributions, these risks are much worse."
The study, "Personal Exposure Meets Risk Assessment: A Comparison of Measured and Modeled Exposures and Risks in an Urban Community" is published in the April 2004 issue of the journal "Environmental Health Perspectives."
The researchers used passive air sampling badges to compare personal, outdoor and indoor residential concentrations of VOCs for 33 nonsmoking, adult study participants to ASPEN ambient estimates.
For VOCs that have significant indoor sources, such as chloroform, the researchers found that ASPEN far underestimated the measured personal exposures.
In contrast, VOCs from vehicles, such as benzene, or VOCs such as carbon tetrachloride that occur at global background levels, the ambient estimate given by ASPEN was in agreement with the measured personal exposures.
When the researchers combined all the VOCs into an assessment of risk, they found that ASPEN underestimated risk based on actual measured exposure by a factor of three.
"Our results indicated that South Baltimore residents were routinely exposed to a number of VOCs that are considered to be toxic air pollutants by the EPA and at levels above public health benchmarks," said Dr. Devon Payne-Sturges, the study's lead author. "Benzene, carbon tetrachloride and chloroform accounted for most of the risk."
The indoor environment continues to represent an important source of personal exposures to VOCs, Payne-Sturges said.
"The good news is that indoor sources can be controlled," she said. "Environmental tobacco smoke is the greatest culprit but other more subtle contributors, such as cleaning solvents and air fresheners, add up to represent a sizeable fraction of the risk. We need to do a better job of getting the word out about the importance of indoor sources and the means for their control."
But some populations might have more difficulty in changing these aspects of their life, Payne-Sturges acknowledged, in particular people who depend on jobs where limits on smoking indoors are not enforced or people who have limited access to "green product alternatives" for home use.
Buckley added that the findings "demonstrate the significance of indoor exposure sources and the importance of indoor and personal monitoring for the accurate assessment of a community's risk."
"The EPA is clearly on the right track in its development of models that will take into account indoor sources providing a true representation of the health risk from VOCs air toxin exposure," he said.
-------- genetics
Researchers give access to stem cell lines
3/3/2004
The Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-03-03-stem-cell_x.htm
Harvard researchers are giving scientists free access to 17 new human embryonic stem cell lines that were developed without government money, the latest sign that U.S. scientists are forging ahead with the controversial research that the Bush administration has tried to limit.
"I think that the field needs to be stimulated and this is an excellent way of stimulating the field," said Dr. Leonard Zon, president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research and a professor of pediatrics at Harvard's Children's Hospital Boston.
Zon, who was not involved in the project, said the new stem cell lines not only double the number available to scientists, but are more user-friendly than the 15 lines eligible for federal research dollars.
Still, that's not enough, said Dr. Douglas A. Melton, whose lab at Harvard created the stem cell lines for research on diabetes and is making them available beginning Wednesday.
"There's not an optimal number. But at the same time, it's quite clear that the number we've now provided and the others that are in existence worldwide are insufficient for all of the studies and the demand," he said.
Federal funding for stem cell research has been restricted since 2001 by the president, who opposes the destruction of human embryos that occurs when stem cells are extracted.
That has forced some scientists to find other ways of funding their work. Only research on stem cell lines established before Bush made his decision in August 2001 can get government grants.
Melton's funding came from Harvard University, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a medical research organization. Melton is an institute employee based at Harvard.
Stem cells are the body's building blocks and have the potential to become many different types of cells. Scientists think the cells can be coaxed into specific cells to repair organs or treat diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
Once the stem cells are taken from days-old embryos, the cells are grown in a laboratory into lines or colonies.
Some scientists complain that the 15 approved lines are expensive - as much as $5,000 each - and hard to get and to use. Melton said the 17 new lines will be freely available, although scientists can't use federal money to work with them.
"I think the best thing to do is to worry less about the policy and the politics and get down to figuring out what the (15) stem cell lines can actually do," Battey said.
The development of the new stem cell lines was widely reported last fall when Melton discussed them at a conference. A report on the work will be in the March 25 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, whose editors said the new lines should be made eligible for government money.
"There is too much suffering that may be remediable through the therapeutic application of this new approach to place the new cell lines off limits to many North American research scientist," they wrote in an editorial.
Melton and his colleagues derived the new cell lines from 344 excess frozen embryos supplied by a fertility clinic, Boston IVF, with the consent of the owners. The researchers will use the new lines to continue their work on type 1 diabetes and try to make insulin-producing pancreatic cells.
Melton's 12-year-old son, Sam, and 16-year-old daughter, Emma, have the disease and Melton moved into the field after his son was diagnosed at 6 months.
"When my son was diagnosed, I did what any parent does. I asked myself, 'What am I going to do about this?'," Melton said.
At Harvard, the stem cell lines would be used at a privately funded center the university is planning. Other universities including Stanford, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Minnesota and the University of California at San Francisco are also developing programs without government support.
Besides private foundations, research support may also be coming from states. New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey wants the state to spend $50 million for stem cell research, including $6.5 million for a research center. A group in California is pushing for a $3 billion bond issue for stem cell research.
--------
NIH: Few Stem Cell Colonies Likely Available for Research
Of Approved Lines, Many Are Failing
By Justin Gillis and Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 3, 2004; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24621-2004Mar2.html
At least 16 of the 78 human stem cell colonies approved by President Bush for federal research money have died or failed to reproduce in their laboratory dishes -- making them useless to scientists -- and most of the others are unlikely ever to become available for disease research, according to interviews and a new analysis by the National Institutes of Health.
The unpublished NIH analysis, circulating yesterday on Capitol Hill, said only about one-quarter of the Bush-approved cell colonies are ever likely to be available, far fewer than supporters of the president's policy had predicted.
Moreover, several of the Bush-approved colonies available to researchers are beginning to show genetic abnormalities, potentially undermining their medical usefulness, researchers said.
Advocates of stem cell research, who believe it offers possibilities for curing a range of diseases from diabetes to Parkinson's, said these developments confirmed fears they expressed in 2001, when Bush announced that he would allow federal funding only for stem cell colonies that had been extracted from human embryos as of Aug. 9 of that year.
Two Democrats, Reps. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.) and Louise M. Slaughter (N.Y.), yesterday accused the administration of misleading the public by continuing to contend that the policy allows for robust scientific research. In a stinging letter to the White House, they declared that the new NIH analysis "casts into doubt the adequacy of your policy on stem cell research."
A bipartisan group of House members -- including some Republicans who until now accepted the Bush policy -- are gathering signatures on a letter of their own calling for a policy change.
Sensing that the tide may be shifting in their favor, scientific organizations have stepped up their campaign to ease restrictions on the controversial research, which uses embryos slated for destruction by fertility clinics.
"I think the administration has been trying to implement the existing policy in good faith," said Lawrence Soler of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which supports expanding federally funded research. "I think it's just come to a point now of having to face that we're not as far as we had hoped we'd be -- or even, we believe, where the administration had hoped we'd be."
The administration said it was planning no change of policy.
"The president remains committed to exploring the promise of stem cell research but continues to firmly believe that we should not cross a fundamental moral line by funding or encouraging the destruction of human embryos," said White House spokesman Trent Duffy.
The debate centers on a policy that has been among the most contentious of Bush's tenure. Democrats have generally been united in supporting broad research on embryonic stem cells, while the Republican majority in Congress has been sharply divided.
Scientists are excited about the cells because, unlike most adult cells, they can morph into nearly any tissue in the human body. Researchers hope to grow large numbers of cells in the laboratory and then coax them into becoming brain cells that might cure Parkinson's disease, pancreatic cells to cure diabetes, and so on.
But creating a laboratory colony of stem cells requires destroying a five-day-old human embryo. Social conservatives have opposed the work, saying embryo destruction is tantamount to murder. Torn between this group and disease-research advocates, including former first lady Nancy Reagan, Bush announced a compromise on Aug. 9, 2001, that precluded federally funded research on cells from embryos destroyed after that date. That effectively froze the supply at its then-current level.
The president initially said more than 60 colonies would qualify -- a number that surprised many biologists, who had not been aware of colonies created at private companies and foreign laboratories. The large number helped to quell criticism that Bush was limiting a promising field of medicine. As others announced that they, too, had cells from before that date, the number of eligible colonies grew to 78.
But in recent weeks, the NIH has been posting information on the Internet showing that 16 of the colonies "failed to expand into undifferentiated cell cultures." That is biology-speak for saying the cells are useless for further research, though it is not clear how many colonies are dead and how many have simply stopped reproducing.
At one company, CyThera Inc. of San Diego, nine colonies have collapsed, eliminating more than 10 percent of the administration's list. So have six colonies at a laboratory in Sweden and one at a company in Athens, Ga.
It is not unusual for cell colonies to "crash" in biology, particularly in early research, when scientists do not really know how best to grow the cells. Usually, they would simply replace a dead cell colony -- but under Bush's policy, they cannot.
Most of the remaining Bush-approved colonies are in overseas labs. The NIH acknowledged recently that most of those labs have shown no interest in supplying stem cells to U.S. researchers. Some foreign labs also face legal restrictions on exportation.
Add all the factors together and the "best-case scenario" is that only 23 cell colonies will ever be available to U.S. researchers, an NIH administrator, James Battey, said recently in the unpublished report to Congress.
In addition, several of the 15 approved cell colonies that are being distributed to scientists have been going bad -- developing severe genetic abnormalities that could make them useless as therapies and, in some cases, impractical even for research. Experts suspect that other cells in use are also accumulating DNA glitches that will require them to be replaced at some point.
Many scientists said the Bush-approved cell colonies were sufficient to get a start on the research. But as they learn more about how to nurture stem cells and use them to create new tissues, some of them now say the restrictions are becoming increasingly burdensome.
Some are using private money to create fresh colonies, but those funds are limited. Leading stem cell researchers said the United States is falling behind as foreign labs, unencumbered by Bush's restrictions, grow new colonies using improved techniques.
"Federally funded scientists have to drive Model T's, while Korean scientists get to drive around in the newest Porsche," said George Daley, a stem cell researcher at Harvard University. "It's crazy."
-------- health
Cancer Health Risk Significantly Underestimated By EPA's Ambient Model Estimates
2004-03-03
Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/03/040303075116.htm
The cancer risk from exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) is vastly underestimated by current models that rely solely on ambient emissions. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health showed that cancer risk figures based on actual measured exposure for communities in Baltimore, Md. were as much as three-fold greater than estimates given by models. Their study is the first of its kind to directly compare the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Assessment System for Population Exposure Nationwide (ASPEN) model results to indoor, outdoor and personal exposure measurements. Scientists use pollutant exposure measurements to estimate public health risk. Such a comparison is important in evaluating the validity of ASPEN, which is being used nationally to assess the public health impact of ambient air toxins. The study, "Personal Exposure Meets Risk Assessment: A Comparison of Measured and Modeled Exposures and Risks in an Urban Community" is published in the April 2004 issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Timothy J. Buckley, PhD, MHS, the senior author of the study and an associate professor in the School's Department of Environmental Health Sciences, said, "The public health implications of our findings loom large. ASPEN has already shown that for many U.S. census tracts, risk from ambient air toxins exceeds acceptable levels. Now our data indicates that because of significant indoor source contributions, these risks are much worse."
Passive air sampling badges were used to compare personal, outdoor and indoor residential concentrations of VOCs for 33 non-smoking, adult study participants to ASPEN ambient estimates. The researchers wanted to learn how well ASPEN represented indoor and personal exposures, since such measures form the basis for the true public health risk.
For VOCs that have significant indoor sources, such as chloroform, the researchers found that ASPEN far underestimated the measured personal exposures. In contrast, VOCs from vehicles, such as benzene, or VOCs such as carbon tetrachloride that occur at global background levels, the ambient estimate given by ASPEN was in agreement with the measured personal exposures. When the researchers combined all the VOCs into an assessment of risk, they found that ASPEN underestimated risk based on actual measured exposure by a factor of three.
Devon C. Payne-Sturges, DrPH, the study's lead author, said, "Our results indicated that South Baltimore residents were routinely exposed to a number of VOCs that are considered to be toxic air pollutants by the EPA and at levels above public health benchmarks. Benzene, carbon tetrachloride and chloroform accounted for most of the risk."
Dr. Payne-Sturges explained that the indoor environment continues to represent an important source of personal exposures to VOCs. She said, "The good news is that indoor sources can be controlled. Environmental tobacco smoke is the greatest culprit but other more subtle contributors, such as cleaning solvents and air fresheners, add up to represent a sizeable fraction of the risk. We need to do a better job of getting the word out about the importance of indoor sources and the means for their control." However, she acknowledged that some populations might have more difficulty in changing these aspects of their life, especially for people who depend on jobs where limits on smoking indoors are not enforced or for people who have limited access to "green product alternatives" for home use.
Dr. Buckley said, "Our findings demonstrate the significance of indoor exposure sources and the importance of indoor and personal monitoring for the accurate assessment of a community's risk. The EPA is clearly on the right track in its development of models that will take into account indoor sources providing a true representation of the health risk from VOCs air toxin exposure."
The study was supported by grants from the Maryland Cigarette Restitution Fund, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region III, Mickey Leland National Center for Urban Air Toxics Research, Johns Hopkins Risk Science and Public Policy Institute and Johns Hopkins Center in Urban Environmental Health.
Co-authors from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health include Devon C. Payne-Sturges, Thomas A. Burke, Patrick Breysse, Marie Diener-West and Timothy J. Buckley. The study was completed while Dr. Payne-Sturges was a doctoral candidate at the School.
This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School Of Public Health.
----
Research Needed Into Rising Teen Cancers
Story by Patricia Reaney
REUTERS UK:
March 3, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/24075/story.htm
LONDON - Cancer in teenagers and young adults has risen to become the most common cause of natural death for their age, but not enough research is being done into its causes or treatment, health experts said this week.
Cancer among 13-24 year olds is still rare, with about 1,500 new cases diagnosed each year in Britain.
But while survival rates for children and adults with the disease have improved in recent decades, they have remained unchanged for adolescents and young adults.
"We've orphaned this particular age group," Professor Archie Bleyer, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, told the Third International Conference on Adolescent Cancer.
"Young people and older adolescents have been left behind."
Bleyer and other cancer experts said teenagers have fallen into a medical gap. Although they develop specific types of cancer and have different medical and psychological needs, they are either treated as children or adults.
Little is known about the causes or risk factors of teenage cancers, yet few young people are involved in clinical trials to discover underlying reasons why they develop the disease or the best ways to treat it.
"There is a great need for high-quality research," said Charles Stiller, of the University of Oxford.
In one of the largest studies done into teenage and young adult cancer involving 21 years of data, Professor Jill Birch of the University of Manchester in England, said cases in Britain have risen from 15.4 to 19.8 per 100,000 between 1979 and 2000 - an average increase of 1.2 percent per year.
Leukemia was most common in 13 and 14-year-olds, followed by lymphoma and brain tumors. But by 15 and above, lymphoma accounted for the great number of cases.
"The early age of onset and lack of opportunity for chronic exposure to environmental factors suggests that genetic susceptibility may be important," said Birch.
But she added that genetic mutations probably only account for a small number of cases.
"What is more likely is that a cancer develops as a result of exposure to a risk factor in a genetically susceptible individual," she said.
Early exposure to viruses, passive smoking and lifestyle changes, particularly increased sun exposure, may also play a part. Rates of melanoma, the most serious type of skin cancer, have almost doubled over 21 years in the 20-24 age group in Britain and it now accounts for one in 10 of all cancers.
"Worldwide, we need a new discipline in adolescent and young adult oncology," said Bleyer.
"Until we devote resources specially to this age group, there will be little progress," he added.
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Shortage of Childhood Meningitis Drug Continues
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 3, 2004; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24617-2004Mar2.html
ATLANTA -- Federal health officials told doctors yesterday to further cut back on the number of doses of vaccine they give most children to protect against a leading cause of the life-threatening infection bacterial meningitis, as well as some blood and ear infections.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took the action because Wyeth Pharmaceuticals of Philadelphia, the sole manufacturer of Prevnar, has failed to resolve manufacturing problems that have caused a shortage of the vaccine.
The vaccine protects against the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae, which can cause bacterial meningitis, an inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain. It also can cause a blood infection called bacteremia, as well as ear infections.
The approximately 4 million children born in the United States each year are recommended to receive the vaccine. Since the vaccine was introduced in 2000, there has been a dramatic reduction in those infections in children.
But Wyeth started having production problems several months ago when it tried to upgrade its system for filling vials with the vaccine. That prompted the CDC to tell doctors three weeks ago to stop administering the last of four recommended doses of the vaccine, to stretch existing supplies. Federal officials had hoped that measure would be sufficient until the manufacturing problems were resolved.
The vaccine is designed to be given to children at ages 2 months, 4 months and 6 months, with a final dose between the ages of 12 months and 15 months.
However, "just in the past three weeks, there's been an exacerbation of the shortage, a deterioration in the production and filling of the vaccine by the only manufacturer," Stephen L. Cochi, acting director of the National Immunization Program, told reporters during a briefing.
As a result, officials changed the recommendation again Tuesday, telling doctors to stop administering the third dose for all children except those at high risk for the infection, such as children with weak immune systems, until the shortage is alleviated.
The first two doses should provide about 90 percent protection against the bacteria, compared with about 97 percent protection from all four doses, Cochi said. Officials said they hoped to resume the full four-dose schedule as soon as supplies returned to normal.
"We hope that the shortage is temporary," Cochi said. "By focusing on ensuring that every child receives at least two doses -- but at this point in time, not more than two doses -- we think we can have the maximum benefit for the most children in terms of protection. But we are concerned about the possibility of breakthrough illness when we can't use the optimal schedule."
Officials had hoped that Wyeth would have resolved the shortage by now, raising questions about whether the shortfall might continue or even worsen.
"There's reason to be concerned if this shortage persists for a long period of time. It's very uncertain right now. If the shortage deteriorates further, then I think there's reason for us all to be concerned about not adequately protecting children with at least two doses of this vaccine," Cochi said.
Doug Petkus, a Wyeth spokesman, said work to resolve the snags is taking longer than expected. But the company hopes to resume full production by the middle of the summer.
"We're working hard to alleviate the problems. While supplies will remain limited until the middle of the year, we're confident that by summertime we'll be moving toward normalcy," Petkus said.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Activists fight Patriot Act
03.03.2004
Joshua Ana Pardo and Charles Duncan,
Technician Online
http://technicianonline.com/story.php?id=009060
"I'm very pleased to see the strength of the people", Manzoor Cheema, a recent immunology graduate from N.C. State, said as he filed out of the Raleigh City Council chambers with over a hundred other people who came to support a resolution being presented to the council that opposes the USA Patriot Act.
Local activists proposed the resolution to push the council to publicly oppose the federal act. By the end of the night, the council voted 5-3 to send the resolution to the Human Relations Commission with the stipulation that it must be brought back to the council within 60 days.
The resolution is a collaborative effort spearheaded by the Wake County chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, in conjunction with a variety of organizations including the Friends of Wake County Public Library and the N.C. Chapter of the National Lawyers' Guild, as well as approximately 40 other organizations and individuals.
Peggy Hoon, NCSU Libraries Scholarly Communication Librarian, also co-signed the letter sent by the coalition to the city council.
The room was packed with a crowd that spanned age brackets and ethnic backgrounds, including several members of a local Boyscout troop.
The Patriot Act resolution was the eighth item on the council agenda Tuesday night and Mayor Charles Meeker asked that the speakers proceeding the controversial resolution be brief and keep their presentations under five minutes.
Over 260 towns, cities, counties and states have passed similar resolutions regarding what some regard as the over-reaching powers of the Patriot Act, including Chapel Hill and Carrboro.
Linda Gettier, board member for the Wake County chapter of the ACLU, opened the discussion.
Gettier said Congress passed the act "without adequate congressional review and debate, and with inadequate regard to constitutional liberties and the checks and balances principles within our democratic society."
Lewis Pitts, a lawyer with Legal Aid of North Carolina, spoke second to the city council.
"The safeguards put in place by the U.S. government," he continued, "have now been removed in light of this new era that we're in."
"Simply put, what is happening as a shift in this Patriot Act culture is the human rights struggle that began prior to the Magna Carta, to never allow the king or monarch, or in our case the executive branch, to have unaccountable power and to be able to seize a person or their things without having some due process," Pitts said.
Pitts' comments drew enthusiastic applause from the room full of spectators.
After hearing the speakers' appeals, the city council debated what action should be taken regarding the resolution.
Phillip Isley, district E council member, argued that the city council should not be involved in federal issues. Isley expressed concern that if city government acted on a federal issue, it would invite a host of other hotly debated federal issues. Isley cited gun-control opponents and in his words, "flag-burners."
Thomas Crowder, district D, asked, "We all want our rights protected, but where is the line between protecting civil liberties and fighting terrorism?"
Crowder suggested that the resolution be sent to the Human Relations Commission. By the end of the debate, the council voted 5-3 to send the resolution to the commission.
Jessie Taliaferro, district B, said, "We cannot be afraid to express our opinion."
Taliaferro continued, "we cannot tolerate a society that lives in fear."
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Supporters Trek Across the Country in Name of Kucinich
By GEORGE DERK Contributing Writer
Wednesday, March 3, 2004
Berkeley Daily Californian
http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=14409
After trekking more than 3,500 miles through 24 states, Jonathan Meier arrived in front of Berkeley City Hall in the late afternoon Friday on only his second pair of shoes.
Sporting a scraggly beard, Meier, 21, began his cross-country walk for peace in October, in Portland, Maine-all in the name of presidential candidate and U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
"I hope to raise awareness of Dennis Kucinich and his vision for America," Meier said. "We can choose this progressive platform."
Since leaving Maine, Meier has spent 135 consecutive days walking about 25 miles each day before reaching Berkeley, with the exception of a few days spent in a Santa Fe, N.M. for a vomit-inducing parasite-the hardest part of the trip, Meier says.
Before he started his walk, Meier lived in an apartment in Ames, Iowa, where he worked as a teaching assistant at Iowa State University and studied religion and philosophy. Meier took a bus to Maine to begin his walk.
Since the start of his trek, Meier updated a web site with journals, a map of his route and, of course, a picture of him standing with Kucinich.
Despite Kucinich's unlikely chances, the walkers still believe their candidate is the clearest alternative to Bush.
But they would have walked anyway, even if they believed Kucinich didn't even have a chance, says Amy Kaplan, 23, an intern for Kucinich's campaign who volunteered to organize Meier's walk.
"It's the issues that need to be elevated to top national priority," she says.
Kaplan joined Meier and three other full-time walkers in Cleveland, Kucinich's home district, where he was once Mayor.
But although his walk was inspired by Kucinich, Meier says the main message of his journey is to advocate peace.
"The walk is not protesting anything, but promoting an alternative with nonviolence, universal healthcare and programs that address violence where it starts," Meier said.
The walkers were given shelter in motels, churches and homes, slept on floors and couches, and shared beds.
"(The walk) allowed us to witness the generosity and peace that exists in America," Kaplan says.
For food, Kaplan, a vegan, and Meier, along with the other walkers, often made their lunches and relied on the generosity of strangers.
Meier's most memorable visit was to a small, working class town in New Mexico, where 50 people were waiting to greet him with a potluck dinner.
"I admired the community-it is a place where everyone takes care of one another," Meier says.
There he saw how kind people can be to a complete stranger, and showed that peace is possible through the generosity of the human spirit, Meier says. At least 800 people have joined his walk at one point or another, he adds.
But Meier's greatest support has been from his parents in Minnesota, whom he calls everyday.
"They are very supportive-they are the only two people that know we are alive each night," he says.
Meier's journey ended Sunday in San Francisco, concluding with a prayer for the United States and a hope that his candidate snags the nomination.
"It was a spiritual, political and physical journey. There (were) days that I felt badly, but I needed to finish," Meier says.
__
In Ohio:
The Advocate,
March 3, 2004
http://www.newarkadvocate.com/news/stories/20040303/localnews/5086.html
Dennis Kucinich got 105,593 votes, or 9 percent. Kucinich came within 600 votes of finishing ahead of Edwards in his home county of Cuyahoga....
Kucinich, a former Cleveland mayor and Ohio state senator, said the dwindling field means debates can take a sharper focus. He has no plans to abandon his campaign, even though he has only 18 delegates pledged to him at the Democratic National Convention.
"If the Democrats are going to win the White House, we sure better have a debate in our party about the war in Iraq, trade, health care and the Patriot Act. Senator Kerry is vulnerable on these issues," Kucinich said.
----
ITALY - 26 protesters face trial for G-8 riots
March 03, 2004
Washington Times
World Scene
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene.htm
GENOA - Antiglobalization protesters accused of wreaking havoc during the 2001 Group of Eight summit went on trial yesterday, while riot police outside the courthouse kept watch on hundreds of chanting demonstrators who blame authorities for the worst violence.
The 26 defendants, all Italian, are accused of vandalism, robbery and illegal possession of explosives.
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G8 Actions in Georgia 2004: Request for support
March 3, 2004
Savannah, Georgia
From: Green Party of Chatham County <metrogpcc@lycos.com>
Dear Colleagues:
On June 8 through June 10, the eyes of the world will be on Coastal Georgia. The G8 Summit will draw 5,000 or more journalists to Savannah. Likewise, thousands of activists from across the globe will pour into this city. We invite you to seize this historic opportunity to raise your political concerns before the world.
The June 8 Organizing Committee, a grouping of local civil liberties, educational, cultural and labor workers, will stage the Festival for Peace and Civil Liberties in Savannah, from June 8 to June 10. The Festival will serve as a platform for local people and visitors to voice their objections to the misdirection of Global Policy, in respect to the environment, human rights, peace, workers' rights and a host of other issues.
The Festival will begin with a parade on June 8, starting at the Civil Rights Museum and ending at the great lawn of Forsyth Park. During the three-day event, hundreds of Non-governmental organizations will set up information tables and tents in the park. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rev. Herbert Daughtry (a native Savannahian!), Attorney Lynne Stewart, Sen. John Kerry, Cynthia McKinney, Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader and a host of political, cultural and religious figures are invited to speak from The Global Community Stage in Forsyth Park. Likewise, there will be performances by local and internationally known acts. Five major international seminars will also take place at Savannah's popular Progressive Recreation Center.
The objective of the June 8 Organizing Committee is to use the mobilization around the G8 Summit to establish a permanent Southern Center for Dissent in Savannah and a permanent Museum of the Aftermath, detailing the march to war and extra-constitutional rule in the U.S. following the September 11 Massacre.
The June 8 Organizing Co mmittee believes that by staging positive events during the G8 Summit that foremost permit local residents an opportunity to tell their stories to the world, we create a peaceful environment in Savannah for both visiting activists and our families.
We invite your organization to join our efforts.
You may wish to be a contingent in The Parade for Peace and Civil Liberties.
You may wish to set up an educational booth in Forsyth Park during the Festival, or provide a speaker for the Global Community Stage.
You may wish to sponsor a forum or seminar during the Festival at the Progressive.
You may wish to sponsor or co-sponsor one of the exhibit rooms of the Museum of the Aftermath.
We would appreciate your input and cooperation.
We look forward to hearing how you would like to participate in an historical event in Savannah.
Sincerely,
Kellie Gasink, Esq. Chairperson June 8 Organizing Committee
(June 8 Organizing Committee is a venture of the Labor & Action Research Project)
22 West Bryan Street Suite 172
Savannah, Georgia 31401
Telephone
US/Canada: 866.237.7563 International: 912.341.0307 (USA)
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CHERNOBYL HEART
Documentary Wins Oscar
Next month marks 18th anniversary of disaster The film features work of Chernobyl Childrens' Project
For Immediate Release:
March 3, 2004
Contact: Kathy Ryan Email: KathyR@aol.com web: http://www.ccp-intl.org
http://www.belarusguide.com/chernobyl1/Chernobyl_heart.htm
Washington, DC-An independent film highlighting the work of Chernobyl Children's Project (CCP) received the Academy Award on Sunday for Best Documentary Short Subject.
CCP is the Irish affiliate of US organization Chernobyl Children's Project International (CCPI). The win comes as CCP and CCPI prepare to mark the 18th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster with a medical and humanitarian mission to Belarus.
CHERNOBYL HEART, produced and directed by independent filmmaker Maryann DeLeo, focuses on the continuing effects of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 on the children of Belarus, the country most affected by what the United Nations calls the worst technological disaster in the history of the nuclear age. The film follows an October 2002 delegation of CCPI and its partner, Chernobyl Children's Project/Ireland, as representatives traveled into the "exclusion zone" to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The film chronicles the invisible trail of radiation to the country's hospitals, cancer centers, orphanages and mental asylums.
"This film has helped shine a light on the situation that still exists in Belarus, 18 years after the Chernobyl incident," said Adi Roche, CCPI's international executive director, who is featured prominently in the film. "The children there suffer debilitating illnesses, declining social and economic conditions, and psychological effects as a result of the disaster. This is a generation that has been marked by this disaster."
The 39-minute CHERNOBYL HEART features the children of the Vesnova children' s home, which is located about 125 miles (200 km) southeast of Minsk, near Bobruisk. The facility houses more than 150 high dependency children and young adults, aged five to 25. Chernobyl Children's Project has been working with Vesnova since 2002 to improve conditions and treatment for the children there. The film also features Dr.William Novick, a noted cardiac surgeon whose work in Belarus is funded by CCPI. More than 7,000 children in Belarus are on an ever-growing waiting list for lifesaving cardiac surgery. The CCPI cardiac surgery program offers operations, and training for Belarussian physicians that will allow them to provide appropriate care on an ongoing basis. The next series of surgeries are schedule for the first week of May. During the same week, CCPI and Operation Smile will launch a 5-year mission to provide surgeries and medical training to aid children in Belarus who require facial reconstructive surgery.
"CCPI congratulates Maryann DeLeo, and all those associated with the film," said Sherrie Douglas, CCPI's U.S. executive director. "Our hope is that the film will build awareness of the plight of the children who continue to suffer from the medical, social, and economic effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986. It is our responsibility to offer not just humanitarian aid, but long term solutions to be sure that the children of Chernobyl are not forgotten."
About Chernobyl Children's Project International
Chernobyl Children's Project International Inc., (CCPI) is a not-for-profit, 501(c)3 organization. based in New York City. CCPI is dedicated to providing humanitarian and medical aid to the three to four million children the United Nations recognizes as suffering from the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. CCPI is the U.S. affiliate of the Chernobyl Children's Project Ireland and was created in an effort to bring additional U.S. resources to the children affected by Chernobyl. These aid programs aim to increase self-sufficiency and permanent change in the region. Through partnerships with governmental agencies and medical facilities in the region, CCPI encourages joint solutions and permanent solutions to better serve these children. For more information, visit http://www.ccp-intl.org
Kathy Ryan Chernobyl Children's Project International http://www.ccp-intl.org
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