Archive By Date | Today's Links to Search By
Activists' News | Nuclear | Depleted Uranium | Military | Police
Alternative Energy Etc. | From Subscribers
NUCLEAR
3 exposed to radiation at Flats
Daily Chronicles of Nuclear Radiation
South Africa makes arrest linked to weapons of mass destruction
S. Africa Arrests One in WMDs, Nuclear Probe
DTI Brings Together Russian Nuclear Scientists And UK Software Companies
The Daintiest Dynamos
China, US close to deal on nuclear technology trade: report
Westinghouse awaits govt OK on China nuclear plants
China to build 27 more nuclear power plants
Gulf syndrome 'raised war toll to 10pc of force'
Pakistan Found to Aid Iran Nuclear Efforts
Rejecting International Pressure, Iran to Process Uranium
Iran Sees Nuclear Lesson in Iraq, N.Korea -Experts
IAEA: No Iranian nuclear arms plans
Uranium tests planned despite suspension pledge
Lessons from Japan for the US occupation of Iraq
US calls for thorough probe on South Korea's secret nuclear activity
South Korea Admits Enriching Uranium to Near Bomb Grade
South Korea inspected by IAEA after uranium experiment
S. Korea Says It Enriched Uranium Four Years Ago
IAEA Probes S. Korean Nuclear Experiment
US hopes to conclude WMD talks with Libya this month
Two Plutonium Transport Vessels Set for First U.S. Shipment
Washington accused of thwarting nuclear ban
NRC STAFF ISSUES GENERIC LETTER ON NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
Work With Removable Disks Resumes at Lab
NRC ISSUES MID-CYCLE ASSESSMENTS FOR ALL NUCLEAR PLANTS
U.S. Plans Small Disposable Nuclear Power Plants
Cheaper plan for Hanford nuclear waste storage studied
Elk to be killed to control growth of herd near Hanford
MILITARY
U.S. Probes Afghan Civilian Casualties
South Africa makes arrest linked to weapons of mass destruction
U.N. Envoy Urges Sudan To Let Peacekeepers In
Annan Says Sudan Hasn't Curbed Militias; Urges More Monitors
In Western Sudan, Fear Is the Ever-Growing Enemy
How oil brought the dogs of war back to Malabo
Washington okays sales of weapons - Yemen
Calm Returns to Nepal Capital After Riots
New Iraqi Council Meets
Israelis Fault Intelligence Agencies on Bombings by Hamas Cell
Hundreds Held Hostage at School in Russia
Chechen Conflict Now Rages Beyond Russia's Expectations
26 Hostages Released at Russian School, but Standoff Goes On
After a Spate of Bombings, Moscow's Full of Foreboding
Leak Probe More Than 2 Years Old Pro-Israel Group's Possible Role at Issue
Pentagon Office in Spying Case Was Focus of Iran Debate
About 2 Dozen G.I.'s to Face Trial or Other Punishment
New Genocide Charges Planned in Mexico
U.N. Court Imposes Lawyers on Milosevic
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Report Scolds Terrorism Prosecutors
Justice Dept. Seeks End to Its Detroit Terror Case
Analysis Bush's Intelligence Moves Don't Attain Scope Urged by 9/11 Panel
Rights Court Ruling Awaited on American Jailed in Peru
Tactics by Police Mute the Protesters, and Their Messages
Pepper-spray 'accident' clears downtown offices
POLITICS
Bush's Lost Year
Dick Cheney Was "At The Core Of Some Of The Darkest Activities
Text of President Bush's RNC Speech
ENERGY
Demand Fuels Pacific Northwest Solar Power Market
Coal, nukes cheapest power option for Ontario, says study
OTHER
Cancer herbal remedy from Peter Sears (w/ prostate cancer)
ACTIVISTS
Demonstrations Jobs, Economy Focus of 2 Big Protests
Protests Continue on Final Day
Bright Lights and Protesters for Delegates From Missouri
D.C. dragon goes down in flames
Thousands Protest on Final Night of Convention in NYC
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
3 exposed to radiation at Flats
By Joey Bunch
Denver Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 02, 2004
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2374562,00.html
Three Rocky Flats workers might have been contaminated by plutonium last week when yanking out pipes during a building demolition at the former nuclear weapons plant in Jefferson County, the Department of Energy said Wednesday.
The amount of plutonium was invisible - estimated at less than one-millionth of a gram - but was enough to set off alarms and required the workers to be decontaminated, said department spokeswoman Karen Lutz.
The contractors for Kaiser-Hill Co. have returned to work and none have shown signs of illness, Lutz said.
"DOE is working with (Kaiser-Hill) to look at why this event occurred and what we can do to prevent it from reoccurring," she said.
In an unrelated matter, the Energy Department on Wednesday issued a report into accusations made two weeks ago by former Rocky Flats employee Jacque Brever.
She leads an organization opposed to turning Rocky Flats into a wildlife refuge when the cleanup is complete in 2006.
She held a news conference to claim radioactive waste was hidden in four areas. The Department of Energy's report said those areas are included in the site's cleanup plan.
The report was forwarded to the state health department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to a letter to Brever from Joseph Legare, the Energy Department's program director at Rocky Flats.
Brever, of Pueblo, could not be reached for comment.
Denver Post staff writer Joey Bunch can be reached at 303-820-1240 or jbunch@denverpost.com .
----
Daily Chronicles of Nuclear Radiation
September 2, 2004
ROCKVILLE, Maryland, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2004/2004-09-02-03.asp
Incidents of nuclear radiation and problems with power plants across the United States were reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over the past week as they must be, by law. It was a little busier than usual - one manual scram, one fire, and it was a typical week in that at least one moisture gauge, containing a radioactive source, was stolen out of a truck somewhere in America.
The Commission makes these events public on its daily Event Report. Here are some misadventures from this week back to a little earlier this summer.
At 08:35 Monday, August 30, operators took manual control and rapidly shut the Unit One reactor at Nine Mile Point down from full power - a hot shutdown.
Constellation Nuclear, the operator of the New York power plant located on Lake Ontario near Oswego, New York," issued a 4-Hour Non-Emergency notification on the incident. The trouble started when operators "noted oscillations on 13 Feedwater flow control valve," but the scram went according to plan.
The operators inserted the control rods manually, the reactor went into hot shutdown. "All control rods fully inserted and the plant responded as designed to the scram," the operator reported.
Switched on December 26, 1974, Nine Mile Point 1 is one of the nation's two oldest reactors still in service.
Last week, the reactor's parent company Constellation Energy of Baltimore announced that its R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant about 60 miles west along the lakeshore near Rochester, would be the site of a new state-of-the-art Emergency Operations Facility and adjoining Joint News Center, "to support response efforts in the unlikely event of an emergency situation."
A fire in a condensate pump at the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Michigan on Tuesday, August 31, prompted operators to manually shut it down to 95 percent power.
The Reactor Protection System was activated, but the fire was extinguished in less than 10 minutes. The local fire department was notified, responded to the site as a precautionary measure, but was not used in extinguishing the fire. All systems functioned as designed. The plant is now 100 percent shut down.
"The local fire department was notified, responded to the site as a precautionary measure, but was not used in extinguishing the fire. All systems functioned as designed," reported the operator, Nuclear Management Co., LLC
Medical misadministrations of radioactive substances are reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) every week or so, sometimes more frequently.
On August 17, the Northeast Alabama Regional Medical Center notified the state of Alabama of a misadministration involving Iodine-131.
The dose prescribed was 25 microcuries of I-131 and the dose administered was 3.0 millicuries, a much greater amount.
The hospital told the state that "the imaging technologist misunderstood the referring physician's request and the dose was not approved by the authorized user." The hospital indicated in their report that there were "no apparent effects to the patient." Corrective measures included reinstructing personnel and ensuring that all procedures are approved by the authorized user.
The Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California got the location wrong for a 93 year old man's cancer treatment and on August 18 irradiated the air instead of the tumor.
Another medical misadministration occurred on August 5 at Childrens' Hospital in New Orleans. The patient was "an uncooperative 20 year old Down's Syndrome who was to be injected with 20 mCi of Tc-99m MDP for a bone scan," reported the Louisiana Radiation Protection Division.
"While attempting to restrain the patient the technologist mistakenly reached for and injected a much smaller 4.2 mCi DMSA renal scan dose. The patient was notified of the error and later injected with the correct dose. The technologist was been counseled to obtain assistance when performing such administrations in the future," the agency reported.
On July 20 at the Dow Chemical Solvents Plant in Plaquemine, Louisiana, up to 16 workers had their hands and arms exposed to radiation while replacing the insulation on a manufacturing vessel.
The Louisiana Radiation Protection Division reported to the Commission that a "conservative estimate" of five minutes total continuous exposure time over this period at a distance of five inches from the source yield a potential exposure of 421 millirems, the agency said.
Medical screening was performed on all potentially exposed workers, the results were reviewed with them and officials say they observed "no effects."
Humans receive a dose of about 360 millirems per year of radiation from natural sources, plus typically about 63 mrem/yr from human sources, so these workers were exposed to about a year's worth of radiation that day.
"The cause of the incident was failure to lock out a radiation shield" before starting work, the state agency reports. Lock out procedures for the facility have been reviewed and strengthened to prevent reoccurrence.
Gauges containing radioactive sources regularly are stolen, lost, or crushed by trucks in a workyard. On August 19 a moisture density gauge containing 10 millicuries of Cesium 137 and 50 milliCuries of Americium 241 was stolen out of a Las Vegas contractor's truck.
On July 21, a Niton Analyzer with serial number 6067 with 40 milliCuries of Fe-55 and 30 milliCuries of Am-241 came up missing," from Northrup Grumman Ship Systems in Avondale, Louisiana.
"The security department was notified immediately," the Louisiana Radiation Protection Division said. "Signs were posted at all clock stations and exit gates. Security also checked the employees when they were leaving the yard." Attempts to locate the analyzer were unsuccessful, it could not be found.
View the daily Event Notification Reports at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission site: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/ 1
-------- africa
South Africa makes arrest linked to weapons of mass destruction: official
JOHANNESBURG (AFP)
Sep 02, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040902182025.ot8chw2q.html
South Africa has made "an arrest" in connection with the contravention of laws on weapons of mass destruction and on nuclear energy, a government official said Thursday.
"Enquiries are being made into the activities of some companies and individuals, who may have been involved," said Abdul Minty, who chairs South Africa's Council for the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
"In this connection an arrest has been effected today and there has been a recovery of items alleged to have been used in the contraventions," he said in a statement.
Minty said the investigations were being held "by South African authorities ... their counterparts in other countries as well as the (nuclear watchdog) International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."
The statement however, did not give further information.
Foreign Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa also declined to give information saying "more will be known by tomorrow (Friday)."
In late August, a German man suspected of trying to help Libya develop nuclear weapons appeared in court in Karlsruhe, Germany.
German prosecutors said the man, only identified as Gerhard W., 65, worked as a mediator in obtaining an order for a South African company to make and supply aluminium tubing to be used in a uranium enrichment plant.
It was not clear if the court appearance in Germany was related to Thursday's arrest.
American investigators earlier this year also probed an illegal nuclear technology network in South Africa which a Cape Town man was believed to be involved in.
Since 1994, South Africa has adopted a strict policy of disarmament and the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the ability to build them.
The country's foray into the world of nuclear weapons started in 1948, the same year the white apartheid government came to power, with the establishment of the Atomic Energy Board (AEB).
On March 24 1993, only a year before the country's first ever democratic elections, which would put the ruling African National Congress in power, former South African President FW (Frederik) de Klerk, revealed the country had developed a "limited nuclear deterrent" during the 1970s and 1980s.
The country had seven nuclear weapons, but said the Klerk at the time, dismantled them. He invited the IAEA, headed by former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix, to conduct inspections.
Early last year, Blix praised highly what he called "the South African model of co-operation" and at the time, urged Iraq to adopt it.
----
S. Africa Arrests One in WMDs, Nuclear Probe
Thu Sep 2, 2004
(Reuters)
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040902/wl_nm/security_safrica_dc_2
JOHANNESBURG - South African authorities arrested one person Thursday in an investigation into contraventions of laws on weapons of mass destruction and nuclear energy, the government said.
"Enquiries are being made into the activities of some companies and individuals, who may have been involved," Abdul Minty, chairman of the South African Council for the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, a statutory government body, said in a statement.
"In the context of these investigations the South African authorities have cooperated with their counterparts in other countries as well as with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," Minty said.
South African foreign affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said he didn't know of any link between the inquiry and al Qaeda or international terrorism.
South African police said in February this year Washington had asked for their help in investigating possible associates of Asher Karni, a former Israeli army officer accused by the U.S. government of conspiring to export 200 U.S.-made nuclear weapons detonators to Pakistan via South Africa.
South Africa voluntarily dismantled its nuclear arms before the 1994 end of white rule -- the only nuclear-armed state to do so.
-------- business
DTI Brings Together Russian Nuclear Scientists And UK Software Companies
London, UK (SPX)
Sep 02, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/news/2004/milplex-090304-1842-37.html
The UK Department of Trade and Industry is to help British software companies tap into the expertise of former Russian nuclear weapons designers by bringing them together at a major software show this week.
Software designers and programmers from three of Russia's closed nuclear cities will be showcasing their technical capabilities at the European Games Network exhibition in London's Docklands thanks to the DTI's UK-Russia Closed Nuclear Cities Partnership (CNCP).
With outsourcing of software programming gaining popularity among UK companies in order to maintain their competitive edge, the CNCP is hopeful that some long-term commercial partnerships can be forged.
"Games software designers today are looking for increasingly sophisticated programmers with backgrounds in physics and advanced maths. These are exactly the skills that these former nuclear weapons scientists have who need to find ways to use their skills in peaceful pursuits", said Trade and Industry Minister Nigel Griffiths.
"By encouraging such partnerships we aim to help UK businesses stay competitive while reducing the risk to international security."
The Ł6 million four-year CNCP programme is part of the UK's contribution to a $20 billion pledge by G8 countries designed to counter proliferation of nuclear material, nuclear safety and ecological concerns in the former Soviet Union.
It aims to limit the spread of weapons of mass destruction by supporting the long-term economic viability of the 10 closed cities - set up in the Cold War to develop the Russian nuclear weapons programme - and promoting alternative employment opportunities for its numerous former nuclear weapons personnel.
----
The Daintiest Dynamos
By harvesting energy from radioactive specks, nuclear microbatteries could power tomorrow's microelectromechanical marvels-and maybe your cellphone, too
By Amit LaL & James Blanchard,
IEEE Spectrum,
September 2, 2004
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/sep04/0904nuc.html
For several decades, electronic circuitry has been shrinking at a famously dizzying pace. Too bad the batteries that typically power those circuits have not managed to get much smaller at all.
In today's wrist-worn GPS receivers, matchbox-size digital cameras, and pocketable personal computers, batteries are a significant portion of the volume. And yet they don't provide nearly enough energy, conking out seemingly at the worst possible moment.
The reason is simple: batteries are still little cans of chemicals. They function in essentially the same way they did two centuries ago, when the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta sandwiched zinc and silver disks to create the first chemical battery, which he used to make a frog's leg kick.
Now, with technologists busily ushering in a new age of miniaturization based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), batteries have arrived at a critical juncture. MEMS are finding applications in everything from the sensors in cars that trigger air bags to injectable drug delivery systems to environmental monitoring devices. Many of these systems ideally have to work for long periods, and it is not always easy to replace or recharge their batteries. So to let these miniature machines really hit their stride, we'll need smaller, longer-lasting power sources.
For several years our research groups at Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been working on a way around this power-source roadblock: harvesting the incredible amount of energy released naturally by tiny bits of radioactive material.
The microscale generators we are developing are not nuclear reactors in miniature, and they don't involve fission or fusion reactions. All energy comes from high-energy particles spontaneously emitted by radioactive elements. These devices, which we call nuclear microbatteries, use thin radioactive films that pack in energy at densities thousands of times greater than those of lithium-ion batteries [see table, "Energy Content"].
A speck of a radioisotope like nickel-63 or tritium, for example, contains enough energy to power a MEMS device for decades, and to do it safely. The particles these isotopes emit, unlike more energetic particles released by other radioactive materials, are blocked by the layer of dead skin that covers our bodies. They penetrate no more than 25 micrometers in most solids or liquids, so in a battery they could safely be contained by a simple plastic package [see sidebar, "Not All Radioisotopes Are Equal."]
Our current prototypes are still relatively big, but like the first transistors they will get smaller, going from macro- to microscale devices. And if the initial applications powering MEMS devices go well, along with the proper packaging and safety considerations, lucrative uses in handheld devices could be next. The small nuclear batteries may not be able to provide enough electric current for a cellphone or a PDA, but our experiments so far suggest that several of these nuclear units could be used to trickle charges into the conventional chemical rechargeable batteries used in handheld devices. Depending on the power consumption of these devices, this trickle charging could enable batteries to go for months between recharges, rather than days, or possibly even to avoid recharges altogether.
"IT IS A STAGGERINGLY SMALL WORLD THAT IS BELOW," said physicist Richard P. Feynman in his famous 1959 talk to the American Physical Society, when he envisioned that physical laws allowed for the fabrication of micro- and nanomachines and that one day we would be able to write the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica on the head of a pin.
Feynman's vision has finally begun to materialize, thanks to ever more sophisticated microelectronics. Micro- and nanoscale machines are poised to become a multibillion-dollar market as they are incorporated in all kinds of electronic devices. Among the revolutionary applications in development are ultradense memories capable of storing hundreds of gigabytes in a fingernail-size device, micromirrors for enhanced displays and optical communications equipment, and highly selective RF filters to reduce cellphone size and improve the quality of calls.
But, again, at very small scales, chemical batteries can't provide enough juice to power these micromachines. As you reduce the size of such a battery, the amount of stored energy goes down exponentially. Reduce each side of a cubic battery by a factor of 10 and you reduce the volume-and therefore the energy you can store-by a factor of 1000. In fact, researchers developing sensors the size of a grain of sand had to attach them to batteries they couldn't make smaller than a shirt button.
IN THE QUEST TO BOOST MICROSCALE POWER GENERATION, several groups have turned their efforts to well-known energy sources, namely hydrogen and hydrocarbon fuels such as propane, methane, gasoline, and diesel. Some groups are developing microfuel cells that, like their macroscale counterparts, consume hydrogen to produce electricity. Others are developing on-chip combustion engines, which actually burn a fuel like gasoline to drive a minuscule electric generator.
There are three major challenges for these approaches. One is that these fuels have relatively low energy densities, only about five to 10 times that of the best lithium-ion batteries. Another is the need to keep replenishing the fuel and eliminating byproducts. Finally, the packaging to contain the liquid fuel makes it difficult to significantly scale down these tiny fuel cells and generators.
The nuclear microbatteries we are developing won't require refueling or recharging and will last as long as the half-life of the radioactive source, at which point the power output will decrease by a factor of two. And even though their efficiency in converting nuclear to electrical energy isn't high-about 4 percent for one of our prototypes-the extremely high energy density of the radioactive materials makes it possible for these microbatteries to produce relatively significant amounts of power.
For example, with 10 milligrams of polonium-210 (contained in about 1 cubic millimeter), a nuclear microbattery could produce 50 milliwatts of electric power for more than four months (the half-life of polonium-210 is 138 days). With that level of power, it would be possible to run a simple microprocessor and a handful of sensors for all those months.
And the conversion efficiency won't be stuck at 4 percent forever. Beginning this past July we started working to boost the efficiency to 20 percent, as part of a new Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program called Radio Isotope Micro-power Sources.
Space agencies such as NASA in the United States have long recognized the extraordinary potential of radioactive materials for generating electricity. NASA has been using radioisotope thermoelectric generators, or RTGs, since the 1960s in dozens of missions, like Voyager and, more recently, the Cassini probe, now in orbit around Saturn. Space probes like these travel too far away from the sun to power themselves with photovoltaic arrays.
RTGs convert heat into electricity through a process known as the Seebeck effect: when you heat one end of a metal bar, electrons in this region will have more thermal energy and flow to the other end, producing a voltage across the bar. Most of NASA's washing-machine-size RTGs use plutonium-238, whose high-energy radiation can produce enormous heat.
But as it turns out, RTGs don't scale down well. At the diminutive dimensions of MEMS devices, the ratio between an object's surface and its volume gets very high. This relatively large surface makes it difficult to sufficiently reduce heat losses and maintain the temperatures necessary for RTGs to work. So we had to find other ways of converting nuclear into electric energy.
ONE OF THE MICROBATTERIES WE DEVELOPED early last year directly converted the high-energy particles emitted by a radioactive source into an electric current. The device consisted of a small quantity of nickel-63 placed near an ordinary silicon p-n junction-a diode, basically. As the nickel-63 decayed, it emitted beta particles, which are high-energy electrons that spontaneously fly out of the radioisotope's unstable nucleus. The emitted beta particles ionized the diode's atoms, creating paired electrons and holes that are separated at the vicinity of the p-n interface. These separated electrons and holes streamed away from the junction, producing the current.
Nickel-63 is ideal for this application because its emitted beta particles travel a maximum of 21 µm in silicon before disintegrating; if the particles were more energetic, they would travel longer distances, thus escaping the battery. The device we built was capable of producing about 3 nanowatts with 0.1 millicurie of nickel-63, a small amount of power but enough for applications such as nanoelectronic memories and the simple processors for environmental and battlefield sensors that some groups are currently developing.
The new types of microbatteries we are working on now can generate substantially more power. These units produce electricity indirectly, like minute generators. Radiation from the sample is converted first to mechanical energy and then to oscillating pulses of electric energy. Even though the energy has to go through the intermediate, mechanical phase, the batteries are no less efficient; they tap a significant fraction of the kinetic energy of the emitted particles for conversion into mechanical energy. By releasing this energy in brief pulses, they provide much more instantaneous power than the direct-conversion approach.
For these batteries, which we call radioactive piezoelectric generators, the radioactive source is a 4-square-millimeter thin film of nickel-63 [see illustration, "Power From Within"]. On top of it, we cantilever a small rectangular piece of silicon, its free end able to move up and down. As the electrons fly from the radioactive source, they travel across the air gap and hit the cantilever, charging it negatively. The source, which is positively charged, then attracts the cantilever, bending it down.
A piece of piezoelectric material bonded to the top of the silicon cantilever bends along with it. The mechanical stress of the bend unbalances the charge distribution inside the piezoelectric crystal structure, producing a voltage in electrodes attached to the top and bottom of the crystal.
After a brief period-whose length depends on the shape and material of the cantilever and the initial size of the gap-the cantilever comes close enough to the source to discharge the accumulated electrons by direct contact. The discharge can also take place through tunneling or gas breakdown. At that moment, electrons flow back to the source, and the electrostatic attractive force vanishes. The cantilever then springs back and oscillates like a diving board after a diver jumps, and the recurring mechanical deformation of the piezoelectric plate produces a series of electric pulses.
The charge-discharge cycle of the cantilever repeats continuously, and the resulting electric pulses can be rectified and smoothed to provide direct-current electricity. Using this cantilever-based power source, we recently built a self-powered light sensor [see photo, "It's Got the Power"]. The device contains a simple processor connected to a photodiode that detects light variations.
Nuclear batteries can pack in energy at densities THOUSANDS OF TIMES greater than those of lithium-ion batteries
Also using the cantilever system, we developed a pressure sensor that works by "sensing" the gas molecules in the gap between the cantilever and the source. The higher the ambient pressure, the more gas molecules in the gap. As a result, it is more difficult for electrons to reach and charge the cantilever. Hence, by tracking changes in the cantilever's charging time, the sensor even detects millipascal variations in a low-pressure environment like a vacuum chamber.
To get the measurements at a distance, we made the cantilever work as an antenna and emit radio signals, which we could receive meters away-in this application the little machine was "radio active" in more ways than one. The cantilever, built from a material with a high dielectric constant, had metal electrodes on its top and bottom. An electric field formed inside the dielectric as the bottom electrode charged. When it discharged, a charge imbalance appeared in the electrodes, making the electric field propagate along the dielectric material. The cantilever thus acted like an antenna that periodically emitted RF pulses, the interval between pulses varying accordingly to the pressure.
What we'd like to do now is add a few transistors and other electronic components to this system so that it can not only send simple pulses but also modulate signals to carry information. That way, we could make MEMS-based sensors that could communicate with each other wirelessly without requiring complex, energy-demanding communications circuitry.
NUCLEAR MICROBATTERIES MAY ULTIMATELY CHANGE the way we power many electronic devices. The prevalent power source paradigm is to have all components in a device's circuitry drain energy from a single battery. Here's another idea: give each component-sensor, actuator, microprocessor-its own nuclear microbattery. In such a scheme, even if a main battery is still necessary for more power-hungry components, it could be considerably smaller, and the multiple nuclear microbatteries could run a device for months or years, rather than days or hours.
One example is the RF filters in cellphones, which now take up a lot of space in handsets. Researchers are developing MEMS-based RF filters with better frequency selectivity that could improve the quality of calls and make cellphones smaller. These MEMS filters, however, may require relatively high dc voltages, and getting these from the main battery would require complicated electronics. Instead, a nuclear microbattery designed to generate the required voltage-in the range of 10 to 100 volts-could power the filter directly and more efficiently.
Another application might be to forgo the electrical conversion altogether and simply use the mechanical energy. For example, researchers could use the motion of a cantilever-based system to drive MEMS engines, pumps, and other mechanical devices. A self-powered actuator could be used, for instance, to move the legs of a microscopic robot. The actuator's motion-and the robot's tiny steps-would be adjusted according to the charge-discharge period of the cantilever and could vary from hundreds of times every second to once per hour, or even once per day.
THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR MICROBATTERIES depends on several factors, such as safety, efficiency, and cost. If we keep the amount of radioactive material in the devices small, they emit so little radiation that they can be safe with only simple packaging. At the same time, we have to find ways of increasing the amount of energy that nuclear microbatteries can produce, especially as the conversion efficiency begins approaching our targeted 20 percent. One possibility for improving the cantilever-based system would be to scale up the number of cantilevers by placing several of them horizontally, side by side. In fact, we are already developing an array about the size of a postage stamp containing a million cantilevers. These arrays could then be stacked to achieve even greater integration.
Another major challenge is to have inexpensive radioisotope power supplies that can be easily integrated into electronic devices. For example, in our experimental systems we have been using 1 millicurie of nickel-63, which costs about US $25-too much for use in a mass-produced device. A potentially cheaper alternative would be tritium, which some nuclear reactors produce in huge quantities as a byproduct. There's no reason that the amount of tritium needed for a microbattery couldn't cost just a few cents.
Once these challenges are overcome, a promising use for nuclear microbatteries would be in handheld devices like cellphones and PDAs. As mentioned above, the nuclear units could trickle charge into conventional batteries. Our one-cantilever system generated pulses with a peak power of 100 milliwatts; with many more cantilevers, and by using the energy of pulses over periods of hours, a nuclear battery would be able to inject a significant amount of current into the handheld's battery.
How much that current could increase the device's operation time depends on many factors. For a cellphone used for hours every day or for a power-hungry PDA, the nuclear energy boost won't help much. But for a cellphone used two or three times a day for a few minutes, it could mean the difference between recharging the phone every week or so and recharging it once a month. And for a simple PDA used mainly for checking schedules and phone numbers, the energy boost might keep the batteries perpetually charged for as long as the nuclear material lasts.
Nuclear microbatteries won't replace chemical batteries. But they're going to power a whole new range of gadgetry, from nanorobots to wireless sensors. Feynman's "staggeringly small world" awaits.
-------- china
China, US close to deal on nuclear technology trade: report
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Sep 02, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040901233206.uq7f6w11.html
China and the United States have nearly settled a dispute over nuclear technology, a move that would allow US companies to sell nuclear reactors to China, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
The deal could mean billions of dollars for US companies that have lobbied hard to get Washington and Beijing to reach agreement.
"This is happening," a US State Department official told the Journal on condition of anonymity. He said sanctions, export controls and most other barriers to sales have been removed.
A US-Chinese agreement to allow cooperation on nuclear energy signed in 1985 was put on hold after Washington imposed sanctions on Beijing for using force to quell the Tiananmen Square democracy demonstrations in 1989.
Trade in nuclear technology was further stalled by additional export controls and concerns about previous Chinese proliferation of nuclear technology to Pakistan and Iran.
Since last year, China has tried to meet US concerns by agreeing to inspections to prove it isn't transferring US technology to third parties and joining a US-backed group of nations that seeks to control nuclear exports to prevent weapons proliferation, the Journal said.
The deal eliminates the advantage by French, German and Canadian companies in the Chinese nuclear market, the Journal said. The business daily said Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong told visiting US Vice President Dick Cheney in April that China will build 24 to 30 nuclear-power plants by 2020, at a cost of 1.5 billion dollars each.
A spokesman for Westinghouse, one of the firms that pressured the administration of President George W. Bush to reach a deal, said that firm plans to bid on two projects which already have been approved by Chinese officials, the daily said.
----
Westinghouse awaits govt OK on China nuclear plants
Friday September 3, 2004
(Reuters)
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/040902/3/1noai.html
BOSTON, Sept 2 - Westinghouse Electric Co. said on Thursday it expects a decision from the U.S. government by the end of this year or early next year on its application to build nuclear reactors in China.
Westinghouse Electric, a wholly-owned subsidiary of state-run British Nuclear Fuels, is awaiting approval from the U.S. State Department, which reviews applications to sell nuclear technology, reactors, fuel and components to China.
If it wins approval, the Pittsburgh-based company aims to place formal bids with the Chinese government to build two 1,100 megawatt nuclear power plants that could bring in as much as $2.7 billion in revenue for the company.
"It's a very large market, and we have already started to pursue that market," said Vaughn Gilbert, a spokesman at Westinghouse.
China has embarked on a plan to add two to three nuclear power plants a year for roughly the next 15 years so that nuclear power will account for about 4 percent of the country's power mix by 2020, Zhang Huazhu, chairman of the China Atomic Energy Authority, said on Wednesday.
Westinghouse, which faces competition for the project from France's Areva and Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., said it would build the AP1000 model, a 1,100 megawatt plant which can provide energy to a city of nearly one million people.
----
China to build 27 more nuclear power plants
Pollution from coal-fired plants and uncertainties in oil market force Beijing to look to alternative sources of energy
By Chua Chin Hon
Straits Times:
SEPT 2, 2004
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,4386,270480,00.html
BEIJING - China plans to build 27 nuclear power plants by 2020, a marked increase from the current nine in operation, a top atomic energy official said yesterday.
This would work out to two to three 1,000MW nuclear plants being built annually for the next 15 years, said Mr Zhang Huazhu, chairman of the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA).
The new plants, alongside existing ones, will be located in the more economically developed south-eastern and coastal regions, such as the Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.
Nuclear power already accounts for more than 13 per cent of the electricity supply in Guangdong and Zhejiang, said Mr Zhang, adding that atomic energy 'is going to be an important pillar in the electricity-mix in the coastal areas'.
A report in July by the World Nuclear Association (WNA), a global industrial organisation promoting the peaceful use of atomic energy, listed Fujian and Shandong as the next two likely provinces to go nuclear with two new plants each.
These provinces house a large part of China's manufacturing base but are far from the coalfields in the north or north-west.
As a result, they are among the regions worst hit this year by the energy crisis as electricity demand soars and the transportation bottleneck shows little sign of easing.
Though several inland Chinese provinces have requested permission to build nuclear power plants as well, comments by the CAEA suggest that the central government is unlikely to accede to such requests.
China relies on fossil fuel, mainly coal, to generate about 80 per cent of its electricity, with hydropower and nuclear energy accounting for the rest.
But mounting pollution from coal-fired plants and uncertainties in the international oil market have forced Beijing to speed up its develop- ment of alternative sources of energy.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Mr Zhang said that China's nuclear energy strategy remained a 'moderate' one despite the central government's decision to speed up construction of the plants.
He revealed that the existing nine nuclear power plants accounted for only 2.29 per cent of total electricity generated in China.
Even with 27 new nuclear plants by 2020, this figure is expected to increase only marginally to 4 per cent, he said.
He added: 'Overall, the contribution from nuclear energy is still small. In this light, we can still call it a moderate development of nuclear energy.'
China began developing its nuclear industry 50 years ago, but it was only in 1991 that it put the country's first nuclear power plant into operation in Zhejiang, about 100km south- west of Shanghai.
Allaying concerns about safety, officials at the press conference said China has not encountered any major nuclear incident.
Staff in key posts go through thorough training and strict examinations to ensure their competence, the officials added.
Asia is the only region in the world where electricity generation by nuclear power is increasing significantly, the WNA said in an online report, pinning down most of this growth in China, Japan, India and South Korea.
There are now 100 nuclear power reactors in six Asian countries - with Japan topping the list with 53 plants - and 56 other reactors for research purposes in 14 countries in the region, the report added.
-------- depleted uranium
Gulf syndrome 'raised war toll to 10pc of force'
By Oliver Poole
02/09/2004
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/02/ngulf02.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/09/02/ixhome.html
Britain's casualty rate in the 1991 Gulf War was not the relatively small number celebrated at the time but 10 per cent of its deployment once "Gulf War Syndrome" was included, an independent inquiry into the condition was told yesterday.
Col Terry English, the Royal British Legion's director of welfare until he stepped down on Monday, said it was only after hostilities finished and debilitating conditions emerged that the real human cost of the conflict began to be realised.
"Something went wrong," he said. "When you look at conflicts of a similar nature - Falklands, Bosnia or so on - you have people who are unwell, with injuries, but there is not the situation occurring here where you have large numbers with something unique going on."
The inquiry has heard from veterans who stressed that although their physical ailments were not caused by a bullet or bayonet they were still war wounds, even if of a new kind received in a new type of battlefield with the threat of chemical and biological weapons.
At the time a ceasefire was called in 1991, official British casualty figures were 36 killed and 46 injured.
Col English said subsequently 6,000 of Britain's 53,000-strong force had developed medical conditions - primarily muscle wastage, osteoporosis and memory loss - that are believed to be a result of their service in the conflict. The Legion believes 630 have died from Gulf War-linked conditions.
The inquiry, headed by Lord Lloyd of Berwick, was told that between 25 and 30 per cent of American troops deployed in 1991 are estimated to be suffering some form of illness as a result of the conflict.
They have been attributed to a variety of causes including radioactive dust from depleted uranium munitions, Iraqi chemical weapons, organophosphate pesticides used to spray tents and pollution from oil wells.
Col English criticised the Ministry of Defence for often adopting a hostile attitude to veterans when they complained of illnesses after the conflict.
The inquiry, which is funded by donations, is expected to run for one more day. It is intended that its report will be published at the start of next month.
-------- india / pakistan
Pakistan Found to Aid Iran Nuclear Efforts
September 2, 2004
By DAVID E. SANGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/international/middleeast/02iran.html
A new assessment of Iran's nuclear program by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency says that, as early as 1995, Pakistan was providing Tehran with the designs for sophisticated centrifuges capable of making bomb-grade nuclear fuel. It also finds evidence that, as of the mid-August, Iran had assembled and tested the major components for 70 of the machines, which it showed to inspectors from the agency.
But the report, issued to members of the agency yesterday as a confidential document, provided no new evidence of the kind of covert programs that the agency has discovered in the last year, and suggested that the Iranian government was slowly becoming more helpful to inspectors. That assessment, American officials said, is likely to discourage moves by the Bush administration to take Iran to the United Nations Security Council for penalties unless it dismantles its program, which the Iranians say is entirely peaceful and which the United States says is designed to produce nuclear weapons.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, returning from a brief visit to Panama, told reporters yesterday that the Bush administration was still studying the report but that the United States would definitely push the agency's board of governors in September to refer Iran's lack of cooperation to the United Nations Security Council, where further steps would be considered.
The administration has tried such a step in the past but failed to get enough votes on the board, and Mr. Powell said yesterday that it remained to be seen "whether there is a consensus'' on the board now.
In an interview last week with The New York Times, President Bush suggested that he would be patient, and would pursue diplomatic means to halt any Iranian weapons program. "We'll continue pressing diplomatically,'' Mr. Bush said.
He said the cases of Iran and North Korea were different from that of Iraq. "Diplomacy failed for 11 years in Iraq,'' he said. "And this new diplomatic effort is barely a year ago.''
Senator John Kerry has argued that Mr. Bush has allowed the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea to speed forward while the United States is engaged in Iraq.
The report will help Europe and Russia - two of Iran's largest trading partners, with much to lose if penalties are enacted - which are seeking to defuse any confrontation. In the absence of what one senior European official called "a smoking nuke,'' the report issued yesterday seems likely to delay any major decisions on how to deal with Iran until after the American presidential election. But the report also suggested that the Iranians fully intended to move forward with the production of uranium, on a much larger scale than in the past.
The report, issued under the name of the agency's director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, notes Iranian plans to conduct an industrial-scale test of a plant that converts raw uranium into nuclear fuel. Iranian officials, the agency reported, plan to turn 37 tons of nearly raw uranium, called yellowcake, into uranium hexafluoride. That, in turn, is poured into the centrifuges for enrichment.
Several specialists in the United States government and outside said that amount of uranium could be enough to produce fuel for five or six atomic weapons. But Iran insists that it only intends to use enriched uranium for electric production, a contention American officials dismiss. A country with huge oil reserves, they say, has no need for nuclear power.
The report states that Iran received the design for an advanced centrifuge, called a P-2 because it was a second-generation machine designed in Pakistan, as early as 1995. American intelligence officials have said they had no evidence, throughout the 1990's, that Iran was receiving aid from Pakistan, so the atomic energy agency's findings suggest what one senior intelligence official called "a fairly major failure, despite the fact that we were watching Iran and Pakistan quite closely.'' Three years later, Pakistan conducted its first nuclear tests.
But Iran, which had invested in an earlier model of the centrifuges, has insisted to inspectors that it did not begin producing the newer, far more sophisticated machinery until two years ago. The agency said it was still investigating that.
Though the report does not cite the source of the purchase, it is now known to have come from the laboratories of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of the Pakistani bomb. Pakistan's government has argued that it had no knowledge of Dr. Khan's clandestine activities, which included sales to Libya and North Korea starting about the same time.
"What Iran got came almost entirely from one country,'' said a senior international diplomat who had been briefed on the findings. "And it seems to point directly back to Pakistan's own laboratories.''
The origin of the equipment is especially important because Iran is trying to explain why some samples of uranium taken by the agency show that it has been enriched far beyond the levels needed to produce nuclear power, though a little short of the usual purity for bomb fuel. In the report, the agency says that its studies indicate that it is "plausible'' that some of the samples it took in Iran had been contaminated by equipment that was previously used elsewhere, presumably in Pakistan.
If it is true, it would help lift suspicion that Iran was already producing uranium suitable for arms. But agency officials are still suspicious that some of the uranium could have been produced elsewhere in Iran, at plants they have yet to discover.
-------- iran
Rejecting International Pressure, Iran to Process Uranium
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 2, 2004; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52456-2004Sep1.html
Iran, in a fresh rebuff of demands that it abandon its nuclear ambitions, has decided to process a large quantity of uranium into a precursor ingredient used in making both commercial nuclear fuel and nuclear weapons, the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said yesterday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, in a confidential report, said Iran intends to convert more than 40 tons of uranium into uranium hexafluoride (UF 6 ) gas, an intermediate step in the complex process of making enriched uranium. The plan, if carried out, would represent a significant step forward for Iran's nuclear program and -- in the view of Bush administration officials -- a growing threat. In theory, that much uranium could yield as many as five crude nuclear bombs.
Administration officials reacted strongly to the revelation, vowing to launch a new effort this month to bring Iran before the U.N. Security Council for international censure. "The United States will continue to urge others . . . to join us in the effort to deal with the Iranian threat to international peace and security," said John R. Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.
Iran emphatically denies seeking nuclear weapons, but it insists it will assert its legal right to develop a commercial nuclear power industry. Although international inspectors have found no hard evidence linking Iran to a nuclear weapons program, its credibility has been battered by numerous disclosures of past attempts to conceal sensitive nuclear research.
Iran has also angered key U.S. allies in Europe by backing away from commitments to freeze components of its nuclear program, including the production of centrifuge machines used in enriching uranium. In an agreement reached last fall with Britain, France and Germany, Iran promised to suspend the production of enriched uranium in return for trade and technical assistance.
Iran's decision to begin the conversion of 37 metric tons (40.8 tons) of raw yellowcake uranium into UF 6 is seen by U.S. officials and many weapons experts as a further flouting of Iran's commitments. Several experts described the quantity as surprising and disturbing.
The revelation was contained in an IAEA report that otherwise contained much favorable news for Iran. The document -- one in a series of periodic updates on the findings of a U.N. investigation of Iran's nuclear program -- gave the Iranians high marks for cooperating with international inspectors. Unlike past reports, it featured no bombshells about past Iranian nuclear activity. It concluded that Iran had "plausibly" explained the existence of some particles of enriched uranium found in several nuclear facilities -- particles that now appear to have entered the country on contaminated equipment purchased on the black market.
With the new report, the Bush administration faces diminishing prospects for finding "smoking gun" evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program -- and also, perhaps, for rounding up international support for tough action against Iran, said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director for nonproliferation studies at the Carnegie Institute for International Peace. "Iran has answered the questions about its past while moving ahead with its enrichment program -- and we don't have a process in place to convince them to give it up," Wolfsthal said. "There's an open stretch of highway leading up to nuclear capability for Iran, and not a roadblock in sight."
----
Iran Sees Nuclear Lesson in Iraq, N.Korea -Experts
Thu Sep 2, 2004
By David Morgan
(Reuters)
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040902/ts_nm/nuclear_iran_usa_dc_1
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration may think tough talk will discourage Iran's nuclear ambitions, but U.S. policy on Iraq and North Korea has left the Islamic state believing that only nuclear weapons can deter the possibility of U.S. invasion, experts said on Thursday.
Iran, which President Bush has branded part of an "axis of evil" along with North Korea and prewar Iraq, saw Baghdad fall to U.S.-led forces in April 2003, the same month that North Korea told the United States it possessed nuclear weapons.
Now, with 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and North Korean diplomatic talks promising attractive benefits for Pyongyang, Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations said the message to Iran was clear.
"You've got to become North Korea, or you will be Iraq," said Takeyh, the council's senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies.
"Biological and chemical weapons don't deter the U.S. military and are no guarantee of territorial integrity or sovereignty," he said. "But nuclear weapons have a bargaining utility."
Added Vali Nasr, a Middle East expert who teaches at the Naval Postgraduate School: "(Iran has) come to believe, rightly or wrongly, that they're more likely to manage a threat to the regime if they have a nuclear capability."
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said in a new report that Iran plans to process 37 tonnes of raw uranium. That could give the country enough material for five bombs, though the IAEA found no conclusive evidence of an Iranian arms program.
Tehran insists the only purpose of its nuclear program is the peaceful generation of electricity.
The Bush administration, which accuses Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons, intends to try to persuade the IAEA board, at a meeting later this month, to find Iran is not in compliance with its nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations and to send the issue to the U.N. Security Council.
The United States, which severed diplomatic ties with Tehran after the 1979 Islamic revolution, has refused to rule out the possibility of military action against Iran.
But some experts doubt Iran can be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons given the country's industrial development and the momentum of its nuclear program, which began in the 1970s under the U.S.-backed shah.
"The most important entity to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons capability is the Iranian government itself," said Rand Corp. analyst John Parachini.
Army War College professor Sherifa Zuhur said the challenge of getting Iran to divulge its nuclear status will test the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 nonproliferation policy.
"You can't begin any further process of nonproliferation unless you know where everyone is," she said.
The administration has held out Libya's voluntary disarmament as an example for Iran, while trying to encourage democratic change inside the country by supporting reformers.
But experts said Libya offers no comparison with Iran and warned that domestic politics may not offer a solution.
"This issue's viewed the same way it is in India and Pakistan. It's a source of national prestige," said Nasr.
"There are pragmatic politicians who believe this is the only issue where the regime can possibly be seen on the right side of things by an otherwise unhappy population."
----
IAEA: No Iranian nuclear arms plans
UN inspectors have reported no problems accessing any site
Thursday 02 September 2004,
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0A750173-0AD0-4BA5-8FE0-814E8E21081D.htm
The International Atomic Energy Agency has said its inspectors have not found any evidence to support US accusations that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons programme.
The nuclear watchdog reported that Tehran may not have produced highly enriched uranium (HEU) - a key ingredient needed to produce nuclear weapons.
Nevertheless, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Wednesday the time had come for the UN to take punitive action against Iran.
Speaking to reporters flying back with him from a one-day trip to Panama, Powell said he would urge members of the IAEA, at its board meeting on 13 September, to refer the issue to the UN Security Council.
"We still believe that the Iranians are not fessing up to everything. They still have a programme that, in our judgment, is a nuclear programme designed to develop ultimately a nuclear weapon," said Powell. IAEA report
Although HEU contamination had been found at the Kalaye Electric Company and at the Natanz sites in Iran, the report said: "It appears plausible that the HEU contamination found at those locations may not have resulted from enrichment of uranium by Iran."
Tehran has maintained that the source of the contamination was not domestically produced HEU but rather imported equipment - specifically centrifuge equipment it said it purchased from Pakistan in the 1990s.
But it appears unlikely the Bush administration will find support among the IAEA's 35-member body to refer the matter to the United Nations this month to consider imposing sanctions against Iran.
In Tehran, Iran's former representative to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, predicted that Iran's nuclear case would not be referred to the Security Council.
The agency knows that uranium enrichment has not been carried out in Iran, he said, adding, "We take it as a favourable decision."
Cooperation
The IAEA report also cites "very good cooperation" by Iran with UN weapons inspectors in affording them access to suspected nuclear sites.
And although it was under no legal obligation to do so, Iran this year agreed to suspend its enrichment program as a show of good will to the international community.
According to the Western diplomat, enrichment facilities at Natanz are still "under seal" and UN inspectors have continued to monitor them.
----
Uranium tests planned despite suspension pledge
September 02, 2004
By Sharon Behn
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20040901-095345-5281r.htm
Iran intends to move one step closer to being able to produce a nuclear bomb by testing the conversion of a significant amount of yellowcake uranium this fall despite earlier informal pledges to suspend such tests.
Iran told the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans "hot tests" to produce uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas from 37 tons of yellowcake as early as this month, according to a report distributed by the agency to diplomats yesterday.
Officials in Washington yesterday condemned the decision as a threat to international peace and called on the IAEA to bring Iran before the United Nations.
"Iran's announcements are further strong evidence of the compelling need to take Iran's nuclear program to the Security Council," said John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control.
"The United States will continue to urge other members of the IAEA Board of Governors to join us in this effort, to deal with the Iranian threat to international peace and security."
UF6 gas typically is passed through a series of centrifuges to produce enriched uranium that can be used in nuclear bombs or nuclear-power plants.
According to one Western expert, Iran's test would involve enough gas to potentially produce five nuclear bombs.
Tehran's decision meant it was "reneging on a political commitment made to the Europeans about six months ago to suspend these sorts of things," said a Western diplomat in Vienna, Austria, where the IAEA has its headquarters.
Tehran repeatedly has stated that its nuclear program is a peaceful one.
David Albright, former U.N. weapons inspector and now president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said that although Tehran was still a long way from being able to produce a bomb, the amount of uranium being converted was "significant."
"If they go ahead and do this, they are starting to produce enough UF6 for a bomb program," Mr. Albright said. But he said that Iran was still three to five years away from being able to build and expand all the centrifuges and sites necessary to produce a nuclear weapon.
Under the parameters of the IAEA, Iran has the legal right to produce UF6, and it denies that it ever cut a deal with the Europeans to voluntarily suspend the production tests in exchange for improved trade and security assurances.
According to the IAEA report, Iran already conducted a smaller, similar test between May and June this year, generating roughly 66 to 77 pounds of UF6.
In its report, the agency states that recent actions by Tehran have compromised the IAEA's ability to monitor Iran's nuclear activities.
The report says Iran notified the agency on June 23 that it intended to resume, under IAEA supervision, the manufacturing of centrifuge components and assembly and testing of centrifuges. It removed the seals used by the agency to monitor Iran's suspension.
Mr. Bolton said that the United States viewed "with great concern" Iran's announcement that it intended to test its gas centrifuges.
Iran turned down a subsequent IAEA proposal to seal some 70 rotors tested in mid-August, so that "the Agency's supervision of the activities identified by Iran cannot be considered effective," the report cautioned.
-------- japan
Lessons from Japan for the US occupation of Iraq
by Yusuf Al-Khabbaz
Thursday 02 September 2004
Media Monitors Network
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/9342/
"The American occupation of Japan was methodical and thorough, and it took advantage of several elements within Japanese civil society that were already geared toward modern capitalism and democracy."
Top American officials from President Bush down have consistently justified their destructive and disastrous occupation of Iraq by referring to the American occupation of Japan at the end of the second 'world war'. Bush has claimed that the "substantial progress" the Americans were making in Iraq "has proceeded faster than similar efforts in Germany and Japan after World War II." The American corporate media, which play an important role in shaping how ordinary Americans perceive the occupation of Iraq, have generally parroted the official position, although independent analysts disagree about the wisdom of making such comparisons. John Dower, an awarding-winning historian of modern Japan, has noted that Bush's "murky use of history" obscures the reality that "almost everything that abetted stability and serious reform in postwar Japan is conspicuously absent in the case of Iraq," and likens Bush's "opportunistic use of history" to an old drunk leaning on a lamp-post, which "is being used for support rather than illumination." Given the current situation, it might prove useful to examine some parallels and contrasts between the two occupations.
One point that both water-muddying officials and clear-thinking academics seldom discuss is the colonial nature of war in the 20th century. In short, both 'world wars' can be regarded as colonial wars, with most of the "world" being involved as colonial territories that were fought over by the major colonial powers. Those powers were initially led by Spain, which conquered and occupied most of what is now Central and South America, including the Caribbean, followed by Portugal with similar colonies in South America. Spain's early ascendancy was due in large part to its plunder of the wealth of Muslim Spain, with the year 1492 marking both the end of the destruction of the caliphate in Spain and the beginning of the destruction of indigenous societies in the Americas. Spanish colonialism gave way to its European rivals, led by Britain but also soon involving France, Holland, Italy and Germany. The Americans took over much of Spain's empire, and parts of the British empire. By the end of the 19th century much of the world had been carved up by these Euro-American colonial powers.
In the mid-19th century Japan was "opened" by the Americans, whose warships landed in Tokyo harbor with a demand that the ruling shoguns unlock Japanese trade for American capitalists. This led to the "Meiji restoration," in which the shoguns were displaced by a modernizing regime under the newly restored emperor. Japan quickly learned the rules of modern colonialism, and soon became a rival power to the Europeans and the Americans, threatening the already-claimed colonies in Southeast Asia and establishing new ones in China. Japan did what every colonial power of the 19th century did, what all "modern industrialized" nations did: invaded and plundered the resources of weaker countries. But a problem emerged. These resource-rich countries were already occupied by the Western powers, who were no doubt doubly incensed, not only because Japan was encroaching on the European and American colonial territories, but also because the "yellow-skinned" and "pagan" Japanese were neither white nor Christian; until then colonialism had been bound up with white supremacy and the mission to Christianize.
In contrast, aside from short-lived occupations in Iran and Kuwait, Iraq was never the sort of colonial power that Japan had become, rivalling the Western powers. In fact, it can be argued convincingly that Iraq, like most of the Muslim world, was on the other side of the colonial divide. Even the Kuwait conflict had remnants of colonialism. Part of Iraq's claim on Kuwait stemmed from Britain's carving out the sheikdom from Iraq's coastal and oil-rich regions in the early 20th century, and America's instigation of Saddam to invade Kuwait to redress Iraqi disputes with its neighbors in the late 20th century. The Iraqi regime did practise what might be termed "internal" colonialism against its Shi'ite and Kurdish populations, but this is practised by virtually every state in the world today with a racially, culturally, linguistically or religiously diverse populace, including many in America and Europe.
Before being occupied by America, both Japan and Iraq were thoroughly destroyed by ruthless and savage bombing campaigns, including the use of nuclear weapons. The most famous incidents of American destruction are, of course, the atom-bombs attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. This horrific new weapon, secretly developed for the purpose, destroyed 75 percent of Hiroshima and vaporized 125,000 people, mostly civilians. The target was chosen not for military reasons but, as Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the plane that dropped the bomb, put it, because Hiroshima was a "virgin target" and would provide an opportunity to make "bomb blast studies on virgin targets." With a similar motive, the atom-bomb dropped on Nagasaki destroyed about a third of the city, killing 75,000 people and injuring another 75,000, most of them civilians. These highly publicized attacks had caused as many as 350,000 Japanese deaths by 1950, including those who later died from injuries and radiation-poisoning.
The infamy of the atom-bomb attacks overshadowed the even larger scale of previous American destruction. Before the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Americans had already destroyed 60 other Japanese cities. In March 1945, more than 300 American "Flying Fortress" B-29 bombers unloaded tons of napalm onto the center of Tokyo, setting the largely wooden city aflame and incinerating 100,000 people, again mostly civilians. Other major Japanese cities were also fire-bombed, causing an estimated 250,000 civilian deaths in Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe and Yokohama. By current estimates the Americans killed 3 million Japanese civilians and soldiers during their "total war" on Japan, which lasted roughly four years. An aide to General Douglas MacArthur, the "supreme commander" of Japan during the occupation, noted at the time that the fire-bombing of Japanese cities was "one of the most ruthless and barbarian killings of non-combatants in all history." American officials openly called for "extermination" of the Japanese, betraying the deepseated racism of American warmongering and colonialism. As Dower later put it, "With the fire bombings we crossed the line that we had said was clearly beyond the pale of civilization. The American reaction at the time was that they deserved it. There was almost a genocidal attitude on the part of the American military and it extended to the American public."
Racism and genocide also characterize the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. According to recent estimates, from the first American attack on Iraq in 1991 to the invasion last year and the current occupation, more than 500,000 Iraqis have died, either as a direct result of indiscriminate bombing raids and military attacks, or by economic sanctions and other forms of indirect aggression. Although atom bombs have not yet been used on Iraq (as far as is known), the use of depleted-uranium weapons by the Americans has created a radiation-polluted landscape, with many devastating effects (increased cancer rates, for instance). As many observers have pointed out, mass murder seems necessary prior to occupation. In both Japan and Iraq, one can argue that atrocious war crimes have been committed and wanton acts of terrorism and mass murder of civilians have been the deliberate and premeditated strategy of the US.
During the post-war American occupation of Japan, which lasted almost seven years, the Americans restructured virtually the entire society, from the government to the economy, including all educational and cultural institutions. The Japanese offered little or no resistance, and by most accounts not a single one of the 150,000 American soldiers in the occupying forces was attacked and killed by Japanese citizens. The lack of resistance has usually been explained as a combination of war-weariness - the Japanese had lived under military dictatorship for more than a decade - and the terror resulting from the atom-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which, according to recent accounts, were not necessary for military purposes, but instead were carried out for "psychological effect."
The American occupation of Japan was methodical and thorough, and it took advantage of several elements within Japanese civil society that were already geared toward modern capitalism and democracy. It was informed by the "new deal" liberalism that had prevailed in American society during the pre-war years, but which, paradoxically, was being rolled back there by the end of the war. In addition, and contrary to the predictions of many American social scientists, the Americans excused the emperor of Japan his role in Japan's colonial wars and militarism, and in fact used the emperor to smooth the transition to colonial rule. However, lesser members of the Japanese military government were not covered by any amnesty; there were war crimes tribunals, and executions of selected officials. The exoneration of the defeated nation's leader is not likely to occur in Iraq, and the Americans are sure to milk Saddam's trial for all it is worth before the presidential election in November.
In contrast to Japan, the American occupation of Iraq is chaotic and informed by unabashed corporate greed, with Bush assigning most reconstruction contracts to his cronies and their firms. In fact, as Dower has noted, referring to Bush's speech, "the one area in which U.S. policy in occupied Iraq has unquestionably 'proceeded faster' than in Germany and Japan after World War II" has been the restructuring of the Iraqi economy, which is being accomplished "by promoting policies and priorities that were simply unthinkable" during the occupation of Japan. In Japan, the Americans largely promoted a liberal model of self-sufficiency under American tutelage. In Iraq, as Dower observes, "Reconstruction has been turned over to foreign corporations led by American firms, and sweeping 'privatization' measures have been proposed that call for placing the entire economy - except for oil - up for sale. As announced in September, these measures would cap corporate taxes, slash tariffs and permit foreign companies to not only buy 100% of Iraqi firms but also immediately repatriate any profits. Even the conservative Economist magazine, which supports this extremist agenda, calls it a 'yard sale.'"
Part of this corporate "yard sale" has involved turning over Iraqi education, both curriculum and infrastructure, to American corporations such as Bechtel, which are much more interested in fast profits than in real and lasting reforms. An American education official recently resigned his position in Iraq, saying that it is impossible to get any work done in such a climate of corruption and greed. In Japan, restructuring of education was carefully managed and involved Japanese as well as American officials and academics, and it was largely a public endeavor, not a private enterprise. However, while the methods differ, the goals seem to be the same. In Japan, the goal was to eliminate any sense of Japanese nationalism and identity, and to purge the school curriculum of those elements said to promote militarism. In Iraq (in fact throughout the Muslim world) the Americans have targeted Islam in a similar fashion, claiming that the Qur'an and other texts (the ahadith, mainly) teach "extremism" and "terrorism."
Strict censorship of all media characterizes both occupations. During their occupation of Japan, the Americans controlled newspapers, magazines, book publishing, television production and films. Several topics were completely prohibited, such as writings or pictures depicting the atom-bomb attacks. Any criticism of Japan's "two emperors" - the Japanese emperor Hirohito and the American general MacArthur - was completely forbidden, and likewise any criticism of the occupation authorities and their allies. The Americans have already shown that they are no different in their occupation of Iraq, replacing "Saddam TV" with "TV America," and closing down critical newspapers. We see a strange paradox, then and now: the discrepancy between democracy and censorship.
While the American occupation authorities in Japan circumscribed critical forms of media and public discussion, they also promoted forms of entertainment. New media created an "exciting and fun-loving" culture of licentiousness to counter what was then described as the stodgy conservatism of tradition, with a tawdry new culture emphasizing degeneracy and nihilism. Having emerged during the occupation, this new cultural trend left a sleazy legacy, including pornographic publications and nightclub-acts featuring naked women, unheard of in Japan before the occupation. It is too early to say how this aspect of American occupation will develop in Iraq, but there are already reports of wild nightclubs emerging in the "green zone" where the occupation authorities live, and the recent trial of an American woman soldier implicated in the Abu Ghraib abuses reveals a seedy and perverted under-culture in the American military that worries Iraqis.
Appropriating "exotic" women, by hook or by crook, has always been one of the most coveted symbols of war and colonial domination. The Japanese used foreign "comfort women" during their colonial wars, and during the American occupation they developed institutionalized forms of prostitution to serve the occupying American army. Because the Japanese authorities were so worried about their women being abused by the occupiers, they sponsored "comfort facilities" for the Americans where they could at least control which women would service American soldiers. Some women even volunteered their services, sacrificing their bodies for their country. Venereal disease was so rife in the early years of the occupation that the American authorities set up special centers to distribute condoms. If the American appetite for sexual licentiousness matches their appetite for burgers and beer, one shudders to think of how the occupying soldiers are being sated in Iraq. Although there have been some reports of prostitution in Baghdad, it is not clear how the Americans are being serviced in Iraq. Perhaps the availability of pornography and the presence of female soldiers helps. It is also possible that soldiers take "recreation and relaxation" leaves by visiting Dubai, which is notorious in the Gulf region as its "sin city," the streets of which are literally crawling with Russian and Chinese prostitutes. In any case, wherever the Americans reside, drunkenness and prostitution are sure to follow in some form or other.
So it is clear that Japan and Iraq were occupied by a highly militarized America that wrought utter destruction, paradoxically in the name of peace. However, it is noteworthy that Japan renounced colonialism and militarism, and has continued to present a peaceful and demilitarized option to other societies. With its national wealth freed from the slavery of militarism, Japan was able to become a prosperous industrial nation. Meanwhile, the Americans have turned war into a growth industry, and their entire economy depends on it. During the 'cold war', when anti-militarism had taken hold locally in Japan, the Americans tried to persuade them to remilitarize and take part in the Korean War - which the Japanese, to their credit, refused to do. Hiroshima, the symbol of nuclear destruction, has become a major center of the global peace movement, with the devastated city center turned into Peace Memorial Park, where peace rallies are held every August on the anniversary of the American attack.
It is not likely, however, that a similar situation will emerge out of the American occupation of Iraq. The corrupt American occupation authority and its local proxies are incapable of any sort of meaningful restructuring, or even providing basic necessities, acting instead as a violent colonial army and in turn provoking a nationwide resistance movement. The militarism of Iraq was largely a result of American machinations, first against the Soviet Union's communism to the north, for which Saddam was installed as a local bulwark, and later against the Islamic Revolution in Iran, for which the Iraqi military was trained and funded lavishly by the Americans (using the moneys of Gulf oil sheikdoms that were deposited in Western banks, and still are). Recent reports that the Americans are now building massive military bases throughout Iraq suggest that the peace and demilitarisation option will not be offered to the people of Iraq. Indeed, as the rest of the world has mostly renounced war, the American military machine marches on largely unopposed.
-------- korea
US calls for thorough probe on South Korea's secret nuclear activity
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Sep 02, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040902203402.f4zm5hsf.html
An embarrassed United States called Thursday for a thorough probe into ally South Korea's secret production of enriched uranium, saying such activity should not have occurred.
The South Korean goverment had told the International Atomic Energy Agency in August that its scientists carried out secret experiments in enriching uranium four years ago, the agency said Thursday.
A group of IAEA inspectors went to Seoul Sunday for a week-long visit after the experiment was reported in accordance with strengthened safeguard regulations.
"We expect that the agency will fully investigate the matter and keep the Board of Governors fully informed," US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
"It is important that all such activity be investigated. When the investigation is complete, we and other members of the board will be able to draw the appropriate conclusions," he said. "So that needs to be done."
He said Washington was in touch with the IAEA and the South Korean government on the issue, which observers felt had embarassed Washington at a time when it was working with Seoul to pressure North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
Following demands by the United States, South Korea had officially terminated in the 1970s its efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
Boucher said the information about South Korea's activity was provided to IAEA as part of Seoul's "initial declaration" under an additional protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the country voluntarily adopted in February.
"I would say that South Korea has voluntarily reported this activity. They are cooperating fully and proactively in order to demonstrate that the activity has been eliminated and it is no longer cause for concern," he said.
"Their transparency and cooperation in resolving this matter is a strong example of how states should respond in complying with their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty."
Asked why the United States was not critical of South Korea, Boucher said: "what they had done in the past was activity that should not have occurred.
"It's activity that should have been reported under the additional protocol."
Boucher also said that the scale of South Korea's enrichment activity was "much, much smaller than that being discussed in the situations of North Korea or Iran."
The South Korean's revelation seems to have complicated IAEA's efforts to get to the bottom of Iran's nuclear program as Teheran could now argue that it should be treated as leniently as Seoul for breaches of IAEA agreements.
The United States and South Korea are involved in six-party talks for about a year with Russia, China, Japan and North Korea to end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons drive.
----
South Korea Admits Enriching Uranium to Near Bomb Grade
September 2, 2004
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-korea-iaea.html?hp
SEOUL/VIENNA (Reuters) - South Korea has admitted that government scientists enriched uranium four years ago to a level that several Vienna diplomats said was almost pure enough for an atomic bomb, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Thursday.
Although only a minute quantity of uranium was involved, two Western diplomats close to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the enrichment was below but ``very close'' to the threshold for bomb-grade uranium.
``It was well beyond the level that would be needed for a civilian program,'' one of the diplomats told Reuters. ``The government says that its program is peaceful and the IAEA is not making any judgments on that issue.''
South Korea said in a statement the U.N. nuclear watchdog was investigating the disclosure. It said the experiments, which involved enriching uranium with lasers, were carried out by a group of scientists without government knowledge and soon ended.
``This is enrichment of uranium,'' a government official told Reuters by telephone. Other government officials had earlier said the experiments did not go as far as enriching uranium.
The IAEA said in a statement that Seoul had told the agency that ``these activities were carried out without the government's knowledge at a nuclear site in Korea in 2000.''
At the same time, a Vienna diplomat said the scientists were government employees working at a government-run facility.
South Korea has signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the IAEA's Additional Protocol, which gives inspectors the right to conduct more intrusive, short-notice visits to nuclear sites than normal NPT safeguards permit.
``With the Additional Protocol in force, it would have been difficult for Korea to keep this a secret,'' the diplomat said.
The IAEA said a team of inspectors was now in South Korea and would be returning to Vienna early next week. The agency's chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, would present the inspectors' findings to the IAEA Board of Governors when it meets on Sept. 13.
CLEAR VIOLATION OF THE NPT, DIPLOMATS
The experiments clearly did not constitute a violation of the NPT because they were not an attempt to build nuclear weapons, the South Korean official said.
However, several diplomats on the IAEA's 35-member Board of Governors said that South Korea had clearly violated its obligations under the NPT, which requires that such activities be reported to the IAEA. They said the board had no choice but to report such violations to the U.N. Security Council.
``This will have to be reported to the Security Council, but the board would want that to be with the consent of the South Korean government, similar to what we did with Libya,'' one Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
Earlier this year the IAEA board reported Libya to the Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions, though the report was purely informative and praised Tripoli for coming clean about its past secret atomic weapons program.
Another Western diplomat close to the IAEA said that the agency would naturally want to fulfill its duty as the watchdog of the NPT by conducting a thorough investigation to rule out the possibility that South Korea has a secret weapons program.
The revelation could prove embarrassing to Seoul, which is a key member of six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
U.S. officials said in October 2002 that the North had admitted to running a secret nuclear program based on uranium enrichment technology.
Pyongyang has since denied the claim. It has yet to comment on the latest South Korean disclosure.
South Korea began a secret atomic weapons program in the 1970s under Park Chung-hee, a military dictator who was assassinated in 1979. Park's program is widely believed to have only ended with his death.
The IAEA has made similar discoveries of minute amounts of enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium in Iran, which Washington considers as evidence that Tehran is using its civilian nuclear energy program as a front for developing atomic weapons.
Iran says the United States is wrong and insists its nuclear ambitions are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity.
The South Korean government learned of the enrichment experiments while drawing up its first report to the IAEA, submitted this month, the Seoul statement said.
The experiments were conducted in January and February 2000 as part of research in producing nuclear fuel in the country, it said. A minute quantity, 0.2 gram, of uranium was successfully enriched. All facilities and the uranium were destroyed immediately after the experiments, the statement added.
----
South Korea inspected by IAEA after uranium experiment
SEOUL (AFP)
Sep 02, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040902124831.wa6s2n35.html
South Korea is being inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over an independent lab test which produced a "small amount" of uranium, the raw ingredient for nuclear weapons, officials said on Thursday.
A group of IAEA inspectors arrived on Sunday for a week-long visit after the experiment, which was carried out four years ago, was reported in accordance with strengthened safeguard regulations.
"The IAEA is reviewing the reported case in full cooperation with our government," the science and technology ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said the experiment by researchers into nuclear fuel produced a "small amount of 0.2 grams (0.007 ounces) of uranium".
"It was a one-time laboratory experiment conducted by a small group of scientists on their own in January and February in 2000. The experiment was terminated shortly with related equipment dismantled afterward," it said.
The ministry said it had failed to recognize the sensitive nuclear lab experiment until it was preparing an additional report for the IAEA this year.
South Korea has a policy of keeping itself nuclear weapons-free but a row has erupted in neighbouring North Korea over its alleged drive to build atomic bombs in contravention of international agreements.
----
S. Korea Says It Enriched Uranium Four Years Ago
By REUTERS
September 2, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-iaea-uranium.html
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea has told the International Atomic Energy Agency that government scientists carried out nuclear experiments to enrich uranium four years ago, Seoul said Thursday.
South Korea said in a statement the U.N. nuclear watchdog was investigating the disclosure. It said the experiments, which involved producing a minute quantity of uranium using lasers, were carried out by a group of scientists without government knowledge and soon ended.
``This is enrichment of uranium,'' a government official told Reuters by telephone. Other government officials had earlier said the experiments did not go as far as enriching uranium.
``Whether it is a violation of IAEA safeguards measures, that's a question for the IAEA inspectors to answer,'' the official said, referring to agreements between the IAEA and governments to ensure that use of nuclear technology is limited to peaceful purpose.
But the experiments clearly did not constitute a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty because they were not an attempt to build nuclear weapons, the official said.
The government said it was committed to peaceful use of nuclear energy and non-proliferation of atomic weapons.
But the revelation could prove embarrassing to Seoul, which is a key member of six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
U.S. officials said in October 2002 that the North had admitted to running a secret nuclear program based on uranium enrichment technology.
Pyongyang has since denied the claim.
The South Korean government learned of the experiments while drawing up its first ever report to the IAEA, submitted this month, the statement said.
The experiments were conducted in January and February 2000 as part of research in producing nuclear fuel in the country, it said. A minute quantity, 0.2 gram, of uranium was successfully enriched. All facilities and the uranium were destroyed immediately after the experiments, the statement added.
--------
IAEA Probes S. Korean Nuclear Experiment
Thursday September 2, 2004
By SANG-HUN CHOE
Associated Press Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4469227,00.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog is investigating a secret uranium-enrichment experiment that South Korean scientists conducted four years ago, U.N. and South Korean officials said Thursday.
The single experiment in early 2000 was revealed in a report South Korea presented last month to the Vienna, Austria-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the Science and Technology Ministry said in a statement.
South Korea reported that its ``laboratory scale'' experiment ``involved the production of only milligram quantities of enriched uranium,'' the IAEA said in a statement posted on its Web site.
Highly enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear warheads. But South Korea said Thursday it has no intention of building nuclear bombs and remains committed to international efforts to persuade North Korea to abandon its weapons development.
There was no immediate reaction from communist North Korea, which says it is building a ``nuclear deterrent'' to counter what it calls plans by the United States and its South Korean ally to unleash a nuclear war on the divided Korean peninsula.
``The government will take measures to prevent similar things from happening in the future,'' the statement said, adding that a small group of scientists conducted the experiment on their own initiative.
An IAEA investigating team arrived Sunday in South Korea to conduct a weeklong probe into the program, the ministry said.
The team will report early next week to IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, who in turn will present his findings when the agency's Board of Governors convenes in mid-September.
South Korea said the uranium enrichment took place during experiments using laser technology to separate isotopes. Those experiments were part of the country's research for domestic production of fuel for its nuclear power plants.
The experiment, conducted in a facility dedicated to research into nuclear fuel, involved separating just 0.01 ounces of uranium, the statement said. The experiment was immediately terminated after it was conducted and the equipment scrapped, according to the ministry.
South Korea said the government only recently found out about the unauthorized experiment, when it prepared a report under the terms of a new, tougher safeguard agreement it signed with the IAEA in February that required it to record activities in the fuel research center.
``The fact that we have decided to report this faithfully and transparently to the IAEA reflects our commitment to nuclear nonproliferation,'' the ministry said. ``We are sincerely honoring our obligations for the peaceful use of nuclear energy and nuclear nonproliferation.''
South Korea said it remains committed to keeping the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons.
The revelation comes as South Korea and five other countries are trying to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions. That crisis arose after the North reportedly admitted in 2002 having a secret nuclear program in violation of international agreements.
South Korea launched a secret nuclear weapons program in the 1970s under military dictator Park Chung-hee, but abandoned the plan after strong U.S. pressure.
Lacking oil and natural resources, South Korea's civilian nuclear program today provides more than 40 percent of the country's energy.
-------- mideast
US hopes to conclude WMD talks with Libya this month
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Sep 02, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040901230759.91c2y2o4.html
The United States hopes to wrap up talks this month with Libya that could lead to declaring the once-pariah state free of weapons of mass destruction, a State Department official said Wednesday.
"We are hoping to finish up in September," the official said, referring to ongoing talks with the Libyan government over its December vow renouncing weapons of mass destruction and agreeing to dismantle its nuclear, chemical and biological warfare programs.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States hoped to tell Libya that it had a "reasonable degree of confidence" that it had met its December commitments.
But she said there would remain a process whereby consultations could take place with Libya on the issue and through which assistance could be extended to Tripoli as it worked with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
The planned conclusion of talks this month may also set the pace for US removal of Libya from its list of "state sponsors of terrorism," which also includes Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Sudan.
Since Libya's December vow and its earlier agreement to accept responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and pay compensation to the victims' families, US-Libyan relations have soared.
President George W. Bush lifted most sanctions against Libya in April and there is now a permanent US diplomatic presence in Tripoli for the first time since the early 1980s.
In May, Libya drew warm US praise when it announced it had decided to renounce all arms trade with states accused of weapons of mass destruction proliferation.
However, US sanctions related to Libya's alleged support for terrorist groups continue to be in place as the country remains designated as a "state sponsor of terrorism."
-------- terrorism
Two Plutonium Transport Vessels Set for First U.S. Shipment
September 2, 2004
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2004/2004-09-02-09.asp#anchor3
Two armed British nuclear freighters are being prepared to cross the Atlantic to pick up the first shipment of weapons-grade plutonium to be reprocessed into experimental reactor fuel in France. They are about to leave for the U.S. military port at Charleston, South Carolina, Greenpeace has been informed.
The ships were loaded Wednesday with provisions, ammunition and armed security personnel in preparation to leave the English port of Barrow-in-Furness.
They will carry around 140 kilograms of plutonium, sufficient for at least 25 nuclear weapons.
The plutonium has been designated surplus to the U.S. nuclear weapons program and is to be manufactured into mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel - at French facilities operated by Areva/Cogema.
The plutonium fuel will then be returned to the U.S. for testing at the Catawba nuclear reactor in South Carolina next year. It will be the first MOX fuel to be made from weapons-grade plutonium.
"International nonproliferation policy addressing plutonium has been hijacked by the commercial industry, which aims to fleece the taxpayer for the coming decades into paying for a dangerous, expensive and wholly unnecessary plutonium fuel program," said Tom Clements of Greenpeace International in Washington, DC.
Greenpeace has been lobbying for 10 years to have all plutonium treated as nuclear waste not as potential reactor fuel. The environmental organization says this approach would be "cheaper, faster, safer, and more secure."
The Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal, carry a complement of 13 armed anti-terrorist police, as well as three 30 mm cannons. By contrast previous plutonium shipments have involved naval vessels from the U.S., France and the UK, as well as U.S. marines.
Last week, the U.S Department of Energy was questioned by two members of Congress on security aspects of the planned transport. Democrat Jim Turner of Texas, the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee, is concerned that the sea shipment has no dedicated armed military vessels.
Turner warns that the transport containers would not withstand an attack by a rocket-propelled grenade, according to a French government assessment.
Once in France, the radioactive material will be transported 1,000 kilometers south in trucks that Congressman Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who is a senior Member of the Homeland Security Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee, warned in a statement last week are easy to spot.
"It appears to me that an attack on the American plutonium that will soon be shipped to France would not pose much of a challenge, since publicly available materials suggest the trucks previously have been very easily identified, followed and filmed traveling along highways in France, and were only lightly guarded," Markey said.
-------- treaties
Washington accused of thwarting nuclear ban
Keeping watch over materials isn't possible, U.S. says
By BARRY SCHWEID
Associated Press
Sept. 2, 2004,
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2775426
WASHINGTON - The head of the Arms Control Association and a former senior U.S. official Thursday accused the Bush administration of trying to derail a proposed international ban on production of material used to make nuclear weapons.
Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the private research group, said the administration's position that airtight safeguards against cheating could not be found was "something of a poison pill."
"We do not agree that this treaty is not effectively verifiable," Kimball said at a news conference.
Robert J. Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, said the administration was determined to kill any prospect of a treaty emerging from a 65-nation conference in Geneva.
U.S. officials are in Geneva outlining the administration's view that compliance with the treaty could not be verified.
Einhorn, senior security adviser to the Center for Strategic International Studies, a private research group, said that in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, "The first thing you want to do is to limit the stocks of fissile material worldwide."
David Albright, president of the private Institute for Science and International Security, said a treaty without verification provisions makes no sense.
The proposed treaty would outlaw production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons purposes.
The treaty is seen by disarmament advocates as a way to curb nuclear weapons programs in India, Pakistan and Israel, which are outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
NRC STAFF ISSUES GENERIC LETTER ON NUCLEAR POWER PLANT STEAM GENERATOR INSPECTIONS
Thursday, September 02, 2004
Nuclear Regulatory Commission News
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2004/04-103.html
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has asked all operators of pressurized-water reactors (PWR) for information on how they conduct inspections of the tubes inside the reactors' steam generators.
Steam generators are the portion of a PWR where water heated by the reactor core travels through thousands of small tubes to transfer heat to a separate water system, creating the steam that drives turbines to generate electricity. Operating experience has shown steam generator tubes can degrade over time, and an NRC review of prior inspections raises the question of whether the inspections have properly examined the tubes.
"Steam generator tubes are an important part of the barrier systems that isolate radioactive contamination from the environment," said Bruce Boger, Director of the Division of Inspection Program Management in the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. "The responses to this request will allow us to determine whether the plants' inspections are adequately detecting any flaws developing in the tubes."
The request is being made in a Generic Letter, which is one of several methods the NRC has for communicating with the nuclear industry, and has four main objectives:
1) Alert addressees that the NRC's interpretation of tube inspection requirements raises questions as to whether all current inspection methods ensure the requirements are met;
2) Request a description of current inspections and an assessment of whether they meet current requirements;
3) Request that licensees propose plans for coming into compliance if they conclude their plans are not currently in compliance, and;
4) Request a tube structural and leakage integrity safety assessment that addresses differences between a plant's practices and the NRC's position.
Licensees have 60 days to respond to the request. A draft letter was published for comment in the Federal Register on May 14, 2003, and responses were incorporated into the final document. The NRC's Committee for the Review of Generic Requirements reviewed the Generic Letter in June 2004.
The Generic Letter will be available electronically on the NRC's web site at this address: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/gen-letters/.
(Note to Editors: This issue is entirely unrelated to the recent accident at the Mihama nuclear power plant in western Japan.)
----
Work With Removable Disks Resumes at Lab
Thursday September 2, 2004
(AP)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4468302,00.html
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have resumed work with removable computer disks like those reported missing from New Mexico's other federal nuclear weapons lab at Los Alamos.
Energy Department officials approved the resumption at Sandia on Tuesday, according to a statement issued by the Albuquerque lab on Wednesday.
The department stopped use of the disks - known as ``controlled removable electronic media'' or CREM - at DOE facilities nationwide July 23 after two disks believed to contain classified information disappeared from Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The Los Alamos investigation remains open, although Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., has said the disks may never have been missing at all.
Energy Department facilities that use CREM have been conducting inventories of the disks and reporting back to the department's National Nuclear Security Administration to get recertified to resume work with them.
Work resumed earlier at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, the Savannah River nuclear facility in South Carolina and the Pantex facility in Texas.
At Sandia, workers documented and cross-checked some 14,000 items as part of the inventory. Items included removable hard drives, computer memory disks and laptop computers.
Ron Detry, Sandia's vice president for security, said the lab accounted for all of its CREM.
He said Sandia strengthened its CREM-related security and accounting processes in the six weeks since work with such material was brought to a halt. The lab also provided awareness training for all employees.
----
NRC ISSUES MID-CYCLE ASSESSMENTS FOR ALL NUCLEAR PLANTS
September 2, 2004
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2004/04-106.html
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued mid-cycle assessment letters for 102 operating nuclear power plants and posted them to its Web site. The Davis-Besse plant in Ohio remains under a special NRC oversight program and will not receive a mid-cycle letter.
Every six months each plant receives either a mid-cycle review letter or an annual assessment letter along with an NRC inspection plan. Updated information on plant performance is posted to the NRC Web site every quarter. The next annual assessment letters will be issued in March 2005.
The assessment letters for each plant will be available on the NRC Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/listofasmrpt.html and through ADAMS, the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System. Help in using ADAMS is available from the NRC Public Document Room by calling (301) 415-4737 or (800) 397-4209.
----
U.S. Plans Small Disposable Nuclear Power Plants
September 2, 2004
LIVERMORE, California, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2004/2004-09-02-09.asp#anchor8
A small, sealed nuclear reactor that can meet the energy needs of developing countries with less risk that they will use the by-products to make weapons is being developed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
A sealed reactor can be delivered to a site, left to generate power for up to 30 years, and retrieved when its fuel is spent, according to a report published in the "New Scientist."
The developers at the DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California claim that no one would be able to remove the fissile material from the reactor because its core would be inside a tamper-proof cask protected by a host of alarms.
Conventional reactors pose a threat of proliferation because they have to be periodically recharged with fuel which later has to be removed. Both steps offer operators the chance to divert fissile material to weapons programs.
Known as the small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor (SSTAR), the machine will generate power without needing refuelling or maintenance, says developer Craig Smith at the Livermore Lab.
In an SSTAR, the nuclear fuel, liquid lead coolant and a steam generator will be sealed inside the housing, along with steam pipes ready to be hooked up to an external generator turbine.
A version producing 100 megawatts would be 15 metres (49 feet) tall, three metres (10 feet) in diameter and weigh 500 metric tons.
A 10 megawatt version is likely to weigh less than 200 tons.
The United States would deliver the sealed unit by ship and truck and install it. When the fuel runs out, the old reactor would be picked up for recycling or disposal.
The DOE hopes to have a prototype by 2015 if technical challenges can be overcome, but these are formidable.
In conventional reactors, the nuclear chain reaction depletes the fissile isotopes in the fuel rods, which is why they have to be replaced every few years.
To sustain power generation for 30 years, the sealed reactor will have to be engineered to act as a breeder, using some of the neutrons to convert non-fissile isotopes such as uranium-238 into fissile plutonium-239.
To further extend the reactor's life, the cylindrical core would be engineered to sustain fission only when surrounded by a metal cylinder that reflects neutrons back into the fuel. This mirror will start at one end of the core, and over the course of the reactor's lifetime move slowly along to the opposite end, consuming the fuel as it goes.
"Engineering long-term reliability into such a system will be a major task," Smith says. "Automated controls will monitor the sealed reactor, adjusting its electrical output and shutting it down if faults or tampering are detected."
Alerts will be sent over secure satellite radio channels to the DoE or to an international agency overseeing the reactors. The project faces strong political obstacles. Michael Levi of the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington DC, questions whether developing countries will be prepared to leave the keys to their electricity supply in the hands of the United States.
Levia doubts that SSTAR reactors would be as proliferation proof as the DOE hopes.
While the design makes it hard for countries hosting the reactors to cheat without getting caught, "what happens if they don't care about what we think?" Levi asks. It would then be possible to break into the reactor and reprocess the plutonium rich fuel to make weapons, he says.
-------- washington
Cheaper plan for Hanford nuclear waste storage studied
Associated Press
Thursday, September 02, 2004
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002023372_hanford02.html
RICHLAND - The government is spending nearly $6 billion to build a plant that will use glass to trap radioactive wastes from the Hanford nuclear reservation.
But even when the waste-vitrification system is operational, it will be unable to treat as much as half of the 53 million gallons of wastes now stored in 177 underground tanks in time to make a 2028 deadline.
So Hanford officials are looking into a process called bulk vitrification as a less expensive way to immobilize 10 million to 26 million gallons of radioactive wastes in glass for permanent disposal.
Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are exploring ways to make a glass product to store wastes generated by 50 years of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.
The bulk-vitrification project is estimated to cost $1.4 billion. It is hoped the technology will produce glass at a cost 35 percent less than the vitrification plant's low-level waste-treatment system.
AMEC Earth and Environmental Inc. has been awarded a contract to build a demonstration project in the central portion of the nuclear reservation. The deal could be worth as much as $63 million.
Simulated nonradioactive waste is now being used to test the vitrification process at a plant AMEC has built near the Richland landfill.
Full-scale tests will use actual radioactive and chemical wastes.
By the end of 2006, Hanford officials should know how much waste can be turned into bulk glass and what kinds can best be treated that way. The wastes in Hanford's underground tanks vary, and some types likely will be more suitable than others for bulk vitrification.
For that process, waste would be dried, mixed with silica-rich dirt and packed into insulated boxes up to 24 feet long.
Electrodes inserted into the mixture would heat it and melt it into a huge brick of glass to be permanently buried - container and all.
The cost of demonstrating the alternative technology has doubled from estimates two years ago - to $102 million from $45 million.
"As we matured the design, we found the estimate artificially low," said Howard Gnann, senior technical adviser for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of River Protection.
The price increase includes a $9 million system to retrieve waste from a tank targeted for the demonstration project. Other cost increases are for additional tests to make sure the glass is comparable to that made at the vitrification plant.
The tests have turned up a few surprises.
AMEC has come up with a process that cuts the volume of waste produced in tests by nearly half, meaning less waste to be buried.
The London-based company also has found that radioactive iodine is held better in glass than was expected.
And the glass is performing better than was anticipated, containing more waste and proving more durable, AMEC officials said.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is experimenting with formulas for making the most durable glass possible by adding zirconia and boron oxide to different types of simulated waste and soil rich in silica.
Mixtures are tested one crucible at a time, producing about as much glass as a coffee mug would hold.
The state Department of Ecology is considering an application for the bulk-vitrification project to proceed using real wastes.
----
Elk to be killed to control growth of herd near Hanford nuclear reservation
By The Associated Press
Thursday, September 02, 2004
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002023621_elk02.html
RICHLAND - Federal wildlife officials have approved a plan to kill as many as 60 elk to control the burgeoning population in a protected area near the Hanford nuclear reservation.
Initially, five cow elk would be shot by state or federal wildlife agents within the Arid Lands Ecology Reserve. Over time, the plan would cull about 10 percent of the Rattlesnake Mountain elk herd that has grown to 600.
The emergency management action approved by the project leader for the Hanford Reach National Monument could drive other animals onto private land where public hunting is allowed.
When the herd is hunted on private lands, the elk retreat to the federal reserve lands where hunting is prohibited.
The herd often strays onto ranch lands bordering the 70,000-acre reserve to graze on crops. More than $500,000 has been paid since 1996 in claims for crop damage.
No date has been set, but the cull could start in a couple of weeks, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service project manager Greg Hughes said.
The land has been closed to the public since World War II, when it was established as a buffer zone around Hanford, where plutonium was produced for the nation's nuclear-weapons program.
The emergency plan follows a Hanford Reach advisory committee recommendation last week that a variety of methods are needed to control animal populations.
The quick decision to kill elk on the reserve surprised committee Chairman Jim Watts.
"There are a dozen other ways to control the animals without going out and shooting them," he said Tuesday.
The advisory committee recommended several control methods, including hazing to run animals off sensitive areas, limited hunting, capture and relocation, contraception drugs and expanded hunting outside the reserve, Watts said.
Killing the animals should be a last resort, he said.
Two years ago, elk were trapped with nets and relocated, Hughes said. But that option isn't available because U.S. Fish and Wildlife has not found a place willing to accept them, he said.
Hughes said he cannot legally expand public access to allow hunting on the reserve while the government is still determining how monument land will be managed.
Five animals in the proposed initial cull would be tested for diseases and radionuclide contamination from the Hanford reservation. If found safe, meat would be given to the tribes or programs to feed the hungry, Hughes said.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
U.S. Probes Afghan Civilian Casualties
Associated Press
By STEPHEN GRAHAM
September 2, 2004
http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/A/AFGHAN_US_FIGHTING?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The U.S. military was investigating Wednesday whether American forces killed civilians during the latest battle with militants which has marred the run-up to vital Afghan elections.
The military had earlier dismissed claims by Afghan officials and an international aid group that several villagers died Monday from U.S. air strikes in a remote valley of Kunar province. However, a military spokeswoman said Wednesday the U.S. investigation of the incident was not yet complete.
"We have no specific reports at this time of any civilian casualties caused by the coalition forces," Lt. Col. Susan Meisner said. "We are currently conducting an inquiry into the matter and will provide more information as soon as it becomes available."
Still, officials lifted some of the gloom Wednesday by declaring the Afghan capital free of heavy weapons in time for the Oct. 9 elections. They urged the country's feuding militias to help reconstruct the country.
"Bulldozers should replace tanks and cannons," Deputy Defense Minister Rahim Wardak told militia commanders and U.S. and NATO officials in a compound north of Kabul containing dozens of tanks and artillery pieces. "AK-47's and pistols should make way for saws and axes."
The U.S. military investigation was focusing on clashes Monday that killed more than a dozen militants in Kunar. Two Americans and one Afghan soldier were wounded in the battle, officials said.
Planes helped counter insurgents who fired rockets and mortar rounds on American and Afghan camps near Mano Gai, 105 miles east of Kabul.
According to Kunar Gov. Sayed Fazel Akbar, U.S. planes responded to fire from a village called Weradesh and the aerial bombardment killed five civilians. The Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees reiterated that it believed eight villagers had been killed in the bombing.
"The victims were sleeping in their beds and they were killed in the air raids," said Gorm Pedersen, DACAAR's director in Kabul, said after debriefing his team.
But the military has denied bombing the village and accused militants of firing wildly at the villagers.
At least four civilians wounded in the fighting were being treated at a U.S. military hospital along with the wounded soldiers.
Civilians in Afghanistan have repeatedly fallen victim to violence, which has surged ahead of its first-ever direct presidential election.
A bomb in an Islamic school in the southeast killed nine children and their teacher on Saturday. On Sunday, a car bomb outside an American security firm killed up to 10 people, including three Americans.
-------- africa
South Africa makes arrest linked to weapons of mass destruction: official
JOHANNESBURG (AFP)
Sep 02, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040902182025.ot8chw2q.html
South Africa has made "an arrest" in connection with the contravention of laws on weapons of mass destruction and on nuclear energy, a government official said Thursday.
"Enquiries are being made into the activities of some companies and individuals, who may have been involved," said Abdul Minty, who chairs South Africa's Council for the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
"In this connection an arrest has been effected today and there has been a recovery of items alleged to have been used in the contraventions," he said in a statement.
Minty said the investigations were being held "by South African authorities ... their counterparts in other countries as well as the (nuclear watchdog) International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."
The statement however, did not give further information.
Foreign Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa also declined to give information saying "more will be known by tomorrow (Friday)."
In late August, a German man suspected of trying to help Libya develop nuclear weapons appeared in court in Karlsruhe, Germany.
German prosecutors said the man, only identified as Gerhard W., 65, worked as a mediator in obtaining an order for a South African company to make and supply aluminium tubing to be used in a uranium enrichment plant.
It was not clear if the court appearance in Germany was related to Thursday's arrest.
American investigators earlier this year also probed an illegal nuclear technology network in South Africa which a Cape Town man was believed to be involved in.
Since 1994, South Africa has adopted a strict policy of disarmament and the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the ability to build them.
The country's foray into the world of nuclear weapons started in 1948, the same year the white apartheid government came to power, with the establishment of the Atomic Energy Board (AEB).
On March 24 1993, only a year before the country's first ever democratic elections, which would put the ruling African National Congress in power, former South African President FW (Frederik) de Klerk, revealed the country had developed a "limited nuclear deterrent" during the 1970s and 1980s.
The country had seven nuclear weapons, but said the Klerk at the time, dismantled them. He invited the IAEA, headed by former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix, to conduct inspections.
Early last year, Blix praised highly what he called "the South African model of co-operation" and at the time, urged Iraq to adopt it.
----
U.N. Envoy Urges Sudan To Let Peacekeepers In
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 2, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52261-2004Sep1.html
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 1 -- The United Nations' special envoy to Sudan called on Khartoum on Wednesday to invite thousands of African peacekeepers to help resolve a humanitarian crisis in Darfur, citing the government's failure to stop rampaging Arab militia from carrying out deadly attacks against hundreds of thousands of displaced black civilians.
But the U.N. envoy, Jan Pronk of the Netherlands, told the Security Council in a report that Sudan has made "some progress" in disarming the militias and in increasing security for homeless Darfurians in some camps, a finding that diplomats said is likely to spare Khartoum from facing immediate Security Council sanctions.
The 15-nation council threatened on July 30 to consider imposing economic and diplomatic sanctions on Sudan if it failed to disarm the militia known as the Janjaweed and arrest and prosecute its leaders within 30 days. But the deadline passed without any council action and today's 14-page report -- which will be debated by the council Thursday -- said that making Darfur "safe and secure" cannot be accomplished in one month.
"Attacks against civilians are continuing and the vast majority of armed militias has not been disarmed," Pronk wrote. "Similarly, no concrete steps have been taken to bring to justice or even identify any of the militia leaders or the perpetrators of these attacks, allowing the violation of human rights and the basic laws of war to continue in a climate of impunity."
The U.N. report calls on Sudan to accept a U.N. proposal to allow about 4,000 African Union peacekeepers and police officers to help monitor a cease-fire between the government and the rebels. Although Sudan would continue to bear primary responsibility for ensuring the safety of its people, the African troops should be given the authority to "protect civilians whom it encounters under imminent threat and in the immediate vicinity, within its capability," Pronk said.
Sudan has allowed a contingent of about 300 Rwanda and Nigerian peacekeepers and observers in Darfur, but it refused requests from the African Union to expand the mission and provide them with the authority to protect civilians in Darfur. Nigerian-sponsored peace talks between the government and rebels in Abuja, Nigeria, are expecting to take up the matter again in the coming days.
The report took some steam out of the Bush administration's efforts to maintain the threat of sanctions over Sudan if it failed to crack down on the militia, diplomats said. But John C. Danforth, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said last week that the United States would press the council to consider sanctions against Sudan if it refuses to permit more African peacekeepers.
But other key council members, including Pakistan, oppose the adoption of any resolution that would compel Sudan to accept a larger mission. "Sanctions is not a good choice," said Russia's U.N. ambassador, Andrey Denisov. Although Sudan's performance "is still far from being satisfactory," Khartoum has made some "very steady, very slow progress."
Sudan's U.N. ambassador, Elfatih Erwa, said that U.N. report is "balanced," if you read in its entirety. "Like the United States in Iraq, we are limited as to what we can do," he said. "There were some things that we were unable to fulfill due to the circumstances in the security side."
Pronk stopped short of accusing the government of sponsoring the Janjaweed, which is believed responsible for killing as many as 50,000 civilians and driving more than 1 million people from their homes. He said that the United Nations was unable to verify refugee accounts that government troops and the militia collaborated in attacks on local villages. The Bush administration, human rights organizations and Sudanese refugees charge Sudan's armed forces have recruited, armed and backed the militia.
The crisis in Darfur began in February 2003, when two rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, staged a series of attacks on government installations, citing discrimination against Darfur's main black African tribes, the Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit. U.S. officials and human rights observers maintain that the government responded with disproportionate force, organizing and backing Arab militia that launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur.
--------
Annan Says Sudan Hasn't Curbed Militias; Urges More Monitors
September 2, 2004
By WARREN HOGE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/international/africa/02nations.html
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 1 - Secretary General Kofi Annan said Wednesday that Sudan had failed to keep commitments to rein in militias terrorizing the Darfur region and that a large international force was required there as soon as possible.
"Attacks against civilians are continuing and the vast majority of armed militias has not been disarmed," Mr. Annan said in a report to the Security Council. "No concrete steps have been taken to bring to justice or even identify any of the militia leaders or perpetrators of these attacks, allowing the violations of human rights and the basic laws of war to continue in a climate of impunity."
He said the United Nations continued to receive reports of the destruction of villages and many and of the raping and killing of people venturing forth from camps for displaced persons. In addition, he said, refugees reported coming under attack by government forces, sometimes from the air.
Sudan disputed Mr. Annan's report in a letter to the Council from Mustafa Osman Ismail, the foreign minister. Mr. Ismail said Sudan was making "relentless efforts" to meet its commitments to the United Nations, and noted that 12 Janjaweed fighters had been convicted, with three of them facing the death penalty. The letter concluded: "The government of Sudan stands ready to reach a political settlement and reestablish law and order in Darfur."
Some 50,000 black Africans have been killed and 1.2 million displaced by marauding Arab Janjaweed militias armed and encouraged by the government in Khartoum in a campaign of razing villages, destroying crops and poisoning water supplies that the United Nations has characterized as ethnic cleansing and the United States Congress has called genocide. Today's report used the term "scorched-earth policy."
Mr. Annan said the Sudanese government had not supplied the United Nations with the names of any militia leaders and had offered no evidence of trying to disarm or curb them. There was also evidence, he said, that authorities were arresting common criminals and calling them Janjaweed to appear to be in compliance.
To back up his recommendation of a stepped-up international presence "as quickly as possible," Mr. Annan said the United Nations had prepared a blueprint for the enlargement of the African Union monitoring force already there. Its current complement is 380 military observers and troops, and diplomats say a force of up to 3,000 is being contemplated.
Mr. Annan's report, based on findings by his special envoy, Jan Pronk, was the first monthly accounting required by a Security Council resolution on July 30 on Darfur that said the Sudanese government could face punitive measures if there were not continuing progress in protecting people and curbing the violence.
On Thursday Mr. Pronk will brief the Council, where the focus will not be on sanctions, which a number of the 15 member states oppose, but on the proposal to expand the African Union's presence. The United States, which has been in the lead on the Darfur situation, is reportedly prepared to help pay for a larger force. In his report's only positive portion, Mr. Annan credited the Sudanese for "some progress" in improving security inside several displaced-persons camps, in deploying more police, in ceasing efforts to force people to return to dangerous homelands and in easing restrictions on relief workers and rights monitors.
Returning from a visit to Panama on Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin L Powell echoed Mr. Annan's conclusions and said the United States would also urge Sudan to accept a larger monitoring force.
--------
In Western Sudan, Fear Is the Ever-Growing Enemy
September 2, 2004
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/international/africa/02darfur.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
SHIGEKARO, Sudan - The United Nations has issued the Arab-led government of Sudan a stark ultimatum: show evidence of improved security for the black African tribes of the vast western region called Darfur, or face the consequences - among them, possibly economic sanctions.
Yet that warning, issued July 30, has provided scant comfort to those who still live in this unforgiving landscape of endless yellow sand cut by jagged stone hills. The desert is littered with camel corpses and the skulls of dead donkeys. Here and there lie singed villages, or deep craters left by bombs. The people, if one can find them, continue to tell harrowing tales of government planes swooping overhead before the rampage of the pro-government Arab militias, the Janjaweed.
Sudan's government has been reluctant to permit free access to journalists, and so it is impossible to assess the scope of the attacks or the exact extent of the government's involvement. As the Security Council prepared to take up the matter on Sept. 2, it was also not clear from local accounts whether the latest violence occurred in the month it gave Sudan to comply.
What is certain is that the threat of violence remains so intense, and the government's promises to secure the region so mistrusted, that no one here feels safe enough to return home. Darfurians are still on the run.
So terrified do they remain that some are hiding in caves, or pitching tents of twig and cloth under the thickets that sprout from the sand. They subsist on what little the desert yields. They collect rainwater to drink. They disperse their children for safekeeping and scurry as far from view as possible, trying to make themselves invisible.
Even as peace talks go on between the Sudanese government and their rebel enemies, even as Khartoum promises to disarm the Janjaweed and calm Darfur - and even here, in this rebel-held area far from government troops - fear is overpowering.
Even after a visit to Darfur in early July by Secretary General Kofi Annan, Sudanese military forces and Janjaweed swooped down on towns and villages, people said in dozens of interviews here and across the border in Chad, where many had fled.
They said that in recent weeks, homes continued to be burned, livestock looted, villagers killed and women raped, events often preceded by the roar of government planes and sometimes bombings.
Exact dates of attacks are difficult to pin down.
A shopkeeper from Abu Dilek, a market town southeast of El Fashir, one of Darfur's principal cities, arrived here late one night to report a joint government-militia attack on the fourth Friday in July.
It was time for midday Friday Prayer, the shopkeeper, Adam Mindi, said, when eight trucks, filled with soldiers and militiamen, surrounded the market and began shooting. The soldiers wore forest-green uniforms, he said. The Janjaweed were in camouflage fatigues. When they were done shooting, they loaded their trucks with sacks of sugar from the market.
Mr. Mindi, 42 and father of 11, witnessed all this, lying down and hiding himself in the market stalls. Later, he said, he learned that three women had been raped. He learned, too, that his father had been killed on his way to the mosque. All told, 14 people died. The village emptied out.
Mr. Mindi deposited his family in Abu Shouk, a camp for displaced persons near El Fashir, mounted a donkey and rode several days, all the way here to Shigekaro. He said he wanted to join the rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army, if they would have him.
From a refugee who escaped to Chad came a similar tale of an attack on his village, farther south, near the Jabal Moon hills. The refugee, Muhammad Mursal Abd, 38, said he was pulling weeds in his millet field on the second Sunday in August when he heard the sound of galloping horses and then gunshots fired in his direction.
He escaped, but later that day men on horseback took all the cattle they could corral. The next day, they returned for more, and then they emptied Mr. Abd's house: blankets, a radio, a television he had bought while working in neighboring Libya.
That village, too, emptied out. The villagers hid in the muddy creeks and then fled. Ten families, including Mr. Abd's, marched west to Chad.
The extent of control or cognizance by the Sudanese government in the attacks is not wholly clear. But whatever the case, the reports present a vexing problem for Khartoum as it confronts the ultimatum by the Security Council.
Under intense pressure to disarm the militias, the government has described the Janjaweed as independent outlaws, tried to distance itself from their violence and pleaded for more time to bring Darfur under control. It has rejected an offer of African Union peacekeepers and pledged instead to dispatch additional law enforcement forces to Darfur to enable civilians to return home.
But many who were encountered in this area would no sooner go home than show themselves in the open, even in this rebel-held area.
One recent morning, across the hot yellow sand, from the hills to this now nearly empty village, came a column of women, wrapped head-to-toe in blinding bright colors.
They had been hiding in the caves, they said, collecting rainwater and feeding their children bitter beans that grow on desert shrubs. One woman, Maka Ahmed, 45, said she had lost a 2-year-old son to hunger. Another reported that a pregnant woman had perished in the hills.
Word had spread there were foreigners in the area. The women said they had been walking two hours in the hope that aid had come.
An old woman, leaning on a long sturdy branch, simply sat down on the sand once she learned the foreigners were journalists, not relief workers. A little boy with tattered blue plastic shoes stared, mouth wide open.
For three months it has been like this: ever since their villages, Funu and Ourshi and others, had been attacked, they have been running from cave to barren desert to cave.
The story of their flight echoes the stories heard across Darfur for over a year now, since the start of a rebel uprising in early 2003 that is demanding greater political and economic power for black Sudanese in the west. The women here said government planes circled overhead before the Janjaweed stormed their villages. Their homes were trashed. Neighbors were killed. Animals were stolen. Everyone scattered.
Now, they hide in small clusters, so as not to be spotted by government troops or militias. They send their children to stay with different kinfolk. Mukhtar Salim, 38, keeps three at his side here, under the shade of a desert scrub; a fourth he sends to live with his father, across another mountain. The more scattered they are, the lower their chances of all getting killed.
Going home to Anka, where his two brothers were killed in July during an attack by military and militia, Mr. Salim said, is not an option.
The most telling evidence of physical devastation comes from a United States State Department map, produced with the aid of satellite pictures in an effort to mount a case of genocide against the Sudanese government. It shows clusters of burned villages across Darfur.
Some two million people are displaced, nearly all of them black Africans.
One of the displaced is Jamila Muhammad. Her refuge is a circle of twigs under the protection of a desert shrub. The Janjaweed burned her house in Ourshi. They killed her husband, took away two of her sons. The baby boy on her lap subsists on flour-and-water soup. She has no goats left to give him milk, no milk in her breasts either. She moves when she hears what sound like airplanes.
A woman hiding under another desert scrub nearby shrieks at the suggestion of going home. "Stay here or move on," says Asha Abdur Rahman, 45. Her 12-year-old son was shot and killed by the Janjaweed.
Elsewhere, just on the edge of the Sahara, just before the scrub brush suddenly gives way white hot stretches of sand, sat Aisha Beshara, roughly 40, surrounded by a brood of children. It took her two days to come here from the cave in which she was hiding. Her husband, she said, has gone off to fight with the rebels. She has no animals to ferry her family's meager belongings across the desert to Chad.
In the scheme of things, this is the safest oasis, she says. She looks up at the sky, signaling airplanes. "Nobody knows we live here," she says.
Fear and bitterness run so deep that a child in hiding here begins bawling uncontrollably at the sight of visiting journalists. An older man scoops the child in his arms. He says she thinks these are Arabs.
The child's mother, a stick-thin woman of 24 named Sonda Suleiman, tells her story: an attack on her village, a vanished husband, no milk for the children, only one donkey left. She squeezes her child, who stares at the visitors and will not stop crying.
--------
How oil brought the dogs of war back to Malabo
As eight alleged coup plotters languish in jail, Raymond Whitaker reports from Equatorial Guinea, where the President and his friends have lined their pockets at the expense of their countrymen
02 September 2004
UK Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=557402
When Frederick Forsyth was looking for a suitable setting in which to write The Dogs of War, his 1974 thriller about white mercenaries in Africa, he chose this island capital. That was three decades ago but not much has changed in Malabo since. Beneath green-draped volcanic slopes, 200-year-old Spanish cannon still guard the palm-fringed harbour and the damp-stained shopfronts. An air of "malarial lethargy", VS Naipaul's phrase, still prevails.
But look out to sea from the terrace of the Bahia Hotel, where Eddie the Eel practised in the comma-shaped swimming pool, one of only two on the island, for his moment of glory at the Sydney Olympics, and there is a sight Forsyth would not have seen. At night, the horizon glows red; here and there a pinpoint of flame pierces the darkness. These are the flares of the offshore platforms which have transformed Equatorial Guinea into sub-Saharan Africa's third-largest oil exporter.
When Forsyth was writing, there was little to lure soldiers of fortune to this tropical dictatorship, which consists of a few, lush, volcanic islands and a jungle-covered strip of the African mainland. Its population of 500,000 subsisted mainly on cocoa exports, so the novelist, who rechristened the country Zangoro, endowed it with valuable deposits of platinum. But the oil is real enough, and it appears to have attracted a band of adventurers who imagined that the 1970s had never gone away.
Languishing since March in the island's Black Beach prison are eight former members of South Africa's apartheid-era special forces, six Armenian aircrew and five local men. They are accused of being the advance guard for a coup planned by Simon Mann, a former SAS officer turned mercenary soldier, allegedly supported by his friend Sir Mark Thatcher, Lord Archer and his friend Ely Calil, a Lebanese-born oil trader based in London, who is said to have commissioned the whole operation.
He is said to have wanted to put Severo Moto, an exiled Equatorial Guinea opposition politician, in power in exchange for favourable oil deals.
Apart from Mr Mann, who is in Zimbabwe awaiting sentence for illegally attempting to buy arms, all have denied having anything to do with the affair. But in Equatorial Guinea, unaccustomed to world attention, the alleged involvement of internationally known figures in a conspiracy against it is more exciting than anything else that has happened since the Spanish loosened their colonial grip in the 1960s.
Not only is there an English lord whose book sales outstrip even those of Frederick Forsyth, but the Iron Lady herself is now reported to have put up bail for her son, who has been under house arrest in Cape Town on suspicion of having helped to finance the plot.
Even Equatorial Guinea's President, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, appears to have been caught up by the mood. When the alleged mercenaries were put on trial last week, the death sentence was demanded by the prosecution for their leader, Nick du Toit, who has confessed to his role. The case was moved to a recently built conference centre and the world's press, normally excluded from the country, given access. On Tuesday, the trial was suspended until the alleged role of Sir Mark and a number of other accused coup supporters abroad can be explored. The judge said yesterday it would resume in 30 days but Mr Obiang summoned the foreign press for what turned out to be little more than an opportunity for him to be photographed giving them an audience. The men on trial, he said, were "individuals without morals who attempted a crime against our country which would have resulted in blood being spilt".
The journalists would have welcomed the opportunity to ask the President about his own reputation for spilling blood. Since he deposed and killed his despotic uncle, Macias Nguema 25 years ago - opinion varies on whether he pulled the trigger himself - his opponents charge him with having had several enemies disposed of. There are even claims that he ate the testicles of some, to imbibe their masculinity. But, while conceding that President Obiang permits no dissent, winning his last election by the customary 97 per cent, nearly everyone agrees his uncle was infinitely worse.
As we had dinner at an outdoor restaurant in Malabo, with ample bar girls half-heartedly trying to chat up a couple of grizzled European bush pilots, a government adviser said: "Look, we have had at least five other coup attempts. One of them even involved Moto but nobody was killed in any of them. The President just kept them in jail for a while then let the plotters go, telling them to change their ways. Moto went to Spain when he was released.
"This one was different. Simon Mann said they had taken account of the possibility that Mr Obiang might be killed in the operation. That's why the death sentence was demanded for Nick du Toit, to show the seriousness of the whole business, but the President would never let it be carried out."
That may be little consolation to the South African, who faces the prospect of months more in Black Beach before he learns his fate, but the oil, discovered in the mid-1990s, has raised the stakes heavily. President Obiang and his clan have always run Equatorial Guinea as a private enterprise, but the advent of American oil majors such as Conoco and Amerada Hess has turned a trickle of agricultural earnings into a torrent of oil dollars.
American congressional committees are said to be upset at human rights abuses in Equatorial Guinea, and tales of contracts which provide for oil revenues to be paid directly into personal bank accounts. Oil wealth has given the country the sixth highest income per head in the world, but the run-down state of the capital testifies that very little of it trickles down.
The country has been refused aid by major donors because of misappropriation of funds, and US government reports state openly that the President and his circle control nearly all official revenues.
But in a world where Washington faces threats to its strategic oil supplies across the Middle East, it is not likely to be too fastidious about events in a country few of its citizens could find on a map. Indeed, the US is mulling plans to build its biggest military base in Africa right here. The arrival of American warships, aircraft and service personnel would heighten the already surreal contrasts that exist in Equatorial Guinea.
Hefty oilmen with Texan accents live in isolated compounds with their equally hefty spouses and offspring, while African villagers a few miles away live the way they always have, practising subsistence agriculture and animist beliefs. There, it is said, one can hear dark mutterings about certain omens concerning the President.
When his uncle was killed, Mr Obiang apparently took custody of the clan's most precious ritual object, a skull, which should have passed to his eldest brother. And when his wife had twins - considered an evil event in many African societies - he failed to have the younger one killed. No good will come of it, traditionalists say. Hearing such tales, and bearing in mind that many of the ruling "elite" are illiterate, must have convinced anyone plotting a coup that they could not fail. "But just because someone is illiterate does not mean that he is stupid," the government adviser said. "There was a lot of white arrogance towards black people in this."
Indeed, the accused conspirators are the ones who look stupid: not only was their security appalling, with a paper trail a mile wide, but they seemed oblivious to Equatorial Guinea's strategic importance having changed since the 1970s, when it had Cold War ties to the Soviet Union and China. African governments are also working far more closely with each other these days.
As Mr Mann arrived at Harare airport to meet a planeload of former soldiers arriving from South Africa, the government of Zimbabwe, tipped off by South African intelligence, was ready. Equatorial Guinea was warned after the arrests, and rounded up Mr du Toit and his co-accused. Britain and the US were also aware of what was happening; a source in Malabo said American oil workers had been told to stay in their compounds the night the mercenaries were supposed to go into action.
Equatorial Guinea has pointed no fingers at London or Washington but government sources have accused the right-wing former government in Spain, ousted in the election later in March, of complicity in the plot. Rumours persist that Spanish warships, with commandoes, were in the vicinity of Equatorial Guinea at the time, only to sail away when the coup fell apart.
As for Mr Moto, the putative beneficiary, reports from South Africa say he was lucky not to have ended up in Black Beach with Mr du Toit and the rest. Sources said a light aircraft with two South African pilots had taken him as far as the Canary Islands on his way back to Equatorial Guinea. From there, the plane was supposed to refuel in Mali and continue to Malabo, landing just after Mr Mann and his men had arrived.
What saved Mr Moto from testing the quality of President Obiang's mercy a second time, it appears, was a motor race being held on the runway at Las Palmas. It delayed his departure from the Canaries, and when the plane landed in Mali the pilots were warned by a text message that Mr Mann's aircraft and everyone aboard had been seized in Zimbabwe. Equatorial Guinea has launched a High Court action in London, accusing Greg Wales, a British businessman, of being involved in the plot. South African newspapers say they have found registration records which show he stayed at a hotel in Las Palmas with David Tremain, a South African businessmen, at the same time as Mr Moto and the two pilots. Mr Wales and Mr Tremain deny involvement.
For President Obiang, who is used to being treated somewhat circumspectly by other African leaders, let alone the rest of the world, the unfolding saga is a windfall as welcome as the oil under his country's seabed. The value of the unexpected gift increases with every revelation and allegation, particularly if it concerns someone as famous as Sir Mark Thatcher.
And since the former Prime Minister's son is not due to appear in court until November, there is little risk of interest fading. The only people for whom this is not good news is Mr du Toit and his colleagues in Black Beach.
-------- arms
Washington okays sales of weapons - Yemen
U.S. lauds country for anti-terror role
By BARRY SCHWEID
The Associated Press
September 02. 2004
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040902/REPOSITORY/409020339/1013/NEWS03
WASHINGTON - Praising Yemen as a partner in the war on terror, the Bush administration has approved the sale of military equipment to the Persian Gulf country after more than a decade of a nearly total ban.
Delivery of spare parts for C-130 cargo planes was approved last week, which followed a recent decision to permit Yemen to purchase parts for F-5 fighter jets, Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman, said.
Beginning in 1992, the United States virtually banned arms sales to Yemen, which was a way of punishing Yemen for its support of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The policy was modified last February to take up Yemeni requests on a case-by-case basis, Casey said.
"The reason for the modification is that it was deemed necessary to support Yemen's active role in the war on terror," Casey said.
Also, he said, loans or grants to Yemen to purchase American defense equipment were now available.
The announcement coincided with a visit to Yemen by Lincoln Bloomfield, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs.
Bloomfield, who is touring the region, met with President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Yemen long has been a haven for Muslim extremists and is the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile whose al-Qaida network is believed responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
The State Department has been advising U.S. citizens to avoid nonessential travel to Yemen.
-------- asia
Calm Returns to Nepal Capital After Riots
Associated Press Writer
By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA
September 2, 2004
http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/N/NEPAL_IRAQ_HOSTAGES?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- Hundreds of soldiers and police patrolled Nepal's capital Thursday, a day after riots over the slaying of 12 Nepalese hostages in Iraq left two protesters dead and dozens injured.
People lined up outside stores after a shoot-on-site curfew was briefly lifted so they could stock up on food, water and other supplies. Others surveyed damage caused by the violent street rallies: charred buildings, streets littered with broken glass, burned tires, and toppled road signs.
The government declared Thursday a day of mourning. Offices and schools were closed. Flags were flying at half staff. And radio and television stations were airing mostly patriotic and religious songs.
In a message to the nation, Nepal's King Gyanendra called for unity among the people.
Do not let the tragic killing of 12 citizens in Iraq "weaken the age-old fraternal ties, unity and mutual tolerance that exist amongst the Nepalese people," he said.
No violence was reported overnight or early Thursday, with armored cars and army trucks stationed at major sections of the city.
A gruesome video posted on a Web site Tuesday showed militants slitting the neck of one Nepalese worker and shooting 11 others. The 12 had disappeared soon after entering Iraq from Jordan on Aug. 19.
Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba said the government was trying to locate their bodies so it could arrange for them to be shipped home, as the international community expressed outrage and sorrow at the killings. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was appalled by the murders and called for the immediate release of all the hostages in Iraq. India, Japan, Bangladesh and the Philippines also offered condolences.
On Wednesday, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in major cities across Nepal, some saddened by the slayings and others claiming that the government did not do enough to secure the hostages' release.
A mob threw rocks at buildings, including recruitment agencies and Arab airlines offices in Katmandu, blocked traffic by burning tires at main intersections and ransacked the capital's only mosque.
The Home Ministry said Thursday one demonstrator died in clashes near the mosque and that another was shot by police guarding the Egyptian embassy after an angry crowd charged the building with bricks.
Dozens of people were wounded in the clashes, including 33 police, the ministry said.
An uneasy calm returned to the capital on Thursday. A curfew imposed after rioting broke out - with a warning that violators would be shot on site - was lifted for 3 1/2 hours. It was reimposed at 9:30 a.m.
Iraqi militants have taken more than 100 foreigners hostage in recent months.
Nepal, which has no troops in Iraq, has long banned its citizens from working there because of security concerns. However, many people from the poor Himalayan nation take jobs abroad and 17,000 Nepalese are believed to have slipped into Iraq - many working as armed security guards for foreign contractors.
-------- iraq
New Iraqi Council Meets
9 Civilians Reported Killed in U.S. Raid
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 2, 2004; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54224-2004Sep1?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Sept. 1 -- Iraq's interim National Council convened for the first time on Wednesday, taking what one delegate called "the first steps in a democratic journey."
While participants spoke forcefully about continuing negotiations to persuade insurgents to work within a political framework, mortar explosions echoed outside the meeting and a delegate arrived in a convoy riddled with bullet holes after an early morning ambush.
In another development, seven kidnapped foreign truck drivers, from India, Kenya and Egypt, were reported released after six weeks in captivity. The men were said to be on their way to Kuwait after a video sent to news agencies showed a masked kidnapper shake hands with each of them and hand them copies of the Koran and a few religious brochures. A Turkish trucker was freed separately.
Late Wednesday, U.S. forces said they had launched an attack in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, on a safe house linked to members of the terrorist network run by Abu Musab Zarqawi, one of the most wanted insurgents in Iraq. The attack killed nine civilians, including three children, hospital officials said, according to the Associated Press. The U.S. military said it carried out a "precision attack" on members of Zarqawi's group, who earlier in the day had executed and buried a man after pulling him from the trunk of a car south of the city, largely controlled by Muslim extremists. "Multiple sources of Iraqi and coalition intelligence provided the basis for this operation," a U.S. military statement said.
At the National Council meeting, participants discussed measures to quell the fighting.
"Iraq is now breaking down, and you are the ones who can heal the wounds," Muhammad Rida Ghurayfi, a Shiite cleric close to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the top spiritual figure in Iraq, told his fellow council members minutes after they swore an oath to serve until nationwide elections are held early next year.
"Shells and mortars exploding around us will not make us afraid," said Hamid Majid Musa, head of the Iraqi Communist Party. "We want to build a strong establishment."
The mortar shells landed outside the convention center where most of the 100 members of the makeshift parliament were elected about two weeks ago, in a gathering that also drew artillery fire. The U.S. military, which guards the fortified International Zone that includes the hall, said one person was injured in the latest barrage.
A convoy carrying Ahmed Chalabi, a founder of the Iraqi National Congress and onetime favorite of the Bush administration, was hit by gunfire as Chalabi traveled from Najaf to the meeting in Baghdad. Two of Chalabi's bodyguards were wounded, one seriously, but Chalabi said he did not know whether the attack was aimed specifically at him.
The attack took place on a notorious stretch of highway where two French journalists were kidnapped last week. Urgent French government efforts to release the pair continued Wednesday, as another deadline from their kidnappers approached.
Chalabi, who said the National Council was intended to "fortify sovereignty," left the inaugural session to appear before an Iraqi judge investigating allegations of counterfeiting. During a break in the morning session, Chalabi described the case as "a summons, which I will respond to," and said "nobody is above the law in Iraq."
The Central Criminal Court judge who issued the warrant, Zuhair Maliky, said Chalabi presented evidence to refute the counterfeiting charges but the judge refused to provide details. "The investigation is continuing," Maliky said. "A final decision will be made later."
The National Council's first official act was to elect a president, Fouad Masoum, the Kurdish politician who organized the conference that elected 81 of the 100 members. (The 19 others were drawn from the now-defunct Governing Council appointed by American L. Paul Bremer when he was administrator of Iraq.) The body was established chiefly to check the powers of the executive branch led by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Speeches on Wednesday included calls to expand participation in the council to include factions that have rejected the interim government as a tool of the United States, which established the governing apparatus before returning sovereignty on June 28.
No major party from Iraq's Sunni Muslim population agreed to become part of the council, which is dominated by the five parties that cooperated with the U.S.-led occupation. Also refusing to participate was Moqtada Sadr, a rebellious Shiite cleric whose militia has clashed repeatedly with U.S. forces and Iraqi security officers for 10 months, climaxing in a pitched battle for control of the holy city of Najaf that lasted most of August.
Hundreds of people died in the fighting, including members of Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.
"If you enter Najaf you will see it similar to Stalingrad during the Second World War," said Ghurayfi, who repeatedly evoked the image of Iraq as a tent big enough for all factions. "So let us agree on one word: We should be tolerant with one another." The room swelled with applause.
Sadr's representatives said they also wanted to avoid more fighting. Several of the cleric's aides said a nationwide cease-fire remained in effect while negotiations with Iraqi officials continued on the specifics of converting Sadr's following from an armed insurgency to a peaceful political movement, a crucial step to restoring calm in Iraq's mostly Shiite south.
Both sides said the talks hit a bump this week when Sadr insisted on applying the rules of the Najaf peace deal to Sadr City, a Baghdad slum where Sadr's Mahdi Army militia has repeatedly clashed with U.S. patrols. Sadr's side wants U.S. forces barred from the slum except for reconstruction work, "or by permission of the government. This shows high respect to the government," said Ali Yassiri of Sadr's political office.
Iraqi officials rejected that proposal, but both sides said negotiations would continue.
"We are ready and the door is open," said Abdul Hadi Darraji, another Sadr aide. "The cease-fire is still valid until we announce the political role we intend to play soon."
Another sticking point focuses on how to disarm the militia. Ahmed Shaibani, another Sadr aide, said militia members should be allowed to keep weapons for personal defense "and join the civilian community."
A council member sympathetic to Sadr said the punishing battles in Najaf did much to bring the rebels around.
"They found that if they continue being violent critics, they will have lost a lot of their young people, and this fighting in their cities and destroying Iraq would continue and reconstruction would stop," said Salama Khufaji, a former Governing Council member whose son was killed when her convoy came under attack in May. "That's why the Sadr following began to feel this way."
Correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran and special correspondent Omar Fekeiki contributed to this report.
-------- israel / palestine
Israelis Fault Intelligence Agencies on Bombings by Hamas Cell
September 2, 2004
By STEVEN ERLANGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/international/middleeast/02mideast.html?pagewanted=all
JERUSALEM, Thursday Sept. 2 - Israeli intelligence agencies came under careful criticism on Wednesday for their failure to crack the Hamas cell in Hebron that carried out the twin suicide bombings in Beersheba on Tuesday, when 16 people died and more than 100 were wounded.
The Hamas cell, led by Imad Qawasme, has been held responsible for the deaths of more than 80 Israelis, and its internal security has been so tight that neither Israeli -Army intelligence nor the Shin Bet security agency has been able to penetrate it.
The army had been concerned that Hamas was preparing an operation from Hebron because of an unusual period of quiet, officials said Wednesday, but there was no specific warning on which to act.
The Hebron cell is compartmentalized and makes little use of the telephone, Israeli security officials say, and after successful attacks, the leadership normally goes underground.
On July 11, the cell managed to get a suicide bomber into Jerusalem, but he lost his nerve and threw off his explosive belt near the cafe he was supposed to attack. Although he was later killed by the army, the fact that he was able to infiltrate was another success for the cell, said Amir Rappaport of the newspaper Maariv.
The suicide bombings "demonstrated the ability of the Hamas infrastructure in Hebron to rehabilitate itself,'' Mr. Rappaport wrote.
Alex Fishman, writing in Yediot Aharonot, said the primary lesson of Beersheba, where the dead were buried Wednesday, was about intelligence: "The security establishment has a lacuna in Hebron, a large 'black hole' of information,'' and, despite the military's efforts there, "when there is no intelligence, successes are a bingo game.''
Mr. Qawasme, part of a large Hebron family, has been on Israel's most-wanted list since the beginning of 2003, and he is considered to be the heir of the cell's founders, Abdullah Qawasme and Ahmed Badr, who were killed by the army last year.
Mr. Qawasme's cousin, Ahmed, was one of the suicide bombers on Tuesday in Beersheba.
In October 2003, more than 100 members of the Qawasme clan and others were arrested in an Israeli attempt to break up Hamas in Hebron, but to no avail. And the night before the Beersheba attacks, the army mounted a major operation to try to arrest Hamas members in Hebron.
In part to deflect attention from Hamas in Hebron, Israeli officials accused Syria of harboring Hamas commanders and allowing terrorist training camps in Syria and southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based.
Ranaan Gissin, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, argued Wednesday that Israel's success in attacking Hamas leaders in the West Bank and Gaza meant that the organization's leaders have now moved to Damascus. "Orders and support for terrorist actions come from neighboring countries that support terrorism, like Syria and Iran,'' he said.
Israel is not about to attack Syria, Mr. Gissin said. But he warned the Hamas political leader in Damascus, Khaled Mashal, not to believe that "he has immunity because he sits in Damascus.''
In 1997, Israel tried to kill Mr. Mashal in Jordan by injecting him with a poison, but two Israeli agents carrying Canadian passports were captured there. The United States forced the Israeli prime minister at the time, Benjamin Netanyahu, to provide Mr. Mashal the antidote.
Israeli forces raided the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Gaza early Thursday in one of the largest incursions Israel has made in weeks, forcing hundreds of Palestinians out of their homes, Reuters reported.
-------- russia / chechnya
Hundreds Held Hostage at School in Russia
Many Children Seized In Town Near Chechnya
By Peter Baker and Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 2, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51541-2004Sep1?language=printer
BESLAN, Russia, Sept. 2 -- Heavily armed guerrillas, some of them wearing explosive belts, stormed into a school in southern Russia near the separatist region of Chechnya on Wednesday morning and took several hundred students, teachers and parents hostage after a deadly shootout.
Striking right after opening-day ceremonies for the new academic year, the attackers threatened to blow up the school if the Russian government attempted to retake it and said they would execute 50 hostages for every one of their own killed.
As many as seven adults died in an initial shootout at School No. 1 in the North Ossetian town of Beslan, just west of the Chechen border, authorities said. Gunfire and explosions rang out in the area throughout the day and into the night, after Russian troops surrounded the school.
The raid came as Russians were still absorbing the carnage of three other bombings elsewhere in the country during the past week -- the downing of two airliners and a suicide attack in Moscow that together killed about 100 people. Russian authorities have blamed Chechen separatists for those attacks.
Nearly 24 hours into the siege in Beslan, anxious parents continued to hold vigil at the local House of Culture. The auditorium there was a study in a state of grief, with deadened, drawn faces of women who had cried themselves out and men bristling with barely suppressed anger. Some families had four or five children at the school; an 11-month-old was also on the list circulating among the parents. As many as 885 children are registered at the school, which comprises Grades 1 through 11.
Just before news of the school seizure broke, President Vladimir Putin said Chechen terrorists linked to al Qaeda were responsible for the recent outbreak of violence and vowed not to negotiate with them. "We shall fight against them, throw them in prisons and destroy them," he said before flying back to Moscow from vacation on the Black Sea for the second time in a week.
"War has been declared on us," added Putin's defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, "where the enemy is unseen and there is no front."
At Russia's request, the U.N. Security Council called an emergency meeting Wednesday in New York to discuss the latest spasm of Chechen-related terrorism. At the meeting, the council condemned "in the strongest terms" the attack on the school and demanded "the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages." President Bush phoned Putin to offer support and told him the United States was fighting "side by side" with Russia in the war on terror, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.
By nightfall, the town of Beslan, with a population of 30,000, had settled into a tense standoff, with the school surrounded by hundreds of Russian troops, armored vehicles and parents desperate for information about their children trapped inside. But there was no encouraging news for them, just a police officer who told the frantic relatives via bullhorn about the hostage takers' demands.
"The only thing they said was that they would kill 50 hostages for each one of them killed, 20 for each wounded. If the storming begins, the whole school would be blown up. That's all we can say for the moment," the officer said on the bullhorn in a scene later broadcast on television across Russia.
The attack began about 9 a.m. when a large group of guerrillas rolled up in a military-style truck and charged into the school as the opening-day ceremony was ending in the gym. At least two of the attackers were women wearing explosive belts. Some local police immediately resisted the intruders, exchanging fire with them.
Taimuraz Pukhayev, who lives across from the school, saw the attack start. His wife had just taken his three children -- ages 7, 11, and 12 -- to class when he heard shooting. He ran outside and saw about half a dozen camouflage-clad guerrillas and two women rushing toward the building. "I saw them breaking the doors, the windows. I heard children screaming," he said. Then a guerrilla with an automatic rifle started shooting at him. "They shot at me, then they noticed [a neighbor] and shot at him. I saw him bleeding from the head." The neighbor later died.
Some children ran to safety in the initial confusion. "I thought it was a joke, but they began to shoot in the air and we ran," said one breathless boy shown on Russia's NTV television network.
For Elza Baskayeva, editor of the local newspaper, a fearful wait began when she heard shooting and called her 27-year-old daughter, who was at the school taking pictures for the paper. "She was crying, 'They are shooting! They are shooting! We are on the second floor.' And then I lost the connection," Baskayeva said in a telephone interview. Baskayeva went to her office a few hundred yards away and learned that two other employees and their children had also been taken hostage.
Soldiers surrounded the school within an hour, she said.
By midafternoon, about 15 children whose teacher had hidden them in the boiler room had run to safety, Baskayeva said, but there was no word on the others.
At the House of Culture, "the parents were very mad. They are saying that the militia is not protecting us all," she said.
"No one gives us real information, that's the most terrible thing," said Madina Gulyarova, 39, who had a 10-year-old nephew in the school. "We see on TV that the whole world supports us. But nobody from our authorities will speak to us."
Svetlana Kaitova barely held back tears as she talked about her 22-year-old daughter, who had started her teaching job that morning. "When I woke up this morning, I was such a happy mother. I gave education to my children, they were all working, and now look what's happened," she said.
Lev Dzugaev, spokesman for the emergency headquarters, said authorities had managed to establish phone contact with the hostage takers only Wednesday evening. "We hope we will be able to conduct negotiations and we will learn what they really want," he said by telephone from Beslan. At least initially, he said, they did not make specific demands.
But Putin's top aide for Chechnya, Aslanbek Aslakhanov, told Russian reporters that they demanded an immediate Russian withdrawal from Chechnya and the release of guerrillas captured during a raid this summer in the neighboring region of Ingushetia. He said they asked to negotiate directly with the presidents of Ingushetia and North Ossetia, as well as a children's physician, Leonid Roshal, who acted as a mediator during the 2002 siege of a Moscow theater by Chechen rebels.
When the president of Ingushetia did not show up, the hostage takers refused to see Roshal, though he was in telephone contact with them, officials said.
Early Thursday morning, as a heavy mist settled around the school, Lt. Gen. Kazbek Dzantiyev was confronted by angry parents he tried to placate by saying, "We're not going to hide anything from you." The head of the local interior ministry, Dzantiyev said there were 400 children and an unknown number of adults taken hostage by as many as 40 terrorists. A local police officer was under investigation, he said, for helping the hostage takers, who included Chechens, Russians, Ingush and Ossetians.
But official figures varied for how many people had been taken hostage; Dzugaev said it was 354, of whom approximately half were children. He said four to seven civilians were confirmed dead in the initial seizure. Russian news agencies said as many as 11 died.
Officials said the hostage takers were refusing to allow any food or drink for the children.
To many Russians, the day's events were a shocking echo of similar seizures by Chechen rebels that resulted in mass civilian casualties.
In 1995, during the first post-Soviet war in Chechnya, more than 100 civilians died as rebels seized a hospital in the town of Budennovsk. After five days, President Boris Yeltsin allowed the guerrillas to leave in exchange for freeing their captives.
Two years ago, Putin took a different tack when Chechen rebels took over a Moscow theater during the popular musical "Nord-Ost." After a 57-hour standoff, Putin ordered the theater stormed, and 129 hostages died as a result of the knockout gas used by authorities.
"Unfortunately, there are only two scenarios in Russia," said Aleksandr Golts, a military expert. "The first is Budennovsk: give permission to the terrorists to go where they want and accept this shame. That's how Yeltsin behaved. The other variant is 'Nord-Ost' -- poison gas, storm and everything. That's how Putin behaves."
Glasser reported from Moscow.
--------
Chechen Conflict Now Rages Beyond Russia's Expectations
By David E. Hoffman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 2, 2004; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54496-2004Sep1.html
MOSCOW, Sept. 2 -- On the eve of a decision to put down a separatist rebellion in the southern province of Chechnya 10 years ago, Oleg Lobov, one of President Boris Yeltsin's advisers, said that what Yeltsin needed for political purposes was "a small victorious war."
Today, that conflict rages beyond the borders of Chechnya, neither small nor victorious for Russia or the rebels. Wednesday's raid on a school in neighboring North Ossetia, in which fighters took hundreds of hostages on the first day of classes to demand a Russian withdrawal and the release of Chechen prisoners, underscored yet again the heavy toll this war has taken on Russians and Chechens alike.
Thrust into the Russian presidency in 1999 on a wave of popular support for stronger military action in the restive region, Vladimir Putin dispatched tens of thousands of troops to Chechnya. With the Russian public furious over apartment building bombings in Moscow and other cities that the Kremlin had blamed on Chechens, he promised to be tougher than Yeltsin.
He vowed in earthy slang to wipe out the separatists, but Russia has been seized this week and last with painful reminders that he has not: two airliners apparently blown up in mid-flight, a suicide bombing at a Moscow subway station, and now schoolchildren taken hostage.
"The military policy that the Russian Federation is so stubbornly pursuing in Chechnya is not just a dead-end policy, but a policy that merely aggravates the Caucasus crisis," Tatyana Lokshina, program director of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a human rights organization, told reporters.
Gennady Gudkov, a former senior officer in the KGB and now a member of the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, said: "This will go on until we ourselves learn how to prevent terrorist acts, until we learn how to carry out effective operations to destroy terrorists."
At the core of the long conflict has been resistance by Chechens, who are largely Muslim, to rule by Russia, which has refused to grant the region independence. Some Russians expressed concern after the collapse of the Soviet Union that if Chechnya became independent, other regions would seek to secede. Moscow made deals with such regions as Tatarstan for greatly expanded autonomy, but went to war with the Chechens.
Today a sense of fatigue and deadlock hangs over the conflict. In a decade of fighting, tens of thousands of people have died, a large share of them civilians. The Russians have used harsh occupation tactics, destroying villages and rounding up prisoners, according to human rights groups and witnesses, while the Chechens have turned, with increasing frequency, to suicide attacks on Russian civilian targets.
War and upheaval have marked Chechnya for decades. Early in the 19th century, the Russian general Alexei Yermolov set about conquering Chechnya and neighboring Dagestan, leveling Chechen villages and building lines of fortresses through the region.
But the Chechens fought back, and were led by a legendary mountain fighter, Imam Shamil, for a quarter-century. Authors Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal observed in their 1998 book, "Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucuses," that "in fighting the Caucasian wars, the Russians committed many of the mistakes which have characterized them in the region before and since. . . . Above all there was a constant underestimation of the people they were fighting against. The policy chosen was consistently one of total attack, leaving the natives no option but to resist as desperately as they could."
Their lands later incorporated into the Soviet Union, half a million Chechens and Ingush were suddenly deported by the dictator Joseph Stalin to Kazakhstan during World War II, apparently out of fear that some would help the Nazis. They were free to return only after Stalin's death in 1953.
The latest conflict has its origins in the final years of the Soviet Union. The weakening of central authority gave rise to demands for autonomy in many regions. A former Soviet air force commander, Dzhokar Dudayev, took control in Chechnya and launched a separatist movement in 1991.
When the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of that year, little attention was paid to events in Chechnya; Yeltsin was preoccupied in Moscow with the economic upheaval and a battle with parliament. Chechnya became a notorious zone for smuggling. Weapons were everywhere.
By 1994, faced with growing chaos, Yeltsin, surrounded by a small group of hard-liners, decided to act. On Nov. 26, the Russians sent tank columns to the Chechen capital, Grozny, in a bid to support opposition to Dudayev. The attack was a fiasco; Dudayev's fighters killed many soldiers and captured nearly two dozen.
The embarrassing rout set in motion a larger offensive, which was planned in secret in the Kremlin. The idea was to stage a sudden strike that would frighten the Chechens into submission, but when carried out, the invasion quickly turned to disaster. The Russian troops met bad weather and ruthless guerrilla attacks, then suffered a punishing, deadly defeat on New Year's Eve in the capital.
The war threw light on the weakness of the Russian army, but also underscored the new vibrancy of the Moscow news media. A private television station, NTV, gained a huge share of viewers in a short period of a few weeks by showing what state television would not -- graphic pictures of battles in Chechnya of a kind that Russians had never seen during their war in Afghanistan. The war also galvanized opposition in Russia to military conscription.
The Chechens sometimes attacked outside the region, including at a hospital in southern Russia.
Dudayev was killed by a Russian rocket attack in April 1996, but the war continued. The Russian army was bruised and battered. Yeltsin agreed to a cease-fire later in the year. The plan was for Chechen self-government and some kind of autonomy for five years.
The chaos that followed gave rise to several powerful militia leaders. The Chechen resistance, which had initially been nationalist and separatist, was now joined by Arab fighters from outside, many of them Islamic radicals.
One of the warlords, Shamil Basayev, led an armed incursion into neighboring Dagestan in 1999, hoping to trigger an uprising there. The apartment building bombings, in which more than 300 people died, followed a few weeks later. Putin, who had just become Yeltsin's prime minister, decided to send in the troops again -- and a second war unfolded.
--------
26 Hostages Released at Russian School, but Standoff Goes On
September 2, 2004
By C. J. CHIVERS and STEVEN LEE MYERS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/international/europe/02CND-RUSS.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
BESLAN, Russia, Sept. 2 - Heavily armed fighters who seized a school here in southern Russia released more than two dozen hostages, including women with young babies, this afternoon in the first indication that negotiators had made progress in their efforts to end the siege peacefully. Before the hostages were released, the fighters inside rebuffed several offers, including safe passage out of the city.
Senior Russian officials ruled out the immediate use of force to free the hostages, now believed to include more than 350 students, parents and teachers in Middle School No. 1 here in North Ossetia. President Vladimir V. Putin, making his first public statements on the crisis, said Russia's first priority was the safety of those being held inside.
The first hostages - 26 in all, officials said - were released around 4:30 p.m. after nearly a day of intermittent negotiations and occasional eruptions of gunfire and explosions around the school, including the burst of a grenade that landed in an apartment courtyard about 200 yards from the school. No one was injured.
A tense security cordon of Russian soldiers and security officers did not return fire today, under orders not to risk provoking the fighters who have threatened to kill the hostages if any in their ranks are harmed.
Valery Andreyev, the director of the local branch of the Federal Security Service here in North Ossetia, sought to reassure hundreds of anxious relatives gathered not far from the school that the authorities had for now ruled out the use of force to end the hostage siege.
"Do not listen to panicked rumors," Mr. Andreyev told a crowd of those gathered outside around the school on Thursday morning. "No force action is being considered."
The attackers - described as Chechen, Ingush and at least one local fighter - seized the school as the first day of the school year began on Wednesday morning. Officials said today that at least 12 people died in an initial shootout as the heavily armed fighters herded students, parents and teachers into the school's gymnasium.
Facing another unfolding crisis stemming from the war in Chechnya, Mr. . Putin postponed a planned visit to Turkey.
"All the activity of our forces engaged in releasing the hostages will be concentrated on and aimed at resolving this problem exclusively," Mr. Putin said during a meeting in the Kremlin with King Abdullah II of Jordan, who expressed his support for Russia's efforts.
One of Mr. Putin's advisers, Anatoly Pristavkin, also called on the attackers to release the hostages, more than half of them children. He also appealed to international human rights organizations for help "before something irreparable happens."
"I am sure that those who have attacked the unarmed elementary schoolchildren with assault rifles and grenade launchers in North Ossetia will be damned both by God and their peoples," he said in statement, according to Interfax.
Mr. Putin has previously vowed never to negotiate with separatists or terrorists from Chechnya, but with scores of children, parents and teachers held hostage, the authorities appeared to have few other choices to avoid bloodshed.
The attackers inside the school - now believed to number as many as 35 or 40 - have threatened to kill the hostages. They are armed with automatic weapons and grenades and have wired the school with at least 15 explosive devices, according to officials here. They have not made their demands clear, except to speak with the leaders of North Ossetia and Ingushetia, as well as the pediatrician Leonid M. Roshal who negotiated with the Chechen guerrillas who seized a Moscow theater in October 2002.
"The demands are not clearly identified," said Kazbek Dzantiyev, North Ossetia's interior minister.
He said Mr. Roshal had offered to send in adults in exchange for the children, as well as safe passage out of the school if they would release the hostages. The fighters inside have so far rebuffed all offers, including permission to send in food, water and medicines for those inside.
At Beslan's House of Culture, a social center turned shelter, hundreds of relatives waited, wracked with exhaustion, fear and, increasingly, anger. "Who will answer for this?" a woman shouted from the steps, when Lev Dzugayev, a spokesman for North Ossetia's president, began to brief journalists on this morning's efforts to defuse the standoff.
Several began shouting him down as he talked. "How come there were not guards?" one screamed. "How did they get here?" shouted another woman. "The police are taking bribes." Others questioned the authorities' accounting of the number of hostages, saying there were more than 354, the figure used by officials.
The confrontation was interrupted by a burst of gunfire. "They are shooting," Mr. Dzugayev, evidently frustrated, told the crowd when asked what was happening. "They are shooting. As soon as they see some movement they start shooting, just to scare everyone, to show they are on alert."
He and others said the forces arrayed around the building were under orders not to fire.
Officials now say the attackers are linked to the separatists that have been fighting Russian forces in Chechnya for nearly a decade. On Wednesday one of the attackers inside the school, reached briefly by telephone, said the fighters represented a contingent led by Shamil Basayev, one of Chechnya's most notorious commanders. He has led or claimed responsibility for some of the worst attacks against civilians, including the theater siege in Moscow, in which at least 41 guerrillas and 129 hostages died.
The siege unfolded in the wake of a series of terrorist acts that have convulsed Russia. On Aug. 24 bombs destroyed two passenger airliners, killing 90. On Tuesday night, almost exactly a week later, a female suicide bomber blew herself up outside the Rizhskaya subway station in Moscow, killing at least nine others. Officials now say all three attacks involved the same explosive material and appeared to be part of an organized plot that may not yet be finished.
C.J. Chivers reported from Beslan for this article and Steven Lee Myers from Moscow.
C.J. Chivers reported from Beslan for this article and Steven Lee Myers from Moscow.
--------
After a Spate of Bombings, Moscow's Full of Foreboding
September 2, 2004
By ERIN E. ARVEDLUND and SOPHIA KISHKOVSKY
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/international/europe/02moscow.html
MOSCOW, Sept. 1 - Liliya Boyalova came to work on Wednesday resolved to be stoic. But as she sold lottery tickets inside the bustling Paveletskaya subway station here, she felt only anxiety and fear.
Her neighbor in Moscow was among those wounded the night before, when a suicide bomber blew herself up outside a subway station across the city, killing at least 10 others and wounding 50.
"I am trying to get around normally," said Ms. Boyalova, 42, sitting at a folding table peeling off tickets for the small trickle of customers looking for a bit of luck. "But inside we are all unsettled."
On Wednesday , as a hostage siege unfolded at a school in southern Russia, the mood in Moscow darkened. Speakers crackled warnings throughout the city's subways, as officers searched bags and checked ID's. At Domodedovo International Airport, where eight days earlier, two passenger airliners had departed only to be destroyed by terrorist bombs, dogs sniffed for explosives in departure terminals. An unfamiliar anger against President Vladimir V. Putin simmered.
The country's human rights commissioner, Vladimir P. Lukin, called the attack on the school in North Ossetia - where a dozen armed militants were threatening to kill scores of captive schoolchildren, parents and teachers - the "height of cynicism and brutality." He pleaded with Muscovites to "remain calm, to persevere and believe in their strength, to keep from panicking." So the first day of school opened across Russia with a tinge of tragedy. At School No. 292, just blocks from the Rizhskaya subway station, the site of Tuesday night's suicide bombing, balloons waved, but Tatyana Yakovlevna, a vice principal, was frightened even before she heard about the hostage taking. "I am worried for my children and even for children that are not my own," she said. "Someone could be alive, but dead five minutes later. Now you can just be walking by and a bomb explodes."
Resignation and foreboding reigned on the subway, used by about eight million people every day. Shock and anger seemed to hit in a way it had not after previous attacks here..
Outside the Rizhskaya subway station Russians laid flowers on a mosaic of pocked asphalt and broken glass. Then they argued over who to blame for their insecurity. Some chose President Putin.
"The main misconception is that Putin can do something," said Viktor Antonov, 62, a geological engineer who regularly uses the station.
"He is like your Bush," he said, standing near the growing makeshift memorial. "They are two hawks who have joined hands. In the meantime, simple people are suffering."
Mr. Putin has rarely come in from such anger here, but another reaction was quite familiar. Some Muscovites blamed the Caucasus, which includes Chechnya. "They are trying to ruin our lives and create a blood feud," Anna Sergeyeva said. Few in the crowd at the makeshift memorial, which momentarily seemed to become a political demonstration, expressed support for the government. "We elected Putin out of stupidity," one woman shouted. "He doesn't need anything. He's just serving out his term."
Many fear more attacks are inevitable, evoking a morbid sense of resignation. Law enforcement officials on Wednesday circulated a photograph of the young Chechen woman they suspect blew herself up outside the Rizhskaya station. They identified her as Roza Nagayeva and said she was the sister of Amanat Nagayeva, the woman suspected of detonating the blast on board one of the two planes that went down Aug. 24, Volga-AviaExpress Flight 1303, a Tupolev-134 passenger plane that crashed near Tula. ,
Seeking to reassure travelers, officials have stepped up security at airports and in subway and train stations. At Domodedovo, airline workers have started to insist on manual inspections of laptop computers, phones, tape recorders, cameras and shoes.
At Vnukovo International Airport near Moscow, Alsu Mukhamedshina, 23, was deeply troubled by the string of bombings, but conceded that "terrorism is now a fixture of life here."
"No matter how much they fight it, it is on the rise," she said. Anyone could be behind the attacks, from Chechen rebels to the Kremlin, she added, an opinion common among Russians.
Some in Moscow say they are torn by haunting, often contradictory emotions.
Lyubov Pavlovskaya, 53, expressed a longing for security, even if it meant a loss of freedoms. "I think what is happening is because of a power vacuum," said Ms. Pavlovskaya, who saw the bomb explode outside the Rizhskaya station and returned there on Wednesday. "I did not live under Stalin, but I think that if Stalin were alive things would be different."
At the same time, she resents the calls for Russian fortitude issued by politicians after each terrorist attack.
"What is happening?" she said, near a growing pile of flowers. "We do not have time to get over one shock, and then another happens. As a normal person it's hard for me to evaluate the situation. After terrorist acts they say: 'We are the Russian people. You can't scare us.' But only an abnormal person is not scared. How can we live all the time in panic and fear?"
C. J. Chivers contributed reporting for this article.
-------- spies
Leak Probe More Than 2 Years Old Pro-Israel Group's Possible Role at Issue
By Susan Schmidt and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 2, 2004; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54494-2004Sep1.html
For more than two years, the FBI has been investigating whether classified intelligence has been passed to Israel by the American Israel Political Action Committee, an influential U.S. lobbying group, in a probe that extends beyond the case of Pentagon employee Lawrence A. Franklin, according to senior U.S. officials and other sources.
The counterintelligence probe, which is different from a criminal investigation, focuses on a possible transfer of intelligence more extensive than whether Franklin passed on a draft presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran, the sources said. The FBI is examining whether highly classified material from the National Security Agency, which conducts electronic intercepts of communications, was also forwarded to Israel, they said.
Israel said the characterization of the probe is speculative. "We are aware of all the speculation, but that is all it is. We have not heard anything official, and U.S.-Israeli relations remain as strong as ever and, as far as we are concerned, it's business as usual," said David Siegel, spokesman of the Israeli Embassy here.
AIPAC has forcefully denied that any of its personnel received classified information.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, were apprised of the FBI counterintelligence investigation of AIPAC as a possible conduit for information to Israel more than two years ago, a senior U.S. official said late yesterday. That official and other sources would discuss the investigation only on the condition of anonymity because it involves classified information and is highly sensitive.
The investigation of Franklin is coincidental to the broader FBI counterintelligence probe, which was already long underway when Franklin came to the attention of investigators, U.S. officials and sources said. Franklin, a career analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency who specializes in Iran, is suspected of passing the proposed directive on Iran to AIPAC, officials said, which may have forwarded it to Israel. According to friends and colleagues, Franklin spent time in Israel, including during duty in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, in which he served as a specialist in foreign political-military affairs. Franklin now works for Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy.
Reports on the investigation have baffled foreign policy analysts and U.S. officials because the Bush administration and the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon already cooperate on intelligence matters and share policy views. Despite some rocky moments, the relationship has been among the United States' closest in both policy and intelligence sharing since Israel was founded almost six decades ago.
AIPAC has been one of the most active advocates for Israeli interests in the United States and a central element in fostering that relationship. Its lobbyists maintain close relations with officials at the highest levels of both governments.
Among the many unanswered questions in the case, sources familiar with it said, is whether a U.S. official with access to the intelligence volunteered it, or whether allies of Israel in the United States sought intelligence to pass on to Israel.
In the Franklin probe, a law enforcement official said the government does not expect to bring charges against anyone this week or next. U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty in Northern Virginia, whose office is handling the case, is continuing to examine the evidence gathered by the FBI, the official said. Officials have said Franklin is cooperating with the authorities. Attempts to reach him at his office and home over several days have been unsuccessful.
The FBI's counterintelligence investigation was underway for some time before the Franklin case was brought to the U.S. attorney's office, which happened fairly recently, according to a source knowledgeable about the case.
FBI counterintelligence investigations often involve wiretapping and other forms of surveillance and can last years. They differ from criminal investigations because the goal is to obtain information about foreign agents or terrorists without necessarily seeking criminal charges. Counterintelligence agents previously were limited in sharing information with the FBI's criminal division, but they now do so more routinely as a result of a decision two years ago by a secret intelligence court and the 2001 passage of the USA Patriot Act.
Lawyer Abbe Lowell, who is representing several AIPAC employees, including AIPAC's policy director, Steve Rosen, declined to comment on a report in the Jerusalem Post that the FBI had copied Rosen's computer hard drive. He also would not say whether AIPAC officials have been told that they are subjects or targets of the FBI probe.
But a source close to AIPAC said that the FBI has interviewed numerous AIPAC officials in recent days, among them Rosen and Middle East analyst Keith Weissman, who the source said were interviewed on Friday. They and other AIPAC officials are cooperating in the probe and have turned over materials sought by the bureau, the source said.
AIPAC's attorney, Nathan Lewin, did not return calls seeking comment yesterday. Josh Bloc, a spokesman for the group, referred to a statement AIPAC issued Friday, when the first allegations surfaced in the news media about an FBI investigation involving Franklin and AIPAC.
"AIPAC has learned that the government is investigating an employee of the Department of Defense for possible violations in handling confidential information," the statement said. "Any allegation of criminal conduct by AIPAC or our employees is false and baseless. Neither AIPAC nor any of its employees has violated any laws or rules, nor has AIPAC or its employees ever received information they believed was secret or classified."
Staff writer Thomas E. Ricks contributed to this report.
----
Pentagon Office in Spying Case Was Focus of Iran Debate
September 2, 2004
By ERIC SCHMITT
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/politics/02pentagon.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 - The Pentagon's policy office, where a lower-level analyst is under suspicion of passing secrets to Israel, was deeply involved in deliberations over how the United States should deal with Iran, its conservative Islamic government and its nuclear weapons ambitions - all issues of intense concern to Israel as well.
The analyst, Lawrence A. Franklin, a Farsi-speaking specialist on Iran in the office, participated in a secret outreach meeting with an Iranian opposition figure, had access to classified intelligence about Iran's nuclear program and was one of many officials involved in drafting a top-secret presidential order on Iran.
The authorities say that Mr. Franklin, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, passed to lobbyists from a pro-Israel group a draft of the presidential order, known as a National Security Presidential Directive. But President Bush has not yet approved a final version because many of the policy questions themselves remain under intense debate.
"We have an ad hoc policy that we're making up as we go along," said a government official involved in the internal debate. "It is to squeeze Iran, using international pressure, to get them to rid themselves of their nuclear program."
The shifting, unresolved nature of the administration's policy toward Iran may have led Israel or the lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which seeks to influence United States policy, to seek a window into the administration's decision-making process, even if it was through a relatively low-level analyst like Mr. Franklin, Pentagon officials said.
A lawyer for the committee said Tuesday that Steven Rosen, the group's director of foreign policy issues, and Kenneth Weissman, an expert on Iran, were interviewed last week by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. No charges have been brought and no arrests have been made in the case.
Israeli officials were intently interested in both Washington's policy debates and in the intelligence about the progress Iran is making in its nuclear program, a former Bush administration official said. Israeli officials have made it clear, a former senior American diplomat said recently, that if Iran passes some undefined "red lines" in its nuclear program, Israel will consider attacking the sites, much as it attacked Iraq's main nuclear plant 23 years ago.
"What the Israelis really want," the former diplomat said, "is as much detail as they can get about how close the Iranians are getting."
The Defense Department's policy office is a miniature State Department contained within the Pentagon bureaucracy. It is headed by an under secretary of defense, Douglas J. Feith, and employs more than 1,500 policy makers, analysts and other specialists, including Mr. Franklin. Its work centers primarily on regional strategic planning like deliberations on what positions the government should take in dealing with other countries. In doing so, it works closely with the State Department and National Security Council.
For more than a year, a major debate over Iran policy has divided the administration. Hard-liners at the Pentagon, including some in the policy office, and, to some extent, in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, have advocated a policy of threatening confrontation with the government in Tehran, and supporting opposition groups and student demonstrations, government officials said.
"We know that there is widespread unhappiness in the country about the failures of the clerical regime," Mr. Feith said of Iran at a Pentagon news conference on June 4, 2003. "The president has expressed his sympathy with the aspirations of the Iranians to have a free country."
One former senior official in the administration said that a small group of officials, especially in the Defense Department, had talked periodically about pursuing a policy of "regime change" in Iran, but that the debate had proved sterile. "How do you do it?" the former official asked. "There's no military option. The reformers want the bomb as much as the mullahs want it. You have no choice but to engage."
Last May, one proposal advocated by some lower-level Pentagon officials advocated covert support for Iranian resistance groups to destabilize Iran's powerful clergy. Some officials even raised the prospect of air strikes against an Iranian nuclear site at Natanz if Iran's nuclear program proceeded.
A government official involved in the debate said Monday, however, that he was not aware that any official in the Pentagon policy office had ever raised the possibility of using air strikes or backing resistance movements, even as a last resort.
A competing position, which has prevailed as administration policy, has sought to support the elected government of President Mohammad Khatami in its battle with hard-line clerics. This policy has favored using diplomatic pressure on Tehran to end its nuclear program.
What puzzles some associates of Mr. Franklin is that despite his broad contacts with Iranian dissidents, he was not among the department's staunchest hard-liners on Iran. But in an op-ed article published in The Wall Street Journal Europe in February 2000, Mr. Franklin argued: "No amount of clerical spin-doctoring can alter the reality that Iran's government remains its citizens' public enemy No. 1, one that neither trusts its own people, nor is trusted by them. Why should we?"
The policy office under Mr. Feith has been embroiled in a series of controversial issues over the past three years. Before the Iraq war, Mr. Feith established a small intelligence unit that sought to build a case for Iraq's ties to Al Qaeda, an effort disputed by the Central Intelligence Agency.
In a debate last year involving the fate of an Iranian opposition group that is based in Iraq, Mr. Feith's office has been described by some Bush administration officials as playing an instrumental role in calling for reconsideration of American policy toward the organization.
The group, the Mujahedeen Khalq, maintained heavily armed camps in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, but has been listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization since the late 1990's. In the Iraq war last year, American aircraft bombed the group's camps.
Ultimately, the group signed a cease-fire agreement with American military forces in which its members were disarmed. State Department officials said in May 2003 that the question of whether to disarm the Mujahedeen Khalq had been the subject of sharp debate among Pentagon officials. Some administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have gone further, saying that civilians at the Pentagon within Mr. Feith's office had suggested dropping the terrorist designation from the group, and using its members as a lever to maintain pressure on Iraq. But Mr. Feith has called that characterization incorrect.
The meetings were brokered by Michael Ledeen, a conservative scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who had played a role in the Iran-contra affair in the Reagan administration. Along with Mr. Ledeen, Mr. Franklin and Mr. Rhode met with Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian who was an arms deal middleman in the Iran-contra affair.
Beginning in 2001, the meetings were intended to put the administration in closer contact with Iranian dissidents who claimed to have valuable information about Iran, Iraq and terrorist activity in Afghanistan. The dissidents also said they could help track down Mr. Hussein's fortune hidden in international banks.
Although top Pentagon officials approved the first meeting, Mr. Ghorbanifar's involvement subsequently raised concern within the administration because it evoked memories of Iran-contra and questions about whether the Pentagon was engaging in rogue covert operations. In the 1980's, Mr. Ghorbanifar was labeled a "fabricator" by the C.I.A.
Reporting was contributed by Douglas Jehl, James Risen, David E. Sanger and Steven R. Weisman.
-------- us
MILITARY INQUIRY
About 2 Dozen G.I.'s to Face Trial or Other Punishment in Deaths of 2 Afghan Prisoners
September 2, 2004
By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID ROHDE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/politics/02abuse.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 - Army criminal investigators will recommend that about two dozen soldiers face criminal charges or administrative punishment in connection with the deaths of two prisoners at an American detention center in Afghanistan in December 2002, Army officials said Wednesday.
The Afghanistan charges, which follow an inquiry that took more than a year to complete, would include negligent homicide, dereliction of duty, and failure to report an offense, two Army officials said. The highest-ranking soldier facing punishment is a captain in a military police company, one of the officials said. One sergeant has already been charged with assault and two other offenses.
The charges, which were first reported by The Washington Post on Wednesday, would corroborate long-standing complaints from Afghan prisoners of forced nudity, sleep deprivation and, in some cases, beatings. These accusations, along with the accounts of prisoners, suggest that the military initially hid the deaths with false public statements, sent a troubled military intelligence unit to Iraq, took 18 months to investigate two homicides, and, according to prisoners interviewed in May, continue to use coercive techniques intended for hardened terrorists on average Afghans.
Army officials said the pending charges reflected the next step in the inquiry into two widely publicized prisoner-abuse cases in Afghanistan at the Bagram air base, 35 miles north of the Afghan capital of Kabul, which occurred long before the American military's attack against Iraq in March 2003, and the subsequent mistreatment of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. "This is better late than never, but had the administration taken action on these crimes much earlier, these interrogation methods, as well as some of the soldiers involved, might not have found their way to Iraq," said Reed Brody, special counsel for Human Rights Watch, which issued a report on prisoner abuses in Afghanistan in March.
In both Afghan cases, at the time of the men's deaths, Army officials publicly attributed them to natural causes. They did not disclose that Army pathologists declared both deaths "homicides" until journalists obtained copies of Army death certificates that had been given to Afghan families who did not speak English.
Human rights groups have cited the death of one prisoner, a 22-year-old farmer and part-time taxi driver named Dilawar, as an example of how outright abuse, as well as interrogation techniques intended for hardened terrorists, have been wrongly applied to Afghan prisoners later found to pose no threat to American forces. A military pathologist said Dilawar died from "blunt-force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease." Military authorities said the second man, Mullah Habibullah, 30, died of a pulmonary embolism, or a blood clot in the lung, caused by blunt-force injuries to his legs.
Army officials said Wednesday that investigators at the Army's Criminal Investigation Command were putting the finishing touches on their work. About two dozen military police and military intelligence soldiers have been implicated so far - most for witnessing an offense and not reporting it - but that figure could rise, said one Army official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigators' recommendations have not yet been forwarded to commanders for action.
Most of the soldiers who could face charges are from the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., and the 377th Military Police Company, a Reserve unit based in Cincinnati. After serving at Bagram in 2002, some of the 519th went to Iraq, and some soldiers in the unit have been implicated in the abuses at Abu Ghraib in late 2003.
A high-level Army investigation said last week that military intelligence soldiers played a major role in directing and carrying out the abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. The report undercut earlier contentions by military officials and the Bush administration that a handful of renegade military police guards were largely to blame.
An Army official said that decisions on issuing formal charges would come in the next few weeks. The Army last month charged one member of the 377th company, Sgt. James P. Boland of Cincinnati, with assault, maltreatment and dereliction of duty. Charges were brought against Sergeant Boland earlier than others because he is a reservist whose military service was about to end, an Army official said.
The findings of the initial investigation into the deaths were inconclusive, largely because many of the soldiers involved were reservists who had returned to the United States and were difficult to track down, said one Army officer. But the investigators were ordered to reopen the case, leading to the recommendations now pending, the officer said.
Afghan officials and American human rights groups have often warned of two dangerous factors. Detainees are immediately treated as enemy combatants who do not enjoy Geneva Convention protections and are held in indefinite secret detention.
At the same time, Afghan officials, human rights groups and former prisoners say, American forces often detain Afghans on faulty intelligence. Since the fall of the Taliban, American operations have been complicated by Afghan tribes and clans who play out long-running feuds by falsely identifying their enemies as members of Al Qaeda or Taliban fighters to American forces. There have also been repeated complaints of Afghans being detained on minimal evidence.
Eric Schmitt reported from Washington for this article, and David Rohde from Islamabad, Pakistan.
-------- war crimes / genocide
New Genocide Charges Planned in Mexico
Despite Setback in Case Against Echeverria, Prosecutor Targeting 30 Ex-Officials
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 2, 2004; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54234-2004Sep1.html
MEXICO CITY, Sept. 1 -- The special prosecutor investigating government human rights abuses during the period known in Mexico as the "dirty war" said he planned to charge 30 former civilian and military leaders with genocide, despite legal setbacks in his unprecedented effort to bring the same charge against former president Luis Echeverria.
Prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo Prieto, speaking in an interview Tuesday, defended his attempt to hold former political leaders accountable for deaths and disappearances during a campaign of repression against students and other activists from the 1960s to the 1980s.
The special prosecutor has faced criticism since July, when he asked a judge to issue an arrest warrant for Echeverria, 82, who was president from 1970 to 1976. He also sought warrants against 11 other former top officials, accusing them of genocide in connection with a 1971 massacre in which about 30 student protesters in Mexico City were killed by security forces.
Carrillo Prieto did not say when he would bring genocide charges against the 30 other former officials, but he said his office had evidence linking them to about 200 deaths and disappearances.
"This war is long and complicated, but we have to go forward," Carrillo Prieto said.
He also called on President Vicente Fox to rally support for the prosecutions, despite powerful political opposition to confronting Mexico's past. Although Fox has backed his efforts, Carrillo Prieto said the president has not made the investigations a top priority. Fox did not, for example, provide funding to exhume suspected mass graves in the southern state of Guerrero, he said.
"If there's not the priority, the will doesn't matter," said Carrillo Prieto, a former law professor who was appointed by Fox in January 2002. He said he planned to meet with the president next week. "If there's not a positive response, I'm going to say, 'Mr. President, what's this about?' "
Carrillo Prieto said his reading of international law defines genocide as the systematic attempt to eliminate any ethnic, religious or national group. Prosecutors examining human rights crimes in Yugoslavia and Argentina have concluded that such groups could also include political dissidents, Carrillo Prieto said. He has accused Echeverria of using the state's military and police powers to try to systematically "exterminate" Mexican political dissidents, which Echeverria has denied.
Less than 24 hours after he applied for the warrants against Echeverria and the 11 others, the judge turned him down, ruling that the country's 30-year statute of limitations on genocide had expired. Carrillo Prieto argued that official investigations into the massacre remained open until 1982, so the 30-year time frame should start then and not expire until 2012.
The attorney general, for whom Carrillo Prieto works, appealed the judge's decision to the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule soon on whether it will consider the appeal.
Carrillo Prieto said he was not discouraged by the judge's ruling; he said he had expected it.
He said further that he faces powerful opposition to exploring the abuses, which took place during the rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which controlled the government from 1929 to 2000. For many Mexicans, the judge's swift ruling was proof that Mexico's powerful political establishment and weak judicial system were unwilling to fully investigate abuses that occurred during the PRI era, when presidents governed with nearly dictatorial authority.
"We've made advances, but we're not satisfied, and we shouldn't be," Carrillo Prieto said. "What doesn't help, though, is when people say, 'It's not worth it.' The worst thing people can do now is lose hope."
Many critics have complained that Carrillo Prieto overreached by accusing Echeverria of genocide, a charge that could be difficult to prove and might even allow the extremely unpopular former president to escape prosecution. Carrillo Prieto defended his decisions in the case. "Even if there were better possibilities with lesser charges, the important thing is to state the legal and historical truth of the matter -- Mexicans deserve that," he said. "This involves homicides that constitute genocide." It is "ridiculous," he said, to have a statute of limitations on genocide.
In related cases, the special prosecutor's office has obtained arrest warrants for eight individuals: One died, six are fugitives, and Miguel Nazar Haro, one of the top internal security officials from the dirty war era, is in jail. Carrillo Prieto said he would ask a judge Friday to issue an arrest warrant against another top state government official, but he declined to identify that person.
--------
U.N. Court Imposes Lawyers on Milosevic
September 2, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-War-Crimes-Milosevic.html
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- The U.N. war crimes tribunal on Thursday imposed two defense lawyers on Slobodan Milosevic in an effort to end repeated trial delays and because doctors have warned that representing himself threatens the former Yugoslav strongman's health.
The tribunal's judges named British attorneys Steven Kay and Gillian Higgins, until now court observers ensuring fair proceedings, as Milosevic's defense counsels. They will take over the case from Sept. 7 when his first witnesses are due to be called.
The former Yugoslav president protested the decision to impose a lawyer on him and said he will appeal.
Judges and prosecutors agreed Milosevic could still name a lawyer of his choice -- his legal research is being handled by three assistants from Belgrade -- and that he could remain actively involved in conducting his defense.
``It is plain from the medical reports that the accused is not fit enough to defend himself,'' said presiding Judge Patrick Robinson.
Milosevic, 63, who has used the 2 1/2-year trial as a platform for his political views, has refused to accept a lawyer who would replace him in examining witnesses.
``I want the appeals chamber to consider this decision of yours, illegal, which violates international law , which violates every conceivable covenant on human rights,'' Milosevic told the judges.
``At a moment when I am supposed to exercise my right to defend, you decided to deprive me of that right. That's a scandal. You cannot deny me the right to defend myself,'' he said, seated alone at the defendant's table.
Robinson cut off Milosevic's microphone and said the judges had extensively considered their decision, which was final.
Kay, a British lawyer who was a defense attorney in the first case to come to trial at the Yugoslav tribunal in 1995, was appointed a ``friend of the court'' in the preliminary stage of the Milosevic case in 2001. Higgins, also a British attorney, replaced one of the three neutral legal observers in February.
Kay told the court earlier Wednesday the role of defense counsel was totally different from that of a friend of the court, even though his function has been to protect Milosevic's rights by making legal submissions and questioning witnesses.
He said the appointed lawyer would have to base his work on the preparations and witness list Milosevic already has made, though it will be difficult to catch up on every witness and piece of evidence.
``The scale -- it doesn't get bigger than this,'' he said.
By a vote of 2-1, the court also rejected Milosevic's request on Wednesday for a new round of medical tests by independent doctors. Robinson dissented, saying the issue was too important to be left in any doubt.
Robinson said two court-assigned doctors who examined Milosevic concluded that he suffers ``severe essential hypertension'' and that continuing to represent himself could lead to ``a potentially life threatening situation.''
They said that by allowing him to continue representing himself ``there is a real danger that this trial might last an unreasonably long time,'' Robinson said.
The judges recognized the right of a defendant to represent himself, but cited his lengthy periods of illness saying that right ``is not unfettered.''
The ruling was applauded by observers. ``He will get a far better case by being represented professionally,'' said Judith Armatta of the Coalition for International Justice.
Milosevic's bouts of fatigue and high blood pressure already have caused the suspension of hearings more than a dozen times and the loss of 66 trial days during the presentation of the prosecution case, which concluded in February. Since then, the beginning of the defense was postponed five times due to his health.
After wrapping up the opening statement of his defense case Wednesday, Milosevic sparred with prosecutors who cited medical reports from last week that he was refusing to take prescribed medication.
Prosecutors Geoffrey Nice said Milosevic ``is manipulating this tribunal'' with his health problems, and urged the court to assign him a lawyer who could continue the defense when Milosevic is too ill to attend sessions.
``This is highly improper,'' Milosevic responded. ``You do not take away somebody's right to self defense when he is sick.''
Also Wednesday, another three-judge bench of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia acquitted a Bosnian Serb leader of genocide, but convicted him of eight other charges.
The verdict in the five-year trial of Radislav Brdjanin, wartime leader of the autonomous Krajina region of Bosnia, should encourage Milosevic, who also faces charges of genocide among more than 60 counts of war crimes.
Brdjanin, 56, a powerful Serb figure at the start of the Bosnian war in 1992, was convicted on eight of 12 charges and sentenced to 32 years imprisonment -- a surprisingly lengthy term in view of the acquittals on the most serious charges related to genocide and extermination.
Despite a Serb campaign of mass murder, torture and deportations of non-Serbs, the court said the brutality fell short of genocide, which requires stringent proof the sole intent was to wipe out the Muslim and Croat communities.
The acquittal was a setback for prosecutors who placed genocide at the center of Milosevic's indictment. He is accused of responsibility for the deaths of more than 7,500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the U.N.-protected enclave of Srebrenica in 1995.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- courts / tribunals
Report Scolds Terrorism Prosecutors
U.S. to Drop Convictions Against Trio in Detroit
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 2, 2004; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54465-2004Sep1?language=printer
The Justice Department released a harshly critical review yesterday that shows that prosecutors failed to turn over dozens of pieces of evidence to defense attorneys in the first major terrorism trial after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and chronicles "a pattern of mistakes and oversights" so egregious that the government has agreed to abandon the terrorism portion of the case altogether.
A special attorney assigned to review the convictions of three alleged members of a terrorist sleeper cell in Detroit found that the prosecution withheld numerous e-mails, photographs, witness statements and other items that undercut the government's case and should have been turned over to the defense, according to a 60-page memorandum filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit late Tuesday and released yesterday.
The errors and possible misconduct were so rampant that there is "no reasonable prospect of winning" on appeal, according to the filing to U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen. As a result, prosecutors agreed to a defense request for a new trial and will pursue only document fraud charges against the three defendants, two of whom were convicted of terrorism charges last year.
The review by Craig S. Morford, a federal prosecutor in Cleveland, is particularly critical of the former lead prosecutor in the Detroit case, Richard Convertino, who, among other things, allegedly failed to turn over photographs to the defense and elicited testimony from witnesses that led the judge and other lawyers to believe they did not exist.
Convertino, who has been removed from the case and is the subject of an ongoing criminal probe, told investigators he does not recall the photos and has disputed other allegations against him, according to Morford's review.
"In its best light, the record would show that the prosecution committed a pattern of mistakes and oversights that deprived defendants of discoverable evidence . . . and created a record filled with misleading inferences that such material did not exist," the report says.
The admission of error by the Justice Department comes as the Bush administration is highlighting its anti-terrorism efforts at the Republican National Convention in New York. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft had previously hailed the Detroit prosecution as a major victory in the war on terrorism, and the case was listed as one of the department's "notable achievements" in a report to Congress in January.
Convertino, who has filed a lawsuit against Ashcroft and the Justice Department, declined to comment. His Washington attorney, William Sullivan, said Convertino is a "vigorous and principled prosecutor" who always had "the safety and protection of his community" in mind.
"Even if [Assistant U.S. Attorney] Convertino had knowledge of the materials characterized as being disclosable to the defense, those materials were insubstantial, cumulative and would not encourage the reasonable possibility that a different verdict would have resulted after trial," Sullivan said in a statement.
The Justice Department has secured a number of guilty pleas and convictions in high-profile terrorism cases over three years. But in recent months it lost an important case in which it accused an Idaho man of using the Internet to recruit and raise money for holy war abroad, and was embarrassed by the FBI's erroneous detention of an Oregon man -- a convert to Islam -- for involvement in the Madrid train bombings based on an inaccurate fingerprint match.
"It's just another in a long line of mishaps by this Justice Department in prosecuting the so-called war on terror," said I. Michael Greenberger, a Justice official in the Clinton administration who now heads the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland.
Justice spokesman Mark Corallo said Ashcroft's decision to assign Morford to review the case shows the department's willingness to examine its own shortcomings. "We stepped up to the plate and did the right thing in the interest of justice," he said.
Defense attorneys in the case did not return telephone calls yesterday.
In the first major terrorism trial since the Sept. 11 attacks, two defendants, Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi and Karim Koubriti, were convicted in June 2003 of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and document fraud, while a third man, Ahmed Hannan, was convicted of document fraud. A fourth defendant was acquitted.
The general prosecution theory was that the men were part of a fundamentalist "sleeper cell" who had been caught with materials indicating that they had been casing a U.S. air base in Turkey and a Jordanian hospital as possible targets of terrorist attacks.
But the report raises serious questions about the veracity of most of the key evidence and testimony at the heart of the case. It includes strong indications that a videotape and sketches portrayed as terrorist surveillance material may have been nothing more than tourist footage and innocent doodling. Prosecutors also failed to inform defense attorneys that many U.S., Turkish and Jordanian officials had doubts about various aspects of the case, the report said.
The report also raises doubts about the testimony of star prosecution witness Youssef Hmimssa, an admitted credit card fraud artist who alleged the defendants were Islamic fundamentalists involved in terrorist activities.
The central figure in the Morford probe is Convertino.
In one incident, Morford contends that Convertino "made a deliberate decision not to have the FBI take any notes" during debriefing sessions with Hmimssa to limit defense attorneys' ability to challenge his statements. Prosecutors in Detroit and at Justice Department headquarters argued against this unorthodox approach, the memo says.
In another instance, the report alleges that Convertino may have elicited "misleading testimony" from an FBI agent and others, leading Rosen and defense attorneys to believe that photographs that should have been turned over did not exist.
Keith Corbett, Convertino's supervisor and co-counsel, who also was removed from the case, told investigators that "he would not have participated" if he had known about much of the information that was not disclosed to defense attorneys. Corbett declined to comment yesterday.
Staff writer Allan Lengel contributed to this report.
---------
Justice Dept. Seeks End to Its Detroit Terror Case
September 2, 2004
By DANNY HAKIM
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/national/02terror.html?pagewanted=all&position=
DETROIT, Sept. 1 - The Justice Department on Wednesday assailed its own legal strategy in the case that had brought its first courtroom victory in the war on terror.
In a 60-page filing released Wednesday, prosecutors asked a federal judge to end the terror case against what they once called a "sleeper operational combat cell" based here. They are asking for a new trial of three men only on document fraud.
After nine months of investigation, federal prosecutors compiled a wealth of evidence that they said fatally undermined every aspect of their terror case. They also sharply rebuked the prosecutor who led the case, Richard G. Convertino, suggesting he knowingly withheld evidence that he was obligated to share with defense lawyers. Mr. Convertino, who was removed as the case prosecutor last year and is the subject of a department investigation, has denied accusations that he did anything wrong and has filed a lawsuit against the department.
The developments were a stunning reversal in a case once hailed by Attorney General John Ashcroft as a major victory in the war on terror.
"To have one of the department's few wins move into the loss category is pretty remarkable," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University. "The Detroit case is like a 20-car pileup for Ashcroft. You have an open feud with the former prosecutor and ultimately the abandonment of the case."
Some others were heartened that the department aired its missteps.
"We applaud the Justice Department's call for fairness in this case," said Ismael Ahmed, executive director of the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, in a statement on Wednesday. "It clearly demonstrates why we feel that America is such a great country."
Mr. Ashcroft declined through a spokesman to comment.
"The filing does speak for itself," said Bryan Sierra, a Justice Department spokesman in Washington. "We are obligated to do the right thing if we feel something went wrong with the case."
In June 2003, two Moroccan men, Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi, 38, and Karim Koubriti, 26, were convicted on terror and document fraud charges. A third Moroccan man, Ahmed Hannan, 36, was convicted of document fraud. A fourth man was acquitted. The men were never sentenced because of escalating problems over howthe case was handled.
"In its best light, the record would show that the prosecution committed a pattern of mistakes and oversights that deprived the defendants of discoverable evidence," federal prosecutors said in their latest filing.
The nine-month review, which had been ordered by the presiding federal judge, showed that prosecutors did more than suppress evidence. The report said that prosecutors also "created a record filled with misleading inferences that such material did not exist."
The filing was largely a rebuke of Mr. Convertino, who was removed within months of winning the convictions. What is unclear is why the department allowed Mr. Convertino to try the case if it had concerns about his conduct.
The government said Wednesday that in the early stages of the investigation, in 2002, there were deep divisions within the department over Mr. Convertino's strategy to interview a main witness, Youseff Hmimssa, without letting the F.B.I. take notes, to prevent the defense from gaining access to the information.
"Convertino's approach caused significant controversy within the Department of Justice," prosecutors said, adding that department officials in Washington and Detroit cautioned him against the approach. One F.B.I. agent was said to have been "adamantly opposed." Keith Corbett, Mr. Convertino's supervisor and co-counsel on the case, also warned against the strategy.
Tension between Washington officials and Mr. Convertino grew, with a federal prosecutor assigned to the case saying in December that he was relegated to being more observer than participant.
Mr. Convertino has countered in his own suit that the department is retaliating against him for his agreement to testify about terrorism last year before the Senate Finance Committee. The committee chairman, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, is a critic of the department.
"Much of the evidence claimed to have been wrongfully withheld by Rick was evidence he wasn't aware of," said Mr. Convertino's lawyer, William Sullivan. "Even if he had been, it was not material to the defense and it would not have led to a different result at the trial."
Mr. Convertino, who declined to comment, has said that he was assigned only a barebones staff and could not have monitored every piece of information; he has also said the bureaucracy prevented him from seeing some of the evidence uncovered by the government.
He remains on the Justice Department's payroll, assigned to the Senate Caucus on International Narcotic Control, which is led by Mr. Grassley, who has in the past characterized Mr. Convertino as a whistleblower. Mr. Grassley's office declined comment.
Lawyers for the defendants have portrayed Mr. Convertino as a rogue prosecutor who withheld evidence in a potentially star-making case.
"We intend to file motions to have the case thrown out completely," said Jim Thomas, Mr. Hannan's lawyer. "Because of the taint that has been attached to this trial and the misconduct of the prosecutor, this case should not be tried again. The government has had their shot."
In its filing, the government lays out a rebuttal of Mr. Convertino's legal strategy based on evidence they say was withheld from the court.
The strategy relied on three strands of evidence: drawings and a videotape suggesting the men were collecting intelligence on targets in the United States and abroad; the testimony of an associate who said the men were hatching terrorist schemes, and corroborating evidence that they were using methods consistent with terror operations.
"Unfortunately, numerous developments since trial, including the discovery of significant materials not disclosed by the prosecution, have undermined each part of this three-legged stool," the government said in its filing.
One crucial piece of evidence was a day planner containing sketches that prosecution witnesses said included a military hospital in Jordan and an American air base in Turkey. During the trial, prosecutors contended that a portion of the sketch depicted an aircraft hangar at the base in Turkey. Defense lawyers said it was simply a doodle drawing of the Middle East. The government now says American investigators in Germany concluded that the supposed hangar drawing was, in fact, an outline of the Middle East.
An Air Force colonel who testified at the trial created the false impression that military officials were in agreement that the sketch represented a hangar, the government now says. And a C.I.A. official showed the sketch to various experts who doubted it was significant.
Prosecutors contended that another sketch showed a Jordanian military hospital. At trial, defense lawyers had asked for any photographs taken by the government of the hospital. Two government witnesses suggested such photographs had not been taken. But the government said Wednesday that the prosecutors did have photographs.
"It is difficult, if not impossible, to compare the day planner sketches with the photos and see a correlation," the government said.
Another piece of evidence was a videotape of what looked like tourist footage. Prosecutors contended at trial that it was interspersed with potential targets, including the MGM Grand Hotel. But prosecutors failed to reveal that F.B.I. agents disagreed the video was surveillance footage.
"Under the court's established protocol, the government should have brought this information to the court's attention," the government said.
Mr. Elmardoudi and Mr. Koubriti, who were convicted on the terror charge, remain in custody. Mr. Hannan, convicted of document fraud, was released to a halfway house this year. The government said that it would recommend Mr. Koubriti be released to a halfway house.
-------- homeland security / national intelligence
Analysis Bush's Intelligence Moves Don't Attain Scope Urged by 9/11 Panel
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 2, 2004; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54232-2004Sep1.html
New powers for the CIA director and creation of a national counterterrorism center -- both the products of executive orders signed last week by President Bush -- stop short in many ways from achieving the type of intelligence reorganization urged by the Sept. 11 commission and proposed by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and others on Capitol Hill.
Both the commission's report and Roberts's bill call for a new national counterterrorism center, but the version of that office created by Bush's directive has significantly less authority -- at least in part because giving it greater powers cannot be done without legislation.
Under Bush's order, the national counterterrorism center will be the primary organization for analyzing and integrating intelligence about terrorism and counterterrorism, "excepting purely domestic counterterrorism information." That means the center will not have authority to direct covert counterterrorism operations abroad and at home -- one of the central recommendations of the commission and part of the legislation proposed by Roberts, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Instead, the center will do "operational planning" and "assign operational responsibilities" to the CIA, FBI and the Pentagon, one of the president's orders says, but "the center shall not direct the execution of operations." The center will operate temporarily under the authority of the CIA director in his capacity as director of central intelligence but eventually will be under the national intelligence director, if that post is created by legislation.
Bush's orders have been characterized by White House officials as interim steps to strengthen intelligence gathering while Congress and the administration continue discussing more far-reaching reorganizations that could happen only by legislation. The Bush administration has been under pressure to act on proposals to reorganize the U.S. intelligence community since the Sept. 11 commission issued its report, and Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry has challenged the president to enact its recommendations.
The counterterrorism center established by Bush's order will also interact with other parts of the administration differently than the type of center urged by the commission. The panel urged that the new center advise the president directly on all counterterrorism issues. The center created by Bush will instead give the president, vice president and other senior Cabinet members routine reports on terrorism threats, which until now have been prepared by the CIA and presented daily during the morning national security briefing.
Some strategic functions of the National Security Council's Counterterrorism Security Group, once run out of the Clinton and Bush White Houses by Richard A. Clarke, will be done by the national counterterrorism center. These include the day-to-day threat monitoring and preparation of responses that involve all government agencies.
One main point of contention in the intelligence reform debate has been whether to give a new national director control over the budgets and personnel of the 15 government agencies that form the intelligence community.
Bush's executive order giving more authority to the CIA director does not go as far down that road as would the Sept. 11 commission or several bills introduced in Congress. Bush has nominated Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) to be director of central intelligence, a position currently held by acting director John E. McLaughlin.
Under the Bush plan, the director of central intelligence will get direct budgetary authority over the National Foreign Intelligence Program, which involves about 70 percent of the $40 billion intelligence budget. The remaining 30 percent covers the Joint Military Intelligence Program and the Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities, which are under the control of the secretary of defense.
The DCI is given authority to "participate" in the defense secretary's development of budgets for those Pentagon intelligence programs. When it comes to moving money among programs in those areas, the DCI was given the power to "monitor and consult" and "advise" the defense secretary.
The Defense Department, primarily through its intelligence-collection agencies, supplies 68 percent of the personnel in the NFIP program, and overall the Pentagon supplies 83 percent of the personnel in the U.S. intelligence community, Stephen A. Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month. Cambone described the relationship between the DCI and defense secretary as "a partnership."
"It was designed that way by the Congress and by presidents and DCIs and SecDefs [secretaries of defense] in the past to make sure it is a partnership, so that no one has sole authority or all of the authority," Cambone added.
On personnel questions, the executive orders do not give the CIA director full hiring and firing power across the intelligence community, but they do let him set standards for training, education and career development in U.S. intelligence agencies. Bush also ordered that the CIA director concur in intelligence appointments by the secretary of defense.
Bush gave the DCI authority to bring about a number of recommendations by the Sept. 11 commission, including the establishment of a standard system for handling classified information and accessing it. Today each intelligence agency has a security system and counterintelligence program to protect its secrets.
A senior congressional aide said this week that the executive orders were attempts to go as far as possible in ways that did not require approval by Congress, which is continuing to hold hearings on intelligence reform legislation.
In many ways, he said, the orders essentially expand on authority that the DCI already has to coordinate intelligence activities across the government. The orders, he said, "seem to have the quality of, 'This time, we really mean it,' " he said. "They did the best they could."
-------- human rights
Rights Court Ruling Awaited on American Jailed in Peru
By Lucien O. Chavin
Washington Post
Thursday, September 2, 2004; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54739-2004Sep1.html
LIMA, Peru -- The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is expected to rule early this month on whether Lori Berenson, a New Yorker serving a 20-year sentence on charges of helping a rebel organization, received a fair trial under Peru's anti-terrorism laws.
The case is sensitive for President Alejandro Toledo, whose opponents are demanding that he keep Berenson behind bars regardless of the ruling by the Costa Rica-based court, a decision that will be binding. Government attorneys said they expected to lose the case, with a retrial ordered.
Berenson, 35, imprisoned since November 1995, was accused of collaborating with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, a small rebel group that is now defunct. A military court found her guilty in early 1996 and sentenced her to life. She was retried in 2001, this time by a civilian court, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Her defense team, led by Ramsey Clark, the former U.S. attorney general, argues that she should be released because her trials failed to meet international standards for due process, including the fact that she was tried twice for the same crime.
Berenson has maintained that she is innocent of the charges and says she has been used as a pawn by the Peruvian government to distract attention from other issues.
If Peru is told to restore her rights, she could be released and expelled from the country. The government could also disregard the ruling and withdraw from recognizing the court's jurisdiction. Analysts have said, however, that the most likely scenario was for the government to accept the ruling and order her to stand trial for a third time.
During a recent interview at the maximum-security prison in Cajamarca, 350 miles north of Lima, where she has been jailed for nearly two years, Berenson said she might refuse to stand trial again.
"I am opposed to a third trial," she said. "I think it can be safely assumed that I will not receive a fair trial, and I am not willing to have my family subjected to another long legal battle. If I am forced to stand trial, I will do so without a lawyer."
Analysts said freeing Berenson would be political suicide for Toledo, who is the least popular president in Latin America with only 12 percent support. They said he would be labeled immediately as soft on terrorism, giving his opponents more ammunition to attack his already shaky administration.
Marcos Ibazeta, the judge who presided over Berenson's 2001 retrial and denies any political influence in the 20-year sentence Berenson received, said the court's decision would set the stage for the most controversial retrials, including that of the founder and leader of the Shining Path rebel group, Abimael Guzman.
"What the Inter-American Court decides on the Berenson case will define everything." he said.
Berenson's defense team also has an alternative that would save the country from having to deal with a loss in Costa Rica. Her lawyers have sent a letter to the government calling for Berenson to be released before the Inter-American Court hands down its sentence, thereby avoiding the ripple effects the decision will certainly have for the country.
-------- police
Tactics by Police Mute the Protesters, and Their Messages
September 2, 2004
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN and DIANE CARDWELL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/politics/campaign/02protest.html?pagewanted=all&position=
As the Republican National Convention approached its final evening tonight, nearly 1,800 protesters had been arrested on the streets, two-thirds of them on Tuesday night alone. But for all the anger of the demonstrations, they have barely interrupted the convention narrative, and have drawn relatively little national news coverage.
Using large orange nets to divide and conquer, and a near-zero tolerance policy for activities that even suggest the prospect of disorder, the New York Police Department has developed what amounts to a pre-emptive strike policy, cutting off demonstrations before they grow large enough, loud enough, or unruly enough to affect the convention.
The demonstrations, too, have thus far been more restrained than many recent protests elsewhere; five years ago in Seattle, for example, there was widespread arson and window-smashing, none of which has occurred here. Lacking bloody scenes of billy-club-wielding police or billowing clouds of tear gas, the cameras - and the public's attention - have focused elsewhere.
"It is almost easier to explain what you are not getting here," said Ted Koppel, anchor and managing editor of ABC's "Nightline," when he was asked why news organizations have given little time to the protests. "What you are not getting here is a replay of 1968 in Chicago."
Twice yesterday, protesters did manage to breach the security cordon at Madison Square Garden. During Vice President Dick Cheney's speech last night, a woman wearing a pink slip rushed the convention floor. She was quickly tackled and dragged out, while nearby conventiongoers covered the disturbance by raising their signs and chanting.
Earlier, at noon, 12 demonstrators from Act Up, the protest group concerned with AIDS issues, entered the convention site. They interrupted a speech that Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, was giving to a group of Young Republicans. The protesters, who were shouting for more money to prevent the spread of AIDS, were arrested, and one was charged with assault after a scuffle.
Ann Roman, a spokeswoman for the Secret Service, said the Act Up protesters apparently had legitimate Young Republican floor passes, although she would not say how they acquired them.
In general, though, if the week's protesters wound up shouting mostly to themselves, the Bush-Cheney campaign did not get the wild-eyed foil it had counted on, either. While Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the Police Department had promised an orderly city all along, several Republicans had indicated that they hoped to blame the campaign of the Democratic nominee, John Kerry, for any destruction.
So far, there has been little to pin on the Democrats.
"If the protesters do something outrageous, they benefit Bush; if they don't do something outrageous they don't get covered," said Kieran Mahoney, a Republican political consultant from New York. "They are the answer to the question, 'If a tree falls in the forest, does it make any noise?' "
In fact, the image that went nationwide, on television and in newspapers, was from Sunday, when United for Peace and Justice, a protest coalition, held a huge but orderly march that managed to cast a shadow over the opening day of the convention.
Now, with the highest-profile day to go, the day President Bush accepts his nomination, it appears that the New York Police Department may have successfully redefined the post-Seattle era, by showing that protest tactics designed to create chaos and to attract the world's attention can be effectively countered with intense planning and a well-disciplined use of force.
"So far, operationally, this has been a success for the department; things have gone well," said Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. "We started 18 months ago. A lot of hard work by a lot of people, and so far it's paid off."
For New York City, and in particular for Mayor Bloomberg, the events of the last few days are a major victory, especially as he tries to persuade the International Olympic Committee to bring the 2012 Games to the city.
"When the mayor bid for this convention, part of his argument, to bring either convention here, was that New York City had the only police force to deal with a modern anarchist threat," said Kevin Sheekey, a close adviser to the mayor who served as president of the convention host committee. "And obviously the Police Department has done that astoundingly well."
The department's efficiency has not come without some cost, including the arrest of several innocent bystanders and nonviolent protesters. On occasion, police actions have also caused confrontations with protesters.
Lawyers who appeared in the city's arraignment court said, for example, that on Saturday a building superintendent named Andre Lebbt, 49, was arrested while he was taking out the garbage. They also described arrests of a man walking home from a sushi restaurant, and another man dressed in a business suit going home from work.
In one incident Tuesday, on the steps of the New York Public Library, protesters who were not trying to cause any disturbance - though they did not have a permit - ended up in a 15-minute melee with police, prompting rows of officers in helmets, clubs in hand, to form a phalanx on the steps. The officers moved in unison, chanting "Move, move, move." One uniformed officer swung his club wildly at protesters and at journalists, trying to force them back.
"In their quest to maintain tight control over protesters, the police too often have lost sight of the difference between lawful and unlawful activity," said Christopher Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The protests have not been ignored. National Public Radio, for example, stepped up its coverage with two teams working day and night. But the lack of a unified message among a series of large and small groups with varying tactics has complicated their efforts to gain coverage.
"There are so many different messages and so many different ways they are portraying themselves," said Ellen Weiss, senior editor of NPR's national desk. In addition, she said, "the police have been very effective at keeping them away from the Garden," where most of the national news organizations are based.
Still, protesters have declared some victories. Anarchist organizers of Tuesday's wave of protests sent out a release yesterday proclaiming that "the R.N.C. protests in New York truly are a shout heard around the world," with more than 1,000 arrests so far. They said that the number of people on the street demonstrated a commitment to speaking out, and that the numbers of arrests have energized their followers for future activities.
The police have had widespread praise from demonstrators and their legal advocates for showing restraint and flexibility in dealing with many protests, both those with and without permits.
On Sunday, before the gigantic march past the Garden, a police captain sent a group of officers to clear a traffic lane and escort a large group marching without a permit from Central Park to Union Square, where the day's main protest was to begin.
In another unscheduled march on Tuesday, the police allowed 10 protesters in a larger group to wear masks - technically a violation of the law - as part of a symbolic statement against the abuse of United States military prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
"The overarching issue with no permits is if you try to take a street or sidewalk, if you are marching and forcing pedestrians in the street, you are going to be arrested," said a senior police official, asking not to be identified. "When each of these things forms up, the commander can make a judgment - does it make sense for public safety to allow it to go forward rather than do battle?"
Those judgments appear to vary depending on which police official is in charge on the scene, giving protesters the sense that the rules are always shifting. In many cases, said Mr. Dunn, of the civil liberties union, "the protesters are trying to play by the rules and the police are not honoring their own agreements or are moving to arrest people who are engaging in seemingly lawful activity without any notice."
Last Friday, for example, after tension over police warnings to obey traffic laws, about 5,000 cyclists were allowed to block traffic and run red lights for more than an hour until the patience of police officers suddenly appeared to grow thin. Officers dragged netting across a West Village street to block the ride, arresting dozens there and then many more at its end in the East Village.
Not all the protests were against the war. To express their disagreement with President Bush's policies toward workers, New York City's labor unions rescheduled their annual Labor Day rally to hold a demonstration yesterday near the Garden.
Two prominent actors, James Gandolfini and Danny Glover, joined labor leaders at the rally, which stretched along Eighth Avenue from 30th Street to 23rd Street, with a few thousand protesters on each block.
The speakers repeatedly lambasted Mr. Bush, saying he has weakened overtime protections, been hostile toward unions and presided over the loss of more than a million jobs.
John J. Sweeney, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s president, said: "President Bush promised to create five million new jobs, and so far he's six million short."
Thousands of protesters chanted "No More Bush," and many held up signs saying, "Mr. President, Where Are the Jobs?" and "More Layoffs on November 2." Union leaders vowed to do their utmost to defeat Mr. Bush.
"If George Bush can cut our time and a half, then we should cut his time in the White House in half," said Brian McLaughlin, president of the city's Central Labor Council.
Steven Greenhouse, Marc Santora and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting for this article.
--------
Pepper-spray 'accident' clears downtown offices
September 02, 2004
By Lisa Goddard
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20040901-105127-7918r.htm
Pepper spray was released in a downtown office building during yesterday afternoon's lunch hour, but police called it an accident and stressed that it was not terrorism-related.
First responders, not sure what they were dealing with, initially treated it as a "mass casualty" incident. They sent two dozen emergency vehicles to the scene, established a triage center in a nearby park and closed several streets.
"There were two kids horsing around, and a boy pulled a chain around the girl's neck and there must have been pepper spray or some kind of irritant in the container," police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said. "Once it's out, people inhale it and you've got a problem."
The fire department assessed an estimated 130 people and treated five on the scene, spokesman Alan Etter said. One person was transported to a hospital with what he described as complications from asthma.
The spray was released inside a building at 1990 K St. NW, which extends a full city block south to I Street. It is alsoabout two blocks from the World Bank headquarters, which authorities last month said was a possible terror target.
Chief Ramsey characterized the incident as an accident and not a prank. He stressed it was not related to the Code Orange alert and did not present a general threat. But initial reports sent the stock market into a temporary dive, with traders fearing it was terrorism.
"It did show a breach of security, and the market has not fully discounted something happening here on our shores," said Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist with Cantor Fitzgerald in Truckee, Calif.
"We're able to shrug off news from Iraq, but not necessarily something from our back yard," Mr. Pado said. "I wouldn't quite call this a panic," he said, describing it as more of a "dramatic, knee-jerk reaction." The market later recovered.
But terrorism fears weren't limited to Wall Street. "I had guys on their day off calling me, asking if they should come in," D.C. police Lt. Jeffrey Herold said.
Authorities said no charges had been filed against the youngsters involved.
nAssociated Press writers Derrill Holly and Mark Hamrick contributed to this report.
-------- POLITICS
-------- us politics
Bush's Lost Year
By deciding to invade Iraq, the Bush Administration decided not to do many other things: not to reconstruct Afghanistan, not to deal with the threats posed by North Korea and Iran, and not to wage an effective war on terror. An inventory of opportunities lost
by James Fallows,
The Atlantic Monthly
September 2, 2004
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200410/fallows
I remember distinctly the way 2002 began in Washington. New Year's Day was below freezing and blustery. The next day was worse. That day, January 2, I trudged several hundred yards across the vast parking lots of the Pentagon. I was being pulled apart by the wind and was ready to feel sorry for myself, until I was shamed by the sight of miserable, frozen Army sentries at the numerous outdoor security posts that had been manned non-stop since the September 11 attacks.
I was going for an interview with Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense. At the time, Wolfowitz's name and face were not yet familiar worldwide. He was known in Washington for offering big-picture explanations of the Administration's foreign-policy goals-a task for which the President was unsuited, the Vice President was unavailable, and most other senior Administration officials were, for various reasons, inappropriate. The National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was still playing a background role; the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was mainly dealing with immediate operational questions in his daily briefings about the war in Afghanistan; the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was already known to be on the losing side of most internal policy struggles....
This article is viewable only by Atlantic subscribers.
----
Dick Cheney Was "At The Core Of Some Of The Darkest Activities In This Country Over The Last Four Years"
Thursday, September 2nd, 2004
Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/02/1455206
Vice President Dick Cheney accepted his party's nomination to run for a second term yesterday. We take a look at the Vice President's history with journalists Pratap Chatterjee of Corpwatch and John Nichols of The Nation, author of Dick the Man Who is President. [includes rush transcript] Vice President Dick Cheney accepted his party's nomination to run for a second term yesterday at the Republican convention in New York.
In his speech, Cheney led the convention's most stinging assault against Democrat John Kerry, depicting him as a weak and indecisive leader who was unfit to be commander in chief. President Bush will give his acceptance speech today, kicking off a two-month race to the Nov. 2 election that polls show is essentially a dead heat.
Cheney's speech, which was broadcast in prime-time, gave Americans their closest look in years at a key figure in the Bush administration who normally shuns the limelight.
Cheney took to the podium yesterday to give the final the address of the night.
- Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking on at the Republican National Convention, September 2, 2004.
- John Nichols, The Nation Magazine and the Madison Capital Times. His new book is called "Dick the Man Who is President."
- Pratap Chatterjee, managing director of CorpWatch.org.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: Vice President Cheney took to the podium to give the final address of the night.
DICK CHENEY: The president's opponent is an experienced senator. He speaks often of his service in Vietnam and we honor him for it. But there is also a record of more than three decades since. And on the question of America's role in the world, the differences between Senator Kerry and president Bush are the sharpest and the stakes for the country are the highest. History has shown that a strong and purposeful America is vital to preserving freedom and keeping us safe. Yet, time and again, Senator Kerry has made the wrong call on national security. Senator Kerry began his political career by saying he would like to see our troops deployed only at the directive of the United Nations. During the 1980's, senator Kerry opposed Ronald Reagan's major defense initiatives that brought victory in the Cold War. In 1991, when Saddam Hussein occupied Kuwait and stood poised to dominate the Persian Gulf, senator Kerry voted against Operation Desert Storm. Even in this post-9/11 period, senator Kerry doesn't appear to understand how the world has changed. He talks about leading a more sensitive war on terror. As though al Qaeda will be impressed with our softer side. He declared that the democratic convention that he will forcefully defend America after we have been attacked. My fellow Americans, we have already been attacked. We are faced with an enemy who seeks the deadliest of weapons to use against us and we cannot wait until the next attack. We must do everything we can to prevent it. And that includes the use of military force. Senator Kerry denounces American action when other countries don't approve, as if the whole object of our foreign policy were to please a few persistent critics. But in fact, the global war on terror, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush has brought many allies to our side. But as the president has made very clear, there is a difference between leading a coalition of many nations and submitting to the objections of a few. George W. Bush will never seek a permission slip to defend the American people.
AMY GOODMAN: Vice President Dick Cheney speaking last night accepting the nomination for vice president for a second term. Delivering perhaps the convention's most stinging assault on democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. We are joined in the studio by two people who have followed Dick Cheney's career and the companies he's been affiliated with. We are joined by the senior editor of the Capitol Times as well as Nation magazine reporter John Nichols. He has a new book which is called Dick the Man Who is the President. And Pratap Chatterjee managing director of Corpwatch.org.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, John, your reaction to Vice President Cheney's speech and, tell us a little bit about him and what you found in your research on your book.
JOHN NICHOLS: Well, my first reaction to Vice President Cheney's speech fits for Zell Miller, as well. This is probably the last time, in our lifetimes that we will see two speaker, one after another. The first of whom began his career as an American segregationist, opposing integration in the south. The second of whom highlighted his career in Congress as being one of the few people who voted consistently to keep Nelson Mandela in jail. A remarkable signal. In most countries in the world, people with that sort of track record wouldn't be allowed anywhere near the amount of power that these gentlemen have. Did you Dick Cheney's speech was a classic Dick Cheney speech. I mean there was always the joke of if you watch him closely, maybe this time the lizard will actually come out when he opens his mouth. But, the reality is that he went back to his core themes. And it's important to note those. He was mostly talking about foreign policy. He's obsessed with foreign policy. His two big messages were, there will be no break in unilateralism. This country will be hard core committed to a unilateral vision of how it operates in the world--no permission slips from any other countries. And two, a passionate defense of presidential war making. It's important to remember this is the guy who was central to the defense of Ronald Reagan during the Iran contra process. He's the one who wrote the dissenting opinion that essentially shot down any possibility of an impeachment of Ronald Reagan for Iran contra. Dick Cheney has been at the core of some of the darkest activities in this country over the last four years. The man who began in the Nixon white house, key player in the Ford white house. Went to congress and was Reagan's key defender on the far right. Somebody that Newt Gingrich said it much more conservative than me. Someone who in the national journal checked the voting record found he was a little to the right of Jesse Helms. This is our vice president. And people ought to watch him closely because George Bush will give a compassionate conservative speech tonight. But if you want it see what will happen in the next four years, go back and list tone what Cheney said last night because that's the blueprint for the next four years and noted, that just as in 2,000, he mentioned countries that the united states might have to deal with. In this case, Iran and North Korea.
AMY GOODMAN: John, just a quick question. You were at the youth convention yesterday, the Republican Youth Convention with the twins.
JOHN NICHOLS: I wasn't actually attending the convention, but --
AMY GOODMAN: You were covering it and protesters came in from Act Up. What actually happened to them?
JOHN NICHOLS: Well, it's an interesting thing. They got into the hall and, you know, I signed up and got in, they were wearing street clothes. Right when Andy Card spoke, their goal was to get a message through directly to the administration. So when, after Jenny and Barbara Bush introduced Andy Card, they pulled off their street shirts, had white t-shirts saying "Bush Lies." Held up small signs and they began blowing whistles and yelling. It was a quick, effective protest. They were set upon by the young republicans who really moved in quickly holding up signs to sort of cover what was happening. A number of the delegates were, you know, certainly jostling, pushing. It was a pretty scary situation. This is one of the few time whereas the entry of the secret service and the police might actually have been to the advantage of the protesters because those Young Republicans were angry. I think they saw them as junior league Michael Moores and they were all over them. And, you know, there's been some reports that the protesters attacked delegates. Everything I have seen from the film afterwards, reports, people were actually down there said there was no attack on the delegates. These were very direct, traditional protesters who wanted to get a message out.
AMY GOODMAN: Pratap Chatterjee, you have been following Dick Cheney for quite a while and particularly looking at Halliburton through Corpwatch and your reporting on corporations. Talk about what you think is the most significant here.
PRATAP CHATTERJEE: Well I think in listening to the speech and reading it later, he's a deeply paranoid man. As John said, obsessed with foreign policy and always has been. He's a self-licking ice cream cone yesterday. I thought it was a great image. This is somebody who, you know, he fights the war that he himself would have never fought. He spends taxes but never paid his own taxes. And--
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean by that?
PRATAP CHATTERJEE: He currently gets as much money from Halliburton in salary as he does, that we pay him, as vice president. So he gets $198,000 as vice president. He gets between $170,000 and $200,000 a year from Halliburton. The reason is, he deferred his salary so he could take advantage of a tax cut. So he's willing to--he's currently the Congressional Research Service found that he was actually, had a conflict of interest because he was still receiving money from a company as vice president. And when he was the head of this company, Halliburton, I mean he either lied all the time or he was delusional and was doing a bad job. This is a man who said he didn't know creative accounting was taking place.
JOHN NICHOLS: I don't mean to intervene, but who actually cut the video for Arthur Anderson saying they taught me accounting tricks I could never have thought of.
PRATAP CHATTERJEE: Exactly. So, either he's delusional or he's lying. He said he didn't know about asbestos liability in the year 2000 when we have known about this for 20 years and it cost the company billions of dollars.
AMY GOODMAN: After they bought Dresser Industries.
PRATAP CHATTERJEE: He didn't know about the activities in Iraq. He said categorically we are not doing business in Iraq. When presented with the evidence, he said well we didn't know about it.
AMY GOODMAN: He was the head of the company.
PRATAP CHATTERJEE: He was the chief executive officer at the time when they were doing business in Iraq.
JUAN GONZALEZ: The Halliburton issue has been out there now. Many Americans know about it, but to what degree has it become, in the minds of many Americans, the scandal that many of us think it is?
PRATAP CHATTERJEE: I think, well, there's a quote I want to read to you guys. He didn't have a problem the quote basically is about Halliburton's war profiteering in Vietnam. The quote is why this huge contract has not been audit San Diego beyond me. The potential for profiteering under such a contract is substantial. The speaker, the young member of the House of Representatives by the name of Donald Rumsfeld in 1966. This is a company that has been attacked correctly for its war profiteering. It couldn't produce $120 million worth of receipts, exactly the same story today. This is a company that has had contracts upwards that they should never have gotten. Dick Cheney is a man who is put in charge of selecting a vice president himself. Halliburton was asked to design a contract and guided themselves.
JOHN NICHOLS: If I could just add on this, this is an important fact.
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.
JOHN NICHOLS: And that is that it was Dick Cheney who, as secretary of defense, had Kellogg Brown and Root write the plan for privatization of war. What you are seeing in Iraq today is a direct result of what Dick Cheney did as Secretary of Defense back in 1991 and 1992.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both very much for being with us. John Nichols, Nation Magazine and The Madison Capital Times. His new book is called Dick the Man Who is President.
----
Text of President Bush's RNC Speech
Associated Press
Thu, Sep. 02, 2004
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/9567610.htm?1c
Text of President George Bush's speech as prepared for delivery Thursday at the Republican National Convention:
Mr. Chairman, delegates, fellow citizens: I am honored by your support, and I accept your nomination for President of the United States.
When I said those words four years ago, none of us could have envisioned what these years would bring. In the heart of this great city, we saw tragedy arrive on a quiet morning. We saw the bravery of rescuers grow with danger. We learned of passengers on a doomed plane who died with a courage that frightened their killers. We have seen a shaken economy rise to its feet. And we have seen Americans in uniform storming mountain strongholds, and charging through sandstorms and liberating millions, with acts of valor that would make the men of Normandy proud.
Since 2001, Americans have been given hills to climb and found the strength to climb them. Now, because we have made the hard journey, we can see the valley below. Now, because we have faced challenges with resolve, we have historic goals within our reach, and greatness in our future. We will build a safer world and a more hopeful America and nothing will hold us back.
In the work we have done, and the work we will do, I am fortunate to have a superb vice president. I have counted on Dick Cheney's calm and steady judgment in difficult days and I am honored to have him at my side.
I am grateful to share my walk in life with Laura Bush. Americans have come to see the goodness and kindness and strength I first saw 26 years ago, and we love our first lady.
I am a fortunate father of two spirited, intelligent and lovely young women. I am blessed with a sister and brothers who are also my closest friends. And I will always be the proud and grateful son of George and Barbara Bush.
My father served eight years at the side of another great American - Ronald Reagan. His spirit of optimism and goodwill and decency are in this hall, and in our hearts, and will always define our party.
Two months from today, voters will make a choice based on the records we have built, the convictions we hold and the vision that guides us forward. A presidential election is a contest for the future. Tonight I will tell you where I stand, what I believe, and where I will lead this country in the next four years.
I believe every child can learn and every school must teach - so we passed the most important federal education reform in history. Because we acted, children are making sustained progress in reading and math, America's schools are getting better, and nothing will hold us back.
I believe we have a moral responsibility to honor America's seniors - so I brought Republicans and Democrats together to strengthen Medicare. Now seniors are getting immediate help buying medicine. Soon every senior will be able to get prescription drug coverage and nothing will hold us back.
I believe in the energy and innovative spirit of America's workers, entrepreneurs, farmers and ranchers - so we unleashed that energy with the largest tax relief in a generation. Because we acted, our economy is growing again, and creating jobs and nothing will hold us back.
I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch.
I am running for President with a clear and positive plan to build a safer world and a more hopeful America. I am running with a compassionate conservative philosophy: that government should help people improve their lives, not try to run their lives. I believe this nation wants steady, consistent, principled leadership - and that is why, with your help, we will win this election.
The story of America is the story of expanding liberty: an ever_widening circle, constantly growing to reach further and include more. Our nation's founding commitment is still our deepest commitment: In our world, and here at home, we will extend the frontiers of freedom.
The times in which we live and work are changing dramatically. The workers of our parents' generation typically had one job, one skill, one career - often with one company that provided health care and a pension. And most of those workers were men. Today, workers change jobs, even careers, many times during their lives, and in one of the most dramatic shifts our society has seen, two-thirds of all moms also work outside the home.
This changed world can be a time of great opportunity for all Americans to earn a better living, support your family, and have a rewarding career. And government must take your side. Many of our most fundamental systems - the tax code, health coverage, pension plans, worker training - were created for the world of yesterday, not tomorrow.We will transform these systems so that all citizens are equipped, prepared - and thus truly free - to make your own choices and pursue your own dreams.
My plan begins with providing the security and opportunity of a growing economy. We now compete in a global market that provides new buyers for our goods, but new competition for our workers. To create more jobs in America, America must be the best place in the world to do business. To create jobs, my plan will encourage investment and expansion by restraining federal spending, reducing regulation and making tax relief permanent. To create jobs, we will make our country less dependent on foreign sources of energy. To create jobs, we will expand trade and level the playing field to sell American goods and services across the globe. And we must protect small business owners and workers from the explosion of frivolous lawsuits that threaten jobs across America.
Another drag on our economy is the current tax code, which is a complicated mess - filled with special interest loopholes, saddling our people with more than six billion hours of paperwork and headache every year. The American people deserve - and our economic future demands __ a simpler, fairer, pro-growth system. In a new term, I will lead a bipartisan effort to reform and simplify the federal tax code.
Another priority in a new term will be to help workers take advantage of the expanding economy to find better, higher-paying jobs. In this time of change, many workers want to go back to school to learn different or higher-level skills. So we will double the number of people served by our principal job training program and increase funding for community colleges. I know that with the right skills, American workers can compete with anyone, anywhere in the world.
In this time of change, opportunity in some communities is more distant than in others. To stand with workers in poor communities - and those that have lost manufacturing, textile and other jobs - we will create American opportunity zones. In these areas, we'll provide tax relief and other incentives to attract new business and improve housing and job training to bring hope and work throughout all of America.
As I've traveled the country, I've met many workers and small business owners who have told me they are worried they cannot afford health care. More than half of the uninsured are small business employees and their families. In a new term, we must allow small firms to join together to purchase insurance at the discounts available to big companies. We will offer a tax credit to encourage small businesses and their employees to set up health savings accounts, and provide direct help for low-income Americans to purchase them. These accounts give workers the security of insurance against major illness, the opportunity to save tax-free for routine health expenses and the freedom of knowing you can take your account with you whenever you change jobs. And we will provide low-income Americans with better access to health care: In a new term, I will ensure every poor county in America has a community or rural health center.
As I have traveled our country, I have met too many good doctors, especially ob-gyn, who are being forced out of practice because of the high cost of lawsuits. To make health care more affordable and accessible, we must pass medical liability reform now. And in all we do to improve health care in America, we will make sure that health decisions are made by doctors and patients, not by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.
In this time of change, government must take the side of working families. In a new term, we will change outdated labor laws to offer comp time and flex time. Our laws should never stand in the way of a more family friendly workplace.
Another priority for a new term is to build an ownership society, because ownership brings security, and dignity and independence.
Thanks to our policies, homeownership in America is at an all-time high. Tonight we set a new goal: seven million more affordable homes in the next 10 years so more American families will be able to open the door and say "Welcome to my home."
In an ownership society, more people will own their health plans and have the confidence of owning a piece of their retirement. We will always keep the promise of Social Security for our older workers. With the huge Baby Boom generation approaching retirement, many of our children and grandchildren understandably worry whether Social Security will be there when they need it. We must strengthen Social Security by allowing younger workers to save some of their taxes in a personal account - a nest egg you can call your own and government can never take away.
In all these proposals, we seek to provide not just a government program, but a path - a path to greater opportunity, more freedom and more control over your own life.
This path begins with our youngest Americans. To build a more hopeful America, we must help our children reach as far as their vision and character can take them. Tonight, I remind every parent and every teacher, I say to every child: No matter what your circumstance, no matter where you live - your school will be the path to the promise of America.
We are transforming our schools by raising standards and focusing on results. We are insisting on accountability, empowering parents and teachers and making sure that local people are in charge of their schools. By testing every child, we are identifying those who need help - and we're providing a record level of funding to get them that help. In northeast Georgia, Gainesville Elementary School is mostly Hispanic and 90 percent poor - and this year 90 percent of its students passed state tests in reading and math. The principal expresses the philosophy of his school this way: "We don't focus on what we can't do at this school; we focus on what we can do. We do whatever it takes to get kids across the finish line." This principal is challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations, and that is the spirit of our education reform and the commitment of our country: No dejaremos a ningun nino atras. We will leave no child behind.
We are making progress - and there is more to do. In this time of change, most new jobs are filled by people with at least two years of college, yet only about one in four students gets there. In our high schools, we will fund early intervention programs to help students at risk. We will place a new focus on math and science. As we make progress, we will require a rigorous exam before graduation. By raising performance in our high schools, and expanding Pell grants for low and middle income families, we will help more Americans start their career with a college diploma.
America's children must also have a healthy start in life. In a new term, we will lead an aggressive effort to enroll millions of poor children who are eligible but not signed up for the government's health insurance programs. We will not allow a lack of attention, or information, to stand between these children and the health care they need.
Anyone who wants more details on my agenda can find them online. The web address is not very imaginative, but it's easy to remember: GeorgeWBush.com.
These changing times can be exciting times of expanded opportunity. And here, you face a choice. My opponent's policies are dramatically different from ours. Senator Kerry opposed Medicare reform and health savings accounts. After supporting my education reforms, he now wants to dilute them. He opposes legal and medical liability reform. He opposed reducing the marriage penalty, opposed doubling the child credit and opposed lowering income taxes for all who pay them. To be fair, there are some things my opponent is for - he's proposed more than two trillion dollars in new federal spending so far, and that's a lot, even for a senator from Massachusetts. To pay for that spending, he is running on a platform of increasing taxes - and that's the kind of promise a politician usually keeps.
His policies of tax and spend - of expanding government rather than expanding opportunity - are the policies of the past. We are on the path to the future - and we are not turning back.
In this world of change, some things do not change: the values we try to live by, the institutions that give our lives meaning and purpose. Our society rests on a foundation of responsibility and character and family commitment.
Because family and work are sources of stability and dignity, I support welfare reform that strengthens family and requires work. Because a caring society will value its weakest members, we must make a place for the unborn child. Because religious charities provide a safety net of mercy and compassion, our government must never discriminate against them. Because the union of a man and woman deserves an honored place in our society, I support the protection of marriage against activist judges. And I will continue to appoint federal judges who know the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law.
My opponent recently announced that he is the candidate of "conservative values," which must have come as a surprise to a lot of his supporters. Now, there are some problems with this claim. If you say the heart and soul of America is found in Hollywood, I'm afraid you are not the candidate of conservative values. If you voted against the bipartisan Defense of Marriage Act, which President Clinton signed, you are not the candidate of conservative values. If you gave a speech, as my opponent did, calling the Reagan presidency eight years of "moral darkness," then you may be a lot of things, but the candidate of conservative values is not one of them.
This election will also determine how America responds to the continuing danger of terrorism - and you know where I stand. Three days after September 11th, I stood where Americans died, in the ruins of the Twin Towers. Workers in hard hats were shouting to me, "Whatever it takes." A fellow grabbed me by the arm and he said, "Do not let me down." Since that day, I wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America - whatever it takes.
So we have fought the terrorists across the earth - not for pride, not for power, but because the lives of our citizens are at stake. Our strategy is clear. We have tripled funding for homeland security and trained half a million first responders, because we are determined to protect our homeland. We are transforming our military and reforming and strengthening our intelligence services. We are staying on the offensive - striking terrorists abroad - so we do not have to face them here at home. And we are working to advance liberty in the broader Middle East, because freedom will bring a future of hope, and the peace we all want. And we will prevail.
Our strategy is succeeding. Four years ago, Afghanistan was the home base of al-Qaida, Pakistan was a transit point for terrorist groups, Saudi Arabia was fertile ground for terrorist fund-raising, Libya was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, Iraq was a gathering threat, and al-Qaida was largely unchallenged as it planned attacks. Today, the government of a free Afghanistan is fighting terror, Pakistan is capturing terrorist leaders, Saudi Arabia is making raids and arrests, Libya is dismantling its weapons programs, the army of a free Iraq is fighting for freedom, and more than three-quarters of al-Qaida's key members and associates have been detained or killed. We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer.
This progress involved careful diplomacy, clear moral purpose, and some tough decisions. And the toughest came on Iraq. We knew Saddam Hussein's record of aggression and support for terror. We knew his long history of pursuing, even using, weapons of mass destruction. And we know that Sept. 11th requires our country to think differently: We must, and we will, confront threats to America before it is too late.
In Saddam Hussein, we saw a threat. Members of both political parties, including my opponent and his running mate, saw the threat, and voted to authorize the use of force. We went to the United Nations Security Council, which passed a unanimous resolution demanding the dictator disarm, or face serious consequences. Leaders in the Middle East urged him to comply. After more than a decade of diplomacy, we gave Saddam Hussein another chance, a final chance, to meet his responsibilities to the civilized world. He again refused, and I faced the kind of decision that comes only to the Oval Office - a decision no president would ask for, but must be prepared to make. Do I forget the lessons of Sept. 11th and take the word of a madman, or do I take action to defend our country? Faced with that choice, I will defend America every time.
Because we acted to defend our country, the murderous regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban are history, more than 50 million people have been liberated, and democracy is coming to the broader Middle East. In Afghanistan, terrorists have done everything they can to intimidate people - yet more than 10 million citizens have registered to vote in the October presidential election - a resounding endorsement of democracy. Despite ongoing acts of violence, Iraq now has a strong prime minister, a national council, and national elections are scheduled for January.
Our nation is standing with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, because when America gives its word, America must keep its word. As importantly, we are serving a vital and historic cause that will make our country safer. Free societies in the Middle East will be hopeful societies, which no longer feed resentments and breed violence for export. Free governments in the Middle East will fight terrorists instead of harboring them, and that helps us keep the peace. So our mission in Afghanistan and Iraq is clear: We will help new leaders to train their armies, and move toward elections, and get on the path of stability and democracy as quickly as possible. And then our troops will return home with the honor they have earned.
Our troops know the historic importance of our work. One Army Specialist wrote home: "We are transforming a once sick society into a hopeful place ... The various terrorist enemies we are facing in Iraq," he continued, "are really aiming at you back in the United States. This is a test of will for our country. We soldiers of yours are doing great and scoring victories in confronting the evil terrorists."
That young man is right - our men and women in uniform are doing a superb job for America. Tonight I want to speak to all of them - and to their families: You are involved in a struggle of historic proportion. Because of your service and sacrifice, we are defeating the terrorists where they live and plan and making America safer. Because of you, women in Afghanistan are no longer shot in a sports stadium. Because of you, the people of Iraq no longer fear being executed and left in mass graves. Because of you, the world is more just and will be more peaceful. We owe you our thanks, and we owe you something more. We will give you all the resources, all the tools, and all the support you need for victory.
Again, my opponent and I have different approaches. I proposed, and the Congress overwhelmingly passed, $87 billion in funding needed by our troops doing battle in Afghanistan and Iraq. My opponent and his running mate voted against this money for bullets, and fuel, and vehicles, and body armor. When asked to explain his vote, the Senator said, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." Then he said he was "proud" of that vote. Then, when pressed, he said it was a "complicated" matter. There is nothing complicated about supporting our troops in combat.
Our allies also know the historic importance of our work. About 40 nations stand beside us in Afghanistan, and some 30 in Iraq. And I deeply appreciate the courage and wise counsel of leaders like Prime Minister Howard, and President Kwasniewski, and Prime Minister Berlusconi - and, of course, Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Again, my opponent takes a different approach. In the midst of war, he has called America's allies, quote, a "coalition of the coerced and the bribed." That would be nations like Great Britain, Poland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, El Salvador, Australia, and others - allies that deserve the respect of all Americans, not the scorn of a politician. I respect every soldier, from every country, who serves beside us in the hard work of history. America is grateful, and America will not forget.
The people we have freed won't forget either. Not long ago, seven Iraqi men came to see me in the Oval Office. They had "X"s branded into their foreheads, and their right hands had been cut off, by Saddam Hussein's secret police, the sadistic punishment for imaginary crimes. During our emotional visit one of the Iraqi men used his new prosthetic hand to slowly write out, in Arabic, a prayer for God to bless America. I am proud that our country remains the hope of the oppressed, and the greatest force for good on this earth.
Others understand the historic importance of our work. The terrorists know. They know that a vibrant, successful democracy at the heart of the Middle East will discredit their radical ideology of hate. They know that men and women with hope, and purpose, and dignity do not strap bombs on their bodies and kill the innocent. The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear - and they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march.
I believe in the transformational power of liberty: The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom. As the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq seize the moment, their example will send a message of hope throughout a vital region. Palestinians will hear the message that democracy and reform are within their reach, and so is peace with our good friend Israel. Young women across the Middle East will hear the message that their day of equality and justice is coming. Young men will hear the message that national progress and dignity are found in liberty, not tyranny and terror. Reformers, and political prisoners, and exiles will hear the message that their dream of freedom cannot be denied forever. And as freedom advances - heart by heart, and nation by nation - America will be more secure and the world more peaceful.
America has done this kind of work before - and there have always been doubters. In 1946, 18 months after the fall of Berlin to allied forces, a journalist wrote in the New York Times, "Germany is ... a land in an acute stage of economic, political and moral crisis. European capitals are frightened. In every military headquarters, one meets alarmed officials doing their utmost to deal with the consequences of the occupation policy that they admit has failed." End quote. Maybe that same person's still around, writing editorials. Fortunately, we had a resolute president named Truman, who with the American people persevered, knowing that a new democracy at the center of Europe would lead to stability and peace. And because that generation of Americans held firm in the cause of liberty, we live in a better and safer world today.
The progress we and our friends and allies seek in the broader Middle East will not come easily, or all at once. Yet Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of liberty to transform lives and nations. That power brought settlers on perilous journeys, inspired colonies to rebellion, ended the sin of slavery, and set our Nation against the tyrannies of the 20th century. We were honored to aid the rise of democracy in Germany and Japan and Nicaragua and Central Europe and the Baltics - and that noble story goes on. I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century. I believe that millions in the Middle East plead in silence for their liberty. I believe that given the chance, they will embrace the most honorable form of government ever devised by man. I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the Almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world.
This moment in the life of our country will be remembered. Generations will know if we kept our faith and kept our word. Generations will know if we seized this moment, and used it to build a future of safety and peace. The freedom of many, and the future security of our Nation, now depend on us. And tonight, my fellow Americans, I ask you to stand with me.
In the last four years, you and I have come to know each other. Even when we don't agree, at least you know what I believe and where I stand. You may have noticed I have a few flaws, too. People sometimes have to correct my English - I knew I had a problem when Arnold Schwarzenegger started doing it. Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called "walking." Now and then I come across as a little too blunt - and for that we can all thank the white-haired lady sitting right up there.
One thing I have learned about the presidency is that whatever shortcomings you have, people are going to notice them - and whatever strengths you have, you're going to need them. These four years have brought moments I could not foresee and will not forget. I have tried to comfort Americans who lost the most on Sept. 11th - people who showed me a picture or told me a story, so I would know how much was taken from them. I have learned first-hand that ordering Americans into battle is the hardest decision, even when it is right. I have returned the salute of wounded soldiers, some with a very tough road ahead, who say they were just doing their job. I've held the children of the fallen, who are told their dad or mom is a hero, but would rather just have their dad or mom.
And I have met with parents and wives and husbands who have received a folded flag, and said a final goodbye to a soldier they loved. I am awed that so many have used those meetings to say that I am in their prayers - to offer encouragement to me. Where does strength like that come from? How can people so burdened with sorrow also feel such pride? It is because they know their loved one was last seen doing good. Because they know that liberty was precious to the one they lost. And in those military families, I have seen the character of a great nation: decent, and idealistic, and strong.
The world saw that spirit three miles from here, when the people of this city faced peril together, and lifted a flag over the ruins, and defied the enemy with their courage. My fellow Americans, for as long as our country stands, people will look to the resurrection of New York City and they will say: Here buildings fell, and here a nation rose.
We see America's character in our military, which finds a way or makes one. We see it in our veterans, who are supporting military families in their days of worry. We see it in our young people, who have found heroes once again. We see that character in workers and entrepreneurs, who are renewing our economy with their effort and optimism. And all of this has confirmed one belief beyond doubt: Having come this far, our tested and confident Nation can achieve anything.
To everything we know there is a season - a time for sadness, a time for struggle, a time for rebuilding. And now we have reached a time for hope. This young century will be liberty's century. By promoting liberty abroad, we will build a safer world. By encouraging liberty at home, we will build a more hopeful America. Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom. This is the everlasting dream of America - and tonight, in this place, that dream is renewed. Now we go forward - grateful for our freedom, faithful to our cause, and confident in the future of the greatest nation on earth.
God bless you, and may God continue to bless America.
-------- ENERGY
-------- alternative energy
Demand Fuels Pacific Northwest Solar Power Market
September 2, 2004
PORTLAND, Oregon, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2004/2004-09-02-09.asp#anchor7
Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is expanding its green power program in a way that will support greater development of solar power in the Pacific Northwest.
PSE offers its customers the option of buying electricity produced from renewable sources, such as the wind and the sun, through its green power program.
In response to the overall growth of this program and interest by customers in solar power, PSE contracted with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation to purchase a larger amount of its Green Tags generated by small solar electric installations throughout the region.
The Bonneville Environmental Foundation, through its Northwest Solar Cooperative, will utilize the funds generated by PSE's increased commitment to support the local development of even more solar electricity generating locations.
"Our request for additional Green Tags is a testament to the commitment and values of our green power customers," said Mike Richardson, PSE's manager of renewable programs.
"Participation in our green power program is up more than 50 percent over last year, and customers continue to sign up at a pace of several hundred per week," Richardson said.
Rob Harmon, Bonneville Environmental Foundation's vice president for renewable programs, said, "Already our largest purchaser of Green Tags from solar power facilities, PSE's dedication to this program will help us support existing and future systems for years to come.
"Today, this additional commitment will allow us to support another 75 kilowatts of solar power in the Pacific Northwest," said Harmon, "making this the largest solar program in the region supported entirely by utility customers' voluntary participation in a green power program."
Puget Sound Energy is Washington state's largest energy utility. The utility's green power program has more than 13,000 customers helping to generate approximately 4 million kilowatts hours every month of renewable energy for the Northwest grid.
The Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF), a non-profit organization, was established in 1998 to restore watershed ecosystems and further the development and use of new renewable energy resources. Through revenues generated from the sales of green power products, BEF funds projects that restore damaged watersheds and supports new renewable energy projects from solar, wind and biomass.
BEF pioneered the sale of Green Tags in 2000 and has helped establish national standards for their certification and trading.
-------- energy
Coal, nukes cheapest power option for Ontario, says study
By Ottawa Business Journal
Thu, Sep 2, 2004
http://www.ottawabusinessjournal.com/281355057969986.php
Coal-fired and nuclear generating stations are the least expensive option for meeting Ontario's future energy needs, says an independent study of various sources of electrical power.
The study by the Canadian Energy Research Institute concludes that gas-fired plants are "an unattractive option" if natural gas prices remain high. The study, commissioned by the Canadian Nuclear Association, looked at the need for new "baseload" generating capacity, plants that produce power around the clock.
CERI estimated Ontario will need 24,000 MW of new generating capacity by 2020.
The study ranked coal as the lowest cost option, but warned that potential emissions charges could increase the cost of both coal and gas-fired plants. Older CANDU-6 nuclear reactors ranked mid-pack to most expensive, while new generation ARC-700 nuclear technology can be competitive with coal plants.
The study did not consider non-renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar power, since they operate on an intermittent basis and are not considered a reliable source of baseload generating capacity.
-------- OTHER
-------- health
Cancer herbal remedy from Peter Sears (w/ prostate cancer)
Black Salve An herbal food supplement formula Can-X Inc. health alternatives
Each tablet contains Red Clover Bloodroot Galangal Sheep Sorrel
1-4 tablets with food daily no US RDA has been established
-------- ACTIVISTS
Demonstrations Jobs, Economy Focus of 2 Big Protests
Police Report Few Arrests After a Chaotic Tuesday
By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 2, 2004; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53534-2004Sep1.html
NEW YORK, Sept. 1 -- Demonstrations and protests bubbled up around New York again Wednesday, as thousands of people formed a symbolic unemployment line extending 3 1/2 miles from Wall Street to within yards of the Republican National Convention.
Another 40,000 or so union workers, from subway motormen to teachers to electricians and steelworkers, stretched for seven blocks on Eighth Avenue just south of Madison Square Garden to protest President Bush's labor and economic policies. Speakers complained that more than a million jobs have been lost under Bush and that real income has declined.
"I'm kind of insulted that George Bush would come here for a convention," said Kenny Bowers, a thickly muscled bus cleaner from Staten Island and a member of the transit workers' union. "He comes here to make his political points, but the rest of the time he's for the big corporations, not the little man."
The National Organization for Women, meanwhile, held one of the few legal rallies in Central Park Wednesday night, attracting more than 3,000 people.
And once again, a few protesters penetrated the seemingly ironclad perimeter at Madison Square Garden and raised a voice of protest inside. A dozen activists with ACT UP/New York got onto the floor of the convention, pulled off their shirts and began blowing whistles and chanting anti-Bush slogans. They unfurled a banner reading "Bush Global AIDS Liar" during a speech by White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., even as security officers descended and hauled them off the floor and arrested them.
In all, police reported 17 arrests by 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Still, it remained far calmer than the storm of protests that swept Manhattan on Tuesday. Police made 1,187 arrests as roving bands of protesters -- most of whom considered themselves anarchists -- roved Midtown, stopping traffic and running down side streets to get near Madison Square Garden. Some demonstrators walked to the Midtown hotels, where they yelled unpleasantries at delegates. Separately, other activists conducted a "Shut Up-A-Thon" throughout the day at the headquarters of the Fox cable news network, which they see as a conservative news organization.
"Most of us regarded yesterday as a huge victory, despite the arrests," said Eric Laursen, a spokesman for the A31 coalition of anarchist groups. "Mainly, we pierced the bubble that [Mayor Michael R.] Bloomberg and [Gov. George W.] Pataki tried to put up around the Garden."
Bloomberg warned Wednesday that police would continue to arrest demonstrators who break the law. "If you want to get arrested and storm a barricade, go ahead and we'll accommodate you," Bloomberg said at a lunch for Republican delegates at the Bronx Zoo, the Associated Press reported.
Legal observers say that many of the arrests have appeared routine and justified, as demonstrators blocked traffic or tried to pass through police lines. But they said that perhaps another 300 arrests seemed arbitrary.
Among those: Police arrested more than 200 members of the War Resisters League, a pacifist group, as about 1,000 people walked north on the sidewalks from Ground Zero to Madison Square Garden. Demonstrators intended to conduct a mock "die-in" on the streets outside the convention, where they would be arrested in acts of civil disobedience.
"It's clear the police are trying to exercise very tight control," said Christopher Dunn, a senior attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union. "They often lost sight of the difference between legal and illegal activity. In the United States, you're allowed to walk on the sidewalk."
Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said officers were willing to let the demonstrators march uptown so long as they agreed to walk two abreast and not block the sidewalk with their banner. When the demonstrators began to spread across the entire sidewalk, police moved in, Browne said.
"I would concede this was not a violent group," Browne said. "But there was nothing preemptive about these arrests at all. We moved in when they broke the law."
Browne noted that Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly had congratulated organizers of the quarter-million strong Sunday protest afterward for working with authorities to ensure a peaceful rally. One of those organizers, Bill Dobbs, noted that the Republican convention has acted as a galvanizing force for activists. The city has experienced a sea of protests, concerts, theater and symposiums on the war in Iraq, on the economy and poverty -- events that have drawn collectively more than a million people.
"By coming here, Bush has sparked people to far more than just wear a button or jump into a demonstration," Dobbs said. "Bush happened to pick a city that's been a center of antiwar organizing."
Special correspondent Michelle Garcia and staff writer Mary Fitzgerald contributed to this report.
--------
Protests Continue on Final Day
September 2, 2004
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/politics/campaign/02CND-PROT.html?hp
With everything from basset hounds to banners, demonstrators continued on the final day of the Republican National Convention to protest the policies of George W. Bush hours before he accepts the party's nomination for a second term.
More than a dozen people with their dogs gathered on a hillside in Central Park for a "Dogs Against Bush" rally. "Look, we even have a permit for the park," said one of the participants, rushing up to a park official, radio in hand, who watched from the sidewalk.
In midtown, during the morning rush hour, commuters were greeted at Grand Central Station by about 100 protesters. Some of them unfurled banners to draw attention to people living with AIDS.
"Drop the bomb on AIDS, not on Iraq," the protesters chanted outside.
Several sat on the floor around the information booth inside the cavernous station, where trains and subway lines pull in to deposit thousands of commuters on work days. About one dozen people were arrested when they refused to move.
The demonstrators wore black T-shirts, some emblazoned with the words: "If Bush had AIDS what would he do?" A few wore yellow T-shirts with the words "Marshal"; their role was "to make sure that we don't block any entrances and exits so that we won't get arrested," Robert Cordero of the AIDS group Housing Works told The Associated Press.
Most of those arrested were sitting at the base of an information booth and refused to leave, said William Morange, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's director of security chief.
"Since Bush became president, we have more extreme poverty, more people with AIDS and more homeless," said Mr. Cordero, according to The A.P.
The police said today that more than 1,700 people have been arrested since last Thursday, when the anti-war and anti-Bush administration protests started.
The demonstrations have gained in momentum and number since then, especially on Tuesday when about 900 people were arrested.
Mr. Bush inspected the convention floor today, checking the podium and wandering through the seats with his wife, Laura.
Officials would like to avoid a repeat of what happened on Wednesday, when twice protesters breached the security cordon at the convention site, Madison Square Garden.
As Vice President Dick Cheney was speaking last night, a woman wearing a pink slip rushed the convention floor. She was quickly tackled and dragged out, while nearby conventiongoers covered the disturbance by raising their signs and chanting.
Also on Wednesday, 12 demonstrators from Act Up, the protest group concerned with AIDS issues, interrupted a speech by Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, to a group of Young Republicans. The protesters, who were shouting for more money to prevent the spread of AIDS, were arrested, and one was charged with assault after a scuffle.
Lawyers and protesters have complained about conditions at the detention center called Pier 57 on Manhattan's West Side.
Diane Cardwell contributed reporting for this article.
--------
APPLE'S ALMANAC
Bright Lights and Protesters for Delegates From Missouri
September 2, 2004
By R.W. APPLE Jr.
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/politics/campaign/02apple.html
Hopeless, helpless, hapless rubes who couldn't tell a bagel from a banjo: that's the average New Yorker's view of visitors from the part of the country where I grew up - the middle part, flyover country, where the vowels are as flat as the landscape. Well, not always. Not this week, for instance, and not the 57 delegates from Missouri to the Republican National Convention.
The Missourians, representing a vital swing state, have had a lively time in our town and not just because one of their number, George Engelbach, an Abraham Lincoln impersonator, has been parading around Madison Square Garden.
Like most of the other delegates, they listened avidly to Rudy and Arnold and Barbara and Jenna, and they look forward to hearing their candidate, the president, on Thursday night. But they have also been singled out to an unusual extent by protesters, on Monday at a party at Noche, a Latin American restaurant on Broadway in Midtown, and then on Tuesday at Blue Smoke, a barbecue joint near Madison Square Park.
Their bus has been blocked and pelted with eggs, and they themselves have been heckled and shouted at. "Shame! Shame! Shame!" a crowd of 30 or 40 chanted outside Blue Smoke, then did it again, with middle fingers uplifted in unison.
Were the Missourians rattled? Were they rethinking their decision to take this walk on the wild side? They were not, not that they would admit, although Blue Smoke's manager, Mark Maynard-Parisi, said he thought some were uncomfortable with the idea that people were so mad at them.
"I work in an emergency room," said Randy Jotte, 44, a physician and a City Council member from Webster Groves in the suburbs of St. Louis. "I'm used to people yelling at me." Pletcher Rogers, 72, a retired police officer from rural Sparta, commented: "They didn't bother me - I'm a veteran. We have a right to do things like that in this country. I told them, 'I appreciate you' and we went on in."
Blue Smoke's owner, Danny Meyer, is a St. Louis native and one of New York's most prominent restaurateurs (Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern et al). Having just returned from a vacation in France, he stopped by his barbecue place just in time to get the treatment from the protesters, too, and he seemed more shaken than his guests. "Not exactly the kind of thing you enjoy being subjected to," Mr. Meyer conceded.
He didn't connect all that well with the Republicans inside, either. A liberal Democrat, he searched his mind for something he had in common with these home-state customers. He didn't think he would earn many points, he told me, by discussing his youthful stint as a worker for John Anderson, the apostate Republican who ran for president as an independent in 1980.
So why has Missouri been singled out for attention from the anti-Bush forces? Several possibilities suggest themselves, like Attorney General John Ashcroft, a former Missouri governor, who is a bęte noir to civil libertarians and others on the left, and the state's Aug. 3 referendum, in which voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages - the first one passed since Massachusetts allowed such marriages.
Some of the protesters' chants referred to the new amendment.
There are a few misgivings about the Republican Party's stand on such social issues among the Missouri delegates. Arlene Hogul, 63, the executive director of Habitat for Humanity in St. Charles County, west of St. Louis, who wore gold elephant-shaped earrings to Tuesday night's session, said she thought President Bush would "be a clear winner" in Missouri in November. But Ms. Hogul added: "The things that might jam it up are the gay marriage amendment and abortion. A lot of people I know agree with him on almost everything, but not those issues."
Cindy Stein, 46, who lives in Greene County in southwest Missouri, is a supporter of same-sex marriage, although she doesn't make much noise about it. Her younger sister is a lesbian with a long-term partner.
Not by coincidence, the Bush campaign sent Jim Towey, the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, to buck up any wavering Missourians on Wednesday. "Our marriage is under attack these days," Mr. Towey said at a breakfast caucus. "It's people like you who have made the country great."
Missouri matters. As Harry S. Truman never tired of pointing out, North and South, Midwest and West intersect there. Its demographic characteristics - urban, suburban and rural, and its residents' race, age, marital status and educational level - all closely mirror those of the nation. Only once in the past century (in 1956, inexplicably) has the candidate who carried Missouri failed to win the White House.
As unruffled as his colleagues by the taunts outside Blue Smoke, Senator Christopher S. Bond praised Mr. Meyer's "good Missouri beer" and "most impressive barbecue," and expressed satisfaction about the convention, except for its unfortunate timing, which overlaps the first three days of the dove-hunting season.
As for the campaign, Mr. Bond acknowledged the loss of a lot of jobs, some of which seem to be returning, but said he thought Mr. Bush would overcome that. He said, "We love being a battleground state because it means we get to see a lot of the candidates, and I believe that the more Missouri gets to know John Kerry, the more it's going to appreciate George Bush."
It also means plenty of perks for Missourians at the convention. Ann Wagner, the chairwoman of the state party, is the co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee; as such, she has a skybox to put at her delegation's disposal. Senator Bond got a spot on the rostrum. Representative Roy Blunt, a member of the House International Affairs and Energy Committees, got a seat in Vice President Dick Cheney's box.
Four years ago, the state had 35 delegates to the Republican convention; this year, it has two-thirds more, another sign of Missouri's growing party clout.
But Missouri's most admired Republican politician is absent. Former Senator John C. Danforth, a clergyman who officiated at Ronald Reagan's funeral in June, took over as United States representative at the United Nations in July. As Senator Bond said, "He's neutered himself, as far as partisan politics is concerned, so he's out in St. Louis watching the Cardinals play ball."
--------
D.C. dragon goes down in flames
September 02, 2004
By Steve Miller
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040901-111122-7449r.htm
NEW YORK - The protest dragon that met its unfortunate end at the hands of revolutionary arsonists in front of Madison Square Garden this week had a future as bright as its green skin.
"I'm very sad about what happened to the dragon," said Adam Eidinger, a District-based activist and candidate for the District's "shadow" U.S. representative - an honorary office created to protest the District's lack of statehood. He was the overseer of the creature.
"It had been in three big protests, and we made new protest banners for the march. And it was freshly painted. It had turned from orange to green. And it was going to stay in New York after this - for more protests down the line."
At 15-feet high, the symbolic "Dragon of Self-Determination" was an imposing figure in the protests. Its huge feet slammed, and its tail thumped when it walked.
Fifteen persons were needed to handle it, from manning the public-address system to keeping it steady as it ambled through heavy crowds. It had been living in a garage in Northwest Washington.
Based on a combination of Japanese-animated dragons and the Chinese dragons that are the heart of celebrations and parades in that country, it took months and $1,000 worth of papier-mache, cardboard and wood to construct.
At the height of Sunday's march protesting the Bush administration and the arrival of delegates to the Republican National Convention, witnesses say, self-styled anarchists commandeered the 50-foot monster and used an accelerant to light it on fire.
Police arrested four persons in connection with the destruction. One of them, Yusuke Banno, was charged with inciting a riot, resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer, after an officer's hand was burned as he attempted to extinguish the blaze.
The three others have refused to give their names and remain locked up with Mr. Banno.
When the dragon was ignited, Mr. Eidinger, 30, was headed to Union Square with the dragon's voice, a public-address system, which was faltering.
Photos, video and witnesses indicate that just before the fire, several young men in black, some with black umbrellas, began to walk alongside the dragon, which spanned almost the entire width of Seventh Avenue.
"There were people who were masked up telling some of our people handling the dragon to get away, that they were taking over," said Zoe Mitchell, 24, who helped build the dragon and was part of the contingent from Washington that made the trek for this week's protests.
"We knew something weird was going on," Miss Mitchell said. "I left, I wanted to get out of there. I was down the block when I saw the smoke, and my heart sunk."
Some in the protest community speculate that police or Republican operatives set the dragon ablaze. Others point the finger at the cadre of anarchists who use organized protests to vandalize property.
One Web posting by a woman who said she was a witness gave her account: "Just past [the Garden] a group of individuals who had just put bandanas on to hide their faces, presumably to conceal their identities, circled around a green-paper prop ... with several large fabric banners to conceal the act of dousing it with an accelerant and setting it on fire."
Mr. Eidinger said the burning and loss of the dragon, although upsetting, did not diminish what he said was the significance of the march, which was to protest the president and his policies.
"I don't want to play up the burning," he said. "Who set it is unclear. People are saying the police did it; others are saying anarchists did it.
"But it was a great march and protest."
--------
Thousands Protest on Final Night of Convention in NYC
September 2, 2004
(Bloomberg)
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a3hQlimVb44s&refer=us
Sept. 2 -- Thousands of people opposed to the Iraq war and other policies of George W. Bush's administration demonstrated outside the Republican National Convention in New York before a speech by the president accepting his nomination for a second term.
Hundreds of police, many in helmets, kept protesters inside metal pens along three blocks of Eighth Avenue outside Madison Square Garden. The crowd, waving signs that included ``Bring Our Troops Home Now,'' and ``Hail to the Thief'' chanted anti-Bush slogans, blew whistles and banged drums on the closing night of the convention. Most left at 10 p.m. when their sound permit expired, only minutes before Bush began speaking.
About 1,800 people have been arrested in dozens of anti-Bush protests during the past week, mostly for disorderly conduct in demonstrations conducted without permits. Among the few violent incidents reported, the worst was a detective knocked off his motor scooter Tuesday who suffered a concussion. The largest protest took place last Sunday -- an anti-war march that organizers said drew at least 400,000 and was generally peaceful.
A force of 10,000 New York police officers, reinforced by federal agents, was assigned to handle demonstrations and protect the convention from any attempted terrorist attack.
Judge Intervenes
A New York State Supreme Court judge ordered city officials to process and release as many as 560 political demonstrators today after he was told some of the detainees had been held as long as 66 hours.
``I can no longer accept that you are trying to comply and have a procedure,'' Justice John Cataldo said. ``These people have already been the victims of a process.'' As of 4 p.m., about 190 of the detainees had been freed, according to court spokesman David Bookstaver.
Later, Cataldo imposed a contempt fine of $1,000 against the city for every protester held past 5 p.m., the Associated Press reported. Michael Cardozo, New York City's chief lawyer, said the delays in processing the detained demonstrators resulted from the 1,300 arrests made Tuesday.
``The high number of arrests was the result of concerted efforts of many groups throughout the city to stop traffic, obstruct the movement of others and interfere with the normal activities of New Yorkers,'' he said. ``The release of those individuals is unfortunate to say the least.''
Organizers
The legal clash came hours before Bush addressed the convention. Thousands of protesters gathered near the convention hall for a rally organized by the group Act Now to Stop War & End Racism.
``The Republican Party isn't what it used to be,'' said Diane Atkinson, who wore a ``Recovering Republican'' T-shirt as she waited at the site. ``They think they have all the answers, and they're out to get everyone saved and make this a Christian country.''
A sound system blared the 1989 protest anthem by the rap group Public Enemy called ``Fight the Power.'' Some in the crowd were hitting a five-foot inflatable George W. Bush doll.
About 40 pro-Bush counter-demonstrators infiltrated the demonstration zone Police led them away from the crowd and created a separate pen for them on 28th Street, where they traded insults with the anti-Bush demonstrators and chanted, ``we gave peace a chance, we got nine-eleven.''
Candlelight Vigil
One mile southeast at Union Square, several thousand anti- war demonstrators held a candlelight vigil and built a wall of flag-draped coffins. ``The Bush administration has built this war on a series of outrageous lies,'' said John Welch of New York, adding that his daughter-in-law is serving with the Army in Iraq.
Earlier, police arrested 20 demonstrators who unfurled banners saying ``America Has AIDS, The World Has AIDS, The Next President Must Lead on AIDS,'' during a rush-hour protest at New York's Grand Central Terminal on the fourth and final day of the convention.
The arrests occurred after 150 to 200 protesters led by Housing Works, a non-profit New York-based organization that provides housing to people with AIDS, sat down around the information booth at the center of the terminal, spread out two banners and released balloons into the station's vaulted concourse around 8 a.m., according to Matthew Bernardo, who runs thrift shops for the group.
Other arrests were made elsewhere in the city during the convention's last day brought the daily total to 29, said spokeswoman Madelyne Galindo. As of last night, arrests since last Thursday stood around 1,800, according to the police figures.
To contact the reporter on this story: Josh P. Hamilton in New York at jphamilton@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward DeMarco at edemarco1@bloomberg.net.
-------
------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)
------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!
-----------
Posted
without profit or payment for research and educational
purposes only,
in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107.