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NUCLEAR
Hope Creek refueling halted as worker's fingers crushed
Plutonium Headed For France Concerns Environmentalists
China open to discussions about US-led arms control initiative
China's foreign minister to visit Iran, nuclear program on agenda
Letter: Halt use of carcinogen
'Troops Left in Dark About Depleted Uranium Risks'
Britain, wary of Gulf War illness, tests health
Report: Troops Watched Al-Qaqaa Looting
Japan quake death toll reaches 39 as fresh tremor shuts nuclear reactor
Seoul urges Pyongyang to take bold step on nuclear drive
Airborne Laser faces `do-or-die' tests
British Nuclear Fuels Spends 50 Million Pounds to Foil Terror
IAEA starts third round of inspections
U.N. Nuke Report on Iran May Weaken U.S. Case, Say Diplomats
New Mexico Bars High-Level Waste From Carlsbad Salt Caverns
Bush victory keeps light green for Yucca Mountain
MILITARY
Karzai Officially Declared Winner
Karzai Vows Crackdown on Warlords, Drugs
Sudanese Troops Attack and Destroy Camp in Darfur
Liberia Disperses Warring Factions but Violence Persists in Capital
Weapons of microelectronic destruction
Don't extend GSDF's Iraq aid mission, most in poll say
EADS more than doubles net profit, raises forecasts
WMC Expects Other Mining Companies to Consider Bids
Civil Unrest Challenges China's Party Leadership
German Papers Grasping the Second Coming of Bush
EU plans mission, aid in Iraq
Hungary Joins Others in Pulling Troops From Iraq
U.S.-Led Coalition Could See Desertions
A Volley of Fire From a Fast-Moving Target
U.S. Forces Pound Parts of Fallujah
Bomber Hits Near Baghdad Airport
Stubborn Violence Shadows Buildup to Falluja Invasion
Rising Concerns About Insurgents' Weaponry
Iraqis say U.S. should talk more, shoot less
Iraq calls on 'spectators' to act
MSF aid agency ends work in Iraq
Israeli military commander of Gaza quits
Sharon Wins Approval to Fund Pullout but Is Set Back on Budget
Questions Grow About Arafat's Health and Palestinian Leaders
U.S. Grant to Aid Removal of Land Mines
NATO chief to meet with Georgian leader during visit
Planned talks with Muslims on track despite clashes
Russia Test-Launches Two Ballistic Missiles
Annan Urges Security Council to Act on Growing Violence in Sudan
U.S. Deserter Took Plea Bargain
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Fruit drink boxes contained heroin
Rebirth of the Potion That Made Val-de-Travers Famous
Arizonans spread hopes for moves against illegals
POLITICS
Congress is under pressure to raise debt ceiling
Philippine investigators to visit US to gather evidence against general
Iraqi Journalists Prepare for Front Lines in Fallujah
Boobus Americanus
How the Far Right Built a Media Empire to Manufacture Consent
More than 4,500 North Carolina votes lost
Team Bush...with a Few New Faces
Kerry Concedes, Bush Wins Presidency
Christian Evangelicals Proclaim "Now Comes the Revolution"
How the GOP Took Control of the White House
ENERGY
Concentrating Solar Power Systems Funded for Western States
OTHER
U.S. Wants No Warming Proposal
Fewer Monitors Proposed by Waste-Site Regulators
California group sues wind companies over bird deaths
Sperm Stem Cells Are Grown Outside Body
Defying Bush Administration
Flu Shots Skin Injection Might Stretch Supply of It
ACTIVISTS
Aid Group to Leave Iraq, Fearing Extreme Risk
Gimme Some Truth
Blunkett changes law to evict Commons anti-war protester
57 Arrested in San Francisco Protest
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Hope Creek refueling halted as worker's fingers crushed
Bridgeton News
November 04, 2004
http://www.nj.com/news/bridgeton/local/index.ssf?/base/news-9/109956363692140.xml
LOWER ALLOWAYS CREEK TWP. -- A worker had two of his fingers crushed early Wednesday in an accident that took place during refueling operations at the Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station here, officials said.
The accident took place at 2:56 a.m.
The worker's gloved right hand became entangled in a moving piece of equipment used to move fuel rod assemblies, officials said. Other workers saw what occurred and helped free the man's hand and refueling operations were halted.
The unidentified man was escorted out of the area by PSEG Nuclear radiation protection and site medical personnel, officials said. He was then transported to the emergency room at The Memorial Hospital of Salem County, Mannington Township, and admitted for treatment of his hand injuries.
The worker's glove received "very minor exposure" to radiation, according to Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency which oversees the operation of the nation's nuclear power plants.
Sheehan said the glove received less than 2 millirems of radiation. To put this exposure in perspective, Sheehan said the average person receive about 360 millirems of radiation from the environment each year. Nuclear industry standards say it is safe for workers to receive up to 5,000 millirems of radiation exposure per year.
Skip Sindoni, a spokesman for PSEG Nuclear, said refueling operations were halted for about 12 hours and the accident was investigated.
"Necessary controls were put in place to prevent any reoccurrence of such an incident during fuel movement," Sindoni said.
Officials did not release the identity of the man who they said was a contract worker. His condition was not available.
--------
Plutonium Headed For France Concerns Environmentalists
(AP)
11-4-2004
http://www.chiefengineer.org/content/content_display.cfm/seqnumber_content/1795.htm
PARIS - Plutonium from U.S. nuclear warheads - enough to make nearly 20 Hiroshima-style bombs - is headed for France aboard armed freighters and a new life as commercial fuel that will ultimately light American homes.
But environmentalists fearful of terrorist attacks, accidents and the fuel itself, known as MOX, want to stop the shipment - a test run for a larger post-Cold War program to help the United States and Russia disarm.
Ironically, France will reap the first benefits of the project to turn nuclear weapons-grade plutonium into MOX, a fuel used to fire nuclear reactors, as Washington and paris mend ties made prickly by differences over Iraq.
France's state-of-the-art nuclear technology is being used to help fulfill the terms of a September 2000 U.S.-Russia disarmament accord under which both countries promised to destroy 34 tons of military plutonium each.
Radioactive material has been shipped to France in the past for conversion into MOX fuel, but this is the first time weapons-grade plutonium is being used.
The U.S. portion of the project is worth $250 million to $300 million to French state-run nuclear company Areva, which will start by turning 308 pounds of plutonium into MOX, a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide.
The environmental organization Greenpeace opposes the use of MOX to run reactors, saying it becomes hotter and more radioactive than the enriched uranium used to fuel most reactors.
The weapons-grade plutonium left for France from Charleston, SC aboard the armed ships Pacific Teal and Pacific Pintail, Areva said. About 20 demonstrators waved signs and banners along the Charleston waterfront to protest the shipment.
For anti-nuclear activists, MOX presents a danger at every turn.
"What you have is material that can be used in nuclear weapons unfortunately being traded in as if you were moving bananas around," said Shaun Burnie, nuclear campaign coordinator of Greenpeace International. Security, he claimed, "is an afterthought."
The U.S. Energy Department must ship the plutonium overseas for conversion because there isn't a plant in the United States that can do it.
After unloading at the French port of Cherbourg, the plutonium will corss about 620 miles of France in an armed convoy to factories in the sough, where it will be converted into four rods of MOX.
or security reasons, neither U.S. nor Areva officials would give an expected arrival date.
The MOX is to be shipped back to the United States in early 2005 for burning at South Carolina's Catawba Nuclear Station. Special security measures will be in place for that trip, too.
After this first test run, U.S. officials plan to build a MOX factory with French help at the Savannah River nuclear site, near Aiken, SC., to dispose of the rest of the plutonium the United States agreed to destroy. Another MOX factory would be built, likely with Areva help, in Russia.
"Everyone is getting the payoff in this in that we're reducing and getting rid of dangerous material that could be used to make thousands of nuclear weapons," said Bryan Wilkes of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration in Washington.
"We're confident this material will be fully protected every step of the way," he added. The armed ships have a specialized guard force. The people that are doing this have a lot of experience doing this. They're not shipping oranges."
An alternative to using French technology would have been to bury the plutonium - a solution environmentalists also find troubling.
MOX is made only in France and Britain, with France having most of the market. Some 80 percent of France's electricity is generated by nuclear reactors - 20 of them using MOX. In the United States, there are no reactors that currently run on MOX and U.S. reactors will have to be adapted to use the fuel.
France stamped itself as a nuclear upstart in the 1960s when then-President Charles de Gualle - intent on ensuring his country's independence from the mighty U.S. military umbrella - decided to develop atomic weapons.
France's nuclear arsenal quickly became a source of contention with the United States and other Atlantic alliance partners. De Gaulle pulled France out of NATO's military wing in 1966 and shut down U.S. bases here.
However, in today's post-Cold War world, the stakes have changed and U.S. bitterness over France's opposition to the invasion of Iraq appears to be diminishing.
Greenpeace accuses the United States and France of arrogance for organizaing the plutonium trip even while pressuring other countries not to use technology or materials that could make nuclear weapons.
-------- china
China open to discussions about US-led arms control initiative
BEIJING (AFP)
Nov 04, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041104120933.g2jj1dt8.html
China said Thursday it continued to have reservations about a US-led arms control initiative but was willing to hold talks with countries involved.
China last month refused to participate in a non-proliferation drill in Japanese waters on seizing smuggled weapons, the first exercise of the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) to be held in Asia.
"We support PSI's objective of fighting terrorism, further restricting and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction ... but at the same time, we have reservations about taking relevant PSI actions that are possibly outside international law," foreign ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said.
"But we're willing to have dialogue and exchanges of views with parties concerned," Zhang added in a regular briefing.
The three-day drills, in which 19 countries took part, were aimed mostly as a signal to nearby North Korea to stop trafficking weapons.
China was seen as reluctant to take part in the activities because they targetted its longtime ally Pyongyang.
Beijing had also objected to the fact that the initiative would involve making military interceptions of shipments on the high seas or in international airspace.
US under secretary of state for arms control John Bolton called on China last month to join the efforts while accusing Beijing of also proliferating weapons.
"We have tried at various times to answer questions that China has had about PSI," said Bolton.
"We have more work to do with China, which itself is a country that engages in proliferation."
Zhang Thursday defended China's record, saying the government has stepped up measures and passed laws in recent years to stop the export of weapons of mass destruction.
"China has adopted strict measures in this area not only in terms of regulation but enforcement to ensure implementation of relevant procedures," Zhang said.
Missile proliferation has been a stumbling block in Sino-US relations and Beijing has made repeated assurances it has stepped up monitoring to prevent the trafficking of such technologies.
-----
China's foreign minister to visit Iran, nuclear program on agenda
BEIJING (AFP)
Nov 04, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041104133846.viu1jucz.html
China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing will visit Iran this week and will hold talks about its nuclear program, the foreign ministry said Thursday.
During the two-day visit beginning Saturday, Li will discuss Iran's alleged uranium enrichment program, said ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue.
Iran is coming under pressure from the United States to come clean on an alleged program to develop nuclear weapons and to suspend all activities to enrich uranium.
Iran suspended uranium enrichment in October 2003 as a confidence-building measure. But it has continued to carry out support activities such as building the centrifuges that refine the uranium despite pledges to Britain, France and Germany to halt that work.
Iran insists its program is for civilian energy purposes but the United States maintains that it hides nuclear weapons development.
"We hope this issue will be handled within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency," Zhang told a regular briefing.
China is also looking to Iran to supply natural gas to help feed its insatiable hunger for energy.
The two countries last month signed a preliminary accord under which China would buy 10 million tonnes a year of liquefied natural gas for 25 years from Iran in a deal worth 100 billion dollars.
Iran's Deputy Oil Minister Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian was quoted by Iranian media as saying the deal could eventually reach 15 to 20 million tonnes a year, taking the total value to as much as 200 billion dollars.
The memorandum of understanding also grants to Chinese oil giant Sinopec the right to exploit the Yadavaran oil field on a buy-back basis in cooperation with a major international oil company.
-------- depleted uranium
Letter: Halt use of carcinogen
Concord Journal
November 4, 2004
http://www2.townonline.com/concord/opinion/view.bg?articleid=118754
On Saturday, Nov. 6 members of Grassroots Actions for Peace will join people in Japan, Great Britain, Brussels and Italy in an International Day of Action to ban depleted uranium weapons.
What's the problem with depleted uranium weapons? Depleted uranium is a misnomer. Weapons made with depleted uranium are 60 percent as radioactive as pure uranium and equal in chemical toxicity. Depleted uranium is carcinogenic and can cause cancer. There's evidence that birth defects have increased in areas where depleted uranium was used, and in the children of British and American Gulf War veterans.
The Pentagon has covered up the known effects of uranium weapons, and not warned many soldiers about the hazards of breathing depleted uranium dust.
The U.S. lobbied successfully to stop a World Health Organization Study of depleted uranium weapons.
Three hundred tons of depleted uranium were used in the first Gulf War, mostly against tanks in the desert. It's estimated that one thousand tons have been used in the present Iraq War, much of it in urban areas. Where depleted uranium weapons are used it will continue be a contaminant forever - 4.5 billion years.
By signing the petition we are circulating, you will add your voice to a growing international movement to halt the use of these carcinogenic and toxic weapons and clean up sites contaminated with depleted uranium, like Starmet Corporation in Concord.
Carol Dwyer Main Street
-----
'Troops Left in Dark About Depleted Uranium Risks'
PA News
By Tom Whitehead,
4 Nov 2004
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3717200
More could have been done to allay soldiers' fears over exposure to depleted uranium during the first Gulf War, the Government admitted today.
But defence officials claimed there was no reliable evidence to link such exposure to ill-health.
Depleted uranium (DU) is used by British forces in anti-armour munitions and contact with dust particles has been the source of grave health concerns by some soldiers.
It has also been cited as one possible cause for so-called "Gulf War Syndrome".
A report into health lessons learnt from the 1990/91 conflict, published by the Ministry of Defence today, said there could have been better communication to put troops at ease.
The paper, The 1990-1991 Gulf Conflict: Health and Personnel Related Lessons Identified, said: "With hindsight, more could have been done to anticipate that their use might precipitate worries about ill-health and to communicate the minimal health risks more effectively.
"Some advice was available within the US chain of command, and some was passed through the UK medical chain of command into theatre, but in both cases the information arrived late and was not widely disseminated, nor adequately communicated to the front line commands before the conflict.
"This led to the situation where some UK forces potentially could have been exposed to DU dust (which is chemically toxic and weakly radioactive) during clean-up activities or unauthorised 'sight-seeing'."
But the report goes on: "However, there is no scientific or medical evidence to link DU with ill-health."
It said several independent reports had been produced and more studies were under way, but "none of this research has found widespread DU contamination sufficient to impact on the health of the general population or deployed personnel".
The Depleted Uranium Oversight Board was set up by the MoD in September 2001 to develop voluntary DU screening for veterans.
Defence officials said 350 people have been tested so far of which "only a small number" have been found to be excreting DU in their urine.
They were all involved in "friendly fire" incidents or hit by shrapnel, sources said.
A pilot study of general population urine uranium levels is now under way to establish what "normal" levels are.
Sources said "sensible precautions" are now in place to protect soldiers who may come in to contact with DU.
That includes routine training and instruction and personal dose meters for those who are in regular contact with tanks, which use DU in their shells.
-----
Britain, wary of Gulf War illness, tests health of troops returning from Iraq
(AP)
November 4, 2004
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2004/11/04/700580-ap.html
LONDON - Britain is testing the health of thousands of soldiers who fought in Iraq, defence officials said Thursday, as research into Gulf War illnesses continues.
The Ministry of Defence has commissioned specialists to survey 7,700 soldiers who took part in the March 2003 Iraq invasion. The troops have been asked to fill out detailed questionnaires on their physical and psychological health, and will be compared against a control group of 10,000 soldiers who did not take part in the invasion.
A preliminary report by the King's Centre for Military Health Research is expected in April 2005.
Officials are also studying the effects of exposure to depleted uranium, used by the U.S. and British armies in armour-piercing shells. They intend to carry out a study of 1,000 civilians in Britain to establish the normal levels of uranium in the body, providing a benchmark against which to measure troops.
The government said it is continuing research into the health of veterans of the 1990-91 Persian Gulf war, but repeated that no evidence has so far emerged of a specific illness caused by the war.
Thousands of veterans of that war, sparked by Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, have complained of suffering from Gulf War Syndrome, the collective name for a wide array of unexplained symptoms including headaches, depression, asthma and chronic fatigue.
Some veterans blame their ill-health on the potent cocktail of vaccines they were given to ward off potential Iraqi chemical and biological weapons attacks. Others allege the symptoms may be linked to exposure during the conflict to depleted uranium or organo-phosphate pesticides.
"We have always accepted that some of the 1990/1991 Gulf veterans have become ill and that many believe this ill health is unusual and related to their Gulf experience," the Ministry of Defence said in briefing notes given to journalists Thursday.
"While we acknowledge that the phrase Gulf War Syndrome has become quite widespread in popular usage, the overwhelming consensus of the scientific and medical community is that there are too many different symptoms reported for this ill health to be characterized as a syndrome in medical terms," the statement said.
Nevertheless, defence officials say there are still medical lessons to be learned from the war, and the ministry released a report Thursday detailing how procedures have now changed.
They include avoiding multiple vaccinations for troops already in the area of conflict, better information for soldiers about the anthrax vaccine and more detailed medical records.
"Inevitably, in the heat of battle there will always be some things that do not go as intended," said Armed Forces Minister Ivor Caplin, releasing the report titled The 1990-1991 Gulf Conflict: Health and Personnel Related Lessons Identified.
"The aim of this paper is not to seek to attribute blame but to identify how the Ministry of Defence can do better in future," he added.
An independent inquiry, led by retired judge Lord Lloyd of Berwick, who examined the ill health of thousands of Gulf veterans, is due to report within the next two weeks.
A report is also due to be released next week by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses.
-------- iraq / inspections
Report: Troops Watched Al-Qaqaa Looting
November 4, 2004
(AP)
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ_WEAPONS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
LOS ANGELES -- Explosives were looted from the Al-Qaqaa ammunitions site in Iraq while outnumbered U.S. soldiers assigned to guard the materials watched helplessly, soldiers told the Los Angeles Times.
About a dozen U.S. troops were guarding the sprawling facility in the weeks after the April 2003 fall of Baghdad when Iraqi looters raided the site, the newspaper quoted a group of unidentified soldiers as saying. U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen witnessed the looting and some soldiers sent messages to commanders in Baghdad requesting help, but received no reply, they said.
"It was complete chaos. It was looting like L.A. during the Rodney King riots," one officer said.
The eyewitness accounts reported by the Times are the first provided by U.S. soldiers and bolster claims that the U.S. military had failed to safeguard the powerful explosives, the newspaper said.
Iraqi officials told the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency last month that about 380 tons of high-grade explosives, a type powerful enough to detonate a nuclear weapon, had been taken from the Al-Qaqaa facility.
Soldiers who belong to two different units described how Iraqis snatched explosives from unsecured bunkers and drove off with them in pickup trucks.
The soldiers who spoke to the Times asked to remain unidentified, saying they feared retaliation from the Pentagon.
The soldiers said they could not confirm that looters took the particularly powerful explosives known as HMX and RDX. One soldier, however, said U.S. forces saw looters load trucks with bags marked "hexamine," which is a key ingredient for HMX.
One senior noncommissioned officer said troops "were running from one side of the compound to the other side, trying to kick people out" and that at least 100 vehicles were at the site waiting for the military to leave so that they could loot the munitions.
The Pentagon has offered accounts that suggest the explosives were removed before the U.S.-led invasion to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and not during the chaos following the fall of Baghdad.
A Pentagon statement last week said the removal of the explosives would have required dozens of heavy trucks moving along the same roads as U.S. combat divisions.
The missing explosives became a campaign issue with Sen. John Kerry claiming it was further evidence of the Bush administration's poor handling of the war.
Four soldiers who are members of the Germany-based 317th Support Center and the 258th Rear Area Operations Center, an Arizona-based Army National Guard unit, said the looting happened over several weeks in late April and early May 2003.
Asked about the soldiers' accounts, Pentagon spokeswoman Rose-Ann Lynch told the newspaper: "We take the report of missing munitions very seriously. And we are looking into the facts and circumstances of this incident."
-------- japan
Japan quake death toll reaches 39 as fresh tremor shuts nuclear reactor
TOKYO (AFP)
Nov 04, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041104113016.31c5d2r9.html
A strong earthquake shut down a nuclear reactor Thursday in central Japan, where the toll from an earthquake last month rose to 39, officials said.
The quake measuring 5.2 percent on the Richter scale occurred 20 kilometres (12 miles) underground in Niigata prefecture, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) northwest of Tokyo, the Meteorological Agency said.
The rice-growing region was hit by a 6.8 magnitude quake on October 23, followed by hundreds of aftershocks which have forced more than 50,000 people to abandon their homes for temporary shelters.
In the town of Tochio, 71-year-old shopowner Yokichi Tamura died at a hospital from a heart attack caused by the "stress" of 11 days in a shelter, prefectural police said.
At least 3,183 people were also injured in last month's quakes, the National Police Agency said.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said a reactor at the seaside Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant automatically shut down when Thursday's tremor hit.
The reactor was down for hours but there was no radioactive leak, a company spokesman said. Five other reactors at the plant continued operations with another reactor closed for regular check-ups.
A bullet train linking Niigata with Tokyo ground to a halt during the quake but no passengers were injured.
The Meteorological Agency warned residents to brace themselves for more strong quakes.
"They need to be on the alert at least for the coming month," said Masahiro Yamamoto, who heads the earthquakes division of the agency.
-------- korea
Seoul urges Pyongyang to take bold step on nuclear drive
SEOUL (AFP)
Nov 04, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041104041758.32ysl48r.html
South Korea is to urge North Korea to respond to the re-election of US President George W. Bush by abandoning its nuclear weapons drive, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon said Thursday.
"At the next round of six-party talks, we will strongly urge North Korea to make a bold decision concerning the issue of the uranium-enrichment programme and the dismantlement of its nuclear programmes," Ban said in testimony to the National Assembly.
He said participants in the six-party talks will press North Korea to return at an early date to the dialogue aimed at ending its nuclear weapons programme now that the US presidential election has been decided.
But the South Korean foreign minister said he had no grounds for believing North Korea was about to rejoin the talks any time soon given the fact that Pyongyang had not shifted its precondition for Washington to change its "hostile" policy toward the communist state.
South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun will meet with Bush on the sidelines of the APEC (Asia-pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in Chile later this month for coordinating policies toward North Korea and bilateral ties, he said.
Ban said Bush was expected to step up efforts to resolve the stand-off and push for an early resumption of the six-party talks as the North Korean nuclear issue emerged as a key pending issue during the US election campaign. "I expect the second Bush administration will continue with its foreign policy of giving priority to the war against terrorism and the prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," Ban said.
"However, there is a possibility that it may give more thought to securing international cooperation in light of the criticism during the election campaign (over its unilateralism)," Ban said.
Pyongyang failed to turn up for a fourth round of six-nation talks scheduled for last month, which includes the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia.
The confrontation began in October 2002 when US officials said North Korea had admitted in a bilateral meeting to pursuing a covert uranium-enrichment programme.
North Korea, however, has since denied running such a programme, and has demanded food and energy aid and diplomatic concessions in return for refreezing an older, plutonium-based nuclear arms programme.
-------- missile defense
Airborne Laser faces `do-or-die' tests
Nov. 04, 2004
The Orlando Sentinel
BY MICHAEL CABBAGE
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/nation/10097825.htm
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - (KRT) - Near the remote desert airfield where test pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, engineers are working on a high-tech missile-defense system that could make Yeager's accomplishment look modest in comparison.
A gleaming new 747 jumbo jet sits inside a cramped hangar, the revolving turret on its nose a clear sign the plane will not be hauling tourists on long-distance flights. Instead, dozens of technicians are outfitting it with a sophisticated array of lasers designed to shoot down ballistic missiles from hundreds of miles away shortly after they lift off.
Program managers insist the Airborne Laser, or ABL, "will be as revolutionary to warfare as the advent of the atomic bomb" on the day it works. A growing number of critics argue that day will never come.
Of the many pieces of the Bush administration's plans for a layered missile defense, none has proved as technically challenging as the ABL. None has fallen as chronically behind schedule or seen its estimated costs double - to $5.1 billion and rising - with so little progress. And none has been as harshly criticized.
"The program has never really had a fundamental physics and chemistry understanding of how those systems will behave under combat conditions," said Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's former director of weapons testing and evaluation. "They are way out in front of their headlights in terms of trying to deploy something in an aircraft before they really understand the technology."
Program analysts at the Pentagon interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel said they tried unsuccessfully to cancel the project every year from 1998 to 2001, only to have it kept alive by senior Defense Department officials. After the Bush administration took office, ABL was one of several programs exempted from traditional Pentagon oversight in 2002.
Although the project survived, the Pentagon's initial plans for seven planes have shrunk to one, with an order for a second jet delayed. The program was restructured in February, and a planned test facility at Edwards was put on hold. Even so, a May report by the independent Government Accountability Office continued to question not only ABL's progress and cost but also its military usefulness.
Now, eight years after the program officially began, the project is at a crossroads. It faces two critical tests during the next three months that many have characterized as "do or die." There is shrinking optimism outside the program - particularly on Capitol Hill - that the tests will succeed. If they do not, congressional sources in both parties say, the program likely will be radically scaled back or killed by the end of 2005.
"I do believe the team I've got will make this weapons system work," said Air Force Col. Ellen Pawlikowski, ABL's program director. "My personal challenge is to give the team enough resources and allow them to stay focused to do it in time to keep our decision makers satisfied."
The idea of putting a laser on an airplane to destroy missiles dates to the 1970s. An Air Force cargo jet equipped with an experimental laser system shot down an unmanned drone and Sidewinder missiles during tests that ended in 1983. Dubbed the Airborne Laser Laboratory, the project was abandoned largely because its laser was too bulky and its lethal range too short. Twenty years later, similar issues, along with a host of new ones, are dogging the ABL program.
If the ABL becomes a reality, the plane will fly figure-eight patrols at 40,000 feet near hostile countries, such as North Korea.
Six heat-detecting infrared sensors on the jet's exterior will search in all directions for telltale signs of a missile's launch or exhaust plume. When a launch is spotted, the sensors and a ranging laser atop the jet will relay the data to a tracking laser that targets a spot just below the missile's nose.
Next, another laser bounces a beam off the missile to measure the atmospheric distortion between the plane and the target. A complex set of flexible mirrors adjusts to compensate for the distortion. Then, a megawatt-class chemical version fires a three-second or so beam.
"It essentially heats up the pressurized fuel tank of the missile, causing it to burst," said Scott Fancher, ABL program manager for prime contractor Boeing.
Most of ABL's exotic technologies already have been proved in pristine, controlled laboratory conditions. But moving them out of the laboratory and into a real-world weapons system has proved to be an engineering nightmare.
Engineers still are developing the 3 million lines of incredibly complicated computer code for the software that operates the system. And six large chemical-laser modules must be seamlessly linked together to produce enough power. Just fitting all of the systems into the plane is a huge challenge.
Each of the jet's dozens of lenses and mirrors must be perfectly aligned as lasers are fired and routed throughout the aircraft. A slight misalignment not only could disable the laser but could prove catastrophic for the plane and its crew of six to eight people.
Clouds of exhaust from the chemical laser will spew from the plane's belly during flight. The exhaust contributes to a phenomenon called jitter - vibrations the jet encounters while flying and operating its systems - that makes it tough to keep the chemical laser focused on targets hundreds of miles away. Jitter is considered the biggest technical threat facing ABL.
"Unfortunately, it's one of the few risks that will be with us all the way through the program, and we've been very upfront with our supporters about that," Fancher said. "You don't know the airborne environment until you fly in it with the configured weapons system."
With no actual flight tests to measure jitter, engineers are using computer models to check their designs and minimize the problem. Models also are being employed to determine whether the chemical laser's estimated power output and range, a classified distance reportedly about 400 miles, are realistic.
Precipitation or clouds could significantly reduce that range. To increase ABL's effectiveness, engineers have discussed such far-out ideas as bouncing the laser off a mirror on a blimp to minimize atmospheric interference. Critics say those sorts of schemes show just how desperate the program has gotten.
The May report by the independent Government Accountability Office indicates many fundamental questions about the system will not be answered anytime soon.
"Predictions of the military utility of the initial ABL aircraft are still highly uncertain because these forecasts are not based on any demonstrated capability of the system but rather on modeling, simulations and analysis," the report said.
As a huge, highly visible target, ABL would require extensive protection and support by other aircraft while patrolling, at a cost as high as $92,000 per hour. The jet also must periodically return to its base for fuel, maintenance and huge quantities of chemicals needed to keep the lasers working. That means at least three planes would be required for around-the-clock protection, or an enemy could simply wait until the jet landed to launch missiles.
ABL's development costs have more than doubled from an original estimate of $2.2 billion to a projected $5.1 billion through 2009. When the program began in 1996, ABL was scheduled to shoot down its first missile by 2002 and have an operational aircraft flying by 2006. Now, the missile engagements are not likely to happen before 2006 at the earliest.
Program managers face two critical hurdles by the end of the year. The six chemical-laser modules must be linked up to generate the power needed to kill a missile. Long-delayed ground tests are scheduled for November or December.
If the laser works and checks out over a several-month period, it would be moved to ABL by the end of 2005.
Engineers already are installing the targeting lasers aboard ABL. Flight tests are planned before January to see whether the plane's beam control and fire control behave the same in the air as on the ground.
"We basically told the contractors they had to achieve those milestones or their future would be uncertain with respect to the continuation and scope of the program," said Air Force Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency. "That has been a key to why in the last several months they have made remarkable progress."
One thing seems certain: ABL will be remembered either as one of the most spectacular breakthroughs or one of the biggest boondoggles in Pentagon history. Many experts, including some in the Pentagon, have little doubt which legacy it will be.
"To my knowledge, this is one of the biggest turkeys the Defense Department has ever embarked on," said a senior Pentagon analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "There have been others, but this is way up there."
-------- terrorism
British Nuclear Fuels Spends 50 Million Pounds to Foil Terror
(Bloomberg)
Nov. 4, 2004
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000102&sid=axvXwn1xMWGY&refer=uk
-- British Nuclear Fuels Plc will spend about 50 million pounds ($92 million) this year on measures including armed police patrols to prevent terrorist attacks, a BNFL executive said.
Security guards and armed police patrols run by the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority Constabulary make up about half the cost, said Roger Howsley, BNFL's director of security, safeguards and international affairs.
The security expenditure, about the same as last year, is up from about 30 million pounds a year before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S. State-owned BNFL has built concrete walls seven meters (30 feet) thick to protect nuclear fuel plants at Sellafield, U.K., from side impacts by planes.
``BNFL has spent some 20 million pounds on physical security enhancements, including these walls which can withstand impacts by the next generation of (passenger) aircraft,'' Howsley said.
Reactor cores are amongst the ``most impenetrable structures'' on earth because they're built to protect workers from radiation and are relatively small targets for a plane to hit, he said at a conference in London on energy security.
The other three police-protected BNFL sites are Chapelcross, Capenhurst and Springfields. The UKAEA Constabulary protects those four sites, plus Harwell and Dounreay, Scotland, and escorts nuclear fuel shipments to and from the facilities. It has 600 police officers, 70 percent of whom carry firearms, Deputy Chief Constable Patrick Crossan said in an interview.
The force hasn't yet encountered a terrorist attack on a nuclear site, Crossan said. Most of the 97 reported crimes in the past year involved theft. It has an annual budget of about 27 million pounds and will be renamed the Civil Nuclear Constabulary in April.
Nuclear Liabilities
That same month, BNFL's U.K. power stations, and their future nuclear liabilities and decommissioning costs, will be transferred to the state-owned Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. BNFL will remain a commercial company seeking decommissioning or reprocessing contracts.
Terrorism experts attending the London conference, including Tamara Makarenko, a fellow at the University of St. Andrew, Scotland, said terrorists are more likely to target oil and gas installations, such as refineries, which have less protection, rather than U.K. nuclear sites.
U.K. policy papers on energy strategy, including a publication last month, said the government ``does not rule out the possibility'' of building more nuclear power stations in the future. Nuclear industry officials doubt the government will make any decision before the next general election, which is expected next year.
To contact the reporter on this story: Stephen Voss in London sev@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tim Coulter at tcoulter@bloomberg.net
-------- u.n.
IAEA starts third round of inspections
The Korea Herald
November 4, 2004
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2004/11/04/200411040022.asp
A five-member inspection team from the U.N. nuclear watchdog launched the third round of inspections in South Korea on Wednesday (November 03) related to South Korea's past nuclear material experiments.
The five-member team from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived at the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute, South Korea's main nuclear research center, in Daejeon, at around 9:20 in the morning.
This is the third round of inspections so far for the International Atomic Energy Agency since the country acknowledged in early September that its scientists extracted or enriched small amounts of plutonium and uranium, the two key ingredients of atomic bombs, in 1982 and 2000.
Officials of South Korea said the two laboratory experiments were purely scientific and isolated incidents that were unrelated to any weapons program. The inspections will carry on until Sunday during which the IAEA officials will visit a research center in Gongneung-dong in northern Seoul.
Korea's director-general of the Nuclear Bureau at the Science and Technology Ministry, Cho Chung-won, said that it will probably be the last step by the IAEA for preparation of a final report to its 35-nation board of governors, which is to meet on Nov. 25.
On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon reiterated South Korea's innocence on the experiments. The minister also expressed confidence that the IAEA would deal fairly with Korea's case so it can be settled as soon as possible.
--------
U.N. Nuke Report on Iran May Weaken U.S. Case, Say Diplomats
Reuters
By Louis Charbonneau
November 04, 2004
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=302
VIENNA, Austria - A new report on U.N. nuclear inspections in Iran may be worded in a way that undermines the U.S. case for reporting Tehran to the Security Council this month, diplomats said on Wednesday.
United Nations nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei is due to present a report next week summarizing his agency's two-year investigation of Iran's nuclear program, which Washington says is a front to develop atomic weapons.
Tehran insists its nuclear ambitions are limited to electricity generation.
"ElBaradei plans to say in his November report on Iran that the agency has so far found no evidence of diversion (to a nuclear weapons program)," said a diplomat who follows the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) probe. "But he will balance that by saying that Iran's fuel cycle activities would appear to be out of proportion with the other parts of its nuclear program," the diplomat added, referring to Iran's controversial uranium enrichment activities.
Diplomats said ElBaradei had told the Iranians he would be able to pen a positive report if there was a constructive atmosphere in their talks on Friday with European counterparts who want Tehran to freeze its enrichment program.
The IAEA report will be crucial in the U.S. push to have Iran reported to the U.N. Security Council for possible economic sanctions when the watchdog's board meets on Nov. 25.
While the agency has uncovered many previously concealed parts of Iran's nuclear program, it has found no "smoking gun" clearly proving the U.S. allegations.
Several diplomats said a statement that there was no hard proof of diversion would remove a key legal ground for reporting Iran to the Security Council but would not make it impossible.
An IAEA spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the report was still being drafted. Tehran's pursuit of enriched uranium fuel is the most controversial aspect its nuclear program because it could potentially be used to produce material for atomic weapons.
ElBaradei is trying to encourage Iran to accept an E.U. offer of peaceful nuclear technology and other political and economic incentives in exchange for an end to its enrichment program.
"ElBaradei told the Iranians that if the atmosphere in the E.U. three talks is positive, then his report on Iran will also be positive," a diplomat said. "That is quite a carrot for Iran."
Friday's talks with French, German, and British officials will be held in Paris.
If no deal is struck ahead of the Nov. 25 IAEA meeting, the E.U. is expected to support a referral to the Security Council. Diplomats in Vienna say they expect Iran will agree to a temporary suspension of enrichment soon to avoid being referred to the Security Council. However, they said a deal was unlikely to be struck at Friday's meeting.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new mexico
New Mexico Bars High-Level Waste From Carlsbad Salt Caverns
November 4, 2004
SANTA FE, New Mexico, (ENS)
http://ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2004/2004-11-04-03.asp
The state of New Mexico is setting watchmen in place to ensure that no high-level radioactive waste enters the federal government's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) at Carlsbad. The facility accepts radioactive transuranic waste from across the United States for permanent storage in the Carlsbad salt caverns deep beneath the Earth's surface.
The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) will formally reopen its Carlsbad operations office on Monday, stationing four employees there to conduct environmental monitoring of the Department of Energy's WIPP facility.
The Carlsbad office of NMED's Department of Energy Oversight Bureau has been closed since 1996 due to federal funding cuts.
"These personnel could not have started at a better time," said NMED Secretary Ron Curry. "The problems WIPP have been experiencing lately with the disposal of unapproved waste highlights the need for improved oversight of DOE's operations in Carlsbad."
Secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department Ron Curry (Photo courtesy NMED) Documents obtained by the "Albuquerque Journal" and reported Tuesday show that the DOE shipped at least 602 drums of plutonium waste to New Mexico in violation of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules.
The shipments to WIPP from the DOE's Hanford nuclear site violated an August 2003 EPA directive that said the waste should not be shipped because of questions about whether it had been properly tested. It is the second similar incident this year and the fourth since WIPP opened in 1999.
EPA and DOE officials declined to answer questions on the matter, but an internal EPA document obtained by the Journal shows that officials are considering a complete shutdown of all shipments from Hanford to WIPP.
On October 29, in a move designed to bar the disposal of high-level radioactive tank sludges at WIPP, which was permitted only for transuranic waste, Curry signed a WIPP permit modification. "This action gives New Mexico the clear authority to prevent any high-level sludge from coming to WIPP," said Curry.
NMED's actions on this issue began with an October 2003 directive from Governor Bill Richardson to address this issue. This action followed efforts by the Department of Energy to reclassify high-level wastes, possibly making them eligible for WIPP disposal.
In October, Congress approved a change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, allowing the Department of Energy to reclassify high-level radioactive waste in South Carolina as "waste incidental to reprocessing." The change trumps a 2003 federal court ruling that prohibited DOE from reclassifying high-level radioactive waste.
Curry's modification to WIPP's permit ensures that WIPP remains devoted to the disposal of transuranic waste and does not accept high-level waste.
By modifying the permit, any reclassified high-level waste, as well as tank sludge currently at DOE's Hanford, Idaho National Environmental and Engineering Laboratory (INEEL) and Savannah River facilities, will remain prohibited from WIPP disposal unless the Energy Department proves that the waste is not now and never has been high-level waste. This showing would occur through a subsequent permit modification, Curry said.
High-level waste is highly radioactive waste material that results from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, including liquid waste produced in reprocessing and any solid waste derived from the liquid that contains a combination of transuranic waste and fission products in concentrations requiring permanent isolation.
Transuranic waste stored at WIPP for permanent disposal (Photo courtesy Radiochemistry Society) Transuranic waste contains elements with an atomic number greater than that of uranium such as plutonium, americium, curium and neptunium. Some transuranic elements are used in the production of nuclear weapons, spacecraft batteries, and consumer products such as smoke detectors and soil moisture gauges. Transuranic waste includes not only the transuranic elements themselves, but also ordinary items contaminated with transuranic elements: tools, gloves, protective suits, tarpaulins, soil and sludge.
This modification was submitted to NMED by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on July 2, 2004. It was also subject to a 60-day public comment period. The permit modification signed October 29 was modified from the original DOE proposal to include a public suggestion to more clearly delineate which waste streams are prohibited.
"This is a perfect example of how the permit modification process should work," said Curry. "The public's suggestion to include a concise list of the prohibited high-level waste tanks at DOE's Hanford, INEEL and Savannah River facilities was a good one. Free and open public comment has made this a stronger permit."
"Having these oversight personnel on the ground in Carlsbad is going to benefit both NMED and the citizens of New Mexico," said Curry. "Local oversight will give New Mexicans better environmental protections. These new NMED employees will do vital work, looking over WIPP's shoulder and making sure that this operation is run safely and properly."
-------- us nuc waste
Bush victory keeps light green for Yucca Mountain
Professor: Issue was oversold as election weapon
Las Vegas Review-Journal
By STEVE TETREAULT
November 04, 2004
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Nov-04-Thu-2004/news/25173939.html
WASHINGTON -- President Bush's re-election keeps alive the federal government's effort to bury nuclear waste in Nevada, although the project still faces daunting financial and technical problems, officials said Wednesday.
Critics of the Yucca Mountain Project missed an opportunity to deliver a crushing blow when Bush defeated Democrat John Kerry on Tuesday. Kerry had campaigned in Nevada on a promise to shelve the proposed repository and study alternatives.
Project supporters, including those within the Energy Department, were breathing easier Wednesday, particularly when Bush won Nevada 50 percent to 48 percent on his way to re-election.
"The best outcome was Bush winning, and Bush winning Nevada," said an energy industry executive who said he spoke with DOE officials this week. "At the department, the sword of Damocles was lifted. There had been a cloud of uncertainty and they certainly were expecting the worst."
Former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan of Nevada said Kerry's defeat "clearly is a devastating loss for Nevada because Kerry would have put the whole program on hold and clearly Bush will accelerate it."
Energy Department officials did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment in light of the election results. They have said they want to complete a repository license application by the end of the year, although they also are evaluating their timetables in light of legal and budget setbacks this summer.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said it will be difficult to combat the project when opponents know that Nevada voted for Bush even after he recommended Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste in February 2002 and signed the declaration into law four months later.
"It's becoming increasingly more difficult when the people from the state of Nevada have just handed a mandate to the very person who has vowed to turn the state into a nuclear dump," she said.
U.S. Sen. Harry Reid's possible ascension to become the Senate's Democratic leader will be Nevada's "ace hole card," with powers to block Yucca legislation, Bryan said.
But an industry executive who asked not to be identified noted Reid already had free rein in the Senate on Yucca matters. "I don't see how much more damage he can do," he said.
Kerry stumped on his Yucca Mountain promise during his seven trips to Nevada, and Reid spotlighted the contender's stance in a television commercial that ran late in the campaign.
Exit polls showed two-thirds of voters considered Yucca Mountain important to their decision making, according to The Associated Press.
But the issue failed to be a silver bullet.
U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said Yucca Mountain helped Kerry to some extent.
"Without this issue, I think Nevada would have gone for Bush by 10 points," Ensign said. "There's no question that a Massachusetts liberal is not going to get within three points in Nevada without this issue."
Ensign said Kerry's pressure also forced Bush to promise he would abide by court rulings and decisions by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the project.
Erik Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, said Yucca Mountain was oversold as a potent election weapon.
"Bush won the state by 20,000 votes four years ago and he won the state by 20,000 votes this time," Herzik said. Democrats "tried to push (Yucca Mountain) in a big way and it just wasn't there.
"This was as clear a referendum on the issue as you can find, and Yucca lost," Herzik said.
With the dust settling on the election, the Energy Department is in the same position it was in before: striving to develop a repository that is in financial distress on Capitol Hill and lacking a radiation safety standard that was thrown out by a federal court in July, said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
"I don't think it makes things any easier for DOE," Loux said.
Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, said key lawmakers supporting Yucca Mountain are working with the Bush administration to solve a funding shortfall that might be passed during the congressional lame duck session later this month.
Hobson, chairman of the House energy and water subcommittee, said lawmakers are focusing on an amount between the $577 million DOE received last year for Yucca Mountain and $880 million the administration has requested for fiscal 2005. He would not disclose the amount.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Karzai Officially Declared Winner
Outcome of Afghanistan's Election Overshadowed by Hostage Drama
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 4, 2004; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23521-2004Nov3.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 3 -- President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday was officially declared the winner of Afghanistan's first-ever democratic presidential election more than three weeks after votes were cast, giving him a five-year mandate to try to steer this country out of a quarter-century of civil war and strife.
The announcement was made by officials of the Joint Electoral Management Body, a U.N. and Afghan agency that organized the Oct. 9 vote, after a team investigating allegations of election day voting fraud concluded that the irregularities that existed were insufficient to overturn Karzai's commanding lead.
"This was a commendable election, particularly given the challenging circumstances," an investigating panel of three foreign experts concluded. The panel acknowledged that "there were shortcomings" but said that "these concerns could not have materially affected the overall result of the election."
So Karzai, who had strong support from the Bush administration and was long considered the front-runner after being appointed as the interim leader, was officially named the winner with 55.4 percent of the vote -- an overall majority and enough to avoid a runoff. He was more than 39 percentage points ahead of his closest rival, Yonus Qanooni, his former interior and education minister.
The conclusion to the election, however, was overshadowed by the ongoing drama over three foreign U.N. election workers kidnapped last Thursday by insurgents linked to the ousted Taliban government. It was the first such kidnapping of foreigners in the capital, Kabul, and immediately raised fears that militants might be adopting a technique used by insurgents in Iraq.
The kidnappers had originally threatened to kill the hostages by midday Wednesday if their demands were not met. The demands included the release of all Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners from U.S. military detention facilities here and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan. But a spokesman for the Army of Muslims, the group officials believe is holding the hostages, told news agencies that the deadline had been extended for an unspecified period and that negotiations were continuing between the group and a government mediator. The government appealed on television Wednesday night for information about the hostages.
Afghan and U.N. officials declined to discuss the details of the negotiations, but security experts said they believed that contact had been made with the hostage-takers and the Army of Muslims, a small, radical faction that broke away from the Taliban movement headed by Mohammad Omar, who is being pursued by U.S. forces.
The kidnappings of other foreigners in Afghanistan, most of them Indian and Turkish contract workers employed by a firm rebuilding a road between Kabul and Kandahar, have been resolved with the payment of ransom.
On Tuesday, Afghan religious leaders, through the Afghan Ulema Council, issued a statement saying the kidnappings "can only defame Islam and have no other result." The statement said the council "asks those who have taken these people hostage to release them."
--------
Karzai Vows Crackdown on Warlords, Drugs
November 4, 2004
By STEPHEN GRAHAM
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AFGHAN_ELECTION?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Hamid Karzai pledged Thursday to use his five-year term as Afghanistan's first elected president to crack down on warlords and the country's booming drug economy.
Accepting his victory in the historic Oct. 9 ballot, Karzai also appealed to his rivals hours after they conceded defeat despite lingering fraud allegations.
"The Afghan people have placed their trust in us, for which we are very grateful," Karzai said at his Presidential Palace, flanked by his two smiling running-mates. "It will be hard to live up to, but we will do our best."
Karzai has said smashing Afghanistan's opium and heroin smugglers will be his top priority and the key to reining in warlords resisting the feeble authority of the central government.
He has also pledged to clear his Cabinet of faction leaders who helped the United States oust the Taliban three years ago but have proved to be deadweights in office.
Asked if any warlords or figures believed to profit from drugs would survive the purge, Karzai said: "There will not be any private militia forces in Afghanistan."
"There will definitely, definitely not be any drug thing in Afghanistan," he said. "We're going to be dedicated, strong in working against that."
Election officials declared Karzai the winner Wednesday after more than three weeks of laborious counting and arguments about whether Karzai had cheated his way to victory.
Yunus Qanooni, who finished second with 16 percent compared to Karzai's 55 percent, accepted the result just hours before Karzai made his televised acceptance speech.
"For me, Afghanistan's national interests are the most important," said Qanooni, Karzai's former education minister. "If we didn't accept the result, the country would go toward a crisis."
Ethnic Hazara chieftain Mohammed Mohaqeq and ethnic Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum followed suit.
A boycott could have undermined Karzai's chances of extending his authority across a country still riven with factional and ethnic tensions, and soured the atmosphere for parliamentary elections slated for the spring.
A panel of foreign experts that examined the allegations said it found a string of irregularities, including ballot-stuffing, but said they couldn't have changed the result.
Karzai, who is to be inaugurated in early December, has vowed to accelerate the slow rebuilding of a country, shattered by war and drought, with the goal of doubling the income of ordinary Afghans by 2009.
But any attempt to focus on the economy will be complicated by the challenge of confronting warlords, drug traffickers and Taliban militants all at the same time.
The country's insecurity also has been highlighted by an ongoing hostage crisis involving three foreign election helpers.
The abductions last week have been claimed by a splinter group of the Taliban, but officials also suspect the involvement of militia leaders resisting Karzai's growing authority.
-------- africa
Sudanese Troops Attack and Destroy Camp in Darfur
Refugees Fear Relocation Campaign
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 4, 2004; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23520-2004Nov3?language=printer
AL-JEER SUREAF, Sudan, Nov. 3 -- Gripping a pair of pliers, a doctor pried a bullet from Amina Kharim's swollen and bleeding left arm. Eight hours earlier, at dawn Tuesday, she had been asleep in a shelter of grass and sticks when government soldiers and police stormed into this camp of 5,000 in South Darfur.
Residents and relief workers said the troops burned shelters, smashed water pipes, fired tear gas and beat people as they fled half-asleep from their huts. Within five hours, they said, the camp was reduced to ashes and about 100 residents were crammed into the makeshift clinic, seeking first aid for gunshot wounds, burns and bruises.
"I saw the military coming and heard some shots. Then I felt pain and saw my arm bleeding. Now, my heart is burning with anger," said Kharim, 26, gripping her arm to steady it while the doctor worked in the shade of the mud-and-straw clinic. "There was a lot of blood, and then they started burning my hut. The world is not doing enough to protect us. We are so tired. Can someone please come help us?"
With violence still raging in Darfur's 20-month conflict between African rebels and pro-government forces, aid workers and camp residents said they feared Tuesday's pre-dawn assault was the beginning of a campaign to force displaced people back to villages where they could be vulnerable to further attack by Arab militias known as the Janjaweed.
Within a few hours of the attack, camp residents said, 250 families were placed in government trucks and moved under armed guard to an area 25 miles south. And at a nearby camp, Otash, officials removed an unknown number of residents and blocked access to aid workers.
"This was not supposed to have happened. This is forced relocation," complained Brig. Gen. Festus Okonkwo, a Nigerian officer from the African Union mission in Darfur. Okonkwo's team of 19 civilian monitors and 56 protective troops is based just eight miles from here, but he said news of the attack took him completely by surprise.
"They tried to remove them and they didn't want to go, so still they bulldoze the houses. No one was aware this was happening," he said.
At the United Nations, Jan Pronk, the U.N. envoy to Sudan, said there were "strong indications that war crimes and crimes against humanity have occurred in Darfur on a large and systematic scale," according to the Associated Press." In a report to the U.N. Security Council, he accused Sudan's government of failing to "end impunity" and bring to justice the perpetrators of widespread killings, rapes, looting and village burnings.
In Washington, the State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Bush administration "stands with the international community in holding the government of the Sudan responsible for the violations and requests immediate return" of the camp residents who were moved Tuesday.
Local officials defended the assault on al-Jeer Sureaf, saying they had been asked by the Sudanese government to remove people from the camps who had been stealing food from nearby communities. Some relief workers acknowledged that outsiders had been entering the camps to receive food and medical aid intended for residents displaced by war.
"The African leaders asked us to remove these people," said Mohammed Abdel Osman, an assistant to the governor of South Darfur in the nearby city of Nyala. "We did that service for them." But officials in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, said they knew nothing about the incident and were investigating it.
Aid officials said they were puzzled by the officials' explanation, because the pre-dawn attack appeared aimed not at outside visitors but at the huts of camp residents who have fled war in other parts of Darfur. Some of those whose huts were torched Tuesday said they had escaped from villages that were attacked and burned by the Janjaweed.
As security conditions worsened, the United Nations halted food delivery operations in parts of South Darfur on Tuesday, cutting off aid to about 160,000 refugees in western Darfur. The United Nations also airlifted 88 aid workers out of South Darfur on Monday as a safety precaution.
"The space that we have for humanitarian activity is shrinking. It's a general trend downward, and it's very disturbing," said Barry Came, a spokesman for the World Food Program, a U.N. agency. "The security situation just continues to deteriorate."
The residents of al-Jeer Sureaf are among about 1.5 million Africans who live in squalid tent cities across Darfur after being driven from their farms by the fighting, which broke out in February 2003 when African tribes rebelled against the Arab-led government.
In retaliation, the United Nations says, the government has bombed villages and armed the Janjaweed militias. Tens of thousands of people have died from hunger, disease and violence; the Bush administration has described the crisis as genocide.
Worries over security have increased significantly since last month, when two aid workers from Save the Children were killed by a land mine. U.N. officials have blamed one of several African rebel groups for the attack. Tensions also increased when African Union monitors reported that 18 Sudanese of Arab origin were taken hostage while traveling on a bus last week.
Rebel groups deny setting the mines; they have also accused the Janjaweed of forcing 30 ethnic Africans from a bus on Sunday and shooting them. The African Union said it was investigating.
Pronk, of the United Nations, blamed rebels for stepping up attacks, harassing aid workers and stealing food from convoys. Some refugees said they believed the government assault here might be retaliation for stepped-up rebel actions.
"The incident of the mine is a very big concern. People who lay mines are cowards," Pronk said. "This kind of behavior has to stop because insecurity and violence [are] escalating. We are in a dilemma of increasing difficulties on the ground, increasing fighting, increasing number of people fleeing. But it's more difficult to help them because of the violence."
As camp residents here tended to their wounds and salvaged their belongings from smoldering huts, they described the ordeal that began at 3 a.m. when the troops entered their sleeping settlement. A midwife at the clinic said she had tied the beds of the maternity ward together and armed herself with knife.
Lying on a metal cot with several broken ribs, Taja Ibrahim, 28, writhed in pain and took gulps of air, her whole body heaving as she struggled to breathe. She said that the government troops had beaten her with sticks and guns but that she was too afraid of the Janjaweed to return home.
Nearby, Halima Hassan Adam, 21, cradled her newborn baby in her arms as she sat disconsolately outside their former home, now just a pile of singed straw. Her 3-year-old son's eyes still stung from the tear gas. The young mother bent down and searched the ground, hoping to save a few beans that had been crushed in the attack.
"I delivered my baby here 22 days ago," she said. "This was the only home we had. Now since yesterday, we have had no food or water. I am so scared. I am just holding my children tight and praying."
In the scorched camp, lizards scurried over charred blankets and donkeys nosed through the remains of shelters. But by dusk, women were starting to rebuild their homes, knotting vines of grass to long tree branches to make circular shelters. Meanwhile, aid workers filtered back into the community, surveying the ruins with horror.
"It makes you so angry you want to cry," said one worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It's like the government wants to get rid of people in the town and send them to the desert where they are closer to death."
Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.
--------
Liberia Disperses Warring Factions but Violence Persists in Capital
November 4, 2004
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/international/africa/04liberia.html?pagewanted=all
MONROVIA, Liberia, Nov. 3 - Liberia said it had finished dismantling its warring factions on Wednesday in an effort to end 14 years of war. Yet the announcement came against a backdrop of new violence in the capital and concerns that promises to rehabilitate ex-combatants have yet to be fulfilled.
"We have dismantled a critical component of the war machine but it will be meaningless unless we create opportunities," said Moses Jarbo, chairman of the National Disarmament Commission.
Since the United Nations disarmament program resumed in April after a disastrous start last December, more than 96,000 men, women and children have enrolled, handing in some 27,000 weapons and millions of rounds of ammunition, according to the latest United Nations statistics.
"I would like to take this moment to declare our organization, the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, officially dissolved," said Sekou Conneh, chairman of the group that took up arms in 1999 against former President Charles Taylor, setting off Liberia's second civil war since 1989.
But severe underfinancing of the rehabilitation and reintegration phase has left most ex-combatants without work and without prospects in a country with an unemployment rate estimated at 80 percent.
"The thousands of young fighters are now the responsibility of the transitional government and will look up to you for leadership," said Lewis Brown, who was foreign minister under Mr. Taylor.
The disarmament ceremony at the presidential mansion occurred against a backdrop of tighter security. Riots last week left at least 18 people dead and hundreds of properties burned to the ground, including mosques, churches and religious schools.
Ethnic tensions between the mostly Muslim Mandingos and Liberia's other, mainly Christian ethnic groups helped fuel the violence, along with mounting frustration at the dire living conditions here.
An emergency curfew has been in force in Monrovia since Friday, and security considerations prevented six West African heads of state from attending Wednesday's event.
"We knew there would be setbacks but we will not be derailed by a coalition of the unwilling," the United Nations special envoy, Jacques Klein, said in his address.
While the disarmament operation gets under way, reports are rampant of arms caches in Liberia and across its porous borders with Guinea and Ivory Coast, both potential flashpoints.
"This is a new chance for Liberia," said a former Nigerian president, Abdu Salami Abubakar, the chief mediator for the Economic Community of West African States in the Liberian peace effort. "I hope you do not blow it up."
-------- arms
Weapons of microelectronic destruction
Last of four parts In an age of global terrorism, directed energy may represent the kind of adaptive technology Defence R&D Canada needs. Find out where it might appear outside the military
11/4/2004
itbusiness.ca
by Fawzia Sheikh
http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&lid=1&sid=57221
A shoulder-fired missile threat last year forced an Israeli El Al flight from Toronto's Pearson International Airport to divert twice from its destination of Los Angeles and land in Hamilton, Ont. and then Montreal. The airline later installed an anti-missile system on some of its aircraft.
Not only does this mechanism save lives and planes, it may save airlines that are "flying on the brink of bankruptcy," argued Philip Twardawa, acting chief scientist at Defence R&D Canada-Valcartier (DRDC) in Val-Bélair, Quebec.
"If you're at an airport and you see the aircraft ahead of you knocked down out of the sky by a missile, chances are you're going to cancel your ticket. This is the type of threat becoming prevalent. Given new threats, we're adapting defensive technologies."
The agency is winding down expensive projects from the 1980s revolving around the Cold War's well-defined threat of sophisticated intercontinental ballistic missiles. Now it's focusing on attacks from underground terrorist groups using cruder weapons like improvised explosive devices -- cheap home-made bombs with a detonator activated by cell phone that Twardawa said are "bothering a lot of our military in Afghanistan and Iraq."
Scientists believe directed-energy weapons are one of the methods of choice to face off against this new threat. Laser weapons positioned on commercial aircraft that destroy the optics of heat-seeking missiles and introduce false guidance systems represent a use of directed energy devices outside of the military.
Other civilian uses can be seen in Tasers, police weapons connected to an electrical signal that shoot probes at people and that are marketed to women for self-defence.
Among this crop of weapons are also high-powered microwave devices, systems that "fry" on-board electronics of an incoming vehicle and force it to stop without harming civilians, explained Twardawa.
That said, "nothing is guaranteed. What is non-lethal for one person might be lethal for another person.
"For example, if somebody has a pacemaker in his heart, the high-powered microwave might do some damage," he said, adding aggressors may be held liable for using these weapons. (In fact, several Canadian deaths at the hands of police using Tasers have generated criticism about the supposedly non-lethal nature of the weapons.)
The government still has its fair share of fine-tuning to do, since these weapons are relatively new, Twardawa said. The Directional Infrared Countermeasures, a system protecting aircraft from heat-seeking missiles developed by Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp., is being used by both the UK and American militaries. On the market for five years, it's considered by Twardawa to be the first generation.
At home, analysts are hard-pressed to name a local company working on directed-energy weapons for the military, blaming a dearth of information about the subject here. DRDC added it's not working with contractors yet for its work in directed energy.
Not only is there still a mythology surrounding this science-fiction world of Star Trek-era phasers and ray guns, research on the weapons is highly sensitive and classified, explained Rob Huebert, assistant director, Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.
Huebert said directed-energy weapons are cloaked in secrecy because they have tremendous potential to change the notion of a deadly projectile, as high-powered beams reduce traditional problems associated with locking on to targets.
"What I've seen seems to suggest that the biggest challenge that is faced in terms of directed-energy weapons is the power source. If it's X-ray, if it's particle, whatever you're shooting through the directed energy, how do you build enough energy that it becomes meaningful?"
This is why he believes researchers are trying to cut the power requirement, though he admits it's hard to find accurate information.
The U.S., not surprisingly, invests more capital in the research and production of directed-energy weapons. But Canada is keeping its ear to the ground on advances occurring south of the border, and knows the technology also exists in "terrorist countries or countries of questionable political regimes," Twardawa explained.
Nick Papiccio, vice-president of development at Oerlikon Contraves Inc. in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., a solution provider for defence systems, doubted Canada will ever be involved in a multibillion-dollar industry of high-energy microwave or particle-beam weapons.
Canada is, however, exploring directed energy from a "tactical-operational level" to protect vehicles from bombs like rocket-propelled grenades, Papiccio said.
But the scarcity of directed-energy weapons in the armed forces is of little concern to the Canadian public, according to Howie Marsh, senior defence analyst at the Conference of Defence Associations in Ottawa.
"We're a nation of people who believe that peace comes through education and sharing wealth. We don't want to do weaponization of space. We don't want to do ballistic missile defence. I'm sure we don't want to do directed-energy weapons (to use against) either solids (equipment) or liquids (humans).
"So our directed-energy weapons will be in magnetic resonance imaging machines in hospitals, as opposed to (on) platforms on 747s flying above."
-------- asia
Don't extend GSDF's Iraq aid mission, most in poll say
Nov. 4, 2004
The Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20041104a5.htm
A majority of people surveyed Wednesday by Kyodo News said they oppose extending the Ground Self-Defense Force troops' humanitarian aid mission in Iraq beyond the Dec. 14 deadline.
Of the 1,022 randomly selected people responding to a telephone poll, 63.3 percent said the GSDF's one-year mission in the southern Iraq city of Samawah should not be extended when it expires in December, while 30.6 percent replied that the mission should be extended.
Government leaders have earlier indicated that Japan plans to extend the mission unless the local security situation deteriorates.
Earlier this week, Tokyo confirmed that a rocket fired Sunday night at the GSDF camp in Samawah damaged a structure but did not explode. The incident marks the first time an enemy weapon has caused any damage since roughly 600 GSDF troops began their mission in January.
Among people who support Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, 47.5 percent said they back extending the GSDF mission, compared with 44.2 percent who opposed the extension.
But among supporters of the LDP's ruling coalition partner, New Komeito, 49.8 percent opposed the extension of the GSDF mission, compared with 49.0 percent who supported an extension.
The poll was taken in the wake of the grisly beheading of Japanese hostage Shosei Koda by Islamic gunmen who had demanded the pullout of the GSDF troops from Iraq.
According to the survey, 58.6 percent of the respondents said it was appropriate for Koizumi to reject the demand by Koda's captors, while 35.1 percent said the decision was inappropriate.
Also, 64.2 percent of the respondents said Koizumi should rethink his position of following the U.S. policy on Iraq, compared with 31.2 percent who said Japan should continue it.
-------- business
EADS more than doubles net profit, raises forecasts
PARIS (AFP)
Nov 04, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041104112015.ru0n8cf2.html
The European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company reported Thursday that its nine-month net profit more than doubled, thanks largely to sales of Airbus aircraft, and raised its full-year forecast.
"With the good results from Airbus and a pickup in space activities we can confirm an improvement in prospects for 2004 and beyond," EADS co-chief executive Philippe Camus told reporters accompanying him on a trip to Thailand.
He said the group, which holds an 80 percent stake in Boeing's chief rival Airbus, expected operating profit to reach 2.2 billion euros (2.9 billion dollars) this year on sales of 32 billion.
EADS had previously forecast operating earnings before interest and taxation of 2.1 billion euros and sales of 31 billion.
Camus also voiced confidence in the outcome of talks with the British government on a 13-billion-pound (18.8-billion-euro, 24-billion-dollar) contract to supply the Royal Air Force with air tankers.
"Negotiations are going very positively and I am convinced we are close to a favorable conclusion," he said.
A source familiar with the matter said Wednesday discussions on the deal with a consortium led by EADS has seen "substantial elements" agreed since September, adding that a deal could be struck by late December at the earliest.
EADS earlier in the day reported net profit of 597 million euros in the first nine months of the year, up from 242 million in the same period last year, on sales that rose 16 percent to 21.5 billion euros.
At the operating level earnings before interest and taxation shot up to 1.5 billion euros from 784 million a year earlier.
Camus made it clear that the healthy performance this year was due to a stronger demand in the civil aviation sector.
"We see air traffic recovering and plan to deliver at least 315 Airbus planes this year," he said, adding that in 2005 he expected "double-digit growth" in Airbus deliveries from the 2004 figure.
Airbus in the first nine months delivered 224 planes, compared with 199 in the January-September period of 2004. The company reported 305 deliveries in
The Airbus unit, also 20 percent owned by BAE Systems of Britain, had operating profit of 1.382 billion euros in the first nine months from 701 million in the same period of 2003.
EADS said its overall orders were down 58 percent to 20.603 billion euros in the first nine months. Camus stressed that the decline reflected an exceptional performance last year, notably 20 billion euros' worth of orders for the future Airbus military aircraft, the A400M, and 21 orders for the superjumbo A380 civilian airliner.
EADS said a decline in the value of Airbus orders in the fist nine months, from 37.028 billion euros last year to 10.547 billion, was offset by an increase in orders received by the group's space and defense divisions.
Overall EADS orders in the period edged up to 179.7 billion euros from 179.3 billion in the first nine months of 2003.
In the space division, losses in the first nine months were cut to five million euros from 184 million last year. But in the third quarter the unit managed to turn a profit of six million euros.
"We will see a positive contribution from space activities this year," Camus said.
EADS shares were slightly lower in mid-morning trading here, down 0.91 percent at 22.78 euros on a generally weaker market.
Traders, who welcomed the group's financial results, said the slide reflected profit taking and a weaker dollar.
-----
WMC Expects Other Mining Companies to Consider Bids (Update3)
(Bloomberg)
Nov. 4, 2004
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000081&sid=aOBnJk_bcCe0&refer=australia
-- WMC Resources Ltd., which rejected a A$7.4 billion ($5.5 billion) approach from Xstrata Plc, is probably a target for other miners, Chief Financial Officer Bruce Brook said. It hasn't received other approaches for information.
Melbourne-based WMC Resources, the world's fifth-largest nickel metal producer, said Oct. 28 Xstrata's A$6.35-a-share cash bid was too low. The stock rose after the Australian said Xstrata may make a formal A$6.85 offer. WMC Resources hasn't received a higher bid, Brook said.
BHP Billiton or Rio Tinto Group may also try and buy WMC Resources, betting metals demand in China will continue to rise, investors and traders have said. Xstrata last year acquired Australia's M.I.M. Holdings Ltd. for $2.3 billion, while Rio in 2000 bought Melbourne-based North Ltd., also for $2.3 billion.
``Xstrata has placed in a bid at the top of the commodities cycle, and that may have caught the other miners by surprise and caused the delay in counter bids,'' said Mark Pervan, head of research at Daiwa Securities SMBC in Melbourne. ``WMC is one of the few mid-cap high quality stocks left, and it has always been a takeover target.''
The shares of WMC Resources rose 9 cents, or 1.3 percent, to A$6.94 on the Australian Stock Exchange, after rising as much as 2 percent.
WMC Resources has said the Xstrata offer doesn't reflect the potential value of its assets, and Brook today called the offer a ``steal''. The company, which gets 87 percent of its pretax profit from nickel, expects new technology will help it boost nickel production by another 25 percent.
`Great Strategic Value'
``It's now pretty clear that we're on the radar screen of every major resources company,'' Brook said in an interview in Singapore. ``We do have great strategic value.'' Other companies are ``welcome to ask for information, but they are not at this stage,'' he said.
BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto have both declined to comment on the speculation.
``We haven't and that's news to me,'' Brook said, when asked whether the company had received a formal offer of A$6.85 from Xstrata. Xstrata Copper's spokeswoman Sue Sara declined to comment on the Australian newspaper report.
WMC Resources also owns the Olympic Dam mine in South Australia, which sits atop the world's eighth-largest copper deposit. The mine may become the world's largest uranium producer if expansion plans went ahead, WMC Resources has said.
The company today said it appointed UBS AG and Citigroup Inc. as its advisers.
Copper and nickel prices this year reached their highest in more than a decade as global economic growth bolstered metals demand and depleted inventories.
-------- china
Civil Unrest Challenges China's Party Leadership
Protests Growing Larger, More Frequent, Violent
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 4, 2004; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23519-2004Nov3?language=printer
BEIJING, Nov. 3 -- As police battled to suppress deadly ethnic clashes last week in central China, tens of thousands of rice farmers fighting a dam project staged a huge protest in the western part of the country. The same day, authorities crushed a strike involving 7,000 textile workers.
A week earlier, a large crowd of retirees demanding pension payments blocked traffic for days in a city in the east; nearly a thousand workers demonstrated outside a newly privatized department store in the northeast; and police used rubber bullets and tear gas to quell a giant mob of anti-government rioters in a western city.
The string of disturbances, described by local journalists, witnesses and participants, highlights the daily challenge that civil unrest now poses to the ruling Communist Party. Despite historic economic growth that has lifted millions out of poverty, protests and riots in the world's most populous country are occurring with increasing frequency, growing in size and ending more often in violence.
This expansion of social strife has yet to shake the party's authoritarian grip on power. But the trend, evident in the government's own police statistics, has prompted alarm at the highest levels of the Chinese leadership, which has repeatedly declared social stability its top priority.
The Communist Party has indicated it is worried that these outbursts of discontent might coalesce into large-scale, organized opposition to its rule. The concern was apparent in a report by its Central Committee in September urging officials to improve governance and warning that "the life and death of the party" was at stake.
"The Soviet Union used to be the world's number one socialist country, but overnight the country broke up and political power collapsed," Vice President Zeng Qinghong wrote last month in the People's Daily, the party's flagship newspaper. "One important reason was that in their long time in power, their system of governing became rigid, their ability to govern declined, people were dissatisfied with what the officials accomplished, and the officials became seriously isolated from the masses."
There were more than 58,000 major incidents of social unrest in the country last year, about 160 per day on average, according to the party magazine Outlook. That was an increase of 15 percent over 2002 and nearly seven times the figure reported by the government just a decade ago. Another study of police statistics, by Murray Scot Tanner, a scholar at the U.S.-based Rand Corp., concluded the demonstrations were growing in size while violence, including attacks on party and state officials, was also on the rise.
"Research institutes like our center are working on this issue day and night, and so is the government," said He Zengke, executive director of the China Center for Comparative Politics and Economics in Beijing. "We all know the importance and urgency of the problem."
The incidents that erupted over the past two weeks illustrate the wide variety of factors behind this wave of unrest: tensions between the Han ethnic majority and ethnic and religious minorities such as the Muslim Hui; a widening wealth gap and persistent government corruption; the seizure of farmland for development; and layoffs associated with the transition from socialism to capitalism.
The party once blamed domestic unrest on subversives and foreign agents, but it now acknowledges that many taking part in these protests have legitimate grievances. Officials also recognize that protests are inevitable in a rapidly changing country and can serve as a safety valve for pent-up public anger.
Wang Yukai, a professor at the National School of Administration, which trains government officials, said most protesters were among the poor who have suffered in the transition to a market economy and have been unable to protect their rights through approved channels. He said the party's recent call to improve governance is an attempt to address this problem by making officials more responsive to the public and less corrupt.
But the party, under the leadership of President Hu Jintao, has ruled out democratic reform as an option, choosing instead to experiment with broadening its base and making leaders more accountable to party members. It has also adopted a carrot-and-stick approach toward protests, giving in to some demands while arresting activists and taking firm steps to prevent demonstrations from spreading.
One of the party's key weapons is the control of information; officials restrict or bar news reporting of all social unrest. But with the growing use the Internet and e-mail, widening access to overseas news media and the prevalence of cell phones and text messaging, censorship is becoming more difficult.
Word of a traffic dispute between Han and Hui villagers in central Henan province spread so quickly last week that thousands rioted before police could respond. More worrisome for the authorities, residents reported that hundreds if not thousands of Hui from other parts of China learned of the clashes by telephone and rushed to the region.
Similarly, an altercation a week earlier in the western city of Chongqing between a deliveryman and a fruit market worker attracted a crowd of thousands within hours because the worker passed himself off as a government official and threatened to use his influence to resolve the dispute. The incident sparked a riot in which residents set fire to police cars and looted government offices. Local authorities attempted to impose a news blackout, but photos and accounts of the riot quickly appeared on the Internet.
The efforts of party censors sometimes help fuel unrest by allowing rumors to fly without challenge. In Henan, residents reported hearing inflammatory and contradictory accounts of what sparked the violence. Meanwhile, in western Sichuan province, farmers who massed at the site of a proposed dam and staged one of China's largest rural protests in recent years gave differing versions about demonstrators being beaten to death by police.
Many farmers said they were among a crowd of more than 60,000 that carried the body of a colleague to a government building in Hanyuan County in protest. But Gao Qiansheng, 38, one of the farmer activists, said the body was that of a young farmer who died in a motorcycle accident on the way to the protest. He said no one was beaten to death, though at least two people were injured in a scuffle with police.
The government's response to that protest and the other recent incidents illustrates its growing sophistication at managing civil unrest.
Gao said tens of thousands of farmers whose land would be flooded by the dam were protesting the meager relocation and compensation package offered by the government. The demonstration began Wednesday at the dam site and continued until Friday, when senior local officials persuaded the farmers to return home by pledging not to begin construction until their concerns were addressed.
Meanwhile, authorities in Xianyang, a mid-sized city in Shaanxi province, succeeded in ending a labor strike that had lasted seven weeks, the longest known to have occurred in China in recent years. Police had refrained from violence at the former state textile mill, worried about sparking a riot, and chose instead to slowly identify worker activists and arrest them one by one, witnesses said. The authorities then offered partial concessions to the 7,000 workers, persuading most of them to return to the factory on Sunday.
Residents said authorities also promised concessions to defuse two large labor protests in other cities a week earlier. But the party's approach -- some officials call it "buying stability" -- sends the message that protests are the most effective way to seek redress from the government, and the more people involved the better. After the farmers protesting the dam in Sichuan disbanded, they worried that local officials were breaking their promises. On Wednesday, witnesses said, more than 10,000 protesters returned to the site.
Researchers Jin Ling, Zhang Jing and Vivian Zhang contributed to this report.
-------- europe
German Papers Grasping the Second Coming of Bush
SPIEGEL ONLINE
November 4, 2004
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,326425,00.html
Europe can hardly believe it. How could the Americans re-elect President George W. Bush? Some German papers attempt to answer that question. Others just throw up their hands in frustration.
The German press is obsessed on Thursday. Major newspapers across the country focus almost exclusively on President George W. Bush's re-election. All papers lead with the story -- here's a round-up of headlines:
Die Zeit: "Why Him Again?" Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "Bush Stays President" Sueddeutsche Zeitung: "Bush Remains President of the USA" Financial Times Deutschland: "Bush Achieves a Clear Victory over Kerry" Tageszeitung: "Oops -- They Did it Again" Die Welt: "Bush Stays in the White House" Handelsblatt: "US President Bush Strengthened Entering Second Term"
Exhaustive reporting characterized the coverage by all newspapers with most devoting at least six pages to the US election, with the relatively small-sized Tageszeitung including a 12-page dossier. The editorialists likewise focus their attention on the US with a number of clear themes emerging.
The first comes out of Germans' complete disbelief that Bush could have been re-elected. How, many are openly wondering, could this have happened? Some editorialists have an answer to that question: Germans, and indeed Europeans, just don't understand the United States. The conservative Die Welt addresses this issue in its lead editorial, entitled "The End of Wishful Thinking." Europeans, the piece argues, must jettison their desire for the United States to think and act more like the old continent. "Europeans misunderstand their Atlantic partner from time to time, especially because we can't imagine how Americans think and act in the moment of democratic decision-making." Referring also to Europe's lack of understanding for the tremendous shock caused by the Sept. 11 attacks, the paper concludes that the US should not give up on Europe. "That will be difficult for the USA, though, especially when (Europe) continues to give itself over to wishful thinking, fear of power and its anti-American obsession."
The financial daily Financial Times Deutschland echoes this same theme, pointing out that Europe's inability to understand Bush's victory, stems in large part from not understanding the role fear continues to play in American politics. "In the most powerful country in the world," it writes, "an unconscious feeling has become accepted: fear. It is only possible to explain Bush's re-election with the irrational-appearing need for security with which the majority of Americans are obsessed."
A number of papers warn that this misunderstanding could easily transform Europe's simmering anti-Bushism into outright anti-Americanism. After all, US voters have now re-elected the guy. In discussing this problem, the right-of-center Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung warns that to avoid the problem, America needs to stop trying to split Europe, and Europe needs to avoid the over-the-top moralizing it has shown in the past four years. Noting the extreme differences that split the United States and the clear geography of that separation, the paper also discusses whether we might be witnessing a culture war in America. It is shocking, it writes, to see "the degree of contempt with which Bible Belt Christians and down-home conservatives look down at their 'liberal' fellow citizens."
One paper, the left-leaning Tageszeitung, seems to have already veered down the path of anti-Americanism. While their coverage of the elections is among the most comprehensive on Thursday, it publishes a piece by Austrian author Robert Misik that is almost celebratory in its condemnation. "This election is a unilateral action," he writes. "The entire world hoped for a John F. Kerry victory, but the rednecks, the Bible-thumpers and other riff-raff from White America weren't terribly interested by that." He also points out that the majority of Americans have voted for "an intellectual midget, fanatic and dried-out alcoholic," and warns his readers that Bush voters are "the dark underside of the American dream. We should get used to seeing the true face of America in people like Private Lynndie England."
Another editorial in Thursday's TAZ can be found under the headline, "Bush Belongs in front of the War Crimes Tribunal -- Not in the White House." The piece makes a point not-uncommon in Europe -- namely that the US invasion of Iraq was undertaken against the wishes of 95 percent of the world's countries. "The lies and manipulations with which the Bush administration justified his (Iraq) policy to Congress, the US population and the world are much worse than even those of President Richard Nixon.... The prerequisites necessary for impeachment hearings have been clearly fulfilled."
An additional theme in Thursday's papers is that Bush's victory this time around was, in contrast to 2000, quite decisive. He won by 3.5 million in the popular vote, the Republican majority in the Senate was confirmed loud and clear and, most importantly, there were no drawn-out recounts. Thus, writes the Munich daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung, "the president has cleansed the stain (from 2000). ... Bush won't just be a short episode in history, rather he represents the majority (in a split country)," a position echoed by many other papers. Yet while Bush may have a strong mandate, he has to be careful what he does with it warns the financial daily Handelsblatt. "Bush's clear victory should not obscure the fact that the difficult campaign has left behind a divided country.... Bush, therefore, should rein in any triumphalism." Writing that Bush has an opportunity for a new beginning, the paper continues, "He can only dull the polarization in the US and with foreign partners if he follows the course he promised way back in 2000: to reconcile instead of to divide."
The Handelsblatt also runs a far-reaching editorial by Andrei Markovits, a professor of comparative politics at the University of Michigan, that takes a close look at Bush's meaning for the European Union. The title says it all, "European Crocodile Tears." He argues that Europe should actually be glad that Bush was re-elected. After all, the widespread anti-Americanism -- propelled by European-wide disgust with Bush -- that people in Europe feel is really the only thing uniting them at the moment. He steers clear of supporting anti-American viewpoints, but does write, "If at some point in 50 or 100 years, the statues of the most important EU founders are erected in Strasbourg or Brussels, ... George W. Bush should receive a place of honor.
Finally, the influential weekly Die Zeit weighs in with an appeal to President Bush. While arguing that Kerry's weakness was a significant factor in Bush's victory, the paper also writes, "we need to hope that Bush stops being Bush. That means: Less heavy-handed and self-righteous, with more of a tendency to listen and this in America's own interest. After all, whatever America does in the next four years, it requires reliable, helpful friends -- friends who not only want to be heard but also want respect."
----
EU plans mission, aid in Iraq
November 04, 2004
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041103-090133-2144r.htm
The European Union plans to open a mission in Iraq after the country's first free elections slated for January, to help train police, legal officials and administrators, EU foreign ministers said yesterday.
The 25-nation bloc will discuss its proposal with Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who is expected to visit Brussels tomorrow. It is part of an aid and cooperation package that includes about $38 million to help the election process, as well as the prospect of a trade agreement.
"An expert team should be sent by the end of November 2004 ... to start initial planning for a possible integrated police, rule of law and civilian administration mission, which is expected to start after the January 2005 elections," EU foreign ministers decided at a meeting earlier this week.
They said, however, that "all security concerns need to be appropriately addressed before any decision ... could be taken."
"Prime Minister Allawi's attendance at the Nov. 5 European Council will present the union with an opportunity to further deepen and broaden its political dialogue with Iraq," the ministers said in a statement.
"Iraq will be given the perspective of an agreement between the EU and Iraq to reflect the mutual interest in developing a partnership and to promote political and trade cooperation," they said.
The $38 million in aid for the elections is an addition to nearly $400 million that the European Union had pledged for Iraqi reconstruction.
Individual member states are ready to make "substantial" contributions to the financing of the U.N. Protection Force in Iraq, after a request by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the ministers also said.
U.S. officials welcomed the new initiatives.
"They are a clear indication that the EU understands the importance of Iraq and the upcoming elections," a State Department official said.
Although the ministers' decisions were taken before President Bush's re-election, both American and European officials expressed hope that the new EU plans for Iraq would help to overcome the prewar rift between Washington and some European countries.
"Europe is definitely working with us in coming up with support for Iraq, not only for the elections but for the reconstruction of Iraq," Rockwell Schnabel, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying.
Mr. Schnabel said Europe and the United States will work in a "new spirit" on trade, counterterrorism measures and security in hot spots such as the Balkans and Afghanistan.
There is even room for cooperation on climate change, despite Mr. Bush's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, he said.
"There is no question that this president is very interested in relations with Europe and recognizes also that we have some work to do to get them back to where they used to be some time ago," Mr. Schnabel said.
--------
ALLIES
Hungary Joins Others in Pulling Troops From Iraq
November 4, 2004
By JUDY DEMPSEY,
International Herald Tribune
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/international/europe/04hungary.html?pagewanted=all
BERLIN, Nov. 3 - Hungary announced Wednesday that it would withdraw its 300 troops from Iraq, becoming the latest country in United States-led coalition to bow to public pressure and prepare to bring its soldiers home.
Speaking at a ceremony for the end of military conscription, the newly appointed prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, said Hungary was obliged to stay until the Iraqi elections scheduled for January, but would withdraw the troops by March.
"To stay longer is an impossibility," said Mr. Gyurcsany (pronounced JOR-chahn-ee).
The United States had persuaded 32 countries to provide 22,000 soldiers as part of the multinational force established to stabilize postwar Iraq. But over the last few months, a number of countries have withdrawn, some citing the cost but others concerned about security, and many governments face increasing public opposition to the war.
Spain's Socialist government withdrew its 1,300 troops after it swept into power last March, reversing the commitment of the prior center-right government of Prime Minister José María Aznar. The Dominican Republic withdrew 302 soldiers, Nicaragua 115 and Honduras 370. The Philippines withdrew its 51 in July, a month early, after insurgents took hostage a Filipino truck driver working for a Saudi company. Norway withdrew 155 military engineers, keeping only 15 staff members to help NATO train and equip the Iraqi security forces.
Two large contributors to the international force - Britain, with 12,000 troops, and Italy, with more than 3,100 - have insisted they will not withdraw. But Poland, the fourth-largest contributor, with 2,400 troops, says it intends to withdraw by the end of next year, and the Netherlands, with 1,400 troops, said this week that the latest rotation of troops would be its last contribution to Iraq.
New Zealand is withdrawing its 60 engineers and Thailand said it wanted to bring home its 450 troops. Singapore has reduced its contingent to 33, from 191; Moldova has trimmed its force to 12, from 42. On Wednesday Bulgaria's Defense Ministry said it would reduce its 483 troops to 430 next month, Reuters reported.
Iraq's interim government had asked Hungary to keep its troops in the country for another year. But Peter Matyuc, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said in a statement that the government would ask Parliament on Monday to extend the troops' mandate by only three months.
"By March 31, 2005, we will bring our troops back from Iraq," Mr. Gyurcsany said. "From then on, the existence of a stable democratic and safe Iraq has to be created by different means, above all political means.''
In a letter signed in January 2003, Hungary joined ranks with Poland, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Denmark and Britain in endorsing the Bush administration's willingness to use force to disarm Iraq, a move that deepened Europe's divisions over Iraq. A ninth country, Slovakia, signed the letter later. That first letter was followed by another signed by 10 more countries.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld added to the divisions by describing those governments that opposed military intervention - notably France and Germany - as Old Europe and those who supported Washington as New Europe.
-------- iraq
U.S.-Led Coalition Could See Desertions
Nov 4, 2004
Associated Press
By WILLIAM J. KOLE
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=535&ncid=535&e=5&u=/ap/20041104/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_coalition_jitters_1
BUDAPEST, Hungary - President Bush (news - web sites)'s "coalition of the willing" in Iraq (news - web sites) isn't quite so willing any more, even though its largest members - Britain and Italy - are standing firm.
In a blow to U.S. efforts to keep countries from deserting the multinational force, Hungary said this week it won't keep troops there beyond March 31. The Czechs plan to pull out by the end of February, the Dutch soon afterward. And Japan is feeling pressure to withdraw.
There could be even more troop pullouts after Iraq holds elections in January and nations feel their obligations have ended. The United States has about 142,000 troops in Iraq.
"We should never have sent troops to Iraq. Bringing them back now is already too late," said Janos Fekete, a Budapest shopkeeper.
Key allies said this week their troops were staying. Britain said Hungary's decision would not prompt a withdrawal of its 8,500 troops, and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said his country's 3,000 troops would remain for as long as the Iraqi government wants. Berlusconi said it was part of Italy's duty in "defending democracy in the world."
Denmark said its 501 troops in the southern Iraqi city of Basra will stay as long as needed, and Romania is considering bolstering its 730-member force for the elections.
Nevertheless, Hungary's announcement that it won't keep its 300 non-combat soldiers in Iraq beyond the end of March dealt a blow to the coalition.
The ex-communist country and many of its neighbors have been steadfast in their commitment, in part out of gratitude for U.S. support during the Cold War and help in joining the European Union (news - web sites) and NATO (news - web sites). Early last year, Hungary declared it would stay in Iraq through the end of 2004 as a message to the insurgents targeting U.S.-led forces.
Hungary's new prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, says he doesn't believe in pre-emptive war and has been receptive to public calls for a withdrawal. Polls show 60 percent of Hungarians want them home now.
"The intention of our government is to bring back our troops and complete the mission," Gyurcsany said Thursday.
Parliament next week will debate his proposal to extend the troops' mandate, which expires Dec. 31, by three months. But that requires a two-thirds majority vote, and the country's main opposition party has said it will consider an extension only if the troops are given a U.N. mandate.
"Right now, we feel there are more arguments in favor of bringing the troops home," Mihaly Varga, an opposition leader and former finance minister, told The Associated Press.
If lawmakers reject the extension, which seems likely, Hungary's troops could be on their way home by New Year's Day.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher played down the threat of significant drawdowns or pullouts. The Bush administration has worked to preserve and expand the coalition since Spain withdrew its 1,300 troops this year.
"It's too early now to start predicting a mass exodus or departure," Boucher said. "There are a number of countries that have stepped up. There are number of countries going down ... We have always felt that the situation on the ground should determine how people stay and how they work."
Later Thursday, he announced that Georgia was boosting its troop deployment in Iraq, from 159 to 850, to provide security for U.N. officials.
"The United States warmly welcomes this deployment," Boucher said. "It underscores Georgia's commitment to partnership with the people of Iraq and their friends around the world in pursuit of peace, prosperity and democracy in Iraq.
For many Japanese, mourning the beheading of a 24-year-old Japanese backpacker slain by militants in Iraq, the situation is simply too dangerous.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has been beset by calls for a pullout of his country's 500 troops, with the opposition blaming his pro-U.S. policy for the slaying. Koizumi hasn't said whether the forces will extend their aid mission beyond mid-December.
Lawmakers in the Czech Republic voted Thursday to keep 100 military police in Iraq through Feb. 28, but Czech leaders have made it clear they see the Iraqi elections as a logical end to their commitment.
Bulgaria said this week it may "slightly reduce" its contingent of 480 infantry soldiers next year. The Netherlands said its 1,400 troops will finish their mission in March. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all plan to stay through June.
Dutch Defense Ministry spokesman Joop Veen said the country is pulling its troops mainly because it has paid its dues. "We think that other countries who didn't have forces in Iraq should pick up the responsibility," he said.
Portugal's 120 police in Iraq are set to end their current tour Nov. 12. The government was expected to decide Friday whether to keep them there, and Foreign Minister Antonio Monteiro hinted that it would.
"Are we going to give Iraq a chance at sovereignty, or are we going to say `no' and leave them at the mercy of people with guns?" Monteiro asked.
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A Volley of Fire From a Fast-Moving Target
November 4, 2004
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/international/middleeast/04ramadi.html
FORWARD OPERATING BASE RAMADI, Iraq, Nov. 3 - For most American soldiers and marines here, it was hard to tell which was louder: the 10 enemy rockets and mortars that rained down just before dinnertime with ear-splitting detonations that wounded two people and sent others diving to the ground, or what came next.
Less than a minute after the enemy barrage, a battery of Paladin howitzers began "counterfiring" a burst of eight shots that required the rare use of a "red bag" of propellant. This, according to the men who operate the big guns, is the largest sack of the powder, which can send a 90-pound shell out of the Paladin's 155-millimeter barrel at nearly 700 miles an hour for up to 18 miles.
The shots on Monday were so uncharacteristically loud that a group of marines who had taken cover on a second-floor barracks near where rockets and mortars had landed assumed it was another incoming enemy volley.
In fact, the blasts were being produced by Staff Sgt. Terry Cornwell and the three others in his artillery crew. Most of the time, their shots miss the attackers no matter how quickly and accurately they return fire, because the insurgents who attack this camp each day have a reliable routine.
They fire a quick volley, throw their mortar tubes and rocket launchers into the back of their truck and drive away fast - fast enough to escape before radar operators at the Ramadi base feed the attackers' coordinates, gleaned from tracking their launches, down to the Paladin crews near the edge of the base.
This day was different. "They said we got two of them," said Sergeant Cornwell, 37, of Tulsa, Okla.
For the soldiers and marines here - awaiting all-out warfare in the 30-mile corridor between Ramadi and the insurgent stronghold of Falluja - suicide car bombers, street gunfights and ambushes at traffic checkpoints are only part of the threat. On the base, they dodge mortars, rockets and an unusually talented sniper who has killed three men in the past month from hidden lairs on the western fringe of this city of 400,000.
The Americans fight back with varied success. The enemy mortar and rocket attacks are fewer and much less accurate, the soldiers believe, because of a two-pronged defense: artillery teams that immediately shower attackers with shells, and ground assault teams in armored Humvees that hide until they are radioed the location of insurgent mortarmen nearby.
Even if the mortarmen are not hurt - which is usually the case - this is because the insurgents take only the time needed to fire once or twice and make a dash for it before the retaliation. As Sgt. Anselmo De La Cruz, a 25-year-old from the Bronx who oversees one of the Paladins during a 12-hour overnight shift, put it, "They know what's coming."
As a result, the insurgents are denied vital minutes in which they could adjust fire and take deadlier aim at the base.
But the sniper, who remains at large, is another matter. Base officials and soldiers said the shooter is highly accurate and might be operating at a range of as many as 800 yards. Sergeant Cornwell said one soldier wounded by the sniper told him later that he believed he had survived only because he had just turned his head to look at something when the shot was fired. That movement, the soldier said, shifted his head out of the way and caused the sniper's bullet to puncture his upper back.
"For all this skill the guy has shooting, he had to have been trained in the military," said Specialist Michael Erkan, 20, of Oswego, N.Y. and a member of Sergeant Cornwell's crew.
Hiding in buildings on the outskirts of Ramadi, near the eastern end of the base, the sniper remains a threat for anyone who ventures out of the gate. Teams have tried to take down the sniper, so far to no avail, a base official said.
So far, the roughly 5,500 men and women of the Second Brigade Combat Team have suffered 22 fatalities since they arrived at this base two months ago. In addition to the three sniper victims, Capt. Eric L. Allton, 34, died from mortar fire. All four victims were part of the Second Battalion of the 17th Field Artillery, one of several battalions based here.
One recent morning Sergeant Floyd helped lead a team of soldiers on an ambush mission to take out mortarmen caught firing at the base. Before the mission he admonished the younger soldiers: "Hostile intent, kill them dead, O.K.? Don't try to detain them. Kill them dead. Any questions?"
The mortarmen still active around Ramadi are very good, said Capt. Andre Takacs, 29, who led the mission. "You're probably looking at military Darwinism," he said. "The guys that didn't know what they were doing are probably dead by now."
The mission yielded nothing. Yet for the crew of the Paladin that Sergeant De La Cruz and Sergeant Cornwell each command during separate 12-hour shifts, the counterfiring on Monday added up to "one of our better days," said Specialist Erkan. The most lethal day so far, he said, came a few weeks ago when mortar-bearing insurgents approached to within a few hundred yards of a gate on the other side of the base. The Paladins were ordered to unleash. "It was real gruesome," Specialist Erkan said.
Usually when the Paladin's radio crackles with the call for counterfire, the shots are aborted because commanders at another part of the base decide the fire might hit civilians or American soldiers in the field. The shells have a wide kill zone, the men say - anything in a 50-yard diameter of where it detonates will be killed instantly.
The enemy mortarmen, the soldiers say, have figured out that the Americans are unlikely to launch retaliatory shots if they set up near civilian buildings.
But this is not always the case, and it was not for the insurgents killed and wounded by the Paladin's Monday afternoon broadside, aimed at insurgents a few blocks away from a school, Sergeant Cornwell said.
"They tried to use the school as cover," he said, adding that commanders almost aborted the mission. "They were hesitant in giving us clearance, but they figured we'd hit the target."
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U.S. Forces Pound Parts of Fallujah
November 4, 2004
By ROBERT H. REID
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. forces pounded parts of Fallujah from the air and ground Thursday, targeting insurgents in a city where American forces were said to be gearing up for a major offensive.
Al-Jazeera television broadcast a threat by an unspecified armed group to strike oil installations and government buildings if Americans launch an all-out assault on Fallujah. The report was accompanied by a videotape showing about 20 armed men brandishing various weapons, including a truck-mounted machine gun.
Early Thursday, U.S. aircraft fired on several barricaded militant positions in northeast and southeastern Fallujah, the military said. Later in the day, U.S. artillery batteries fired two to three dozen 155mm shells at insurgent bastions in the city, the military said.
Insurgents and U.S. forces also clashed briefly Thursday in Ramadi, west of Fallujah, but there were no U.S. casualties, the milita