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NUCLEAR
Volga court opens inquiry into rumors of nuclear disaster
Gulf Illness forces retirement
Tumbleweeds Absorb Depleted Uranium from Arid Soil
France to Host Nuclear Fusion Project - EU Source
Nuclear waste convoy rolls toward German dump after protester's death
US says any Iran accord must end nuclear weapons
Two Issues Could Hinder Deal to Freeze Iran's Nuclear Program
Iran Says It Reached Temporary Deal on Uranium Output
UN nuclear watchdog to issue report on South Korea next week
IAEA cites South Korea for hidden nuclear activities: report
ElBaradei Warns of Radioactive Material Trafficking
TVA nuclear cleanup fund grows 44 percent
Nuclear Waste Reclassification May Be Allowed in Washington
MILITARY
Sudanese Rape Victims Find Justice Blind to Plight
French Unleash Force Against Chaos in Ivory Coast
Ivory Coast Loyalists Confront French Troops
Macedonians Defeat Bid to Block Rights for Albanian Minority
CONTRACTS AWARDED
China to accelerate nuclear power construction
With Jets and Armor, Thousands of Troops Enter Rebel-Held City
Fighting Around Fallujah Intensifies
Defense Minister Exhorts Iraqis: 'Liberate This City'
ATTACK BY JOINT FORCE
Netanyahu Reportedly Backs Down in Bout With Sharon
Palestinian Delegation Hoping to See Arafat
Palestinian Aides Try to Unravel Mystery of Arafat's Condition
LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS ON BUSH STAR WARS PLAN
Veteran Sues Over Reactivation 13 Years After Army Discharge
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
U.S. Judge Halts Military Trial of Qaeda Suspect at Guantánamo
First a terrorist, now a spy
U.S. Unprepared Despite Progress, Experts Say
Negotiators See New Hope for Intelligence Bill
Mexico to Press U.S. on Stalled Migrant Plan
Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court
Freedom for Chinese Detainees Hinges on Finding a New Homeland
Dirty hands
POLITICS
Abramoff Allies Keeping Distance
Abu Ghraib abuses tapped to theatre
The E-Vote Factor: Kerry Conceded But Did He Really Lose?
Worse Than 2000: Tuesday's Electoral Disaster
Furor Continues Over Specter Comments on Nominees
ENERGY
Utah Town Nation's First Green Power Community
OTHER
Seaweed May Have Future Use As Cleaner of DDT-Polluted Soil
Rapid Arctic Warming Brings Sea Level Rise, Extinctions
ACTIVISTS
Train Kills French Nuclear Protester
A Hidden Story Behind Sept. 11? One Man's Ad Campaign Says So
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
Volga court opens inquiry into rumors of nuclear disaster
(AFP)
Nov 8, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041108/sc_afp/russia_nuclear_041108194556
MOSCOW - A prosecutor's office in the Volga region opened an official inquiry into the origin of rumors of a nuclear disaster at a local plant that sowed panic across the region, the news agency Ria-Novosti reported on Monday.
The rumors began Friday after a technical incident at the Balakovo nuclear power plant which local authorities characterized as not serious.
As rumors of a nuclear catastrophe that cast radioactive particles into the air spread, so did the panic.
Inhabitants in towns across the region such as Penza, Saransk, Saratov and Samara rushed out to purchase iodine, and universities and companies urged people to stay inside and close their shutters.
Iodine, when taken orally, is said to prevent nuclear radiation from damaging the body's cells.
"Unidentified individuals spread misinformation about a nuclear disaster ... which not only caused panic but became a public health threat because people ingested iodine," explained Nona Guellert, with the Balakovo prosecutor's office.
According to Guellert a dozen people were hospitalized for swallowing iodine.
The nuclear plant was back to normal operations on Saturday said authorities.
-------- depleted uranium
Gulf Illness forces retirement
Mysterious disease renders Army veteran unable to keep teaching
Lars Jacoby
Nov. 8, 2004
The Arizona Republic
http://www.azcentral.com/community/chandler/articles/1108gilbertvet08Z6.html
Many veterans who served during Operation Desert Storm suffer from a variety of symptoms commonly called Persian Gulf Illness.
Several things are believed to cause the illness, including exposure to depleted uranium and oil well fires.
Shawn Livingston, 43, of Gilbert, knows the pain that the mysterious illness can cause. She suffers from pain in her joints, as well as degenerative disks. advertisement
The illness has forced Livingston to retire from teaching, because she wasn't able to give her students the same effort she could 10 years ago when she jumped into teaching after the first Gulf War.
"Everything kind of caught up to me," Livingston said of the illness. "It kills me, because part of the reason I got into teaching was for the kids."
The former Army linguist said she enjoyed teaching her students about their country and all the freedoms it has to offer - something she knows not everyone in the world can claim.
"I'm totally in support of it," Livingston said of the war in Iraq. "I was over there, I saw the atrocities firsthand that Saddam Hussein committed on his people and the Kuwaiti people."
The former Islands Elementary teacher signed up for the Army at 28 and maintains that despite her illness she contracted from her time there, she would do it all over again.
"If I could, I would go back in a heartbeat," she said.
----
Tumbleweeds Absorb Depleted Uranium from Arid Soil
November 8, 2004
DENVER, Colorado, (ENS)
http://ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2004/2004-11-08-09.asp#anchor3
Tumbleweeds, known also as Russian thistle, and some other weeds common to dry Western lands can absorb depleted uranium from contaminated soils at weapons testing grounds and battlefields.
"There is some use to what we consider noxious weeds," said geologist Dana Ulmer-Scholle of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro.
Ulmer-Scholle will be presenting the results of her study of weeds in arid lands on Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver.
Depleted uranium (DU) is used in armor-piercing munitions. Although it produces only a low level of radiation, the metal poses a hazard in soils because it - like some other heavy metals - is toxic if ingested.
Other plants have been known to draw out DU from soils in wetter climates, "but no one wanted to try doing it in arid regions," said Ulmer-Scholle.
Ulmer-Scholle's work is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, which is looking for innovative, cost-effective, and efficient ways of cleaning up soils at weapons testing areas and battlefields where DU has been used.
In her study, Ulmer-Scholle and her team worked with DU contaminated soils at an inactive munitions testing ground in New Mexico. They planted selected native and non-native plants in a test garden and in pots to see how much DU the plants absorbed from the soil.
Among the plants that took up lots of DU were Russian thistle, Salsola tragus; the grain crop quinoa, Chenopodium quinoa; and purple amaranth, Amaranthus blitum.
They also found that sprinkling the ground with citric acid enhanced the plants' ability to absorb DU.
Russian thistle is not native to North America and is considered a nuisance in most parts of the western United States. It springs up where soils have been disturbed and each plant scatters its seeds by detaching from its roots and tumbling along the ground in the wind.
Using tumbleweeds need not spread noxious weeds, Ulmer-Scholle explained, because the plants tested do their best absorbing before they flower and long before they set seeds. So part of the trick to using weeds to clean up DU is to harvest the plants before they flower, she said.
The mechanisms used by plants to absorb uranium, is still not understood, says Ulmer-Scholle.
-------- europe
France to Host Nuclear Fusion Project - EU Source
(Reuters)
By Yves Clarisse
Nov 8, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041108/sc_nm/nuclear_eu_fusion_dc_4
BRUSSELS - The European Union (news - web sites) is confident of a deal on Tuesday for France to host a $12 billion global nuclear fusion project after Japan signaled it would give up its bid in return for compensation, an EU source said on Monday.
The European Union and five other industrial powers plan to build the world's first futuristic reactor that would generate energy through nuclear fusion in an attempt to harness the source of the sun's power and tame it for humanity.
But the six partners in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) have been split over where to locate the reactor, with Washington backing Tokyo's bid in what was seen as a payback for French opposition to the Iraq (news - web sites) war.
Negotiators from the EU, United States, South Korea (news - web sites), Japan, Russia and China began meeting on Monday in Vienna, headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to seek a deal.
"The agreement foresees Iter in Cadarache," the source said, referring to the French site north of Marseille. "They are preparing an agreement under which the Japanese would receive something."
In Vienna, an official at the U.N. nuclear watchdog said a statement would be issued after the talks on Tuesday.
While an EU diplomat in the Austrian capital said there was still no final recommendation on Monday, a Western diplomat said it appeared Japan had given up hope and acknowledged it would not get the reactor but was negotiating for compensation.
The EU has been ratcheting up diplomatic pressure to host ITER and in September asked the European Commission (news - web sites), its executive arm, to assess the cost of going ahead even if the United States did not participate.
BRUSSELS OPTIMISTIC
EU ministers had been expected to decide on the prestigious project, which has big industrial and technological spin-off benefits, on Nov. 25-26.
A Commission spokesman declined to confirm that a deal had been struck but said the EU executive was hopeful.
"We are optimistic," spokesman Fabio Fabbi said. "We hope to have a positive result with ITER in Cadarache."
While the EU, backed by China and Russia, wanted ITER to be built in Cadarache, the United States along with South Korea had preferred Rokkasho, a remote fishing village in northern Japan.
Non-EU countries such as Brazil and Switzerland had also expressed interest in joining the project on the EU side.
The ITER project would create the world's first sustained nuclear fusion reaction, which would last for several minutes. Fusion is low in pollution since it has a virtually limitless supply of fuel in the form of sea water.
France's Ministry for Research would not confirm or deny that Cadarache had been chosen.
"One has to remain extremely cautious," a source close to Research Minister Francois d'Aubert said. "Negotiations are still ongoing and for the moment, they have not been concluded."
In a bid to end the stalemate, France proposed doubling its contribution for the 4.77 billion euros needed to build the reactor in Cadarache over 10 years. Paris is ready to pay 914 million euros or 20 percent of the costs.
The EU will pay 40 percent of the costs, while China and Russia will give a 10 percent contribution. The remaining 20 percent will come from other participating parties. (additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau in Vienna)
-----
Nuclear waste convoy rolls toward German dump after protester's death
(AFP)
Mon Nov 8, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041108/sc_afp/germany_france_nuclear_041108205456
HANOVER, Germany - Demonstrators in Germany chained themselves to a railway to stop a shipment of highly radioactive nuclear waste from France, a day after a protester was crushed to death under the train's wheels.
Amid sorrow and anger over the death of the 21-year-old man who had attached himself to the track near the eastern French city of Nancy, a number of defiant activists blocked the tracks near Uelzen, northern Germany.
The consignment, which is carrying 12 containers of spent fuel rods, resumed its journey from Uelzen after about an hour and three protesters were detained. Subsequent protests by thousands of demonstrators along the route led to brief delays.
The shipment had left the retreatment plant at La Hague in northern France on Saturday evening and crossed on to German soil late Sunday after a delay of several hours following the protestor's death.
The man had a leg severed by the train and died despite receiving emergency treatment at the scene.
Late Monday afternoon, the shipment rolled into the northern German town of Dannenberg, where the waste was to be transferred onto trucks and driven to a storage facility near Gorleben, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) away.
Several hundred demonstrators moved to block the road to Gorleben, ignoring orders by police to clear the route.
In Dannenberg, farmers protesting against the convoy blocked a street with their tractors, each festooned with a black crepe bow in memory of the dead demonstrator.
Many in town hung black flags in mourning. In front of a church where activists held a spontaneous vigil for the man late Sunday, demonstrators placed candles and flowers.
Germany, which has no treatment facilities of its own, sends spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants for reprocessing at the La Hague plant before they are returned here for storage.
The consignment is the seventh to be returned to Germany since 1996 and an estimated 11,000 officers are guarding the convoy.
Anti-nuclear and environmental campaigners say the shipments are dangerous and that the waste will contaminate the water table at Gorleben.
Following the death of the protester, German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin of the ecologist Greens party called on both sides "to avert dangers of this kind" during the final stretch of the convoy's 600-kilometer odyssey.
But a spokesman for environmentalist group Robin Wood said the blockades were justified.
"We think it is necessary and legitimate to continue our protests despite the incident in France," said Juergen Sattari.
A representative from a regional organization opposed to the shipments, Dieter Metk, said that the death of the protester had only mobilized resistance.
"Many people think that we should not give up in this situation," Metk said, saying it was "shocking" that the shipment had continued late Sunday after the fatal accident.
Demonstrators have turned out to this scenic region of northern Germany for what have become traditional cat-and-mouse games with police.
More than 5,000 anti-nuclear protestors -- a diverse band of local farmers, teenagers with dreadlocks and veteran environmentalists -- began the protests Saturday in northern Germany to rally against the imminent arrival of the shipment.
In large part due to the expense and complexity of the waste transports, as well as a campaign pledge by the Greens party, Germany has agreed to phase out its nuclear power plants by 2020.
-------- iran
US says any Iran accord must end nuclear weapons
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Nov 08, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041108163358.4oj78wgm.html
The United States insisted Monday that any nuclear accord with Iran must prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons and that it was in contact with European allies over a preliminary agreement with Tehran.
"The international community is resolved not to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. And we are committed to pursuing this through peaceful diplomatic means and this is what we are continuing to do," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.
"I have seen the reports on a preliminary agreement. We've been in touch with our European friends involved in these efforts. We appreciate their efforts.
"We're still working to find out more details of what that may be. We will see what the results are later this week," McClellan added.
An Iranian negotiator, Hossein Moussavian, announced Sunday that Iranian and European Union officials have reached a "preliminary agreement" on easing concerns over the Islamic republic's nuclear programme following negotiations in Paris.
"We reached a preliminary agreement at the experts level," Moussavian told state television from the French capital after what has been described as two days of "difficult discussions".
"This agreement is to be taken to the capitals of the four countries, and in the next days, if the capitals approve it, it will be announced officially," he said, adding that he was "not pessimistic".
Iran and the EU states of Britain, France and Germany held talks on getting Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment in order to avoid being hauled before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
The United States accuses Iran of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons under cover of its civilian atomic energy program and wants the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to refer Tehran to the Security Council when the agency meets in Vienna on November 25.
McClellan highlighted that the IAEA board has five times called on Iran to fully cooperate with the international community and to suspend all enrichment and reprocessing activities.
"The board set the November deadline and this is a time when Iran should take this opportunity and comply," added the spokesman.
-----
Two Issues Could Hinder Deal to Freeze Iran's Nuclear Program
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 8, 2004; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32727-2004Nov7.html
NEW YORK, Nov. 7 -- A European deal to freeze Iran's nuclear program, provide the Islamic republic with lucrative trade incentives and avoid sanctions by the U.N. Security Council could be signed by midweek if two critical issues can be quickly resolved, U.S., European and Iranian officials said in interviews Sunday.
Iran has refused to accept a full suspension on all its nuclear-related work and wants a commitment from France, Britain and Germany that a second stage of negotiations will be wrapped up within six months. The European trio wants the later negotiations to be open-ended and expects Iran to maintain a total suspension during that process, diplomats from Britain and France said on the condition of anonymity.
If the deal goes through, European powers have promised Iran a diplomatic and economic package along with a guarantee that it will not be referred to the Security Council, where it could face sanctions.
"If this is approved by all four parties, we will witness an important change in Iran's relations with Europe and much of the international community in [the] not-too-distant future," Iranian negotiator Hossein Mousavian told Iranian television Sunday.
The Bush administration has pushed unsuccessfully for nearly two years to get Iran to the Security Council and has refused to participate in public diplomacy with Tehran. But without proof of a nuclear weapons program, or evidence that Iran is breaking international law, allies have refused to go along with Washington's strategy.
Instead, Britain, France and Germany have devoted the past year to negotiation and compromise with Iran. Talks have been rocky at times but could produce a deal within days.
If negotiations fall apart, Washington expects the Europeans to back its quest for action by the council, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton wrote in a letter Friday to his counterparts in Paris, London and Berlin, U.S. officials said.
Much of the terms for the Euro-Iranian accord were worked out in two days of meetings that ended Saturday in Paris.
U.S. officials briefed by the three European countries said they believe the deal will go through if Iran accepts a full suspension. Currently, Iran is pushing for an exemption on an early step in the uranium conversion process.
Although the exemption would leave Iran far away from being able to make bomb-grade uranium -- and Iran has said it has no intention of doing so -- it would still get a push in that direction, said David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.
"It would still be a significant step forward and too easy for Iran to conduct the next conversion step in secret," Albright said.
U.S. officials said they will continue to lobby European allies over the next several days to push for the full suspension and an open-ended negotiating period. The officials discussed the negotiations on the condition of anonymity.
"The Iranians will have to give on the timing and the parameters of a suspension," one official said. "Our hope is that the Europeans will agree with that."
Washington also wants more aggressive U.N. inspections, to monitor Iran's compliance with the deal. Legally, Iran isn't obligated to such inspections, but in the past two years, it has granted inspectors access to enrichment facilities and military sites they asked to see.
France, Britain, Germany and Iran signed a similar deal in October 2003; it fell apart within six months, mostly because the terms of the suspension were loosely defined. Iran had also expected European help, which didn't come, in getting its file closed with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
A new deal needs to be worked out soon so the IAEA can verify Iran's suspension before the agency's board meets to discuss Tehran's case on Nov. 25. The IAEA has told parties involved that it will need at least 10 days to complete the work.
Iran, rich in oil and gas, has said its uranium enrichment facility is part of a peaceful nuclear fuel program. But U.S., European and Israeli officials suspect that the scale of Iran's efforts, conducted in secret over 18 years, indicates that it ultimately wants to produce a nuclear weapon.
--------
Iran Says It Reached Temporary Deal on Uranium Output
November 8, 2004
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/08/international/middleeast/09irancnd.html?hp&ex=1099976400&en=c434d1b1d6512914&ei=5094&partner=homepage
PARIS, Nov. 8 - Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi of Iran today praised the outcome of weekend talks with European negotiators, saying that a preliminary agreement had been reached to suspend Iran's production of enriched uranium immediately. But he emphasized that any suspension would only be temporary.
"We hope that the deal between Iran and Europeans can be finalized and create necessary confidence," Mr. Kharrazi said of the 22 hours of difficult negotiations in Paris on Friday and Saturday between an Iranian delegation and senior officials of France, Germany, Britain and the European Union.
But, Mr. Kharrazi added, "The talk is about continuing the suspension for a short period to build confidence."
Paradoxically, both Mr. Kharrazi and his negotiator in Paris, Hussein Mousavian, were more optimistic in public than the Europeans in describing the negotiations. The two Iranians described the result as a "preliminary agreement" while all of the European players said only that "considerable progress" had been made toward a "preliminary agreement."
That seems to indicate the desire of the Iranian officials to push the agreement through Iran's murky political leadership, where there is universal agreement that Iran has the right to produce enriched uranium and must not agree to a permanent ban.
Mr. Kharrazi's comments in Tehran to state-run television underscored the fact that the Europeans gave in on the issue of whether Iran's suspension of uranium enrichment would be permanent, European officials said. But the Europeans also resisted Iran's demand that the suspension last only six months, the officials added.
Instead, the suspension will continue only as long as Iran and the Europeans are involved in negotiations for a comprehensive package of rewards for Iran in exchange for a suspension of its production of enriched uranium, which can be used in both civilian and military nuclear programs.
The Iranian side is in the midst of studying the text of a preliminary agreement that was discussed over the weekend, and European officials said there were still areas of disagreement between the two sides when the talks broke up.
But the Iranians have made clear in their public statements both before and after the negotiations that they want a deal.
If a deal is in place by the time the 35 countries that make up the leadership of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, meet on Nov. 25 in Vienna, it will block a move by the United States to send the Iran problem to the Security Council for possible sanctions.
In Brussels today. Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said that an agreement would eliminate the need to refer Iran to the Security Council. "I think if we get an agreement we will not see any reason why," he told Reuters.
In Australia today, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, called the agreement "a step in the right direction," adding that he hoped a deal would be finalized in "the next few days" and would lead Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment and reprocessing programs.
Mr. Kharrazi's call for the need to "build confidence" is code for the Iranian demand that it be given a package of rewards as proof that it is not suspending its enrichment program and getting nothing in return.
Among the incentives that the Europeans proposed to Iran were the reaffirmation of Iran's right to a nuclear energy program for peaceful purposes; support in Iran's acquisition of a light water research reactor; resumption of talks on a trade agreement between the European Union and Iran; support for Iran's membership in the World Trade Organization; continuing to define as a terrorist organization the Iranian opposition group known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq; access to imported nuclear fuel at market prices for Iran's reactors; and help with regional security concerns, including combating drug trafficking.
In Iran today, the hard-line daily Jomhuri-e-Eslami denounced the talks on its front page and criticized the Iranian negotiators who conducted them.
"Despite the fact that the Europeans cannot be trusted has been proven to all, unfortunately these people have again reached agreement with these three traitor European countries," the newspaper said.
In October 2003, Iran and the trio of European countries reached agreement in Tehran for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and to accept stricter international inspections of its nuclear sites. But Iran violated the agreement this year, asserting that the Europeans had reneged on their promises of economic and political incentives.
-------- korea
UN nuclear watchdog to issue report on South Korea next week
(AFP)
Nov 8, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041108/wl_asia_afp/skorea_nuclear_iaea_041108190712
VIENNA - The UN nuclear agency is to present a report on South Korea (news - web sites) next week ahead of a decision on whether the US ally should be taken to the UN Security Council for violating international nuclear safeguards, diplomats said.
Seoul has been under investigation by the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since revealing in September that its scientists secretly enriched a tiny amount of plutonium in 1982 and uranium in 2000.
But Seoul says the laboratory experiments were not linked to nuclear weapons programs.
Still, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has expressed "serious concern" about the activities.
South Korean diplomats "have been lobbying very hard" with the Vienna-based IAEA "not to be taken to the Security Council" as they stress the nuclear violations were one-time events in the past which were in any case not sanctioned by the government, a European diplomat close to the IAEA told AFP.
He said the South Koreans may be afraid of "losing face" or "afraid of what North Korea (news - web sites) will say," as the United States is leading an international effort to keep North Korea from developing nuclear weapons.
ElBaradei will be releasing a report next week ahead of a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors on November 25 that will decide what to do about South Korea, diplomats said.
One diplomat said the IAEA must still evaluate results from an inspection team that wrapped up its work in South Korea Sunday and was also moving slower than thought, with this week the original target date for the report, since ElBaradei is currently traveling and not in Vienna.
A Western diplomat said the key question would be whether the IAEA says "it needs more time to investigate South Korea or whether the report is going to be definitive" about whether South Korea has violated the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
After North Korea kicked IAEA inspectors out, the agency in 2003 took Pyongyang to the Security Council for violating the NPT.
The IAEA is still fighting to get its inspectors back into North Korea, while the Council has until now refrained from imposing sanctions.
But a report to the Security Council does not necessarily mean the IAEA is seeking help in cracking down on a rogue state.
When the IAEA took Libya this year to the Security Council for violating the NPT, it did this merely for form's sake as it praised Libya for coming clean and helping the IAEA to dismantle Tripoli's nuclear program.
Diplomats said a reporting of South Korea would almost surely be like the Libyan case, as South Korea has cooperated with the IAEA.
But the European diplomat said South Korea was resisting even this sort of report to the Security Council, probably worried about fall-out with North Korea.
IAEA inspectors had Sunday completed their investigation into South Korea's past nuclear experiments.
The IAEA has sent inspectors to South Korea three times to inspect nuclear facilities, interview scientists and take samples.
South Korea operates 19 nuclear power plants producing 40 percent of its energy needs.
North Korea, citing concern about Seoul's secret nuclear experiments and "hostile" US policy, boycotted a planned new round of six-nation talks aimed at ending the communist state's atomic weapons drive.
----
IAEA cites South Korea for hidden nuclear activities: report
AFP
Thu Nov 11, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041111/wl_asia_afp/skorea_nuclear_iaea_041111190650
VIENNA (AFP) - The UN atomic energy agency cited South Korea (news - web sites) for conducting secret uranium and plutonium-making activities that violated international nuclear safeguards on a wider scale than Seoul had previously declared.
But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the tests were experimental and small-scale, and that South Korea had cooperated with the agency in investigating the matter, in a report released Thursday.
The IAEA report could clear the way to the agency bringing South Korea before the UN Security Council for the lapses when the IAEA's board of governors meets in Vienna on November 25.
This could prove embarrassing to South Korea's main ally the United States which is leading a drive to get North Korea (news - web sites) to give up plans to make nuclear weapons.
Washington is also calling on the IAEA to report Iran to the Security Council for similar breaches of safeguards monitoring authorized by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that it says are in Tehran's case proof of a hidden nuclear weapons program.
But the report says the IAEA investigation into South Korea is continuing and this could lead IAEA board members to put off ruling on the South Korean dossier.
South Korea had in August admitted to the IAEA that its scientists had conducted secret experiments in separating plutonium in the 1980's.
Seoul also reported laser enrichment of uranium "in 2000 by scientists at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) in Daejeon" that refined uranium to an average level of 10.2 percent and up to the highly enriched level 77 percent, which is close to weapons-grade, according to the report.
The IAEA made the uranium enrichment public in September, even if Seoul at first denied producing highly enriched uranium.
The IAEA report said it has now discovered that South Korean scientists had also made natural uranium metal which is used in enriching uranium and in 1979-1981 conducted some experiments in enriching uranium chemically.
South Korea claims these were all small laboratory experiments that produced only 200 milligrams of enriched uranium, that they were done without government approval and that such activity has been stopped.
The IAEA report said South Korea produced 0.7 grams of plutonium in 1982, but added that this had an "isotopic content of about 98 percent of PU-239," which is weapons grade.
These amounts are very small as it takes from 15-25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium to make an atomic bomb while the amount for plutonium is seven kilograms.
The IAEA said that "although the quantities involved have not been significant, the nature of the activities ... and the failures by the ROK to report the activities in a timely manner in accordance under its Safeguards Agreement is ... a matter of serious concern."
"They haven't told us things they should have" but since then "they have provided a lot of good cooperation," a diplomat close to the IAEA said.
The report said South Korea has provided "active cooperation," including access to sites and allowing environmental swipe sampling.
"There is no indication that these undeclared experiments have continued," the diplomat said.
The report said "at least ten" laser enrichment related experiments "were carried out at KAERI facilities between 1993 and 2000" and that South Korea has said "these experiments were authorized only by the president of KAERI in Daejeon, involved some 14 KAERI scientists and were conducted in the broader context of a stable isotope separation project."
North Korea, citing concern about Seoul's secret nuclear experiments and "hostile" US policy, boycotted in October a planned new round of six-nation talks aimed at ending the communist state's atomic weapons drive.
But US Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said in October that there was no comparison with secret nuclear experiments carried out by South Korea in the past and ongoing atomic programmes in North Korea and Iran.
-------- terrorism
ElBaradei Warns of Radioactive Material Trafficking
National Journal Group
November 8, 2004
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2004_11_8.html#729137A1
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said today that the number of incidents of radioactive material trafficking is expected to exceed the 60 reported last year (see GSN, Oct. 29).
During a conference in Sydney on nuclear proliferation, ElBaradei warned of the growing threat of nuclear terrorism, according to Reuters.
"We need to do all we can to work on the new phenomena called nuclear terrorism, which was sprang on us after 9/11 when we realized terrorists had become more sophisticated and had shown an interest in nuclear and radioactive material," he said.
"We have a race against time because this was something we were not prepared for," ElBaradei added.
There have been 630 trafficking incidents over the last 10 years, ElBaradei said (Reuters, Nov. 8).
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer yesterday also warned that terrorist groups were seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, according to Agence France-Presse.
"There's absolutely no doubt that terrorists, or at least some terrorists, are endeavoring to get hold of nuclear materials as well as other forms of weapons of mass destruction," Downer said (Agence France-Presse/Khaleej Times, Nov. 7).
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- tennessee
TVA nuclear cleanup fund grows 44 percent
Associated Press
Nov. 08, 2004
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/10129163.htm
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - A Tennessee Valley Authority fund to pay for shutting down and cleaning up its three nuclear plants has grown by more than 44 percent since 2002 thanks to a rebounding stock market.
The nation's largest public utility reports the fund reached $720 million on Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2004. That's up $221 million from the $499 million fund balance at the same time two years earlier at the depth of the market downturn.
"We've averaged better than a 20 percent annual rate of return in our investments over the past two years," said John Hoskins, senior vice president and treasurer for TVA.
"We're not back to where we were in 2000, but over the long term we recognize that investing in stocks tends to yield the best long-term returns."
TVA estimates it will need more than $2.4 billion to decommission its Watts Bar and Sequoyah stations in Tennessee and its Browns Ferry station in Alabama.
That liability is nearly four times more than what TVA now has reserved, though the utility is optimistic the fund will reach its goal by the time the money is needed.
TVA, which provides electricity to about 8.5 million consumers in Tennessee and parts of Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia, receives no tax dollars. With a $7 billion budget, the utility operates exclusively on revenues from power production.
Its Browns Ferry station is now licensed until 2016, but TVA has applied for a 20-year extension from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Sequoyah plant is licensed to 2021 and Watts Bar to 2035. License extensions for Sequoyah also are expected to be sought.
Last week, the NRC granted extensions to two nuclear plants in Illinois, bringing the number of U.S. reactors with extensions to 30.
If TVA gets the extension for Browns Ferry, Hoskins said the federal utility would need only $589 million now in its cleanup fund.
"The estimated liability costs of decommissioning these plants has gone up, but our fund balance has grown much faster," Hoskins said.
"Given the relatively long time horizon before we expect to shut down these reactors, these funds will continue to grow and should be more than adequate to meet our future obligations."
TVA first set aside $100 million for the cleanup fund in 1986. The balance soared with the stock market through the 1990s, but dropped by $230 million, or nearly 30 percent, during 2001 and 2002.
In its last report to the NRC two years ago, TVA estimated the fund then at $385 million. The next biennial report due in March will reflect the $720 million balance.
"We just want to make sure there is sufficient money to clean up these plants and not be dependent solely upon the owner of the plant at the time it ultimately shuts down," said Michael Dusaniwskyj, an NRC economist who oversees the funds.
"TVA and other utilities each identified ways that they would meet these obligations," he said.
The Department of Energy maintains a separate fund from taxes on nuclear power generation to pay for long-term storage of highly radioactive spent fuel rods.
-------- washington
Nuclear Waste Reclassification May Be Allowed in Washington
November 8, 2004
YAKIMA, Washington, (ENS)
http://ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2004/2004-11-08-09.asp#anchor1
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that it is too soon to decide whether the Department of Energy (DOE) should be allowed to reclassify high-level nuclear waste at a site in Washington state.
The ruling overturns the decision of a federal judge in Idaho last year who agreed with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Snake River Alliance, the Yakama Nation and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes that reclassification of the waste violated the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
If the waste is reclassified it could be left in tanks at the Hanford Nuclear reservation and mixed with grout, or, it could be shipped to other federal facilities for disposal.
Last month, the DOE attempted to ship high-level waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico, which is approved to accept only less radioactive transuranic waste. The state of New Mexico blocked the move.
Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire and her colleagues in three other states in September 2003 described as "wholly unnecessary" a DOE legislative proposal that would give the agency broad latitude in deciding how to categorize and dispose of high-level nuclear waste at Hanford.
"DOE's proposal is simply another attempt to get around what Congress intended for the safe disposal of high-level radioactive waste at Hanford and other nuclear facilities around the country," said Gregoire, whose bid for the Washington governor's post remains too close to call today, six days after the election.
Earlier this year, Congress passed the reclassification measure for South Carolina and Idaho, permitting the waste to be classified as "incidental." The reclassification does not apply to Washington state.
The DOE declined comment on the appellate court's decision.
About 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste from plutonium production from the 1940s through 1989 is buried in Hanford's 177 underground tanks. At least 67 of the tanks have leaked radioactivity into the soil, contaminating the aquifer and menacing the Columbia River less than 10 miles away.
The 1989 Tri-Party Agreement, a Hanford cleanup pact, requires the Energy Department to remove as much waste as technically possible from the Hanford tanks, but not less than 99 percent.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Sudanese Rape Victims Find Justice Blind to Plight
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 8, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32621-2004Nov7?language=printer
OTASH, Sudan -- The breeze ruffled Katuma Abdullah Adam's green scarf as the sheik and his helpers slowly poured water over her head. Once, twice, three times they repeated the ritual as the pregnant 15-year-old wept in shame.
"You can now enter paradise," the sheik said, ushering Katuma inside a dark hut so her swollen body could also be washed, along with her nose and mouth, as a symbolic cleansing of the sin she had suffered.
To the family of Katuma, who was raped and impregnated by an Arab militia fighter five months ago in the war-torn region of Darfur, this shamanistic cure was the only form of redemption available in a situation where legal justice is elusive, officials are embarrassed to discuss rape and the chances of catching and prosecuting attackers are next to none.
While a ritual bath cannot substitute for a court of law, according to Sudanese culture it may help mitigate the negative long-term social effects of rape -- the public ostracism of the victim, her devaluation as a future bride and the lifelong stigma that will fall on any child born of the crime.
According to the United Nations and human rights groups, thousands of women have been raped by gunmen in the course of a 20-month conflict that pits African rebel groups against Sudanese troops and pro-government Arab militias known as the Janjaweed. The United Nations says more than 70,000 people have died.
In August and September, the French medical charity Doctors Without Borders reported that it had treated 123 cases of rape in South Darfur, at least 100 of which occurred during attacks on villages by armed men. Victims said they were assaulted at gunpoint and in some cases gang-raped.
Despite widespread documentation of the rapes by international groups and promises by the government to investigate and prosecute rape cases, sexual violence remains a low official priority. Sudanese society ostracizes rape victims and associates them with deep shame.
There is also little public trust in the police and the courts, because Janjaweed militiamen accused of the crimes are seen as backed by the government.
A recent report by Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, called rape "a weapon of war in Darfur," often accompanied by racial insults, whipping, undressing and public sexual acts as a form of humiliation. To the Arab Janjaweed, attacking African women is seen as a way to mortify African rebel groups, the report said.
Many women have also reported being told by rapists that they wanted to produce Arab babies and weaken African tribal lines.
Amnesty International documented hundreds of rape cases and described the horrific long-term social consequences for the women. But U.N. officials and others said international pressure had done little to make local officials address the plight of women who are victims of rape, as well as resulting health problems and pregnancies.
"The government as a whole is in denial about the scale and the severity of the problems," said Louise Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, who visited Darfur in late September. "Cases where attempts are made by women to report to the police are disbelieved, or in any event, no further action is taken on their report."
On a recent trip to South Darfur, U.S. Reps. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) and Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) visited camps in the region and were told they would see a "rape tent," where victims could report the crimes. When they arrived at the designated camp, however, there was no such tent. Refugees said there never had been one.
Jackson shook his head and said: "These guys are professional sugarcoaters. What are we going to do about this?"
Abdullal Abu Bakar, who works for the government and runs the camp, winked conspiratorially and laughed, partly from embarrassment. "There was not a single case, I tell you," he said. "That's why we closed the tent.' "
Innocence Lost
Katuma Adam still sees the men in her nightmares. It was late May, the height of the rainy season, when the Janjaweed gunmen attacked her village in North Darfur. One of them grabbed her. His hand slipped under her dress.
"He pushed into me and it was hurting me very much," she recounted recently, after the ritual washing in a shelter built of sticks and rags, inside a camp for victims of violence in Darfur. "I had no strength. I just shut my eyes."
Afterward, she said, she was covered in blood and crying. "I felt very, very thirsty and in shock." She was not yet 15.
There was nowhere Katuma could turn for help -- no counseling services, no legal aid offices, no sympathetic law enforcement agency. Darfur, a region engulfed by human crisis and flooded with refugees, barely has a functioning police force or justice system.
For weeks after the attack, Katuma remained sequestered in her hut, her head pillowed on a pile of rocks. She stayed inside even through the thick afternoon heat, too ashamed to emerge and seek shade under a tree like others in the camp. She said her legs felt like stone and her mind was numb with depression. She worried constantly about her child's future, and her own.
"I will never find love," she said after the cleansing ceremony. "Will this washing help me find a husband?" Katuma and her mother, Aisha Bakhet Adam, consented to be identified by name.
Aisha Adam, 43, a sturdy widow with six children, has no time for melancholy musings. She is on a mission. Every day, she listens to radio reports about the war. She knows that many people have died and many more have been displaced. And she knows that in four months, her daughter will give birth to a child of the Janjaweed.
Aisha Adam has few illusions about the chances of proving the rapist's guilt. What she needs is evidence of her daughter's innocence, a way to convince potential suitors and their families that she did not ask to be raped. A police report or a court case would be ideal, she said, but she had no idea how to approach the government.
After thinking it over, she decided the water ritual might help reduce her daughter's shame and protect her unborn child from becoming a social outcast.
So on a recent day, the mother crawled out of her waist-high hut, doffed an orange head scarf and oversize sunglasses and trudged purposefully along the footpaths of this garbage-strewn camp until she found Adam Abdul Karim, a local sheik, waiting in a food line. She told him she needed his help.
"I don't think the government will ever catch this man, and I don't think my daughter will ever mend her heart unless we do something now," she told him. "I am very ashamed, [but] I am trying to hide my embarrassment and help my daughter. Right now, we are alone with this problem."
Karim consulted a sheaf of ragged notes and suggested he perform the ritual washing. It was a custom normally applied in local African tribes when a woman's husband died or she gave birth to a child out of wedlock. This would be the first time at this camp, Karim said, that it would be used to exonerate a victim of sexual violence.
"She is unclean, touched by her enemy," he said. "This is one option we can try."
Officials See No Evil
The government of Sudan says it takes rape seriously, and its officials say they are making a sincere effort to address the problem. Under sharia, or Islamic law, rape is viewed as a serious crime; the penalty is 10 years in jail and 100 lashes.
Recently, the government also suspended a law requiring women to report a rape to the police before they can receive medical help. Nevertheless, there remains a widespread belief among senior officials that the victims are fabricating their stories.
"That is not our culture," said Hussein Ibrahim, a minister with the government's Humanitarian Affairs Commission. "It's just impossible and all half-truths. Okay, maybe there are one case or two cases, like anywhere, like in the United States or Britain. But they are not widespread."
But medical workers and human rights activists said they have been dismayed and angered by official suggestions that rape victims are making up sensational stories. Even as children are being born from militia rapes, they said, not a single arrest has been made or a single case brought to court since the war began.
"I don't think it's fair to say the women are fabricating this," Arbour said during a recent visit to Khartoum, the capital. "I would find it very, very bizarre that the women would lie, considering the shame they receive for saying they are raped. There are very severe levels of sexual violence here that are not being properly addressed."
Arbour said she saw no evidence of a government rape-inquiry commission that had been promised, and that despite making appointments, she was unable to locate anyone from the commission.
Inside Katuma's hut, the sheik's female helpers washed her back, her face, her nostrils, her mouth. They emptied pitchers down her left side, then her right. Water dripped from her entire body and tears ran down her cheeks. She stood in a muddy pool of water.
"I don't want this," the pregnant girl mumbled. "I want to lie down." Already shy, she dreaded being stared at, having people know. She did not want her picture taken, did not want to go outdoors, and said she might just remain in the camp forever.
Outside, a cluster of ragged children peered through holes in the straw walls, dying of curiosity. They pressed in so hard they nearly knocked over her hut.
In the gloom, Karim supervised the work and nodded in satisfaction. But still, he said, Katuma's life would be hard.
"The man will want a virgin wife without a baby first," he explained. "Maybe, years from now, people will understand she was hurt in war by the enemy and is now clean. But it would be better if the courts and the government could . . . set an example that it was okay and it wasn't the fault of the women. Even a few arrests would help."
--------
French Unleash Force Against Chaos in Ivory Coast
Key Points Seized As Armed Mobs Hunt Foreigners
By Parfait Kouassi
Associated Press
Monday, November 8, 2004; Page A22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31795-2004Nov7?language=printer
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, Nov. 7 -- The French military used overwhelming force Sunday to put down an explosion of anti-French violence in its former West African colony, deploying troops, armored vehicles and helicopter gunships against machete-waving mobs that went from house to house hunting for foreigners.
In the second day of military operations, French forces seized strategic control of the largest city, Abidjan, commandeering airports and posting gunboats under bridges. French military helicopters swept in to rescue a dozen trapped expatriates from the rooftop of a hotel.
The chaos erupted Saturday when Ivory Coast warplanes launched a surprise airstrike that killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker. The government called the bombing a mistake.
France hit back within hours, wiping out Ivory Coast's newly strengthened air force -- two Russian-made Sukhoi jet fighters and at least three helicopter gunships -- on the ground.
The slain troops were among 4,000 French peacekeepers and 6,000 U.N. troops who have served as a buffer between Ivory Coast's rebel north and loyalist south since civil war broke out in September 2002.
The airstrike on the peacekeepers came after government forces last week broke a cease-fire in place for more than year and bombed rebel positions.
The peacekeepers are trying to hold together a nation whose stability is vital in a region where several nations are only just recovering from devastating civil wars in the 1990s. Ivory Coast is the world's top cocoa producer and until the late 1990s stood as West Africa's most prosperous and peaceful nation.
On Sunday, loyalist mobs rampaged in a second day of looting and burning, outraged by the crushing French military response.
Gunshots echoed and smoke billowed over Abidjan and the capital, Yamoussoukro, as huge crowds destroyed foreign and locally owned businesses alike. Acrid black smoke rose from barricades of burning tires.
A reporter watched marauders clutching machetes and iron bars enter one neighborhood, demanding if any French lived there.
"If there are any whites in this neighborhood, we're going to get . . . them," one man shouted.
"It's better to kill the whites than steal their stuff," another yelled.
About 14,000 French citizens live in Ivory Coast. In Abidjan, they crouched in their homes.
"We are all terrified and try to reassure each other," one French resident said by telephone. "We have been told by the embassy to stay at home. . . . It is a difficult situation to live through."
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from neighboring Muslim nations also went into hiding.
"We're afraid because who knows, maybe this is civil war," said one man, who would identify himself only as Ouedraogo, who was holed up in a mosque with about 30 others.
The Red Cross said it treated about 150 people wounded in the violence; most had been shot. The group had no figures on deaths. State television showed the bodies of what it said were five loyalists.
French armored vehicles moved into some residential neighborhoods, scattering rioters with volleys of tear gas and percussion grenades. At one spot, Ivorian military police watched, unmoving, as French forces confronted the crowds.
French helicopters also fired percussion grenades to break up mobs holding the bridges and besieging the French military base in Abidjan.
About 300 fresh French troops landed Sunday at the Abidjan airport, which had been in French hands since a gun battle with Ivorian forces a day earlier. About 300 more troops were on the way. Also, heavily armed French reinforcements moved south from Yamoussoukro to help restore calm in Abidjan.
The U.N. Security Council, in emergency session late Saturday, demanded an immediate halt to all military action in Ivory Coast, and France blamed Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo for the violence.
Gbagbo appealed for calm Sunday in his first public comments since the cease-fire was broken Thursday, asking "all demonstrators to go back to their homes." He thanked the army and loyalists, and accepted no blame for the bombing of the French post.
--------
Ivory Coast Loyalists Confront French Troops
November 8, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Ivory-Coast.html
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) -- Thousands of government loyalists massed outside the home of Ivory Coast's president Monday, facing off against French armored vehicles in response to urgent appeals for a ``human shield'' around the hard-line leader, amid fears of an overthrow.
French and Ivory Coast military leaders, appearing together on state television, appealed for calm following three days of violent protests the Red Cross said had wounded more than 500 people. Two hospitals reported five dead and 250 wounded in Monday's clashes alone.
The U.N. Security Council met to consider sanctions and the African Union came out in support of French and U.N. intervention, isolating President Laurent Gbagbo.
Chaos erupted Saturday when his air force killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker in an airstrike on Ivory Coast's rebel-held north. The government later called the bombing a mistake, which France rejected.
On Monday, French armored vehicles moved in around Gbagbo's home in Ivory Coast's commercial capital, Abidjan.
``Their presence here is scaring people. They're crying and they think that President Gbagbo is going to be overthrown,'' presidential spokesman Desire Tagro told the Associated Press by telephone.
The French denied surrounding the house or intending to oust Gbagbo, saying forces only were securing a temporary base at a hotel a few hundred yards away for about 1,300 foreigners who had taken refuge at a French military base.
``Everything should go back to normal,'' French mission commander Gen. Henri Poncet said on state TV, alongside Ivory Coast chief of army staff Gen. Matthias Doue. ``It is absolutely not a matter of ousting President Laurent Gbagbo.''
State radio and TV, however, delivered urgent calls for loyalists to gather at Gbagbo's house.
Thousands responded, chanting against the French: ``The whites don't like the blacks, but we don't care!'' Some signs declared, ``Ivory Coast is a sovereign state.''
The crowd swarmed one foreigner -- by appearance an immigrant from a neighboring northern country -- caught up in their midst, kicking and beating him. ``Kill him,'' young men shouted, before he was dragged into the crowd.
Six men, faces painted black, forced an AP reporter from his taxi at gunpoint and commandeered the vehicle.
French forces fired warning shots, witnesses and protesters said. Doctors said many of those treated Monday had been trampled trying to get away, although they reported removing bullets from several wounded.
French military spokesman Col. Henry Aussavy said he knew of no one shot by French forces. Ivory Coast security forces also have moved forcefully at times against the loyalists.
Red Cross official Kim Gordon-Bates said the casualty toll since Saturday had climbed to ``over 500 wounded -- much more than that.'' Loyalist mobs were blocking efforts to set up an emergency clinic for the injured, he said.
A standoff arose outside Abidjan, as several hundred loyalist youths stood on a main road, blocking a 70-vehicle heavily armed convoy of French reinforcements trying to enter the city.
Tensions crossed Ivory Coast's borders, with U.N. officials telling AP that more than 1,000 refugees have fled into neighboring Liberia. Guinea, to the north, said it was sending military reinforcements to its border.
After Saturday's airstrike on the French military post, France hit back, wiping out Ivory Coast's newly built-up air force -- two Russian-made Sukhoi jet fighters and at least three helicopter gunships -- on the ground.
Machete-waving mobs sought revenge against French targets. With armored vehicles and helicopter gunships deployed, France used tear gas and concussion grenades to quell the mobs.
On Monday, residents assessed the damage to a skyscraper-lined city that once was West Africa's most prosperous -- thanks to Ivory Coast's position as the world's top cocoa producer.
``Everything is burned,'' said one woman, a teacher at a French school that was looted and torched in the anti-French riots. ``They have stolen everything they could.''
French military planes flew home the bodies Monday of the nine French soldiers killed in the bombing, along with 34 wounded soldiers.
France has more than 4,000 peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, helping a 6,000-man U.N. force uphold what had been a more than one-year cease-fire in a civil war that broke out in September 2002. The cease-fire ended last week when the government opened three days of bombing of the rebel north.
In Paris, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie rejected claims the strike on the French post was a mistake and demanded reopening of peace talks.
The European Union, African Union and a West African leaders bloc all condemned Ivory Coast's attack Saturday.
At the United Nations, a draft Security Council resolution circulated Monday called for an arms embargo on Ivory Coast and a travel ban and asset freeze against those blocking peace, violating human rights and preventing the disarmament of combatants.
South African President Thabo Mbeki was heading to Ivory Coast on Tuesday for emergency talks.
For decades, Ivory Coast was the economic powerhouse and stabilizing force in West Africa, until an economic downturn and growing political unrest opened the way for its first-ever coup in 1999. Gbagbo was installed amid an uprising by his supporters the next year, during an aborted vote count for the first post-coup presidential elections.
Associated Press reporter Nafi Diouf in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.
-------- balkans
Macedonians Defeat Bid to Block Rights for Albanian Minority
Reuters
Monday, November 8, 2004; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32730-2004Nov7.html
SKOPJE, Macedonia, Nov. 8 -- Macedonia was a rung higher on the ladder to European Union and NATO membership on Monday after easily defeating a referendum bid to block a law giving its Albanian minority more rights.
Nudged by the United States and Brussels, most Macedonians stayed away from the polls on a rainy Sunday, dooming what the West had viewed as a retrograde step.
Independent monitors said turnout was 26.3 percent, barely more than half the 50 percent needed for the referendum to be valid.
Albanian opponents of the referendum welcomed the result.
"The people have demonstrated they are willing to live in a multiethnic state which promotes European values and concepts," said Emira Mehmeti of the Albanian party in the Socialist-led coalition government.
The government is committed to gaining membership in NATO and the E.U., which has required Macedonia to respond to 3,000 questions before talks about membership in the bloc can begin.
In a boost to moderates, the U.S. government last week recognized the country's chosen name, Republic of Macedonia, rather than the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, overruling years of resistance by Greece, which said the name implied claims on its territory. There is a Greek region called Macedonia.
The State Department called the move a reward for progress in Macedonia, but the timing was hardly accidental. The E.U., Macedonia's main source of aid, had also left no doubt about the result it was hoping for in Sunday's ballot.
Organizers of the vote alleged massive fraud. But the leader of Macedonia's main opposition party, Nikola Gruevski, tacitly conceded failure. About 500,000 people had backed the referendum out of 1.7 million eligible voters, he asserted, and that was a large enough number for the government to "hear the voice of the people."
The law at issue was a key part of the Western-brokered Ohrid peace plan that quelled an Albanian insurgency after seven months of clashes with government forces in 2001. The West viewed implementation of the plan as too slow.
The accord makes Albanian an official language in areas where Albanians represent more than 20 percent of the population. Street signs in the capital will be in Albanian as well as Macedonian. Symbolically, the plan makes Albanians full partners in Macedonia, a status many felt they had long been denied. Opponents say the measures will split the country.
-------- business
CONTRACTS AWARDED
Washington Post
Washington Technology
Monday, November 8, 2004; Page E04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33034-2004Nov7?language=printer
Maximus Inc. of Reston won a 10-year, $268 million contract from the British Columbia Ministry of Health Services to provide benefit operations administrative services.
General Dynamics Corp. of Falls Church won a $9 million contract to provide transmission conversions to the U.S. Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
SI International Inc. of Reston won a $6.8 million task order from the Agriculture Department to provide IT support for the Veterinary Services Processes Streamlining System.
BAE Systems Applied Technologies Inc. of Rockville won a $7.93 million contract from the Naval Air Systems Command Aircraft Division to exercise an option for technical and engineering services to support its air traffic control and landing systems.
Honeywell Technology Solutions Inc. of Columbia won a $7.53 million contract from the Naval Air Systems Command Aircraft Division to provide engineering and logistics services to support the light airborne multipurpose system data link.
Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. of Newport News won a $492.1 million contract from the Naval Sea Systems Command to exercise an option for continuation of the CVN 21 design effort; long lead time material and nonnuclear advance construction and system development, engineering services, and feasibility studies for future aircraft carrier programs.
Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipbuilding of Newport News won a $111.7 million contract from the Naval Sea Systems Command for logistics support for SSN 688, SSN 21 and SSBN class operational submarines and design services for SSN 21 class submarines.
CACI AB Inc. of Alexandria won a $17 million contract from the Naval Air Systems Command Aircraft Division to provide program management and technical services supporting the chief of Naval Air Forces and the Naval Air Systems Command Naval Aviation Readiness Integrated Improvement Program.
General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems of Suffolk won an $8.9 million contract from the Fleet and Industrial Supply Center Norfolk Detachment Philadelphia for services in support of the U.S. Joint Forces Command's Joint Experimentation Program and Joint Futures Lab.
General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems of Suffolk won contracts for $7.84 million and $5.4 million from the Fleet and Industrial Supply Center, Norfolk Detachment, Philadelphia for services in support of the U.S. Joint Forces Command's Joint Experimentation Program and Joint Futures Lab.
Microsoft Corp.'s Washington office won a $14.5 million contract from the Headquarters Standard Systems Group at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama to help develop standard software configurations to provide support for the deployment and operations for the desktop image roll-out and server platforms, provide practices and procedures for automated software distribution process, provide software configuration sustainment, software asset management, provides automated capability for feature updates, provide software change development for security vulnerabilities, provide security risk mitigation, provide security updates (patches), and build a unified help desk.
CACI Technologies Inc. of Chantilly won a $15.7 million contract from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center for independent verification and validation program acceptance testing, providing engineering services in support of tactical command, control and communications systems.
Accenture LLP of Reston won a $19.8 million contract from the U.S. Army Contracting Agency for evaluation, configuration, development, and software integration services to put in place human resources management software.
AAI Corp. of Hunt Valley won a $7 million contract from the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command in Huntsville, Ala., for performance-based contractor logistical support of the Shadow Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System.
AT&T Wireless Service of Beltsville, Verizon Wireless of Laurel and Nextel of California Inc., an affiliate of Reston-based Nextel, each won $20 million a contract from the Fleet Industrial Supply Center to provide nationwide commercial cellular phone service for the Navy regions under Commander, Naval Installations as well as other CONUS Navy activities.
B&B Dredging Co. of Portsmouth won a $6.4 million contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for rental of a hopper dredge with attendant plant operators for maintenance dredging of navigation channels.
Sigal Construction Corp. of Washington won a $9.9 million contract from the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for maintenance and repair of Karrick Hall.
Northrop Grumman Systems of Linthicum Heights won a $1 million contract from the Army for research and development services for the Saudi Arabia National Guard.
Center for Studying Health System Change of Washington won a $1 million contract from the General Services Administration for management, organizational and business improvement services.
Smart & Associates LLP of Towson won a $1.3 million contract from the General Services Administration for management, organizational and business improvement services.
Pitney Bowes Government Solutions of Landover won a $4.24 million contract from the U.S. Postal Service for operation of the Critical Parts Center in Indianapolis.
Milvets Systems Technology Inc. of Lanham won a $1.5 million contract from the Labor Department for OSHA CIO administrative services.
Chemonics International Inc. of Washington won a $31.9 million contract from the Agency for International Development for technical assistance for financial services and real estate activity in Egypt.
Ecology Services Inc. of Columbia won a $4.5 million contract from the Health and Human Services Department to provide solid and medical pathological waste collection and recycling services.
Management Concepts Inc. of Vienna won a $3.3 million contract from the General Services Administration for management, organizational and business improvement services.
U.S. Investigations Services, doing business as USIS Professional Services Division of Falls Church, won a $5 million contract from the General Services Administration for management, organizational and business improvement services.
Northrop Grumman Advanced Information Systems Inc. of Falls Church won a $5.3 million contract from the U.S. Postal Service for operation of the Indianapolis Repair Center in Indianapolis.
George Mason University of Fairfax won a $1.4 million contract from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency for blast effects computational support.
Technical Support Services of Alexandria won a $25.7 million contract from the Navy for warehouse and transportation support services.
Motorola Inc. of Columbia won a $1.8 million contract from the Army for communication, detection and coherent radiation equipment.
Colonna's Shipyard Inc. of Norfolk won a $3.1 million supply contract from the Navy for ships, small craft, pontoons and floating docks.
Staff writer Judith Mbuya contributed to this report.
-------- china
China to accelerate nuclear power construction
Xinhua News Agency
November 8, 2004
http://www.canelect.ca/english/article.html?SMContentIndex=0&SMContentSet=0
BEIJING, Nov 8, 2004 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Chinese Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan urged to accelerate the construction of nuclear power plants.
During his recent inspection of Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute, Zeng said accelerating nuclear power construction would help to improve China's energy structure, boost the development of related industries and safeguard the national economic and energy security.
After more than 20 years of efforts, Zeng said, China now has the ability to build 300,000 kilowatt-level and 600,000 kilowatt- level nuclear power stations. It can also manufacture key equipment for one million kilowatt-level nuclear power stations.
He said that in certain important fields, China has approached or reached internationally advanced levels in the construction of nuclear power stations.
In addition, the country has already established a rapid response system conforming to international norms to deal with nuclear safety and nuclear accidents.
He said China should try to design, build, manufacture and operate the plants in reliance with its own efforts while enhancing international cooperation, in particular in project- related technology bidding and technical introduction.
He also urged to promptly establish a national nuclear technology company.
-------- iraq
With Jets and Armor, Thousands of Troops Enter Rebel-Held City
November 8, 2004
The New York Times
By DEXTER FILKINS and ROBERT F. WORTH
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/08/international/08CND_IRAQ.html?ei=5094&en=8b32979d8c8d9235&hp=&ex=1099976400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all&position=
FALLUJA, Iraq, Nov. 8 - American forces began an assault in Falluja today, using airpower and armor to attack suspected guerrilla targets and sending thousands of troops into neighborhoods considered to be the center of the Iraqi insurgency.
The operation started this morning with bombing by American jets, while artillery and heavy gunfire thundered across the city as American troops seized control of two strategic bridges, a hospital and other objectives in the first stage of a long-expected invasion aimed at the center of the Iraqi insurgency.
Troops backed by tanks and armored combat vehicles punched their way into the Askari and Jolan neighborhoods of the city's northern sector this evening.
Marines and army troops breached an earth berm that runs along the railroad tracks just north of Falluja and poured into the city.
A mujahedeen fighter who gave his name as Abu Mustafa said in a telephone interview that American soldiers were engaging in street fighting in at least one part of the city, the northeastern.
The invasion is code-named Phantom Fury. Conceived about a month ago, the plan grew in part from intelligence suggesting that 1,000 to 2,000 insurgents were taking cover in the small towns and rural areas surrounding Falluja, and would probably move inward in the event of an Ainvasion to try to disrupt their force.
Between 10,000 and 15,000 American soldiers and marines backed by newly trained Iraqi forces besieged the city for what American commanders said was likely to be a brutal, block-by-block battle to retake control and capture, kill or disperse an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 hard-core insurgent fighters. The battle could prove the most important since the American invasion of Iraq 19 months ago.
The forces charged with isolating Falluja and blocking any insurgents fleeing the city or attacking from the outside are equipped with M-1 Abrams tanks, armored Stryker vehicles, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and Humvees.
"We will inspect all vehicles, and we are prepared to recognize humanitarian aid and medical supplies, " said Col. Michael D. Formica, the Army commander responsible for coordinating the isolation of the city.
Military aircraft dropped leaflets on Falluja today warning citizens about the assault, and advising them to stay in their homes. As many as 90 percent of the city's residents have left, officials say, but some may not have heard about an emergency curfew imposed by the prime minister, Ayad Allawi.
Hours before the battle started, Mr. Allawi, faced with an expanding outbreak of insurgent violence across the country, formally proclaimed a state of emergency for 60 days across most of Iraq. The proclamation gave him broad powers that allow him to impose curfews, order house-to-house searches and detain suspected criminals and insurgents.
Today, he said that the American-led operation in Falluja had his full backing.
"I gave my authority to the multinational forces, Iraqi forces," he said at a news conference.
"Yesterday evening the Iraqi forces were able to take control of Falluja hospital to defeat the terrorists and armed groups so the citizens of Falluja will get help," he said.
Mr. Allawi said that four foreign terrorists were detained in a raid on the hospital and 38 people were killed, but it was not clear whether they were Iraqis. "They were barricaded in the hospital to carry out their terrorist acts," Mr. Allawi said.
For more than a week, Dr. Allawi had been saying the window for a peaceful solution was fast closing, even though no peace talks were actually taking place between leaders of Falluja and the Iraqi government. His statement this afternoon was simply the formal proclamation of a decision he appears to have settled on days, if not weeks, ago, undoubtedly with strong guidance from American commanders and the Bush administration.
The prime minister then flew via helicopter to the Marine base called Camp Falluja, on the outskirts of the besieged city, to allow the news media to see him rallying the American and Iraqi troops to battle.
"The people of Falluja have been taken hostage," he told Iraqi soldiers swarming around him, "and you need to free them from their grip."
"May they go to hell!" the soldiers shouted, to which Dr. Allawi replied: "To hell they will go."
At his appearance in Baghdad, Dr. Allawi unveiled the first measures of the state of emergency that he declared on Sunday to be in effect for 60 days. He said the Baghdad International Airport will be closed for 48 hours, and the borders with Syria and Jordan will be sealed indefinitely except to allow movement of trucks carrying food and emergency supplies.
All roads going running in and out of Falluja and the provincial capital of Ramadi, just 30 miles west, have been shut down, he said, and a round-the-clock curfew was imposed on the two cities starting at 6 p.m. today. Residents have been banned from carrying weapons.
The measures in Falluja had little practical value, since the city of 300,000 has never been controlled by the interim government. For Americans, the city has been a "no go" zone since early May, when the Marines, in the wake of a bloody and ill-fated assault, relinquished authority to an Iraqi militia made up partly of the very insurgents they had been fighting. Mujahedeen quickly seized power and installed a Taliban-like government there, and the battle now under way is aimed at setting right the huge misstep made last spring.
Dr. Allawi has said that Falluja, Ramadi and other cities rife with insurgents must be brought under control well before January, when the country will hold its first democratic elections. But the offensive in Falluja is a big gamble. Many of the guerillas might have already left and could be awaiting the withdrawal of the American troops to return. And civilians in Falluja and across Iraq, especially Sunni Arabs, who dominate the province that includes Falluja, could become so infuriated at the invasion that they boycott the elections, throwing the legitimacy of the outcome into question.
A wave of bloody attacks by guerillas over the weekend and today left scores dead and raised doubts about whether a concentrated assault in Falluja will actually dampen the insurgency.
Today, the American military said in a statement that an American soldier was killed by small arms fire when his patrol was attacked in eastern Baghdad.
Two car bombs aimed at Christian churches exploded within minutes of each other in southern Baghdad this evening. The first, at St. George Church, did not cause any injuries, but the second, less than a miles east at St. Matthew Church, drew Iraqi police and ambulances to the scene, the military said. Four people were killed and at least 30 wounded, a police official said.
Late today, a powerful car bomb exploded outside Yarmouk Hospital, the site of the capital's largest emergency room, where most of the injured from the church bombing had been taken. There was no immediate report of casualties.
In the northern city of Mosul, where the Stryker Brigade is losing ground in the guerilla war, insurgents armed with Kalashnikovs poured out into the streets at a major intersection at 3 p.m. to fire at American troops, witnesses said.
One resident, Yasir Abdul-Razzaq, said he saw small groups of fighters carrying around mortar tubes and exchanging coordinates with each other over cellphones before launching the projectiles. American soldiers fired back and called in helicopters.
A senior American military official in Baghdad said the number of roadside bombs and suicide car bombs had doubled across Iraq recently, with the biggest increase in Mosul.
News agencies reported that two suicide car bombs exploded in Ramadi today, near American convoys, though no casualties were reported. Another detonated along the perilous five-mile airport road in Baghdad, apparently next to a sport utility vehicle, the type of car favored by Western contractors. A Reuters photographer at the scene said he saw American soldiers dragging three corpses from the vehicle, though the bodies could not be identified.
Before American jets began their bombing of Falluja this morning, American troops in front of the hospital took intense fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades from insurgents across the river. American Bradleys and tanks began returning fire.
It was the second time in six months that a battle had raged in Falluja. In April, American troops were closing in on the city center when popular uprisings broke out in cities across Iraq. The outrage, fed by mostly unconfirmed reports of large civilian casualties, forced the Americans to withdraw.
American commanders regarded the reports as inflated, but it was impossible to determine independently how many civilians had been killed. The hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties.
In Washington today, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was asked whether the battle for Falluja would continue until there was a "clear and final" victory, unlike last spring's campaign for the city.
"I cannot imagine that it would stop without being completed," Mr. Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news briefing.
Richard A. Oppel Jr. contributed reporting from near Falluja for this article, Edward Wong and James Glanz from Baghdad, and Christine Hauser from New York.
--------
Fighting Around Fallujah Intensifies
Premier Puts Most of Iraq Under State of Emergency
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 8, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31732-2004Nov7?language=printer
BAGHDAD, Nov. 8 -- U.S. ground forces fought insurgents on the outskirts of Fallujah early Monday, and U.S. warplanes pounded the insurgent-held city, as a full military assault appeared increasingly imminent. On Sunday, Iraq's interim government had announced a state of emergency for most of the country.
Overnight, Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops seized Fallujah's main hospital, located across the Euphrates River from the bulk of the city -- connected by the ironwork bridge from which the burned bodies of U.S. security contractors were hanged last spring. The largely symbolic action put an Iraqi imprimatur on an offensive that will necessarily be led by American armor, aircraft and troops, which Monday morning were still awaiting orders to advance. U.S. commanders have not said when the major offensive would start.
The state of emergency was issued by the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi. The order, which imposes martial law, heightened a sense of crisis in Iraq and fueled fears that an offensive in Fallujah would unleash a wave of counterattacks, which insurgents appeared to have already begun elsewhere in the country. Violence in six cities in the past two days has killed more than 80 people.
"This will send a very powerful message that we are serious," Allawi said after meeting with cabinet ministers who approved the emergency measure for all areas of the country except the relatively peaceful Kurdish northeast. The order will run for 60 days but could be extended through elections planned for January.
"We want to secure the country so elections can be done in a peaceful way and the Iraqi people can participate in the elections freely, without the intimidation by terrorists and by forces who are trying to wreck the political process in Iraq," Allawi said. "So this is a message. I hope the terrorists get it because we are not going to be easy on them."
It was not immediately clear which emergency powers Allawi intended to invoke or how they would help his government assert control of the country, which he described as largely calm during a visit to Washington six weeks ago.
Technically, the state of emergency gives the government wide powers to impose curfews, restrict movement and suspend liberties. But Iraq's security services have struggled to stand up to insurgents who operate with better weapons and intelligence, especially in the Sunni Muslim midsection of the country where resistance has proved most stubborn. U.S. and allied foreign military forces routinely operate on their own, making arrests, engaging in firefights and patrolling independent of civil authorities.
Insurgents on Sunday again targeted police stations and other symbols of the interim government. Twenty-two police officers were killed in Haditha and Haqlaniya, two towns northwest of Fallujah, and the attackers included foreign Arabs, according to news reports. Many of the officers were lined up and shot, according to the reports.
Those assaults followed a flurry of car bombings and mortar attacks Saturday that killed more than 30 people in Samarra, a Sunni Muslim city about 65 miles north of Baghdad. U.S. and Iraqi forces had reclaimed the city from insurgents last month in an operation that has been cast as a model for the attack on Fallujah.
Twenty-one Iraqi National Guard recruits were killed over the weekend as they were returning to their homes in Najaf after traveling to the capital to join up. The Najaf police chief, Ghalib Jazaari, said gunmen, tipped off by informers in the recruiting office, killed 13 of the recruits Saturday and eight more Sunday as they passed through the town of Latifiyah, a hotbed of insurgents about 70 miles north of Najaf. "We have the bodies of the first 13 here," Jazaari said.
In other attacks Sunday, a car bomb exploded in Baghdad outside the home of the interim finance minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, killing two people. Mahdi was not home during the attack, the Associated Press reported. And two U.S. soldiers were killed and five were wounded in attacks in and around Baghdad, news services reported.
In addition, two provincial officials were assassinated south of Baghdad as they traveled to the funeral of another official. An Iraqi policeman was shot dead while driving to his home in Baghdad, the military said, and his police car was stolen.
A British contractor was killed in the southern city of Basra, according to Britain's Defense Ministry.
The wave of attacks came as insurgents vowed to take the battle across Iraq if 10,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops proceed with a threatened offensive against Fallujah, a city that has become a symbol of resistance since it fell under insurgent control in April.
The assault appeared imminent. U.S. forces cited Allawi's emergency decree in announcing that they had sealed off the city late Sunday, declaring in a statement that troops were "finishing final preparations for an assault on Fallujah."
Senior Marine commanders gathered troops for hollered pep talks, invoking the 1968 assault on the Vietnamese city of Hue, a battle that looms large in the lore of the Corps.
"The window is closing, absolutely," Allawi said, adding that Fallujah residents "have been taken hostage by a bunch of terrorists and bandits and insurgents who were part of the old regime. They had been involved in atrocities when Saddam [Hussein] was around. Our government is determined to safeguard the Iraqi people."
Allawi's warning was immediately answered by a Sunni group that has been a leading voice for the resistance.
"This will increase the violence," said Mohammed Bashar Faidhi, spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars, which represents 3,000 Sunni Muslim clergy in Iraq. "The government is like a man walking in the dark who wants to avoid a small hole and falls into a big hole."
"At this point, the government can't even protect itself," Faidhi said. "How can it impose a state of emergency? Allawi, when he travels, half of the American Army accompanies him!"
Faidhi said the clerics' association supported a proposal aimed at reducing support for armed struggle by addressing Sunni concerns about U.S. influence on the election process and restricting the movements of U.S. forces. But Faidhi said the group's skepticism was being realized as preparations for the assault on Fallujah advanced.
"After breaking into Samarra, new people joined the resistance in order to get revenge," he said. And if Fallujah is attacked, "I don't exaggerate when I say the resistance will double."
In Haditha, about 30 insurgents mounted a three-hour coordinated assault on the city's police headquarters starting at 9 p.m. Saturday.
"First of all, we were attacked by mortars," Lt. Muneef Abdullah said. "Then the armed men came and started shooting and throwing hand grenades. When we tried to defend ourselves, they started launching" rocket-propelled grenades.
"We called the Americans to come and help us," he said, "but unfortunately they took three hours, as if they were coming to a wedding."
Other accounts of the attacks on the police stations in Haditha and Haqlaniya, in western Anbar province, which includes Fallujah, said that some of the Iraqi police officers were killed execution-style. The Reuters news agency said the attackers took the captured policemen to an oil-pumping station and shot them to death.
Last month, insurgents massacred 49 unarmed Iraqi army recruits after capturing them on a road northeast of Baghdad. A group led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian linked to al Qaeda, asserted responsibility for those killings.
Special correspondent Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.
--------
Defense Minister Exhorts Iraqis: 'Liberate This City'
Battle for Fallujah Will Test New Force as U.S. Military Partner
By Jackie Spinner and Omar Fekeiki
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 8, 2004; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32729-2004Nov7?language=printer
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov. 7 -- Promising promotions to all soldiers who go into battle, the interim Iraqi defense minister, Hazim Shalan, called on his army Sunday to "liberate" Fallujah, a signal that U.S. forces had won the blessing of the interim government to proceed with an operation to retake the insurgent-held city.
"This is the first time in the history of Iraq we have seen people being slaughtered like sheep under the umbrella of Islam," Shalan told Iraqi troops gathered at a base near Fallujah. "Your conscience and families call for you. They call for you to liberate this city."
Dancing, singing and thrusting their rifles in the air, the Iraqi soldiers seemed to know a rallying cry when they heard one.
"We are here to defend our country," said Ali, 28, a soldier from Nasiriyah who is in the Iraqi army's 1st Brigade. Like many of the Iraqi soldiers interviewed here, he gave only one name. "We have to get rid of terrorism. All the world looks down on Iraq now because of the terrorists who are not Iraqi. We will make them see Iraqi men ending the terrorism in Iraq."
Although the battle for Fallujah will be led by U.S. forces, the operation is a test for the new Iraqi army, whose soldiers will be used mostly to secure areas after the Americans move through.
U.S. military leaders have touted the presence of the Iraqi forces as a crucial element in the planned assault on the city, which they did not succeed in retaking six months ago after a smaller-scale Marine offensive was called off for political reasons.
"Your warrior brothers in the U.S. Marine Corps are proud to stand next to you," Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, told Iraqi soldiers who surrounded him Sunday during the defense minister's visit to the camp.
"You are the future of your country, and we will be proud to be a part of that future with you," Sattler said as a crowd of Iraqi troops pressed toward him. "We will take all of our spirit into the fight to give Fallujah back to the Fallujah people."
The soldiers hooted with delight, pumped their fists and clapped Sattler on his beige flak jacket.
Marine commanders have not given a timeline for the offensive, but at an outpost near the city Sunday, a battle seemed imminent. Convoys of heavily armored vehicles lined up in long columns as soldiers loaded gear. The chow hall was nearly empty by dinnertime. Troops were told that meals would soon be served only to go -- to prevent crowds from forming in a central location. The Internet cafe and Post Exchange also planned to close indefinitely once the battle got underway.
By late Sunday night, artillery could be heard flying over the outpost, part of which was under light restrictions, meaning drivers had to cut their headlights and use night-vision goggles. Troops wandered around under a bright moon, shadows slipping across the white sand. Self-propelled howitzers shot off booming rounds that echoed from artillery batteries.
"You're rested, you're ready, and we're prepared," Lt. Col. James Rainey of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division, told his staff as their mobile command center was broken down around them. "This is going to be the biggest fight any of us will do in the near future. . . . No matter what you think about the Iraqi war or the Iraqi government, this fight is 100 percent about terrorists -- terrorists who want to come to your house and kill you."
Fallujah, which the U.S. military last entered in April, has become a hub for fighters from countries including Syria, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, according to U.S. intelligence officers. They estimate that about 3,000 foreigners are in the city, poised to fight American troops.
The U.S. and Iraqi forces will be entering a combat zone considered challenging even for the most sophisticated armies, an urban battlefield reportedly laced with booby traps. The Marines already have warned that they could take heavy casualties.
The leader of the elite Iraqi Internal Threat Force, who gave his name as Mohammed Abbas, said his troops were ready for anything.
In earshot of U.S. military officers who are advising him, Abbas complained about the weapons Iraqi soldiers have available, primarily AK-47 assault rifles.
"The developed armies develop new weapons," he said. "In Iraq, we didn't have a chance. Our communications gear is not like the Americans use. The American soldiers have lighter and more developed equipment. Our weapons are old."
Even so, Abbas, who was an Iraqi army officer under deposed president Saddam Hussein, said he was confident his troops would be victorious.
"We know our enemy, even if they have developed weapons," he said. "As Iraqi people and army, we'll fight them with traditional weapons. We have our strategy and mentality. What made the Iraqi soldier fight the American soldiers in 1990 and last year, despite their high technology, is the same we will use in this battle."
As he walked the dusty grounds of the outpost, Abbas, who later acknowledged that the name he gave was an alias, beckoned a soldier to run faster when he called for him. Waving his hands in the air, Abbas declared that all his men were heroes and that "this," he said, nodding to his surroundings, "is my kingdom."
His soldiers squatted on the ground in front of him, waiting for direction, as he paced. "This one is 19," he said, pointing to a baby-faced recruit holding his rifle firmly. "And this one is 25."
Haider, 20, from Basra, who had not seen or talked to his family in a week, said he joined the Iraqi army initially to make a living.
"But later, when I saw the security situation deteriorating the country and all these terrorists coming to Iraq from outside, I changed my mind," he said. "I believe I have a big responsibility in my country. People depend on us. We will fight for them."
Muhammed, 24, from Mosul, echoed a sentiment expressed by other Iraqi soldiers. Though he was fully prepared to battle the foreign rebels, he would not fight the residents of the city, Muhammed said.
"No Iraqis will be a target for us," he said. "I cannot fight an Iraqi. He is my brother."
--------
ATTACK BY JOINT FORCE
Early Target of Offensive Is a Hospital
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
November 8, 2004
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/08/international/middleeast/08hospital.html?oref=login
FALLUJA, Iraq, Monday, Nov. 8 - The assault against Falluja began here Sunday night as American Special Forces and Iraqi troops burst into Falluja General Hospital and seized it within an hour.
At 10 p.m., Iraqi troops clambered off seven-ton trucks, sprinting with American Special Forces soldiers around the side of the main building of the hospital, considered a refuge for insurgents and a center of propaganda against allied forces, entering the complex to bewildered looks from patients and employees.
Ear-splitting bangs rang out as troops used a gunlike tool called a doorbuster, which uses the force from firing a blank .22-caliber cartridge to thrust forward a chisel to break heavy door locks.
Iraqi troops eagerly kicked the doors in, some not waiting for the locks to break. Patients and hospital employees were rushed out of rooms by armed soldiers and ordered to sit or lie on the floor while troops tied their hands behind their backs.
In less than an hour, the compound was secure. Most of the Iraqis had their cuffs snipped off and were sitting up along hallways in the hospital's main building. Doctors were back to attending to the most seriously ill, watched by Iraqi and American troops. There were broken doors and windows, but little in the way of more severe damage. And there was only one injury: an Iraqi soldier who accidentally discharged his Kalashnikov rifle, injuring his lower leg.
Two companies from the Iraqi 36th Commando Battalion and American Special Forces teams that have been training the Iraqi battalion for the better part of a year joined in the attack on the hospital. The operation was the latest for the 36th Battalion, with men drawn from across the country, including some from Sunni heartland cities like Ramadi and Tikrit where the insurgency is fierce. Iraqis in the unit are eager to demonstrate that they can be a credible fighting force against the insurgents.
But unlike some of their past operations - most notably at a mosque courtyard in Samarra last month where they killed 4 insurgents and apprehended 24 others - the Iraqi special forces met little resistance this time.
A few hundred yards away, an important strategic as well as symbolic battle was playing out: American troops, fighting to secure the western end of the two bridges across the Euphrates River, received intense fire from fortified insurgent positions on the east side of the river. One of the bridges was the scene of the grisly episode on March 31, when Iraqis hung the charred and dismembered bodies of at least two of four American security contractors who had been killed from the bridge's spans.
Both the bridges and the hospital are situated on a peninsula formed by the Euphrates as it flows past downtown Falluja, on the east side of the river - a logical area, American commanders say, for insurgents to fall back if driven from central Falluja.
American officials also say the hospital has been a haven for insurgents in what has been a "no-go" zone for American forces for months. And they have made little secret of their irritation with what they contend are inflated civilian casualty figures that regularly flow from the hospital - propaganda, they believe, for the Falluja insurgents, whom they blame for much of the car bombings, beheadings and other acts of terror in Iraq.
In all, there were 160 Iraqis found at the hospital, according to the American Special Forces commander, and at least five people suspected of being foreign fighters, including one from Syria.
One they can be sure about: A man who identified himself as a fighter from Morocco was wheeled down the hallway, where he pointed out several others he said were also anti-American fighters from other countries.
American troops said they found four or five men at the hospital armed with Kalashnikov rifles, and at least one hand grenade. A poster hanging in an examination room on the first floor displayed scenes of carnage in Iraq and a row of flag-draped American coffins. The writing on the poster encouraged jihad, a translator said.
Perhaps the most intriguing discovery of the night - aside from the Moroccan - were two cellphones found on the roof of the hospital. The Americans said they were clear evidence that someone was monitoring the area in front of the hospital.
"Cellphones work fine on the first floor, if you want to talk to your family," the American Special Forces commander said. "It's pretty clear they were on the roof spotting."
Dr. Rasheed al-Janabi, a general surgeon at the hospital, said many patients had left in the past few weeks in anticipation of an attack, though some, he said, including several wounded by American bombs, were in no shape to leave. "For many days we see on TV that an attack is coming," he said. Only about 30 percent of the Falluja population is left in the city, he said.
He denied that the hospital was a haven for insurgents. "Fighters?" he shrugged. "I don't know about fighters."
One of the Iraqi soldiers, sitting on a desk nearby, voiced skepticism.
"Doctors from around here are afraid of the terrorists," said the soldier, Hassan, who like many of the Iraqi troops was afraid to give his full name. "They're afraid they'll threaten them or shoot them."
-------- israel / palestine
Netanyahu Reportedly Backs Down in Bout With Sharon
November 8, 2004
By STEVEN ERLANGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/08/international/middleeast/08cnd-isra.html
JERUSALEM, Nov. 8 - The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, succeeded today in facing down an ultimatum from his finance minister and party rival, Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to Israel radio, Mr. Netanyahu has withdrawn his threat to resign on Tuesday, despite Mr. Sharon's refusal to schedule a national referendum over his plan to unilaterally withdraw all Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip and a few hundred from the West Bank.
Mr. Netanyahu's office, however, said that he had not yet made a decision. To keep him, Mr. Sharon and the Likud Party faction voted today to refer a referendum decision to a parliamentary committee, which will draft legislation for one. It is meant to be a face-saving gesture, since the parliament would vote down any referendum bill.
The small National Religious Party, however, will make good on its threat to pull out of Mr. Sharon's battered minority government in the absence of a Gaza referendum or new elections. Mr. Sharon also refused the party's request to delay the Gaza evacuation until Yasir Arafat's successors are decided.
The party, which supports the settlers, voted tonight to withdraw its remaining four members of the government, including the minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Zevulun Orlev. But the party, which has already split, was expected to quit the government before a Gaza withdrawal in any event.
Still, Mr. Sharon would have only 55 seats in the 120-member Parliament, and without significant support from the opposition, would have trouble passing a state budget. His Gaza plan was approved by 67 members of Parliament, many of them from the Labor and left-wing opposition, but Labor has said it would not necessarily vote with Mr. Sharon on the state budget, which must be passed by the end of March.
Labor is pressing to join the government, but the Likud central committee has explicitly prohibited Mr. Sharon from inviting Labor to do so.
Three other ministers had joined Mr. Netanyahu in the threat to resign, but they have publicly or privately rescinded their ultimatums, leaving Mr. Netanyahu isolated.
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Palestinian Delegation Hoping to See Arafat
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 8, 2004; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32109-2004Nov7.html
JERUSALEM, Nov. 7 -- Denying reports that Yasser Arafat has suffered major organ damage but acknowledging that details of his condition remain uncertain, senior Palestinian officials said they planned to travel to Paris on Monday to assess the health of the Palestinian leader and meet with doctors and French authorities.
"We're going to really find out his condition and be close to him, even though it will only be for 24 hours," the foreign minister, Nabil Shaath, said on Sunday, adding that he would accompany Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, the temporary head of the Palestinian Authority, and Mahmoud Abbas, acting chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
But Arafat's wife, Suha Arafat, lashed out in a television interview on Monday that the planned visit by Palestinian leaders to see him was aimed at "burying (him) alive," the Associated Press reported.
In a screaming telephone call from Arafat's hospital beside, she told the al-Jazeera satellite television network that she was issuing "an appeal to the Palestinian people." She accused Arafat's top lieutenants of conspiring to usurp the role her husband has held for four decades as Palestinian leader.
"You have to realize the size of the conspiracy. I tell you they are trying to bury Abu Ammar alive," she said, using his nom de guerre. "He is all right, and he is going home. God is great."
Shaath said Arafat's doctors would determine whether members of the high-level delegation will be allowed to see the Palestinian leader, 75, who remains in critical condition in a French military hospital outside Paris.
The senior officials hope the visit "will allay the extreme anxiety going on here because of a lot of disinformation," Shaath said in a telephone interview. "It has been said that he died, that he is suffering from brain damage, liver damage -- all of that is untrue. The man is in critical condition, but it is not deteriorating."
Arafat was flown to Paris on Oct. 29, suffering from a life-threatening medical condition. Doctors have not released details of his illness. Suha Arafat has restricted access to her husband and to information about his health, provoking dismay among Palestinian officials, according to Arafat associates who accompanied him to Paris.
Shaath said Arafat is suffering from a loss of blood platelets that has left him weak, but that doctors have not determined what is causing the loss.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, asked in an interview with LCI television on Sunday about Arafat's health, said that "he is alive," adding, "His condition is very complex, very serious and stable right now." Asked to respond to reports that Arafat is brain-dead, Barnier replied, "I wouldn't say that."
Israeli officials, meanwhile, said warnings about potential attacks against Israelis by militant groups have decreased in the past week as interim Palestinian leaders have pleaded with the organizations to curb anti-Israeli violence and unrest in the Palestinian territories while Arafat is struggling for his life.
"It seems the old guard has taken matters to hand, and it appears they are controlling the situation," Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Sunday during the weekly cabinet meeting, according to Israeli news accounts. "It appears they are calling for a united stance and an end to Hamas terror. However, there is no guarantee they will be successful."
Mofaz told the ministers that "there has been a certain decrease in the scope of the warnings," the cabinet reported in a communique released after the session, but added that general warnings of attacks in Israel continue.
Correspondent Glenn Frankel in Paris contributed to this report.
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Palestinian Aides Try to Unravel Mystery of Arafat's Condition
November 8, 2004
By STEVEN ERLANGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/08/international/middleeast/08cnd-mide.html?ei=5094&en=27ab00c2e3a58ec9&hp=&ex=1099976400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all&position=
JERUSALEM, Nov. 8 - In a drama with some of the characteristics of a Greek tragedy and some of a French farce, there was a brewing confrontation tonight over the comatose figure of Yasir Arafat between his distraught wife, Suha, and his political heirs.
Mrs. Arafat, sophisticated, blonde and 34 years younger than her revolutionary icon husband, has used French privacy laws to keep the true state of her husband's health a mystery to the world - and to the Palestinians who were closest to him, not to mention the ordinary people who claim him as the father of their nation.
French officials say they are fed up with her maneuvering, and so are the Palestinian leaders trying to keep their people calm and establish a legitimate line of succession to the 75-year-old Mr. Arafat, who kept all positions of real power to himself.
Exasperated and worried, senior Palestinian leaders arrived in Paris tonight to find out for themselves whether Mr. Arafat is alive or clinically dead, curable or not. But as they scheduled meetings for Tuesday with President Jacques Chirac of France and his foreign minister, Michel Barnier, it was still not clear whether they would be allowed to visit the bedside of Mr. Arafat.
The Palestinians abruptly canceled and then rescheduled the trip today after Mrs. Arafat accused them, in what she called "an appeal to the Palestinian people'' from Mr. Arafat's bedside, of trying to bury her husband alive and take over his powers.
"You have to realize the size of the conspiracy,'' she told Al Jazeera television in a telephone call she initiated. "I tell you that a number of contenders to the throne are coming to Paris and they are trying to bury Abu Ammar alive," she said, using Mr. Arafat's nom de guerre. "He is all right and he is going home. God is great."
French officials, who are themselves impatient with the mystery surrounding the condition of Mr. Arafat, said they had urged the Palestinian leaders to come to try to break Mrs. Arafat's hold over the situation, though the French presidency officially denies it. They also successfully urged the Palestinians to reinstall the trip to Paris after they had canceled it in anger over Mrs. Arafat's remarks, Palestinian officials said.
Under French law, Mrs. Arafat has the right to control all information about her husband and all decisions about his treatment and perhaps his eventual death, French officials said.
The officials said Mr. Arafat was in a coma but was not brain dead. Doctors at the Percy Army Training Hospital outside of Paris have told the Élysée Palace that "the coma is technically reversible although it is unlikely," one French official said, but Mr. Arafat could linger for some time.
Gen. Christian Estripeau, the hospital spokesman, provided another cryptic briefing this evening. "His condition is stable," the general said, and added, "Mr. Arafat's medical condition forces us to limit visits." Whether that will be a reason for the Palestinian delegation not to see Mr. Arafat was unclear.
The Palestinian delegation is extremely high-ranking, consisting of all the institutional successors to Mr. Arafat's many titles as the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, of its largest faction, Fatah, and president of the Palestinian Authority. The group consists of Mahmoud Abbas, secretary general and No. 2 of the P.L.O.; Ahmed Qurei, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority; Nabil Shaath, the Authority's foreign minister; and Rawhi Fattouh, the speaker of the parliament, an Arafat loyalist who would become president of the Authority upon Mr. Arafat's death for 60 days until new elections can be held.
They were authorized to come by the central committee of Fatah, the largest faction in the P.L.O., which Mr. Arafat also heads.
The appeal of Mrs. Arafat, who is widely reviled among Palestinians, would be too easily considered the outpourings of a spouse distraught over the death of a husband and an icon, Palestinian officials said.
In her appeal, Mrs. Arafat also shouted, "It is revolution until victory," one of Mr. Arafat's most famous slogans from his long revolutionary past, dropped only when he agreed to recognize the existence of the state of Israel. She was appealing to the young militants of Palestine not to let the institutional inheritors of Mr. Arafat win, said Eran Lerman, an Arabic-speaking former Israeli intelligence officer who is the regional director of the American Jewish Committee.
"It is crass and unfair to put her appeal down just to wanting money," Mr. Lerman said. "She seemed to be trying to preserve the model of political legitimacy in Palestinian affairs that is revolutionary and charismatic, and not institutional." That debate has been vivid in Arab life in the last generation since the death of President Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt in 1970 and is also apparent today in Iraq, Mr. Lerman said. "She was appealing to the hotheaded young militants" to resist the succession of the more institutional men in suits."
Her appeal was widely scorned by Palestinians today, however. Mr. Arafat's National Security Adviser, Jibril Rajoub, said to reporters: "About the chairman's wife, he chose her to be his wife. We respected this and continue to respect this. She was not part of the Palestinian leadership."
Sufian Abu Zaida, the Palestinian deputy cabinet minister, told Israel radio: "For a woman who did not see her husband for three years, it is very strange that at the end of his days, his wife decides who will enter and who will not enter. This is an absurd situation," he said, raising his voice, "for Suha to sit there and decide when and how and who."
Yasir Abed Rabbo, a senior P.L.O. figure, accused Mrs. Arafat of "hysteria."
Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator, said Mr. Arafat is a head of state, and not just a husband and father. "This is their right to go to Paris - to dispel all these misconceptions and rumors," she said, calling Mrs. Arafat's comments "provocative and divisive."
Mr. Qurei, at the beginning of a cabinet meeting, was more gentle, saying: "We express our utmost regret at the comments made by sister Suha," adding that Mr. Arafat "belongs to the Palestinian people."
In Nablus, Palestinians finishing their shopping for the evening meal, to break the Ramadan fast, sharply criticized Mrs. Arafat.
"All of us are worried about the president's health," said Umm Khalil, 58, pausing with three bulging plastic bags in her hands. "She has no right to say, 'Don't come.' They are his comrades, his colleagues, his friends." She said that Mrs. Arafat's statement was "meaningless," before appending hastily, "I'm fasting - I don't want to criticize or attack anyone."
Ghazi Ali Hassan, a 61-year-old farmer shopping in Nablus, also pointed out that Mr. Abbas and Mr. Qurei are old friends of Mr. Arafat. "I don't think they are going to betray him as she is trying to suggest. No one knows his health situation, and we have a right to know."
He added of Mrs. Arafat, "Where has she been for four years?" Listening in, Salahadin Salem, 51, picked up on that thought. "She was not next to him when he needed her. She was away in Paris, enjoying her life."
Said Hindieh, 44, a gas station attendant, said: "President Arafat is not owned by one person or group. Arafat is the symbol of the Palestinian people."
He said that Palestinians deserved to know the status of their leader, and that learning it from Mr. Abbas and Mr. Qurei would send an important and reassuring signal that their institutions were continuing to function. "Whatever the opinion of Abu Ala and Abu Mazen, they have official titles," he said, referring to Mr. Abbas and Mr. Qurei, respectively. "She was expecting that everybody would stand with her, but to the contrary the people are against her."
The Israeli press suggested today that Mr. Arafat might have a main burial service in Egypt, where Arab leaders would not have to pass through Israeli border controls, and then be buried in the Gaza Strip, where his father and sister are interred. But Egypt denied the report.
Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from Jerusalem, Elaine Sciolino from Paris and James Bennet from Nablus in the West Bank.
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LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS ON BUSH STAR WARS PLAN
From: "Global Network" <globalnet@mindspring.com>
Date: Mon Nov 8, 2004 1:08pm
PUBLIC COMMENTS NEEDED ON PENTAGON STAR WARS PLAN
http://www.acq.osd.mil/mda/peis/html/public.html#peis
The Bush administration's Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is now calling for public comment on their Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for the Ballistic Missile Defense System. Public comment is due by November 17, 2004. People from all countries are urged to send comments. (See below for details.)
The PEIS analyzes the potential impacts to the environment as MDA proposes to develop, test, deploy, and plan for their new Star Wars plan.
The PEIS considers three options:
Alternative 1, missile defenses without space-based weapons.
Alternative 2, missile defenses with space-based weapons.
Alternative 3, no action.
Conceptually, the Star Wars plan under review would be a layered system of weapons, sensors, Command & Control, Battle Management, and Communications; each with specific functional capabilities, working together to "defend" against all classes and ranges of threats in all phases of flight. Multiple "defensive" weapons would be used to create a layered system of multiple intercept capabilities.
WRITTEN COMMENTS:
Written comments regarding the PEIS should be sent to MDA BMDS PEIS, c/o ICF Consulting, 9300 Lee Highway, Fairfax, VA. 22031 or e-mailed to mda.bmds.peis@i... by November 17, 2004. We encourage people who live outside the U.S. to also send comments.
KEY POINTS TO MAKE: (Please use your own words)
1) This new Star Wars program as outlined in the PEIS will be destabilizing thus creating new momentum to move the deadly and dangerous arms race into the heavens. This will create more global instability.
2) Testing and deployment of weapons in space will create massive amounts of new space debris making the environment of space even more contaminated and thus unavailable for future space flight.
2) This new Star Wars plan will be extraordinarily expensive requiring massive cuts in health care, education, public services, and environmental clean-up.
3) The likely use of nuclear power for eventual space-based weapons would be an environmental disaster.
4) Space-based weapons, described in the PEIS as being "defensive", could easily serve an offensive purpose as outlined in the Space Command's Vision for 2020 that says the U.S. will "deny" other nations the use of space.
5) Toxic rocket exhaust pollution is now contaminating the Earth and punching a hole in the ozone layer. This plan would dramatically expand these polluting launches.
6) For all these reasons we support the "No Action Alternative."
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 729-0517 (207) 319-2017 (Cell phone) globalnet@m...
http://www.space4peace.org
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Veteran Sues Over Reactivation 13 Years After Army Discharge
November 8, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/08/national/08reserve.html
HONOLULU, Nov. 7 (AP) - A veteran of the first Persian Gulf war is suing the Army after it ordered him to report for duty 13 years after he was honorably discharged from active duty and 8 years after he left the Reserves.
The veteran, David Miyasato of Kauai, received word of his reactivation in September, but says he believes he completed his eight-year obligation to the Army long ago.
"I was shocked," Mr. Miyasato said Friday. "I never expected to see something like that after being out of the service for 13 years."
His federal lawsuit, filed Friday in Honolulu, seeks a judgment declaring that he has fulfilled his military obligations.
Harry Yee, an assistant United States attorney, said his office would defend the Army. He declined to comment further.
Mr. Miyasato, 34, was scheduled to report to a military facility in South Carolina on Tuesday.
Within hours of filing the lawsuit, however, Mr. Miyasato received a faxed letter from the Army's Human Resources Command saying that his "exemption from active duty had not been finalized at this time" but that he had been given an administrative delay for up to 30 days, said his lawyer, Eric Seitz.
Mr. Miyasato, who is married and has a 7-month-old daughter, enlisted in the Army in 1987 and served in Iraq and Kuwait during the first gulf war as a petroleum supply specialist and truck driver.
Mr. Miyasato said he received an honorable discharge from active duty in 1991, then served in the Reserves until 1996 to fulfill his eight-year enlistment commitment.
The Army announced last year that it would activate an estimated 5,600 soldiers to serve in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Army officials are tapping members of the Individual Ready Reserve - soldiers who have been discharged from the Army, Army Reserve or the Army National Guard, but still have contractual obligations to the military.
Mr. Miyasato said he never re-enlisted, signed up for any bonuses or was told that he had been transferred to the Individual Ready Rese