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NUCLEAR
Ultrafast Laser Speeds Up Quest For Atomic Control
France and Japan fail to resolve row on nuclear project
Chernobyl caused slight rise in cancer rates in northern Sweden: study
Nuclear proliferation, terror overwhelm Asia-Pacific meet
Wisconsin PSC blocks proposed sale of nuclear power plant
Environmental groups ask Martin to reject overhaul of N.B. nuclear plant
IRAQ: High levels of radioactive pollution seen in the south
Environmental Health Perspectives
Turkey plans to build three nuclear power plants by 2011: minister
Iran urges U.N. to ignore nuclear claims by exiles
Nuclear Disclosures on Iran Unverified
Bush Confronts New Challenge on Issue of Iran
Iran has black market nuclear bomb drawings, still enriches uranium
Japan eyes plant exports via nuclear technology alliance with US
Powell Presses for Nuclear Talks With North Korea
Bush to step up pressure for NKorea to discuss nukes
LockMart's PAC-3 Missiles Intercept Two Targets During Flight Test
U.S. Ambassador Calls on Russia to Fully Support Efforts
Non-aligned states on nuclear mission to Iran
US Congress Keeps Alive Plans For Nev Nuclear Waste Dump
Spending bill includes $577 million for Yucca
NRC EXTENDS COMMENT PERIOD
MILITARY
Rivalries, Divisions Take Toll on Taliban
Afghan Poppy Growing Reaches Record Level, U.N. Says
U.N. Pleads for 3 Captives
At Unusual U.N. Session, Sudanese Factions Vow to End War
Colonial Tensions Reemerge in Ivory Coast
How Russia keeps China armed
Trouble in Thailand
Army chief has many pals
Boeing Chiefs Knew of Insider Data, Lockheed Says
Pentagon Updates Rules on Post-Government Work
Carnegie Military University :
Intelsat Government Solutions Becomes Intelsat General Corporation
US company fined for illegal sale of military parts to China
Bridging Beijing to Tibet with each new track
Supercomputer Advances To New Level In China
In triangle of death
Beheaded Bodies Found in Mosul; U.S. Storms Baghdad Mosque
Insurgent Base Discovered in Fallujah
U.S. and Iraqi Troops Storm Baghdad Mosque
Jailed in Israel, Palestinian Symbol Eyes Top Post
First Space Council To Set Course Towards A European Space Program
Iraq Casualties
American Teenagers as War Fodder
Back To Basics As IEDs Change Urban Warfare
U.S. War Crimes in Fallujah
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Compromise Sought on Intelligence Legislation
Agreement May Be Near on 9/11 Bill
RQ-5 Hunter UAVs Deployed For US Border Patrol Missions
Haitian pastor dies on U.S. doorstep
Belarus Accuses U.S. of Rights Abuses
Official Allegedly Hinted at Saudi Torture of Va. Man
POLITICS
Canadian PM expels anti-Bush MP
A softer-style Putin defends his policies on national TV
Putin Denies Retreat From Democracy
Debt Limit to Rise to $8.18 Trillion
Congress Passes $800 Billion Debt Limit Increase
Congressional Leaders Work on Compatible Spending Bill
Greenspan Warns That U.S. Deficits Pose Risk to Dollar
House Ethics Panel Warns Lawmakers About Complaints
R.I. Reporter Found Guilty In Trial for Not Naming Source
Reporter Convicted for Refusing to Give Identity of a Source
Spain re-arrests al-Jazeera man
Release of Future Election Day Poll Results Is to Be Delayed
ENERGY
Ethanol Plant Would Run on Methane Produced from Cattle Manure
OTHER
Greens Paint Grim Picture of Future, Warmer World
U.S. Ends Effort at U.N. to Ban All Human Cloning
Concerned somebodies help the homeless
ACTIVISTS
Protests Erupt in Chile in Advance of Bush's Arrival
Protesters Denounce APEC Summit in Chile
Anti-Bush Protesters Battle Police at Chile Summit
Ivorians Deliver a Wake-Up Call To White House
-------- NUCLEAR
Ultrafast Laser Speeds Up Quest For Atomic Control
Gaithersburg MD (SPX)
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/physics-04zl.html
It's the scientific equivalent of having your cake and eating it too. A team of researchers from JILA, a joint institute of the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado at Boulder, has developed an efficient, low-cost way to measure the energy levels of atoms in a gas with extremely high accuracy, and simultaneously detect and control transitions between the levels as fast as they occur.
The technique is expected to have practical applications in many fields including astrophysics, quantum computing, chemical analysis, and chemical synthesis.
Described in the Nov. 18 online issue of Science Express, the method uses ultrafast pulses of laser light like a high speed movie camera to record in real-time the energy required to boost an atom's outer electrons from one orbital pattern to another.
The pulses are so short that scientists can track precisely the fraction of atoms in each energy state and how those populations change with time.
Moreover, the atoms respond to subsequent laser pulses cumulatively - the energy adds up over time - which allows fine-tuning to affect specific orbital patterns of interest with a much lower power laser than usual.
All of chemistry depends on the configurations of these outer electrons. The technique promises to make it easier for scientists to systematically understand the radiation "signatures" (or spectra) given off by atoms and molecules as their electrons jump between different energy levels.
Ultimately, it should allow improved control of the complex chain of events that combines atoms into desired compounds.
The JILA team is a world leader in applying so-called "frequency combs" to practical science problems. The laser system used in the current work emits a hundred thousand different infrared frequencies at once in individual pulses lasting just femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second).
The JILA researchers used the laser to precisely study the electron energy levels within an ultracold gas of rubidium atoms.
The ability to probe atoms with many different laser frequencies simultaneously and to monitor atom responses in real time should allow scientists to study and control systems in a vastly more efficient and precise manner.
A. Marian, M. C. Stowe, J. R. Lawall, D. Felinto, and J. Ye. 2004. "United time-frequency spectroscopy for dynamics and global structure." Science Express. Nov. 18.
-----
France and Japan fail to resolve row on nuclear project
(AFP)
Nov 19, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041119/sc_afp/science_energy_iter_eu_041119212150
PARIS - France and Japan failed to resolve their differences on where to build a revolutionary nuclear fusion project, with Foreign Minister Michel Barnier saying France was determined to host the facility.
"Our determination has not changed on that subject," Barnier said after talks in Paris with his Japanese counterpart Mobutaka Machimura.
The EU's executive arm warned Tuesday that Europe would go ahead and build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France without Japan if an agreement with Tokyo is not reached "as soon as possible".
Five nations and the European Union (news - web sites) have been cooperating to develop the reactor, a test bed for what is being billed as a clean, safe, inexhaustible energy source of the future.
Barnier his talks with Machimura as "frank", but said he remains "convinced a solution acceptable to all can be worked out."
Machimura said ITER was a project that should go forward with six parties.
"It is not in confrontation but partnership that a solution can be found," said the Japanese minister.
The deputy director of Japan's Office of Fusion Energy, Takahiro Hayashi, on Wednesday criticized threats by the EU to go ahead alone and build the reactor at Cadarache in southern France.
"(The EU's) negotiating stance is worrisome and regrettable," said Hayashi.
The United States and South Korea (news - web sites) back building ITER at Rokkasho-mura in Japan, while China and Russia support the Cadarache site.
The ITER budget is projected to be 10 billion euros (13 billion dollars) over the next 30 years, including 4.7 billion euros to build the reactor. The European Union plans to finance 40 percent of the total.
The project, emulating the sun's nuclear fusion, is not expected to generate electricity before 2050.
-------- accidents and safety
Chernobyl caused slight rise in cancer rates in northern Sweden: study
STOCKHOLM (AFP)
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041119134606.e9b5x2tp.html
Radioactive fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in Ukraine led to an increase in cancer cases in northern Sweden, a study shows.
Researchers from the Linkoeping and Oerebro university hospitals found "a slight exposure-related increase" in total cancer incidence after the Chernobyl disaster.
It is the first study to suggest a possible increase in post-Chernobyl cancer rates outside the Soviet Union as a result of the accident.
The findings appear in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, published by the British Medical Association (BMA).
The world's worst civilian nuclear disaster occured on April 26, 1986, when reactor number four at the Chernobyl plant blew up, spewing out a radioactive cloud that swept across and contaminated much of northern Europe.
Previous Swedish studies have shown no increase, say the authors, led by Martin Tondel of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Linkoeping University.
Cancer rates were monitored among 1,143,182 people living in 450 parishes in seven out of Sweden's 21 counties during the two years after the accident.
People who lived in the region but whose area was not contaminated by radioactive fallout served as a control group.
During a follow-up carried out from 1988 to 1996, some 22,400 people in the contaminated areas were diagnosed with various types of cancer during the period.
This was 849 more than would otherwise have been expected, when compared to cancer incidence in this region in 1986-88.
Although this represents only a "slight" increase in the cancer rate, the authors say they were surprised to find a higher-than-expected rise among people who had received low doses of radiation.
"Our study shows that the risk from low-dose irradiation might come earlier and be slightly slightly higher than predicted by the International Commission on Radiological Protection estimates," they say.
The commission's estimates are based on a study among survivors of the 1945 atomic bomb blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
However, that study has been attacked as flawed, as it was carried out five years after the bomb explosions. By that time, many people who had received low doses of radiation may already have died, thus skewing the picture among survivors, according to critics.
-------- asia
Nuclear proliferation, terror overwhelm Asia-Pacific meet
SANTIAGO (AFP)
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041118232126.mdxgmb3n.html
Asia-Pacific powers, gearing up for a weekend summit, vowed Thursday to keep mobile missile launchers out of terrorist hands and to curb nuclear proliferation by "axis of evil" members North Korea and Iran.
Meeting behind tight security in Santiago by the foothills of the snow-capped Andes, dry Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade talks were overwhelmed by the terrorist and nuclear threats.
US President George W. Bush, already the target of protesters who clashed with riot police Wednesday in Santiago, is expected to pursue his core "war on terror" agenda after arrival Friday evening.
At a breakfast Thursday, foreign ministers of the 19 states -- excluding Taiwan and Hong Kong -- in the APEC forum sought to keep closer tabs on shoulder-fired missiles capable of downing a plane.
"The focus of that discussion was making sure that the APEC region was well equipped to deal with the threat of MANPADs (Man-Portable Air Defense Systems)," Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.
"But there was also a focus on export controls and in particular export controls on materials that could be used for weapons of mass destruction," he told a press conference.
In a joint statement, the foreign ministers said they would work to eliminate the danger of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and delivery systems, and to set up guidelines to closely control the movement of shoulder-fired missiles.
In a main ministerial "retreat" after breakfast, ministers broached the North Korean nuclear crisis.
There was "a general agreement that all of us in the region had to put increasing pressure on the North Koreans to participate in the six-party talks," the Australian minister said.
Outgoing US Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters Wednesday that he saw some signs North Korea may be ready to give up its insistence on bilateral, not multilateral, talks to end the stand-off.
Three rounds of multilateral talks, seeking to persuade Pyongyang to take aid and security guarantees in return for mothballing the nuclear program, have taken place since the stand-off erupted in October 2002.
North Korea boycotted a fourth round of talks in September, bringing together the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States in Beijing. All but North Korea are members of APEC.
Downer appeared less optimistic than Powell about the prospects for getting Pyongyang back to the table.
"We very much hope the North Koreans, now the American presidential election is resolved, will be more positive about participating in the six-party talks. But the Japanese had a delegation in North Korea last week and they did not get a very positive reception during that trip. So we will just have to wait and see," he said.
A "substantial onus" fell on China to use its leverage with North Korea, the Australian said.
Without any North Korean movement, economic sanctions could be considered, Downer cautioned.
"There may be some feeling as time goes on that the degree of economic interaction should be reduced if there is not going to be appropriate cooperation by the North Koreans at all with the five (other) parties or with the broader international community. But that is a work in progress," he said.
Downer said he was hosting a "Northern Dinner," named after New Zealand club where a group of ministers first dined, with Powell, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hasim Wirayuda and Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai to broach nuclear proliferation, including North Korea and Iran.
"The potential of Iran to develop a nuclear weapons program is a very significant issue for the international community," Downer said.
Powell said Wednesday Washington had information that Iran was seeking to adapt its missiles to carry nuclear warheads.
Aside from terrorism, ministers supported a swift conclusion to World Trade Organization (WTO) efforts to get a new deal freeing up global trade.
They also supported measures to contain oil price shocks, set some guidelines for the proliferation of regional or bilateral trade arrangements and sought reforms to boost efficiency, including anti-graft measures and greater transparency.
-------- business
Wisconsin PSC blocks proposed sale of nuclear power plant
American City Business Journals
11 19 04
http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2004/11/15/daily48.html
The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin on Friday rejected the proposed sale of an aging nuclear power plant in Kewaunee to an out-of-state firm.
The PSC said the agreement for Wisconsin Power & Light Co. and Wisconsin Public Service Corp. to sell the Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant to Dominion Resources Inc., Richmond, Va., was not in the public interest. The sale would have resulted in the power plant being turned over to unregulated entity, reducing the PSC's ability to regulate the facility.
The 545-megawatt plant is co-owned by Wisconsin Power & Light, Madison, and Wisconsin Public Service, Green Bay. The two utilities announced in November 2003 that they agreed to sell the plant to an affiliate of Dominion for $220 million. The utilities also agreed to enter into purchased-power agreements with the new owner.
The rejection of the deal by the PSC was praised by consumer advocates and municipal utility officials.
"Had the sale been approved, the Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant would have become a merchant plant not subject to the regulation of the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin," said David Benforado, executive director of the Municipal Electric Utilities of Wisconsin, an association of 82 municipal electric utilities. "The state would have lost its authority to regulate the cost of electricity from the facility, approve major repairs or replacements at the site and oversee the financial integrity of the facility's owners."
In a statement, officials from Wisconsin Power & Light, a unit of Madison-based Alliant Energy Corp., and Wisconsin Public Service, expressed disappointment with the decision.
"Clearly this was a difficult decision for the PSCW to make, but we're disappointed their decision does not reflect what we believe to be a transaction that is substantially beneficial to our customers, shareowners and plant employees," said Charlie Schrock, Public Service president and chief operating officer-generation.
The utilities filed an application for the sale with the PSC to shift financial risk from utility customers and shareowners to Dominion, offer greater certainty of future costs and return nearly $200 million of decommissioning funds to customers, the utilities said.
Wisconsin Public Service and WP&L are currently assessing the implications of today's decision and are reviewing their options to continue pursuing sale of the plant.
"We continue to believe the timing is right to sell the plant," said Barbara Swan, president of WP&L. "We will consider our options after further review and discussion, and proceed in the best interests of our customers and other stakeholders."
The PSC panel rejected the sale by a 2-to-1 vote. Chairperson Burnie Bridge and commissioner Mark Meyer voted to reject the sale, while commissioner Bert Garvin supported the sale.
The Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant is a baseload facility, providing low-cost energy to meet Wisconsin's energy demands. It started operation in 1974 and has an operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that expires in 2013.
-------- canada
Environmental groups ask Martin to reject overhaul of N.B. nuclear plant
Canadian Press
CHRIS MORRIS
Nov 19, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cpress/20041119/ca_pr_on_sc/nb_lepreau_1
FREDERICTON (CP) - A coalition of environmental groups is calling on the Canadian government to reject any involvement in refurbishing New Brunswick's aging nuclear power plant.
New Brunswick's Conservative government is expected to announce its plans for the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station near Saint John by the end of the year.
Greenpeace Canada, the Climate Action Network, the Sierra Club (news - web sites), the David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute, have joined forces and sent a letter to Prime Minister Paul Martin asking that he reject any proposal from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. for reactor refurbishment at Lepreau.
"AECL can only obtain a contract for Point Lepreau refurbishment by accepting the risk for cost overruns, delays, equipment failure, workmanship problems and poor performance," states the letter, released Friday.
"These government-backed guarantees for the $1.4 billion project would entail huge risks for federal taxpayers."
The Tory government of Premier Bernard Lord is trying to figure out whether it should decommission the 22-year-old Candu plant or fix it up at an estimated cost of $1.4 billion.
The province has said it would prefer to attract a private partner to share in the cost and the risk of the new facility.
There is speculation that Bruce Power, with its experience in nuclear generation in Ontario, could be one of the private companies the province is hoping to attract.
AECL, which would design and engineer the refurbished reactor at Lepreau, would like to see New Brunswick proceed with the retrofit.
The coalition of environmental groups says that AECL has no prospects for reactor sales and is trying to keep itself alive through the Point Lepreau refurbishment.
"A contract for refurbishment of Point Lepreau would amount to a 25-year backdoor subsidy for the nuclear industry in New Brunswick," the environmental groups state.
The organizations note in their letter to Martin that even the province's own Public Utilities Board has ruled that refurbishing the plant would not be in the public interest.
"No nuclear project in Canada has ever been completed on time or on budget," the environmentalists' letter states.
-------- depleted uranium
IRAQ: High levels of radioactive pollution seen in the south
Nov 19, 2004
Axis of Logic
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_13724.shtml
BASRA, - Iraqi environmental scientists investigating radioactive pollution around the southern city of Basra are finding alarmingly high levels of radiation left by the use of depleted uranium (DU) in recent wars.
But given the lack of a permanent, elected government in Iraq and poor security, they are finding it difficult to get permission to remove contaminated material amid growing instances of cancer and birth defects in the area.
One such scientist is Khashak Wartanian, a researcher at the University of Basra on radioactive pollution, who also works for the city's Environmental Direoctory. While carrying out a survey during the summer on radiation levels in the Qibla area near Basra, he found two Iraqi tanks which had been hit by DU-tipped ammunition. They found children playing near the site, which was then fenced off and marked by warning signs.
"These tanks are just two in a series of tanks and ammunition we have uncovered since the Radiation Unit at the Environmental Directory was set up in 2001," he told IRIN.
DU is an extremely dense, heavy metal, and a waste product of atomic bomb production. It has a half-life of over 4 billion years. It contains trace amounts of plutonium and is 60 percent as radioactive as naturally occurring uranium.
According to local residents, the area was a military target during the 1991 Gulf war and again in 2003, when it came under heavy fire from US aircraft. Wartanian took a radiation reading of 0.6 mR/h on one tank and 0.5mR/h on the other. "This is 1,000 times more radioactive than average background radiation," the researcher said.
He also checked radiation levels in nearby residential areas and found they were worringly high. In the home of Abdel-Zahra Shindy, a resident living near the polluted site, he took a reading of 0.2 mR/h-0.3 mR/h, compared with normal levels of 0.008R/h.
DU occurs naturally in the environment but when used in weapons it burns releasing uranium oxide dust into the air.
Officials at the Environment Directory in Basra told IRIN that although they were collecting data on areas exposed to radioactive debris, the lack of government direction was making it hard to take measures to remove material.
They added that there was also a lack of reliable information about areas contaminated. "We only know about tanks in areas hit more than 10 years ago, during the Gulf war in 1991," an official at the directory said. "There were more concerns with pollution during the former regime. Two radiation units were established in Baghdad and Basra in 2000 and were provided with the needed modern equipment," the official said.
The Pentagon admits to dropping 320 mt of DU in Iraq, although the environmental organisation Greenpeace puts the estimate at over 800 mt. Immediately after last spring's war to oust the former regime, residents said the US military cleared the area, picking up unexploded ordnance and other debris. However, they refused to remove many artillery pieces.
In the aftermath of the war, Wartanian made a reading around a tank in the centre of Basra, which picked up evidence of Thorium (th324), a DU equivalent. "Since May 2003 we have been trying to search for more contaminated areas. We met with the WHO [World Health Organisation], as well as with British troops, to investigate the matter but things have moved slowly due to a continuous deterioration in security," Wartanian said.
In December 2003, 22 DU-polluted tanks were found in an area 5 km away from Basra city, close to the Iranian border. So far his team have found DU-polluted tanks across the south in Basra, Muthana, Abu al-Kahsib and in Samawa.
Some local residents, unaware of the radiation danger, cut scrap metals from DU-polluted tanks and sell them. An Environmental Directory official said that they were trying to warn people of the dangers of using such metal. Scrap metal plants may also have released contaminants from destroyed military vehicles, he said.
In conjunction with the now defunct Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the directory succeeded in banning licences to sell scrap metals to other countries last June, but it is uncertain how effective this has been given the lack of a proper government to enforce the law.
"It was sold for 50,000 Iraqi dinars [US $34] per ton, but some people may still be doing the business unofficially," the official said.
Another serious problem, which has long been linked to the use of DU, is the rise in cancer and birth defects in the area. Wartanian said that although many of the residents close to radio-polluted sites may have registered cases of cancer, skin sensitivity and respiratory diseases, the relation between radiation and cancer was still controversial.
However, doctors in Basra have registered an increase of incidences of colon cancer and thyroid cancer, in addition to leukemia and lymphomas.
According to Dr Janan Hassan, an obstetrician at the Basra Maternity and Children's Hospital, malignancies and leukemia among children under the age of 15 have more than tripled since 1990.
Whereas in 1990 young children accounted for only 13 percent of cancer cases, today over 56 percent of all cancer in Iraq occurs among children under the age of five.
"Also, it is notable that the number of babies born with defects is rising astonishingly. In 1990, there were seven cases of babies with multiple congenital anomalies. This has gone up to as high as 224 cases in the past three years," she said.
Dr Jawad al-Ali, director of the Oncology Centre of Sadr Educational Hospital in Basra, told IRIN that there were a number of cases that led some doctors to assume DU's adverse effects on human health in Iraq.
"There has been a sharp rise in cancer, birth defects, miscarriage, and in neurological disorders, muscular disease and kidney failure; causes have not been identified but they could be assumed to be caused by the toxicity of DU munitions," the doctor said.
According to a study of cancer patients in Basra carried out by the doctor in 1988, cancer rates were 11 per 100,000 people. The number went up to 116 in 1991 and 123 in 2002. There was also a sharp rise in the leukemia patients in 1996 and there has been another rise in recent years. Many cases are near places where DU weapons were used, he said.
--------
Environmental Health Perspectives
112:17; pp994 to 1005
Battle Scars - Global Conflicts and Environmental Health
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2004/112-17/EHP112pa994PDF.pdf
Some DU information herein, but the .pdf is 30+mb and would not save.
For the DU extract, see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/files/ EHP Dec 04 v 112 # 17 pp A998-A1000.doc Extract on DU fr EHP article - - Battle Scars full pdf is 30 mb, lots of graphics of mine victims and refugees DU text - contemptibly inclonclusive
Mostly pictoial graphics, this article is likely aimed at Human Rights Week - the issues it canvasses are germane and timely. But I don't know who the hell is going to be motivated to follow up DU on the basis of this piece. I wonder who they think their audience is, to put a huge file of the sort which I assume is very unlikely to be widespread.
The text is below. I cut and pasted it to a Lookout Express rich text eml then converted it to plain text. It may supersede the du-list file, which would print poorly anyway, as it is graphic cutandpastes in a word doc.
The text is worth forwarding to human rights groups and I hope someone has the time and patience to follow up here. I am thoroughly exasperated and late for something else.
Robert
Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 112, Number 17 December 2004
Focus
Battle Scars: Global Conflicts and Environmental Health The Price of Preparing for War
Valerie J. Brown
Abstract The nature and weapons of war have changed radically in the last century, bringing conflict off the battleground and into city streets, and thereby magnifying its environmental health consequences. Age-old problems still follow war---lack of food, shelter, water, and sanitation, risk of infectious disease, and psychological trauma. But modern war also saddles populations with new threats from industrial and military chemicals, pesticides, and radiation, and humanitarian aid systems designed to help people after natural disasters cannot function properly in combat environments. A few encouraging strides are being made, such as the overall reduction in landmine production and use. It remains to be seen what further progress can be made in alleviating the environmental health disaster that is war.
War is as old as humanity, but the study of its environmental health effects is just beginning. Age-old problems still follow war--lack of food, shelter, water, and sanitation, risk of infectious diseases, and psychological trauma. But war today, in all its modern permutations, can also saddle populations with new threats from industrial and military chemicals, pesticides, and radiation.
Modern conflicts show a fundamental departure from the form of earlier wars. The Nobel Foundation report Wars in the 20th Century and Nobel Peace Prize Statistics states, "From 1900 to 1910, wars of all categories were represented rather evenly, whereas from 1990 to 2000 most were civil wars." Between 1945 and 1975 many former European colonies waged wars of independence in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. "Today there are few interstate wars with clearly defined parties, but civil wars have become increasingly internationalised," states the report. "Few internal wars today take place without the intervention of foreign states."
The post-Cold War world is split by development inequities, competition for control of natural resources, and seemingly intractable ethnic and religious divisions. Today, more than ever, conflict is a tangled interplay of social, political, and economic factors. In a speech delivered to the United Nations on 5 October 2004 titled "Development and Conflict," Paul Collier of the Center for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University noted that the more dependent a country is on the export of natural resources, the more vulnerable it is to civil war, and that doubling the per capita income halves the risk of conflict. [For more on the connection between conflict and natural resources, see "Global Resources: Abuse, Scarcity, and Insecurity," EHP 112:A168-A175 (2004)].
Wars are costly, too. Civil war in a poor country lasts an average of 10 years and costs $50 billion. More than half this cost is borne by neighboring countries, which often see influxes of fleeing refugees and combatants, Collier said. Perhaps the most important change in warfare, from the perspective of the environment, is the fact that wars are no longer limited to a designated field and clearly identifiable combatants. Instead, they may rage in urban streets and village squares, on cultivated land, or along highways, and the fighters may emerge from and blend into the civilian population. Because conflicts are no longer cordoned off in specified combat zones, but are now played out in everyday human environments, the environmental health consequences of war increase exponentially.
The Effects of Destabilization The invasion of modern warfare into urban areas means millions of people can be rapidly displaced. Some of these people become refugees in other countries, but many others stay in-country as so-called internally displaced persons (IDPs). Globally, the movement of refugees and IDPs is a fluid, indeed tidal phenomenon. The country of origin for the largest number of refugees is Afghanistan, with about 2.1 million people having fled by the end of 2003, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees report 2003 Global Refugee Trends. Most Afghan refugees go to neighboring Pakistan (which hosts about 12% of all refugees under the protection of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees) and Iran. Despite the seemingly constant number of conflicts around the world and the many populations of refugees and IDPs, the 2003 Global Refugee Trends report noted a drop of just over 3 million in such populations from 2002 to 2003. An "almost unprecedented level of voluntary repatriation" was observed in 2002 and 2003, with 3.5 million refugees going home. The number of IDPs has also decreased in some regions, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Angola, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Not yet out of the woods. Ethnic Albanian families leave the woods below Gajre to head to a safer location. They hid in the woods for three days while Serbian forces shelled their villages. image credit: Andrew Testa/Panos Pictures
But the report also noted significant increases in refugees moving from Sudan to Chad and from Liberia to Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Ghana. And a total of at least 1 million IDPs remain in Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Russian Federation, and Serbia and Montenegro. Colombia and Liberia each saw more than 250,000 more IDPs in 2003. By far the greatest danger to the greatest number of people in conflict areas and those fleeing violence is the lack of life's most basic necessities: potable water, food, shelter, and sanitation facilities. Crowded quarters make infectious disease outbreaks inevitable. Stressed by trauma and malnutrition, and without adequate medical care, refugees cannot fight off cholera, typhus, hepatitis, scabies, and numerous other contagious ailments.
The barest of necessities. Chechen refugees in the Republic of Ingushetia collect water from a damaged well in Sputnik camp. There, some 8,000 people are living in 800 tents and an abandoned train. image credit: Leo Erken/Panos Pictures
Carol Smedberg, an emergency medical technician who volunteers with the Portland, Oregon-based Northwest Medical Teams, visited Liberian IDP camps in September 2004. "The main problem is the water," Smedberg says. "Normally we tell people to drink more water, but there the water is the cause [of most of the health problems]." People have only charcoal briquettes for fuel, Smedberg says, and it is almost impossible to boil their drinking water, which is taken out of a stream that is also used as a toilet. Chicken pox breaks out about every two weeks as new people arrive in the camps, according to Smedberg.
Relatively developed countries are at just as much risk of war-related environmental health problems as the developing world. According to the GEO Year Book 2003 published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), unreliable electricity supplies in Iraq have caused sewage treatment equipment to stop working, sending raw sewage and industrial waste directly into the Tigris River, Baghdad's only source of water, as well as other bodies of water. On 25 September 2004 The New York Times reported that water and sewerage failures had contributed to an outbreak of at least 200 hepatitis E cases and 5 deaths. Like other forms of the disease, hepatitis E causes fever, jaundice, fatigue, nausea, and vomiting; it is especially threatening to pregnant women and fetuses.
True environmental exposure. A refugee family in Sar-e-Pol, Afghanistan, huddles together against the cold in a makeshift shelter. Médecins Sans Frontières estimates there are 3,500 families living in tents made of nothing but cloth and plastic, in dire need of water and sanitation. image credit: Tim Dervin/Panos Pictures
Iraq's problems don't end there. In a Lancet paper published online on 29 October 2004, Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins Center for International Emergency Disaster and Refugee Studies reported that the risk of death had more than doubled after the 2003 U.S. invasion. The major post-invasion cause of death was violence, which was widespread and attributed mainly to coalition air strikes. Excess deaths were estimated to be at least 100,000, with most victims being women and children. And a national assessment conducted by the new Iraqi government's health ministry reported 5,460 cases of typhoid in the first three months of 2004, according to a 13 October 2004 article published in Nature online. The Iraqi report also said mumps, measles, and other infectious diseases were ravaging the country's children, one-third of whom are chronically malnourished. In fact, the report said, Iraq's once relatively robust overall state of health is now comparable to that of Yemen and Afghanistan, where citizens face very high infant mortality and little access to clean water and sanitation services.
It can be difficult, sometimes impossible, to deliver aid to conflict-ridden regions. In an April 2004 country brief on Sudan, officials with the UN World Food Program (WFP) estimated that food assistance was necessary for 1.18 million Sudanese who were chronically malnourished due to drought, floods, and war. Aid was begun but suspended in mid-October after two Save the Children aid workers were killed by a landmine, and the WFP decided the security situation was too unstable to put its aid workers at further risk.
Babes and arms. (top) At Kibeho camp in Ngara, Tanzania, soldiers keep watch over some of the 1,000 children orphaned in the 1994 massacre of 4,000 Hutus by the Tutsi army of Rwanda. (bottom) Refugee children at the same camp must fetch drinking water from a muddy pond contaminated with fuel. image credits (top to bottom): Paul Lowe/Panos Pictures; Chris Sattlberger/Panos Pictures
Many of these same problems exist in the Chechnya conflict. By 2003 about 260,000 Chechens had set up camps in the adjacent Republic of Ingushetia in farm fields and factory grounds, living in leaky tents with inadequate protection from the cold. Tuberculosis was common.
The New York City-based International Rescue Committee (IRC) has set up or repaired 66 potable water supply points, collected garbage, and serviced latrines in Ingushetia, but Ingush authorities have restricted the amount and type of aid humanitarian groups could provide to refugees in Ingushetia. For example, according to a June 2003 press release by the international medical aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Ingush authorities had just that month suddenly declared an MSF temporary shelter project illegal and barred Chechen refugees from moving in.
Despite this pressure, most Chechen refugees are loath to return to Chechnya, where conditions are very dangerous, housing is almost nonexistent, and services have broken down. To help ease the situation in Chechnya, the IRC has for the last three years been trucking water to 20,000 Chechens in Grozny. And as of 2003 the organization had built 35 water reservoirs to be hooked up to the city's water mains. The IRC also builds and maintains latrines in Grozny, conducts pest control activities, and resurrects homes, including making repairs to electrical and gas lines.
Sea of refugees. During the 1999 war, ethnic Albanian inhabitants of Pristina waited in a field near the Macedonian border at Blace after being forced from their city by Serbian forces. image credit: Andrew Testa/Panos Pictures
Weapons of War I: Landmines Landmines have been in widespread military use since World War II, and the UN estimates there are 60-80 million laid around the world, many in places where conflict has long since ceased. Such landmines can destroy lives and societies for generations. According to the Landmine Monitor Report 2003, a publication of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), there are an estimated 200-215 million landmines currently stockpiled by 78 countries. All but about 10 million of those landmines are in nations that are not parties to the Mine Ban Treaty, an international convention that requires signatories to destroy their stockpiles within 4 years and clear all laid landmines within 10 years. Among these nonsignatories are China (home to an estimated 110 million landmines), Russia (with 50 million), the United States (with 10.4 million), and Pakistan (with 6 million). The Landmine Monitor Report 2003 also states that mines cause 15,000-20,000 new deaths and injuries per year (most victims are male civilians). Landmine conditions are dire and worsening in several countries, such as Chechnya and Nepal.
In more than 80 countries landmines make land unusable and impede the postconflict return to functioning economies and social life. Children who have lost limbs generally need a new prosthesis every year to keep up with their growth. Survivors can have great difficulty working, particularly in rural and agricultural communities. And strained medical systems are easily overwhelmed by victims' need for continuing care.
In Thailand, an area of about 2,557 square miles is contaminated with landmines, affecting half a million people, according to a Kingdom of Thailand Landmine Impact Survey completed in 2001. The densest concentration of landmines lies along the border with Cambodia. Most are distributed in hilly forest areas, preventing traditional uses of the forest, such as food- and wood-gathering, and making decommissioning very difficult.
But ICBL coordinator Liz Bernstein says the general trend is toward a lessening of the scale of devastation, thanks to the Mine Ban Treaty and other ban movements. The treaty has been ratified by 143 countries. More than half the countries where landmines are deployed are at peace, enabling decommissioning to begin. Bernstein says, "When we began [working on the treaty] there were 54 countries producing landmines; today there are about a dozen. Now there's virtually no trade in landmines. The only governments we found last year actively using them on a daily basis were Russia in Chechnya and Burma/Myanmar, where there is a civil war."
Innocent victims. (top) A child landmine victim in Kurdistan waits to be fitted with prostheses at a center for disabled children. (bottom) Congenital birth defects among Iraqi children are believed to be connected to the use of depleted uranium munitions by Allied forces during the first Gulf War. image credits (top to bottom): Giacomo Pirozzi/Panos Pictures; Julia Guest/Panos Pictures
Weapons of War II: Depleted Uranium Probably the most inflammatory war-related environmental health issue is that of depleted uranium (DU), which is the remnant of uranium left after U-235 (the isotope used in nuclear power generation and bomb production) is largely removed. Because of its high density, DU is used both in armor-piercing shells and in tank armor itself. DU ignites upon impact, sending a fine black powder of mixed soluble and insoluble uranium oxides into the air. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the U.S. military fired DU weapons during the 1991 Gulf War and against the Serbs in the Balkan crises of 1994-1995 and 1999. The United States also used DU in the 2003 Iraq war, and the British used small amounts in the Iraq and Kuwait wars in 1991 and in 2003.
Uranium is everywhere in the environment, but generally at low concentrations. Most human exposure is through ingestion via food and water. DU is about 60% as radioactive as naturally occurring uranium, and is chemically toxic as well. If ingested, DU behaves very similarly to ambient natural uranium, which the body clears fairly rapidly through urine and feces. However, the insoluble oxides of DU can become lodged in the body by inhalation or as shrapnel fragments. The radioactivity and chemotoxicity of DU may cause serious health effects in these circumstances. Large doses by any route of exposure can cause kidney and gene damage.
It is not clear how many people were exposed in the Balkans or in Iraq, or how much DU they were exposed to. Dan Fahey, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, and a DU policy analyst, says, "We don't have good data. The Pentagon once said thousands of people [in the Gulf War] might have been unnecessarily exposed, and then backtracked to about nine hundred people." According to an Army spokeswoman who spoke on condition of anonymity, no estimate of DU exposures in the 2003 Iraq war is available, but DU was used only during the invasion phase when the Iraqis were using tanks. Therefore, the U.S. Army believes exposures to be few in number and low-level.
Since the 1999 Kosovo war, allegations have flown that DU causes cancers such as Hodgkin lymphoma as well as immune, neurological, and reproductive damage. There is not a large body of research on these links. But a number of published in vitro and rodent studies by Alexandra Miller and colleagues at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, (including one published in the August 1998 issue of EHP) suggest that DU can change human cells to a tumor-inducing phenotype and cause oxidative DNA damage. In rodents DU was shown to migrate from the implant site to bone, kidney, muscle, and liver tissue; to alter the hippocampus; to cross the placental barrier; and to enter fetal tissue. Although DU is a weak alpha emitter, the bystander effect--in which untargeted cells surrounding an irradiated cell show damage similar to that of the target cell--may also be part of DU's effects.
Nevertheless, the Army maintains that veterans with embedded DU shrapnel are not at risk for adverse effects. The Army spokeswoman says the government is tracking 70 Gulf War veterans who still carry DU shrapnel. "They have no ill effects from the shrapnel that came from DU rounds," she says. "Depleted uranium has been studied probably more than any other substance used in warfare and has not been demonstrated to have ill effects. There have been thirty-five children born to these veterans, and none has a birth defect."
Because of the dearth of good epidemiological DU studies, Fahey says the government's highest priority should be to track a large number of DU-exposed Gulf War veterans. "If the latency period for DU is ten to thirty years," Fahey says, "now is the time to be monitoring these nine hundred people."
Weapons of War III: Herbicides Herbicides as a weapon first came on to the radar during the Vietnam War, when some 19 million gallons of chemicals were sprayed on Vietnam and Laos to strip away enemy cover and destroy crops. The different herbicide formulations, known collectively today as Agent Orange, were contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, a known human carcinogen. Decades after spraying ended, a quarter of this persistent toxicant remains in the Vietnamese environment, and the NIEHS and the Vietnamese government are working together to fully characterize the health effects of exposure to Agent Orange.
Today, herbicides play a major role in the Colombian drug war, another example of the changed nature of modern war. Several insurgent groups have been battling the Colombian government in a protracted and bloody civil war. The war has provided narcotics growers and processors uncontrolled zones in which they can flourish; insurgents and narcotics cartels have formed alliances. According to the U.S. embassy in Bogotá, most of the cocaine and heroin on the U.S. market comes from Colombia. To stop this flood, the U.S. and Colombian governments have jointly developed and implemented the Plan Colombia eradication program.
Crop casualties. Many Colombian farmers believe their crops, like these bananas, are being ruined by drift from herbicide spraying of illegal poppy and coca crops. Many of the ruined crops were planted at the urging of the government as alternatives to the illegal plants. image credit: Witness for Peace
A major component of the plan is aerial spraying of herbicide on coca and poppy plants, which began in 2000. The main ingredient is glyphosate, widely used as a weed killer in several formulations of Monsanto's Roundup and in other products, and the most commonly used commercial herbicide in the world. According to the National Pesticide Telecommunications Network, glyphosate causes mild eye and skin irritation and digestive and respiratory irritation when ingested, and has not been shown to cause reproductive damage or cancer in humans or wildlife.
However, many Colombian farmers in sprayed areas report significant skin problems, headaches, vomiting, miscarriages, and deaths of small children--effects that they attribute to the spraying. Residents of the sprayed areas are not told when spraying will occur for security reasons, so they cannot take any steps to protect themselves, their families, their crops, or their livestock.
The Colombian government and the U.S. embassy have a monitoring program in place to investigate all complaints related to spraying, from reports of planes spraying legitimate crops to glyphosate causing health problems. Half of the nearly 5,000 complaints received to date have been rejected as invalid, because it was determined that spraying did not take place in the areas in question on the dates claimed. Another 1,680 cases are under review by the government/embassy team. Compensation for lost crops has been paid in 12 cases and, according to press officer Paul Watzlavick of the U.S. embassy, there have been no cases where it was determined that spraying caused adverse health effects in humans or animals.
There is some controversy over research being done on effects of the spraying. In 2001 Colombian toxicologist Camilo Uribe led an embassy-funded study of the spray program's health effects in the town of Aponte, which concluded that the observed health problems in the village--mainly skin problems and eye inflammation--were not related to the spray program. In a critique of the study, Rachel Massey, a fellow of the Institute for Science and Interdisciplinary Studies in Amherst, Massachusetts, noted that the study did not follow normal epidemiological protocols, such as indicating the total number of patient records from which the samples were drawn and how cases were selected. Moreover, the Uribe report itself noted that 7 of 10 nearby municipalities reported increases in patients seeking help for symptoms that their community doctors thought might be related to the spraying. One of these towns, San Pablo, had 50 cases of dermatitis, conjunctivitis, respiratory conditions, and digestive problems after nearby spraying.
The U.S. government says the narcotics cartels are responsible for more environmental degradation and toxic chemical exposures than the spraying program is. Says Watzlavick, "The coca growers use tons of pesticides and herbicides on their fields in addition to tons of other chemicals to produce cocaine. These are the chemicals that we see ending up in the water systems." Chemicals used in drug processing include kerosene, sulfuric acid, ammonia, acetone, and others, along with the herbicides paraquat and 2,4-D. Chemicals and waste products are often dumped in water or left on the ground. Activists don't deny the likely drug-related exposures, but believe Colombians are suffering additive effects from both kinds of exposures.
Industrial Pollution: During Conflict and After In the first Gulf War in 1991, Iraqi soldiers set more than 600 Kuwaiti oil wells afire. Vast columns of black smoke billowed into the sky for weeks. In an apparent attempt to deter invading forces during this war, Iraq built a 47-inch pipeline into western Kuwait and criss-crossed the area with trenches into which oil was pumped and set afire, according to the Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, a Kuwaiti nongovernmental organization. Sabotage of Iraq's own oil production facilities and pipelines began with the onset of war in 2003. Potentially toxic components of oil fires include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), metals, sulfur dioxide, ozone, and lead. Health effects from inhaling these components include cancer (from PAHs), asthma and airway inflammation (from ozone), burning of respiratory tissues and airway obstruction (from sulfur dioxide), and high blood pressure and kidney damage (from lead).
Sending the environment up in smoke? Oil fires set during the first Gulf War are alleged to have caused respiratory effects in both soldiers and civilians. image credit: U.S. Department of Defense
A 2000 Department of Defense study of Gulf War soldiers' exposure to oil fires concluded that "except for particulate matter, air contaminants were below levels established [by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] to protect the health of the general population" and that no long-term damage was done, although some veterans blamed the oil fires for worsening their existing asthma and bronchitis, as well as for skin rashes and shortness of breath. According to the report, the Iraq-Kuwait region normally has some of the world's highest levels of suspended particulate matter in the air, partly from the sandstorms common there; 18% of Kuwaiti civilians have respiratory problems, about three times the rate in the United States. Some of the soldiers' symptoms might therefore have resulted from the combination of chemical and particulate exposures.
Breaking the machinery of life. Major industrial sites frequently become prime targets for enemy forces due to the widespread impact of their demolition. One such target was the power station in Obilic, Kosovo, which now routinely fails, cutting off power to much of the country. image credit: Andrew Testa/Panos Pictures
Urban and industrial areas present other serious environmental health risks in wartime. During the 1999 Kosovo war, NATO and U.S. planes repeatedly bombed several sites in Serbia, including the industrial complex at Pancevo, a town of 80,000 located a few miles northeast of Belgrade. The Pancevo complex includes a fertilizer plant, a petrochemical factory, and an oil refinery; wastewater from all the facilities drains into the Danube River through a canal. The joint UNEP/UN Center for Human Settlements Balkan Task Force issued a postwar environmental assessment concluding that although the war had triggered major chemical releases, the industrial sites were already seriously polluted.
The assessment team estimated that about 2,314 tons of the solvent ethylene dichloride and more than 88 tons of metallic mercury leaked out of the petrochemical plant during the war. Ethylene dichloride is a known human carcinogen, according to the National Toxicology Program, while mercury causes neurological and developmental damage. U.S. bombs burned about 500 tons of vinyl chloride monomer--also listed as a carcinogen by the National Toxicology Program--releasing dioxins, carbon monoxide, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Fearful of further explosions, the fertilizer plant managers released about 275 tons of liquid ammonia into the canal. Though not identified as a carcinogen, ammonia can cause severe tissue burns and even blindness when inhaled or ingested, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Little information is available on disease patterns near the complex, but locals called a common ailment of site workers "Pancevo cancer." Task force analysts think the condition was actually angiosarcoma of the liver resulting from high vinyl chloride monomer exposure.
The Wages of War As the character of modern war has changed--becoming less of a "formal" battle between clearly designated opponents in a specified area and turning more to intermittent yet long-term conflicts among insurgents, militias, and government forces--civilians get caught in the cross-fire more frequently. They turn into refugees and IDPs, vulnerable not only to physical violence, malnutrition, and disease, but to chemical and radioactive exposures as well. Their living environments may remain contaminated with industrial and military chemicals and munitions emitting radionuclides long after conflicts have ceased.
Few military groups track civilian casualties, and those who do generally underestimate them. For example, although the United States does not have an official estimate of civilian casualties, research suggests that the U.S. action in Iraq has led directly to the deaths of an estimated 100,000 Iraqis, mostly women and children. Humanitarian aid systems designed to help people after natural disasters are not able to function properly in combat environments. Thus, in severely war-torn regions, help is often only sporadic as conditions permit, or is simply not available.
There are some encouraging signs of progress to be found in the record of the world's wars. One is the fact that landmines are falling into disuse. The Mine Ban Treaty came about largely because landmine activists, frustrated at the slow pace of UN negotiations, held their own summit in Canada, drafted a convention, and began collecting signatures. The UN has now adopted the convention, and more countries continue to ratify the treaty. Some 31 million stockpiled mines have been destroyed since the campaign began, and the number of countries producing landmines has dropped from 54 to 12. Perhaps the landmine campaign may serve as a model for mitigating other types of war damage and trauma.
Valerie J. Brown
The Price of Preparing for War Located a few miles from Anchorage, Alaska's Eagle River Flats is a coastal saltwater marsh teeming with fish, wildlife--and unexploded mortar and artillery shells. The marsh lies on the Department of Defense's (DOD) 62,000-acre training facility at Fort Richardson, headquarters to the Army's Alaskan command and control units. Since World War II, Eagle River Flats has been Fort Richardson's primary "ordnance impact zone," where soldiers stationed at the fort come to train with live munitions.
Catching flak? The Department of Defense has come under fire for trying to exempt a number of its facilities from environment-protective laws in the name of maintaining optimal military preparedness. image credit: U.S. Department of Defense
Environmental assessments undertaken at the Flats by the Army have revealed high levels of contaminants including heavy metals, explosive compounds, and white phosphorus, a toxic agent used to generate smoke cover on the battlefield. It was this contamination with white phosphorus, which can damage bones and major internal organs, that in 1994 landed Eagle River Flats on the Superfund National Priorities List, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compilation of the nation's most polluted properties. Since then, the Army has been conducting an EPA-approved effort to clean up the white phosphorus.
But in April 2002 the DOD was sued by a citizens' coalition urging the Army to address remaining contamination problems at the Flats. Among the plaintiffs were the indigenous Chickaloon Indians, who claimed the Army's use of live munitions was polluting traditional hunting and fishing grounds. The suit also charged that unexploded mortar rounds and artillery shells in the area were leaching toxic chemicals that were migrating to nearby Cook Inlet. The plaintiffs' attorney, Scott Allen of the San Francisco, California-based law firm Cox and Moyer, says the suit requested that the Army remove some 10,000 unexploded mortar rounds and artillery shells from the area (the number estimated in the Army's 1998 proposed Superfund cleanup plan), remediate toxic contamination, and abstain from using the range for bombing exercises until a Clean Water Act permit had been obtained for munitions discharges.
When confronted with the lawsuit, the DOD took its case to Congress. There, it argued that the laws on the books were not intended to be applied to operational military ranges in this way, citing long-standing past state and federal regulatory interpretation and practice. The DOD further argued that suits like those brought at Eagle River Flats, if successful, could set a legal precedent whereby environmental litigants could halt military training and thus undermine troop readiness on the battlefield.
Before the 2002 lawsuit even arose, the DOD had proposed new legislation called the Readiness and Range Preservation Initiative (RRPI) to prevent just such lawsuits attempting to use hazardous waste laws to limit training. The RRPI calls for exemptions from a number of environmental laws on more than 8,000 operational DOD training ranges, a land area equal to roughly 24 million acres. Under this proposed new legislation, munitions would not be subject to hazardous waste permitting or cleanup requirements as long as they remain on operational ranges.
Military Readiness and Pollution Preparing for war is a heavily industrialized mission that generates fuel spills, hazardous waste, and air pollution. The DOD owns more than 10% of the 1,240 sites currently on the National Priorities List, and has estimated the cost of cleaning up these sites at approximately $9.7 billion. In addition to lead and a variety of solvents, training facilities release munitions constituents including perchlorate (a thyroid toxicant), RDX (an explosive compound and neurotoxicant), and TNT (an explosive compound linked to anemia and altered liver function).
Nearly 1 in 10 Americans live within 10 miles of a DOD Superfund site--a sometimes perilous proximity. The Massachusetts Military Reservation, for instance, a 34-square-mile multi-use training facility in Cape Cod, is slowly leaching solvents, jet fuel, RDX, and perchlorate into the area's sole aquifer, a drinking water source for up to 500,000 people at the height of tourist season.
Military aircraft from DOD facilities also generate noise and air pollution. For instance, in 1996, the most recent year for which data are available, more than 50,000 military flights contributed to the heavy air traffic over Washington, D.C. According to the Democratic Committee on Energy and Commerce, these flights emitted 75 tons of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, which generate smog. In 1999, the Sierra Army Depot, located 55 miles northeast of Reno, was California's leading air polluter, according to the EPA Toxics Release Inventory. The base released some 5.4 million pounds of toxic chemicals that year, including aluminum, copper, and zinc fumes.
As of this publication, Congress has approved legislation requested by the DOD amending the Migratory Bird Protection Act, portions of the Endangered Species Act, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Now, the DOD is seeking changes through the RRPI to certain hazardous waste laws--specifically, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and the Clean Air Act (CAA). The DOD acknowledges that these laws have never been shown to have interfered with specific military training, but says it can't afford to wait until training is shut down before it acts. As evidence of the need to act now, the DOD points to a number of lawsuits and "close calls," including the case at Eagle River Flats and the Navy's 2002 temporary closure of its Farallon de Medinilla live-fire training range in the Pacific. That closure followed a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity alleging that bombing at the range was killing protected migratory birds.
The DOD argues that even the threat of interference by hazardous waste litigation justifies its aims. Joe Willging, an environmental lawyer with the DOD General Counsel's office, says in reference to the Farallon de Medinilla closure, "We don't feel it's wise to wait for that kind of train wreck to see if we are going to lose in litigation. . . . Our job is to send soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines into combat environments in the absolute best-prepared way we can. You can't do that if you introduce artificialities into training. We want to maintain the ability to use those ranges in the optimum way based on military readiness considerations, not on other considerations."
Questions of Scope Top environmental officials in nearly every state oppose the RRPI, as do 39 state attorneys general. Their opposition is based on the DOD's historic environmental record and growing reputation among state officials for routinely shirking its environmental responsibility. "The DOD has a consistent track record in litigation going back decades for trying to get out of its environmental requirements," says Daniel Miller, Colorado's assistant attorney general for environment. (DOD officials claim, however, that the department's current compliance with environmental requirements is comparable to that of private industry in almost all environmental programs.)
The main goal of the RRPI is to ensure that both munitions and their constituents are exempt from CERCLA and RCRA hazardous waste classifications as long as they remain on operational ranges. Once the range closes or if the munitions or their constituents migrate offsite or pose an "imminent and substantial danger" to human health or agriculture, then CERCLA and RCRA authority would come into force. At that point, according to the DOD, the relevant environmental agencies would assume jurisdictional authority and impose monitoring requirements and cleanup orders to address the offsite migration at the contamination's source.
Finally, the RRPI seeks a three-year extension in the DOD's obligation to demonstrate compliance with state plans to meet CAA standards for ozone, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter. The DOD claims the extension would provide flexibility in its decisions about where to field and base new weapons and aircraft, noting that military emissions typically are less than 0.5% of state emission quotas.
However, state attorneys general disagree with the DOD's reading, and have expressed concern that the RRPI would effectively mean states could not require the DOD to take any action to address munitions-related contamination on a range--even if that contamination were to migrate offsite and contaminate drinking water supplies--unless regulators could prove imminent and substantial endangerment from the contamination. Further, says Steve Taylor, a national organizer with the Military Toxics Project, an environmental group based in Lewiston, Maine, without their normal authority to order sampling when warranted either offsite or at the source of contamination, regulators cannot possibly demonstrate the imminent and substantial endangerment required to invoke their emergency powers.
Thus, critics argue, the DOD assumes exclusive control over its facilities, assuming an inappropriate level of oversight given the department's history with environmental compliance. The problem with this approach, Taylor emphasizes, is that munitions contamination that spreads offsite is likely to be harder and more expensive to clean up.
DOD officials contend that because neither the EPA nor any states have ever attempted to use these laws to regulate military training on operational ranges, the exemptions merely codify what are already standard practices. (State and EPA officials disagree with this point, arguing that the amendments actually reverse existing policy under which military munitions may become solid waste after they have been used.) Meanwhile, the DOD adds that it is engaged in a broad voluntary effort to gauge the potential for munitions constituents to migrate from any of its facilities, and that it intends to share the results of this effort with regulators and the public. "The reason DOD is undertaking these assessments is because we realize that our ranges must be operated in a sustainable way," Willging says. "If they are not, and [migrating contamination] endangers public health, the proposed RRPI provisions will not apply. Therefore, it's in our best interests to know the condition of our ranges and to respond when contamination threatens to spread."
Opponents argue that the DOD's proposals would actually affect both active and closed ranges. "We've identified over a dozen DOD operational ranges on the National Priorities List," says an EPA official speaking off the record. "One could argue that absent an 'imminent and substantial danger' finding, EPA would have no jurisdiction under CERCLA to force those cleanups."
A broad range of critics--including the National Association of Attorneys General and all major environmental organizations--also oppose the proposed CAA extension, arguing that it would extend public exposure to harmful air quality. Moreover, according to a 2004 fact sheet on DOD CAA provisions prepared by staff of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, there is no evidence to suggest the CAA has ever adversely affected military readiness.
Culture War? In late October 2004, the DOD settled its Eagle River Flats lawsuit. As part of the settlement, the agency agreed to a number of key provisions, including--among others--that it obtain a Clean Water Act permit for munitions discharges at the Flats, monitor water quality in the area, promptly clean up munitions that fall outside the immediate impact area, and work with outside experts to study the environmental impacts of bombing.
But the DOD is still committed to its RRPI goals, which it maintains are necessary in order to sustain military readiness. Why is the agency seeking environmental exemptions in the face of such broadly focused opposition? There is no easy answer. Some stakeholders suggest a culture war is at play, pointing out that the DOD has never taken kindly to environmental oversight, believing its national security mission elevates it beyond such concerns. The EPA official says there are many in the DOD itself who don't support the RRPI's proposals: "They see it as being driven by operational guys, farther up the chain of command."
The DOD is currently considering its legislative package for fiscal year 2006. Whether the RRPI will be a part of that package is still being considered in the Pentagon. The next opportunity for DOD officials to present the proposal is likely to emerge when the Congress turns to its next appropriations bill.
Charles W. Schmidt Last Updated: November 19, 2004
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Turkey plans to build three nuclear power plants by 2011: minister
ISTANBUL (AFP)
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041119154242.xoqfk8s5.html
Turkey plans over the next few years to build three nuclear power plants that should become operative from 2011 to avoid a possible energy shortage, Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said Friday.
Turkey had earlier sought to build a nuclear plant on its southern coast, but shelved the project four years ago amid heavy criticism from environmentalists at home and abroad.
Guler said Turkey faced a possible power shortage after 2010-2011 that could leave it dependent on foreign resources.
"We have plans to build three nuclear power plants and they will come into operation one by one as of 2011," Guler was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.
"We plan to meet eight to 10 percent of the energy demand with nuclear power," he said, adding that the plants would have a total capacity of about 4,500 megawatts.
He said his ministry was primarily considering uranium to fuel the plants but was also looking at thorium as a possibility.
"We have known reserves of 230,000 tonnes of thorium and 9,200 tonnes of uranium, but we are prospecting for more," Guler said.
No date has been set for a tender and no site has so far been chosen for the plants, he said.
The minister said the government would invite the private sector to build the plants, but that the state would step in if that effort fails.
"The energy ministry has made all the required calculations and done the feasibility studies," he said. "We're just waiting for the word to start."
Turkey had previously collected bids from Westinghouse of the United States, AECL of Canada and NPI of France for a nuclear plant near Akkuyu Bay, on Turkey's Mediterranean coast.
The project was dropped in July 2000 amid financial difficulties and protests from environmentalists in Turkey and neighbouring Greece and Cyprus.
Opponents of the project argued that the proposed site was only 25 kilometres (15 miles) from a seismic fault line.
Criticism to Akkuyu grew after a strong earthquake, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale, rocked the nearby province of Adana in 1998, killing more than 140 people.
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Iran urges U.N. to ignore nuclear claims by exiles
(Reuters)
By Parisa Hafezi
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=QB3GV4R0DXPAYCRBAELCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=6867880
TEHRAN - Iran called on the U.N. nuclear watchdog body on Friday to ignore new allegations by a group of opposition exiles that it is trying to build nuclear weapons.
"The IAEA should not damage its prestige by listening to this terrorist group's lies and taking it seriously," Hossein Mousavian, Tehran's chief delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told Reuters.
Mousavian said the latest charges by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) that Tehran is purifying uranium at a secret plant in Tehran for weapons, in violation of a pledge it made to both the European Union and United Nations, was an attempt to poison its relations with the agency.
"This piece of information is absolutely baseless. It will harm the good atmosphere created between us and the IAEA," he said. The IAEA meets next week to discuss Iran's atomic plans.
Iran's Foreign Ministry on Friday also rejected claims by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell that Tehran had been working on ways to deliver an atomic warhead on a missile.
Powell's assertions came hot on the heels of the NCRI charges. The group said Iran had obtained bomb-grade uranium and a warhead design from Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan's atom bomb. Pakistan and Iran dismissed the allegations.
Diplomats say it would be hard for the IAEA to ignore the charges. Not all the NCRI's past claims have been accurate, but enough of them have been to give the group a reputation as a key source of information on Tehran's nuclear programme.
An NCRI spokesman said the group would release further details about the alleged secret enrichment plant in Tehran at a news conference in Paris later on Friday.
Iran on Sunday promised France, Germany and Britain it would halt its uranium enrichment programme in a bid to avoid a referral to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. The freeze is due to take effect on Nov. 22.
EUROPEANS DISTURBED
Diplomats in Vienna have said the EU was disturbed by the new NCRI charges as well as Powell's.
----
Nuclear Disclosures on Iran Unverified
U.S. Officials Checking Evidence Cited by Powell
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 19, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61079-2004Nov18?language=printer
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell shared information with reporters Wednesday about Iran's nuclear program that was classified and based on an unvetted, single source who provided information that two U.S. officials said yesterday was highly significant if true but has not yet been verified.
Powell and other senior Cabinet members were briefed last week on the sensitive intelligence. The material was stamped "No Foreign," meaning it was not to be shared with allies, although President Bush decided that portions could be shared last week with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, officials said.
According to one official with access to the material, a "walk-in" source approached U.S intelligence earlier this month with more than 1,000 pages purported to be Iranian drawings and technical documents, including a nuclear warhead design and modifications to enable Iranian ballistic missiles to deliver an atomic strike. The official agreed to discuss the information on the condition of anonymity and only because Powell had alluded to it publicly.
But U.S. intelligence officials have been combing the information carefully and with a wary eye, mindful of the mistakes made in trusting intelligence information alleging that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Powell, who announced earlier this week that he would not stay on for a second term, presented that intelligence in a February 2003 speech to the U.N. Security Council that was meant to convince the world that Saddam Hussein needed to be forcefully removed from power. Much of his presentation turned out to be based on information provided by unreliable sources.
If the information on Iran were confirmed, it would mean the Islamic republic is further along than previously known in developing a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it. The documents included a specific warhead design based on implosion and adjustments aimed at outfitting the warhead on existing Iranian missile systems.
U.S. intelligence has known since at least 2002 that Iran was capable of enriching uranium, the key ingredient in a nuclear bomb. Iran also has a successful missile program. But U.N. nuclear inspectors who have been investigating Iran for nearly two years have found no evidence that Tehran possesses a nuclear warhead design or is conducting a nuclear weapons program.
The Islamic republic, which on Sunday entered into a new deal with France, Britain and Germany to suspend its nuclear program, has denied it is trying to build atomic weapons and insists its work is part of a budding energy effort.
Western intelligence estimates of Iran's capabilities vary. But U.S. officials believe Iran could be three to five years from completing a bomb if it is successful at constructing and operating thousands of highly sophisticated centrifuge parts for enriching uranium.
The information provided by the source, who was not previously known to U.S. intelligence, does not mention uranium or any other area of Iran's known nuclear program, according to the official with access to the material. It focuses instead on a warhead design and modifications to Iran's long-range Shahab-3 missile and a medium-range missile in its arsenal. The Shahab-3 has a range of 800 miles and is capable of hitting Israel.
The official said the CIA remains unsure about the authenticity of the documents and how they came into the informant's possession. A second official would say only that there are questions about the source of the information.
Officials interviewed by The Washington Post did not know the identity of the source or whether the individual is connected to an Iranian exile group that made fresh accusations about Iran at a news conference Wednesday in Paris. The National Council for Resistance in Iran charged that Iran was enriching uranium and will continue to do so despite the pledge made Sunday to European foreign ministers.
The group also claimed that Iran received blueprints for a Chinese-made bomb in the mid-1990s from the global nuclear network led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. The group, which is considered a terrorist organization by the State Department, exposed a secret Iranian enrichment facility in 2002, but many of its claims have been inaccurate.
The lack of certainty about the source who approached U.S. intelligence had kept officials from talking publicly about the information, and Powell's comments caught the small group of informed officials by surprise and angered some of them.
Powell's remarks also drew expressions of concern from European allies who just days earlier had entered into an agreement with Iran to suspend work on its nuclear program. Even if the documents are authentic, Iran's possessing them would not by itself violate international law, officials said. And the information was not enough to stop British officials from signing the agreement with Iran.
Yesterday, in an effort to assuage European concerns, the administration told diplomats from those countries that Powell misspoke in releasing information that had not yet been verified, sources said. During a conversation about Iran with reporters accompanying him on a trip to Chile on Wednesday, Powell said he had "seen some information that would suggest that they have been actively working on delivery systems. I'm not talking about uranium or fissile material or the warhead, I'm talking about what one does with a warhead."
Powell's spokesman said yesterday that the secretary stood by those remarks. "The secretary did not misspeak," said State Department spokesman J. Adam Ereli, who added that Powell's deputy, Richard L. Armitage, "saw the same information."
Ereli did not elaborate on the nature of Powell's comments at his daily briefing. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said only that "Powell was talking about intelligence that we have seen, that's what he was referring to."
Meanwhile, senior State Department officials traveling with Powell in Santiago, Chile, said yesterday that President Bush will appeal to Asian leaders this weekend to intercede with North Korea to return to deadlocked talks on its nuclear weapons program.
Bush will press allied leaders of China, Japan, South Korea and Russia -- partners with the United States for more than a year in negotiations to disarm Pyongyang -- on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Chile. The Bush administration believes North Korea may be more willing to reconsider rejoining the six-party talks now that the U.S. presidential election is over, the officials said.
With limited alternatives, U.S. officials hope the president's personal intervention will impress allies to try once again to prod North Korea. "Bush's meetings with leaders are going to be quite significant in stating his own commitment to the six-party process," said a senior State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive diplomacy.
The diplomatic effort has been in trouble since Kim Jong Il's government boycotted a planned session of the six-party talks in September. The Bush administration believes North Korea was waiting to see the fate of Democratic candidate John F. Kerry, who had proposed the kind of direct talks the Clinton administration tried in 2000.
Japan and South Korea have offered economic and energy incentives as part of the package to win North Korea's compliance. But North Korea had been holding out for additional incentives, including the prospect of one-on-one talks with the United States, as conditions to resume negotiations.
Staff writers Robin Wright in Santiago, Chile, and Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
--------
Bush Confronts New Challenge on Issue of Iran
November 19, 2004
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/international/middleeast/19diplo.html?pagewanted=all
SANTIAGO, Chile, Nov. 18 - While assembling a new national security team, President Bush is confronting what could become the biggest challenge of his second term: how to contain Iran's nuclear program and what some in the administration believe to be Tehran's support of violence in Israel and insurgents in Iraq.
In an eerie repetition of the prelude to the Iraq war, hawks in the administration and Congress are trumpeting ominous disclosures about Iran's nuclear capacities to make the case that Iran is a threat that must be confronted, either by economic sanctions, military action, or "regime change."
But Britain, France and Germany are urging diplomacy, placing their hopes in a deal they brokered last week in which Iran agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment program in return for discussions about future economic benefits.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell thrust himself into the debate on Wednesday by commenting to reporters that fresh intelligence showed that Iran was "actively working" on a program to enable its missiles to carry nuclear bombs, a development he said "should be of concern to all parties."
The disclosures alluded to by Mr. Powell were seen by hard-liners in the administration as another sign of Iranian perfidy, and by Europeans as little new.
Although Mr. Powell has praised the negotiations between the Europeans and Iran, one administration official said that his comment suggested that there was "a steady tightening of outlook between hawks and doves" that Iran will use the negotiations as a pretext to continue its nuclear program in private.
Leading the charge for a tough line on Iran has been John R. Bolton, under secretary of state for arms control and international security. At the moment, administration officials say there are no prominent members of Mr. Bush's inner circle enthusiastic about the European approach of negotiating with Iran; most of the moderates are lower-level areas specialists in the State Department. But only last week Prime Minister Tony Blair persuaded Mr. Bush to endorse the European approach.
Though Mr. Powell will soon leave Mr. Bush's administration, he is about to face a tough choice on Iran - whether to have an extensive conversation with the Iranian foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, or to avoid any contact when the two men attend a conference in Egypt next week.
"The simple fact is the secretary doesn't want to meet with Kharrazi," said an administration official, adding that that he saw little opportunity for dialogue and that Mr. Powell may have been signaling his pessimism when he made the disclosure about Iran's missile capability.
The possible Powell-Kharrazi meeting could occur Tuesday at Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, where European, Middle Eastern and other envoys are attending a conference on the future of Iraq. A top aide to Mr. Powell said the secretary would go with talking points to discuss ways to improve Iranian-American relations, but that it was up to the Iranians whether the conversation would take place.
A European diplomat familiar with the British-French-German initiative said they were also pessimistic that Iran would back off its nuclear ambitions, but that they had no choice but to engage Iran because military options were distasteful or impractical after the troubled invasion and occupation of Iraq.
"America clearly understands that Iran will be one of its greatest threats in the second administration," this diplomat said. "But the Europeans understand that even the greatest threats also present a great opportunity to resolve problems."
Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former policy and planning director under Secretary Powell, said he favored a major effort to offer incentives to moderate Iran's behavior, combined with threats of tough action if it does not.
European leaders say they want the United States to join with them in offering economic incentives to Iran, such as working to get Tehran to join the World Trade Organization - a step that could not occur without active American support.
Mr. Haass said it made no sense for the Europeans to offer incentives and for the United States to make threats. Both must be done together, he said.
The Iranian issue has vexed the Bush administration for so long that plans to produce a major policy paper within the administration simply ground to a halt last year and have not been revived. American contacts with Iran were cut off last May, when Iran was linked to groups that carried out bombings in Saudi Arabia.
Administration officials said there was fresh evidence that Iran supported insurgents in Iraq and had stepped up its support of the militant organization Hezbollah, which Israel now says is helping to subsidize organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad who have carried out suicide bombings there.
Indeed, an administration official said that Americans believed that Iran was supporting suicide bombers and insurgents in response to the pressure over its nuclear program - and specifically to warn Israel not to consider the kind of airstrike on a nuclear reactor that it carried out in Iraq more than two decades ago.
Officially, administration officials say that a military option like the one employed by Israel in 1981 against Iraq, when it bombed a reactor near Baghdad, is unrealistic because the Iranians have buried their most important nuclear facilities and can rebuild anything that is destroyed.
But an administration official said that a military strike or sabotage was not out of the question - "you never take the military option off the table," he said - and that in any case it was "money in the bank" for Iran to be concerned about such an option, because it might be goaded into a more conciliatory approach to the United States.
On the other hand, many in the administration say that Iran is not likely to enter into talks with the United States, as the Europeans want, because the revolutionary clerics who control the government are unalterably opposed to engaging with a country it considers the enemy.
"You can't call yourself a revolutionary regime and also negotiate with the Great Satan," said an administration official.
For months the United States's position has been not to threaten war but to force the issue to the United Nations Security Council, where sanctions - including a ban on oil imports and technology transfers - could be considered. But the European initiative has brought such talk to a halt.
But the thinking among many administration officials is that if the European deal to get Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities falls apart in coming months - if, for example, inspectors are unable to verify compliance - administration hawks will surely enlist others in a campaign to confront Iran with threats.
The decision, said European and American diplomats, will be made by Mr. Bush with his new secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who is said by aides to be of two minds about the problem just as Mr. Powell is - willing to try diplomacy, not sure that it will work and ready to look at other possibilities if it does not.
--------
Iran has black market nuclear bomb drawings, still enriches uranium: opposition
(AP) GEORGE JAHN
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/041117/w111728.html
VIENNA, Austria - Iran bought blueprints of a nuclear bomb from the same black-market network that gave Libya such diagrams and continues to enrich uranium despite a commitment to suspend the technology that can be used for atomic weapons, an Iranian opposition group said Wednesday.
Farid Soleimani, a senior official for the National Council for Resistance in Iran, said the diagram was provided by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani head of the nuclear network linked to clandestine programs in both Iran and Libya.
"He gave them the same weapons design he gave the Libyans as well as more in terms of weapons design," Soleimani told reporters in Vienna. He said the diagram and related material on how to make nuclear weapons was handed to the Iranians between 1994 and 1996.
Mark Gwozdecky, spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said the UN nuclear watchdog agency follows up "every solid lead," but that it would otherwise have no further comment on the allegations.
A diplomat familiar with the agency and its investigations into Libya's and Iran's nuclear programs said the IAEA has long feared that Iran might have received bomb-making blueprints from Khan.
Libya bought engineers' drawings of a Chinese-made bomb through the Khan network as part of a covert nuclear program that it renounced last year.
Iran says it does not have such drawings, and no evidence has been found to dispute that claim. Former UN nuclear inspector David Albright earlier this year described the Chinese design that Libya owned up to having as something "that would not take a lot of modifying" to fit it on Iran's successfully tested Shahab-3 ballistic missile.
The opposition group made its claim days after Iran announced it would suspend all activities related to nuclear enrichment as part of an agreement with three European countries aimed at heading off a confrontation over its nuclear program.
Soleimani said centrifuges and other equipment needed to produce enriched uranium had been covertly moved from a facility at Lavizan-Shian to a nearby site within Tehran's city limits.
The opposition group says Lavizan-Shian was home to the Centre for Readiness and New Defence Technology and was part of the covert attempt to develop nuclear weapons.
A report detailing IAEA investigations into Iran's nuclear programs prepared for the agency's Nov. 25 board meeting notes that Iran has failed to produce a trailer that apparently contained nuclear equipment at Lavizan-Shian for IAEA inspection.
The IAEA report also said Iran has "declined to provide a list of equipment used" at Lavizan-Shian, which the government says was home to research on how to reduce casualties in case of nuclear attack.
Referring to the new, secret location, Soleimani said that "as we speak, the site continues to produce (enriched) uranium" and said it "is not the only one that is being kept secret."
Soleimani's organization is the political wing of the People's Mujahedeen, or Mujahedeen Khalq, banned in the United States as a terrorist organization. While much of its information has not been confirmed, it was instrumental in 2002 in revealing Iran's enrichment program at Natanz.
Enrichment at low levels generates fuel for nuclear power - and Iran says that is its sole interest. But the United States says it suspects Iran wants to produce weapons-grade enriched uranium for nuclear warheads.
Lavizan-Shian was razed by the Iranian government earlier this year as IAEA inspectors prepared to visit it. The government says it was destroyed to make way for a park. But suspicions remain about the extent of the work done there - including the removal of topsoil, which reduced the effectiveness of environmental samples taken by IAEA inspectors looking for unreported nuclear activity at the site.
The IAEA says it will start monitoring Iran's commitment to halt enrichment activities starting early next week.
The suspension pledge reduced U.S. hopes of having the board refer Iran to the UN Security Council for alleged violations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Under the agreement, Tehran is to suspend all uranium enrichment in return for European guarantees that Iran has the right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program. The suspension holds only until a comprehensive agreement is sealed, but European diplomats hope the freeze will turn into a long-term arrangement.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami called the agreement a "great victory" but said Wednesday that Tehran won't respect its commitment if Europeans fail to support his country at the IAEA board meeting.
"If the IAEA board of governors adopts a correct decision, it will be a step in the direction that will give us more hope that our rights will be exercised," Khatami said.
"If we see that they don't keep their promise, it's natural that we won't fulfil our promise," he said.
-------- japan
Japan eyes plant exports via nuclear technology alliance with US: report
TOKYO (AFP)
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041118232711.qf9ii324.html
The Japanese government is set to offer technological support in nuclear plant engineering to the United States in a bid to expand Japanese nuclear technology exports, a news report said Friday.
By encouraging joint projects with US firms, Japan hopes to retain its competitive edge in nuclear-related technology and maintain its trained engineers, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.
Given that only four plants are now under construction at home, Tokyo believes entering the overseas market is critical to preserving Japan's technological expertise, at least until the 2020s, when existing domestic facilities will require upgrading, the business daily said.
Japan's move will come following Washington's announcement that it planned to resume building nuclear power facilities for the first time in nearly three decades as a way to reduce the nation's reliance on Middle Eastern oil and to increase the use of alternative energy, the Nihon Keizai said.
Following the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, the United States froze nuclear power plant construction, and US manufacturers such as General Electric Co. have not been able to uphold their technological expertise in nuclear technology, the newspaper said.
Meanwhile, major Japanese nuclear plant engineers such as Toshiba Corp., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Hitachi Ltd. have acquired nuclear technologies from GE, Westinghouse Electric Co. and other US companies, the Nihon Keizai said.
The Japanese firms have built many nuclear plants at home and now boast top-level engineering technologies for nuclear reactor pressure vessels and steam generators, it said.
Japan formed a council tasked with creating a research and financial structure that will facilitate exports of nuclear-related equipment, the Nihon Keizai said.
Some companies are already preparing for the restart of US nuclear plant construction, with Toshiba and GE launching a joint study to analyze the feasibility of planned projects, the newspaper said.
-------- korea
Powell Presses for Nuclear Talks With North Korea
November 19, 2004
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/international/americas/19powell.html?pagewanted=all
SANTIAGO, Chile, Nov. 18 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell opened a new drive on Thursday to enlist Russia, China, South Korea and Japan to press North Korea to rejoin talks aimed at ending its nuclear arms program, but American officials said they could not be sure when the talks would resume.
A senior administration official, briefing reporters after Mr. Powell met with the Chinese foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, said that recent indications from South Korea and others had been "mildly encouraging" that North Korea was committed to the regional talks but that no date for their resumption was in sight.
The official said he hoped the talks could resume, at least at "working level," by year's end.
The talks have been suspended since September, when North Korea refused to continue. A month ago, North Korea said it would not rejoin the talks until the United States dropped its "hostile attitude" and joined with South Korea and Japan to offer economic incentives in return for an end to its nuclear program.
The United States has taken the position that it is willing to discuss various steps, including possible incentives, but not as preconditions for talks. This week, administration officials said the other parties had agreed not to offer new incentives.
Mr. Powell's meetings on Thursday in Santiago came at the beginning of a meeting of 21 countries and economic entities, like Hong Kong, in the annual session of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. President Bush is to come this weekend. The forum is expected to call for trade liberalization on the Pacific Rim and for greater efforts to combat terrorism, corruption and copyright piracy.
For Mr. Powell, the session is the first of several international forums that he plans to attend in his final weeks as secretary of state. He submitted his resignation on Friday, effective at the will of the president. Aides said that many of his meetings were dominated by foreign envoys wishing Mr. Powell well.
--------
Bush to step up pressure for NKorea to discuss nukes
SANTIAGO (AFP)
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041119021005.ncf9zqyr.html
US President George W. Bush will meet with key Asia-Pacific partners to pressure North Korea to buckle on negotiations for an end to the nuclear weapons crisis, a senior State Department official said Thursday.
Bush, arriving at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Santiago, Chile on Friday evening, wanted to show his seriousness in dragging Pyongyang back to the six-party talks, the official said.
The US president will meet with heads of the other parties at the talks -- Japan, China, Russia and South Korea -- on the sidelines of the weekend summit. The sixth member, North Korea, is not part of APEC.
"I think we are going through an intense process," the US official said.
"I think the president's meetings with the leaders on this can be quite significant in stating his own commitment to the six-party process and how important he thinks it is," he said.
Ministers of the 21-member APEC forum set the stage for the North Korean crisis to be discussed by their leaders, adopting a joint statement underlining the need to curb nuclear proliferation by North Korea and Iran.
There was "a general agreement that all of us in the region had to put increasing pressure on the North Koreans to participate in the six-party talks," Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.
The meetings in Chile would be Bush's first chance to meet his partners in the North Korea talks since being re-elected, he said.
The US goal was that its partners would leave Santiago able to tell North Korea: "We talked to president Bush and he is serious about these talks and we are too," the State Department official said.
Bush may have to be cautious in taking any hard line on North Korea as it may hurt the feelings of its southern neighbor.
South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun warned last week that hard-line tactics on Pyongyang would have "grave repercussions."
"There is no alternative left in dealing with this issue except dialogue, and a hard-line policy will have grave repercussions and implications for the Korean peninsula," Roh said. "I trust the United States will respect the hard reality facing the Koreans."
The Bush administration's tough policy toward North Korea has put it at odds with South Korea in the past.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell met with his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing and discussed the crisis on the Korean peninsula Thursday, the State Department official said.
"We talked about having the six-party talks as soon as possible. There was no specific date. The secretary (of state) noted we had a solid proposal on the table," the State Department official said.
Three rounds of multilateral talks, seeking to persuade Pyongyang to take aid and security guarantees in return for mothballing the nuclear program, have taken place since the stand-off erupted in October 2002.
North Korea boycotted a fourth round of talks in September.
"We certainly do not favor setting any preconditions for returning to the talks, or negotiating our proposal of last June (of aid for disarmament) outside of the talks," the US official said.
-------- missile defense
LockMart's PAC-3 Missiles Intercept Two Targets During Flight Test
Dallas TX (SPX)
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/bmdo-04zl.html
Lockheed Martin's Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missile successfully intercepted two missile targets today during Developmental Test/Operational Test-12 (DT/OT- 12), the most complex flight test scenario to date for PAC-3.
During the initial phase of the test, conducted at White Sands Missile Range, NM, six missiles were in the air simultaneously.
In DT/OT-12, a total of four PAC-3 Missiles were ripple-fired against two separate targets: a Patriot-As-A-Target (PAAT) modified to represent a short- range Tactical Ballistic Missile (TBM) and a medium velocity Storm Maneuvering Tactical Target Vehicle supplied by Orbital Science.
The mission sequence was a two missile ripple-fire against the modified PAAT, closely followed by a two missile ripple-fire against the Storm target. Once the targets were intercepted and destroyed, the two remaining PAC-3s executed a preplanned self-destruct sequence.
Test objectives included demonstrating the system's capability to detect, track, engage and intercept two simultaneously arriving, threat representative TBM targets, and to validate the performance of several components of the PAC- 3 Missile that were part of on-going cost reduction initiatives. Preliminary data indicates that all test objectives were achieved.
Also taking part in today's test was the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) radar. The THAAD radar tracked the two target missiles.
Although not part of the test objectives, the THAAD radar was able to participate and reduce risk as the THAAD system leads up to its own flight testing next year.
"With today's test, we have wrapped up the near-term PAC-3 flight test program to successfully demonstrate the cut-in of cost reduction hardware," said Colonel John Vaughn, U.S. Army Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense project manager.
"We continue to demonstrate the capabilities of the PAC-3 Missile in increasingly taxing scenarios, and it consistently proves to be the most reliable, advanced air defense missile deployed today," said Steve Graham, Lockheed Martin's vice president - PAC-3 Missile program.
"Our goal is to prove that the system is mature and capable of defending soldiers in the field from numerous threats. We are very proud of the PAC-3s performance."
Lockheed Martin is the only provider of proven hit-to-kill missile defense systems capable of defeating weapons of mass destruction, including missiles carrying biological, chemical and nuclear payloads.
The PAC-3 Missile, THAAD and the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), which utilizes the PAC-3, are elements of the terminal defense layer of the National Ballistic Missile Defense System.
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control is prime contractor on the PAC-3 Missile Segment upgrade to the Patriot air defense system.
The PAC-3 Missile Segment upgrade consists of the PAC-3 Missile, a highly agile hit-to-kill interceptor, the PAC-3 Missile canisters (in four packs), a Fire Solution Computer and an Enhanced Launcher Electronics System.
The PAC-3 Missile has been selected as the primary interceptor for the multi-national MEADS program. Managed by the NATO MEADS Management Agency (NAMEADSMA), MEADS is a model transatlantic development program focused on the next generation of air and missile defense.
MEADS will focus on risk reduction, application of key technologies and validation of a system design incorporating the PAC-3 Missile as the prime interceptor.
Storm Maneuvering Tactical Target Vehicle
The Storm Maneuvering Tactical Target Vehicle (MTTV) rocket, which performed its mission as planned, was used as a target to test the Patriot missile defense system.
"It has been an extraordinarily busy and successful two-week period for our launch teams, culminating with the successful MTTV launch for the Missile Defense Agency," said Mr. Ron Grabe, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Company's Launch Systems Group.
"We are very proud of our record of supporting MDA's flight test programs with the most reliable target vehicles in the industry. We look forward to our future missions that will help MDA develop, test and deploy effective missile defense systems."
Orbital provided and tested the rocket's guidance and separation systems, performed all vehicle design, production and integration activities and conducted all launch day mission operations.
The MTTV rocket is a single stage vehicle which uses a retired U.S. government rocket engine from the Minuteman ICBM program and a modified Pershing II reentry vehicle.
-------- russia
U.S. Ambassador Calls on Russia to Fully Support Efforts to Restrict Nuclear Technology Transfers
Global Security Newswire
By Mike Nartker
November 19, 2004
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2004_11_19.html#B5D1EE60
WASHINGTON - U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow called on Russia this week to fully support a Bush administration effort to restrict transfers of nuclear technologies that could be used to produce weapon-grade materials (see GSN, June 23).
During a speech Tuesday at Princeton University in New Jersey, Vershbow said Russia had been "reluctant" to support a Bush administration initiative to restrict transfers of uranium enrichment and reprocessing technologies. As first proposed by President George W. Bush in February, the initiative calls for countries to deny such technologies to those countries that do not already possess them (see GSN, Feb. 12).
"We believe this is needed to plug a key loophole in the [Nuclear] Nonproliferation Treaty, whereby states have the right to master the technologies needed to produce nuclear weapons under false pretenses - that is, by declaring their peaceful intent, while using civilian nuclear programs as cover for weapons development," Vershbow said.
"Our bitter experience with Iran's and North Korea's covert nuclear programs shows why we can no longer give countries the benefit of the doubt," he added.
During this year's summit at Sea Island, Ga., Group of Eight members agreed to a one-year freeze on new exports of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capabilities to countries that do not already possess them. They also called on non-G-8 members to follow their example (see GSN, June 10). Russia is a G-8 member, along with Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.
"Although we may not agree with Russia on all tactical aspects of the nonproliferation agenda, I'm optimistic that our strategic outlooks will increasingly coincide, since our interests are basically the same," Vershbow said.
He noted Russia's support at this year's G-8 summit for another Bush administration initiative to require countries seeking to import nuclear technologies for civilian programs to first have had signed an Additional Protocol to their International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreement. The Additional Protocol gives the agency the authority to conduct more intrusive monitoring of a country's nuclear activities.
Vershbow praised the accomplishments of several joint U.S.-Russian nonproliferation activities, such as efforts to redirect former Soviet WMD scientists to civilian research projects and efforts to eliminate Russian nuclear weapons by removing their fissile material and converting it for use as civilian nuclear power plant fuel (see GSN, Oct. 6). He also praised Russia's decision in May to join the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, which seeks to interdict shipments of WMD-related cargo.
"We look forward to the active engagement of its security and military agencies both in preparing for interdiction operations, and in shutting down proliferation networks once and for all," he said.
In his remarks, Vershbow praised the "increasingly constructive interaction" between the United States and Russia on nonproliferation issues, noting Moscow's growing realization of the need to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to prevent terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction.
"The Russians showed some ambivalence in the past about the threat posed by Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and about the current regime in Tehran. However, they are increasingly clear-eyed about the danger, and our cooperation is improving," Vershbow said.
The United States has been concerned about Russia's construction of the nuclear power plant in the Iranian city of Bushehr. Citing the press service of the Russian Security Council, the RIA Novosti news agency reported today that Russia planned to continue its cooperation with Iranian civilian nuclear efforts (see GSN, Oct. 14).
In his remarks, Vershbow also noted a number of recent moves by Russian President Vladimir Putin to centralize political power in the Kremlin, including through an end to popular elections for members of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament; a proposal to eliminate popular elections for regional governors; and increasing state control over Russian media sources.
"It appears that all branches and levels of government are being made more accountable to the president, but less accountable to the public," Vershbow said.
"I don't want to overstate what has happened so far," he added. "I want to be clear about this: Russia's transformation from its repressive, Soviet past has not stopped or been reversed."
The recent political moves in Russia are not likely to weaken cooperation with the United States on nonproliferation issues, Vershbow said.
Even so, he added, "regression toward more authoritarianism and reduced accountability in Russian governance would ... ultimately undermine Russia's evolution into the strong, confident and responsible partner that we will need at our side to help us overcome the global threats we will face in this century: terrorism, proliferation, and regional instability."
-------- u.n.
Non-aligned states on nuclear mission to Iran
VIENNA (AFP)
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041119145524.r7l7idoc.html
Four ambassadors from non-aligned and G-77 countries in the UN atomic agency were to head to Tehran Friday ahead of talks on whether Iran should face UN sanctions over its nuclear program, Malaysian ambassador Hussein Haniff told AFP.
Haniff said he and the ambassadors of Cuba, South Africa and Algeria "are going to update ourselves about the agreement between the EU and Iran" on Tehran suspending uranium enrichment.
The suspension, which is set to begin on Monday, responds to a resolution adopted by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency in September for Iran to halt key parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, Haniff said.
The United States charges that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons and wants the IAEA to refer Tehran to the UN Security Council, which could impose punishing sanctions.
But Haniff said he saw no reason for such a referral.
"Iran honored the resolution from the last board meeting. When the resolution is honored, why should we refer Iran to the Security Council," he said.
Haniff said the ambassadors would be leaving Friday evening and returning to Vienna early Monday.
The IAEA's 35-nation board of governors will next Thursday begin consideration of the Iranian question.
Malaysia, Cuba and South Africa are the so-called troika leaders of the non-aligned states on the IAEA board. Algeria is chairman at the IAEA of the G-77 group. The Group of 77 is the largest third world coalition in the United Nations.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- nevada
US Congress Keeps Alive Plans For Nev Nuclear Waste Dump
Wall Street Journal,
November 19, 2004
http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/quotes_news.asp?cpath=20041119/ACQDJON200411191938DOWJONESDJONLINE001103.htm&
WASHINGTON (AP)--U.S. lawmakers agreed Friday to provide enough money to keep alive plans for a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, but they put off trying to resolve a dispute over radiation protection that could doom the project if not resolved.
The compromise limits funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste program to $577 million this fiscal year, the same as last year but about two-thirds of the $880 million the Energy Department had said it needed to keep the program on track.
The House had approved only $179 million for the project planned for the Nevada desert 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, an amount that would have essentially shut the program down.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee dealing with Yucca, worked out a compromise with his House counterpart, Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, to come up with more money and keep the program going as part of an omnibus budget package.
Congressional leaders hoped to pass the $388 billion spending measure, covering most federal agencies, by Saturday.
While given enough money keep it operating, the Yucca Mountain project faces numerous thorny problems that must be resolved next year. Already a planned 2010 opening of the waste site is growing increasingly unlikely, say program supporters in Congress and the Bush administration.
A federal court ruled this year that the facility's proposed radiation standards failed to follow National Academy of Sciences recommendations as required by Congress. The Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to rework its standards to meet the court's objection.
The White House tried to get language into the budget legislation that would have ended the requirement that EPA follow the Academy's recommendations. But Republicans backed away from the issue both because they feared it would doom the spending compromise and because of the vehement opposition from Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Reid, a staunch opponent of the Yucca waste site who will be the Senate's Democratic leader next year, vowed to fight any legislative provision changing the radiation requirements.
The Energy Department had hoped to submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of the year and to develop a transportation plan for moving waste to the site beginning in 2010.
The Yucca repository, dug into a volcanic ridge near the Nevada Test Site, is being built to hold 70,000 tons of used commercial reactor fuel and high-level defense waste that has been accumulating at sites in 39 states.
Web Sites:
Yucca Mountain project:
http://www.ymp.gov
Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management:
http://www.state.nv.us/ nucwaste
Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
http://www.nrc.gov
Dow Jones Newswires
--------
Spending bill includes $577 million for Yucca
Reid aide nominated for nuke commission
Las Vegas Sun
November 19, 2004
By Suzanne Struglinski<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-gov/2004/nov/19/517853131.html
WASHINGTON -- Congressional leaders, scrambling to finalize a massive spending bill, agreed on a Yucca Mountain budget after a long night of meetings, ending much political wrangling and behind-the-scenes negotiations.
The nuclear waste project budget for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 would be $577 million, the same budget as the last fiscal year, said Tessa Hafen, spokeswoman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The Energy and Water Spending bill is finalized and there is little chance the number would change. The bill does not contain any proposed change to the Environmental Protection Agency's radiation standard.
At the center of the Yucca deal-making were Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., a leading pro-Yucca lawmaker, and Reid, who has long battled Yucca and was elected this week to lead the Senate Democrats.
The Energy Department asked for $880 million, and after a fight over how to fund it, the House only approved $131 million. The Energy Department, which is trying to submit its license application for Yucca Mountain to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of the year, has not said how the final budget will affect the project.
Hafen said the $577 million is not ideal for Reid, but when starting at an almost $1 billion request, it is almost half of the amount the department wanted.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, agreed to small across-the-board cuts for all other projects to make up the money needed to fund the Yucca projet, Hafen said.
Back-room debate over Yucca took a leading role this week in a lame-duck session of Congress. Lawmakers have been working feverishly to finalize a $388 billion budget bill for federal agencies and domestic programs, and Yucca was one of a handful of important sticking points.
Reid tried as he does every year to slice the budget. Domenici fought to maintain at least the same level of funding as last year.
Lawmakers are trying to get work done by this evening or Saturday before they leave the Capitol until the new session starts in January.
The giant measure contains extra money for priorities such as veterans and the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan, and likely thousands of projects for lawmakers' home districts.
But the legislation was largely defined by Bush's demands for curbs on domestic spending, with only modest increases for favorites such as education and cuts for some of the president's own initiatives.
"Everybody took hits," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., a chief author of the measure. "There will be members who aren't totally satisfied, but we were committed to stay within the budget number."
In other news, it was unclear today where Reid's nomination to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- one of Reid's top aides, Greg Jaczko -- stood. The commission ultimately would license and regulate Yucca. Domenici and other pro-Yucca lawmakers oppose the nomination.
Reid was working to include Jaczko in a large nominations package under negotiation. The package could contain up to 100 different people awaiting confirmation including nominees for federal judgeships, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, assistant U.S. attorney and other federal positions. Reid has a hold on a number of those nominations, although not judges.
Hafen said Reid is determined to get Jaczko on the commission, so if Domenici wants to hold his nomination up he will bring down the entire nominations package.
"Sen. Reid is very serious about that," Hafen said.
Reid will lift his hold on other nominees as long as Jaczko is in the package, so the ball will be in Domenici's court, Hafen said.
Domenici spokesman Chris Gallegos said he did not know where the situation stood earlier today.
The debate on Jaczko's nomination was held up largely this year by Republicans who said they wanted to consider a Republican nominee and they would wait to move both together.
On Monday the White House nominated Albert Henry Konetzni Jr. of New York for a spot on the commission.
Konetzni retired as a Navy vice admiral in July after 38 years, according to the White House. He was a nuclear submariner.
He served as deputy commander of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command and U.S. Atlantic Fleet. He received his bachelor's degree from the United States Naval Academy and his master's degree from George Washington University, according to the White House nomination announcement issued Monday.
Mitch Singer, spokesman for the pro-Yucca Nuclear Energy Institute, said the group would prefer both Jaczko and Konetzni go through the appropriate hearing process, rather than be pushed through during the final hours of a lame-duck session.
"This thing needs to go through a full confirmation," Singer said. "We'd rather see them not rush it."
The Nuclear Energy Institute and some senators oppose Jaczko's nomination because they see him as possibly biased due to his past work in Reid's office against the proposed nuclear waste storage site planned for Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
-------- new mexico
NRC EXTENDS COMMENT PERIOD FOR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT ON PROPOSED URANIUM FACILITY IN NEW MEXICO
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs
Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001
E-mail: opa@nrc.gov www.nrc.gov
No. 04-146
November 19, 2004
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2004/04-146.html
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has extended until Dec. 18 the public comment period for its draft environmental impact statement on a proposed uranium enrichment facility to be built in Lea County, N.M. The deadline was extended because of the temporary unavailability of the agency's public document library on its Web site.
The original public comment period began Sept. 17 and was to expire Nov. 6. However, the NRC initiated a security review Oct. 25 of publicly available documents to ensure that potentially sensitive information is removed from the agency's Web site. Documents are being restored in stages as they are screened for sensitive information.
"The NRC remains committed to being an open regulatory agency," said Daniel M. Gillen, acting director of NRC's Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection. "Extending the public comment period is appropriate to allow members of the public to have time for access to relevant documents while developing their comments on the draft environmental impact statement."
The draft environmental impact statement on the proposed National Enrichment Facility is available on the NRC Web site at this address: http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/ml042510184.pdf . Public comments should be postmarked by Dec. 18 and submitted to the Chief, Rules Review and Directives Branch, Mail Stop T6-D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001. Please note docket number 70-3103. Comments may also be submitted by e-mail to nrcrep@nrc.gov, or by facsimile to (301) 415-5397, attention Anna Bradford.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Rivalries, Divisions Take Toll on Taliban
Militia Weakened, but Seen as Threat
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 19, 2004; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60937-2004Nov18?language=printer
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Taliban movement suffered a serious psychological and military setback after failing to disrupt Afghanistan's presidential election last month, but the radical Islamic militia still poses a formidable military threat, and one faction has begun carrying out daring, al Qaeda-style urban terrorist attacks, according to Afghan and foreign analysts.
Experts said the movement was beset by leadership rivalries and internal divisions after a year of revived strength and cohesion. They also said the Taliban was increasingly being squeezed by a new Pakistani military offensive along the border, where many Taliban renegades were believed to be hiding.
Since the Oct. 9 election, which was virtually violence-free despite repeated Taliban threats of sabotage, there have been several high-profile attacks in the capital, including an Oct. 23 suicide bombing that killed an American woman and the kidnapping of three United Nations workers five days later. The three are still being held, reportedly by a breakaway Taliban faction known as Jaish-e-Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims.
But Afghan military commanders and government officials, as well as foreigners with knowledge of the Taliban, said they believed such attacks might be more a sign of weakness than strength.
The successful election "told everyone the Taliban was finished. So they wanted to do something spectacular in the middle of Kabul city," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist based in Pakistan who has had frequent contact with the Taliban.
But Taliban fighters can count on the quiet support of perhaps tens of thousands of sympathizers in the largely Pashtun tribal areas of the south, experts said. Most are former Taliban who are not actively fighting or supporting the newly elected government, but are willing to supply Pakistan-based guerrillas with food and shelter.
"In these areas, they have buried their weapons in the ground and are doing their farming," said Gen. Afzul Aman, a senior commander with the newly formed Afghan National Army. "So maybe they will join them again later."
Aman said the Taliban's current tactic was to get a team of three to 10 men inside the country from the rugged mountains on the Afghan-Pakistan border. The team carries out a hit-and-run ambush against Afghan or coalition troops and then retreats across the mountains. Taliban teams also plant roadside explosives and then follow the explosion with a rocket or mortar attack on a convoy.
Most officials and experts concede that much of what is known about the Taliban's current military and political state is guesswork. Estimates of its size range from less than 2,000 armed fighters to more than 10,000.
The militia mostly bases itself on the Pakistani side of the border, where Afghan forces have little on-the-ground intelligence. One Afghan intelligence officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Afghan government should have more intelligence agents in Pakistan.
It is also unclear why the Taliban did not attempt any large-scale election day attacks. In the days leading up to the vote, there were scattered attacks on voter registration sites and workers, but the election was largely peaceful, which surprised Afghan security officials.
One theory is that Taliban attack plans were thwarted by the heavy presence of Afghan troops, American soldiers and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, which sent in reinforcement troops. Also, Pakistan, reportedly under diplomatic pressure to guarantee a peaceful election, launched a new offensive against Taliban forces in the border areas.
Another theory is that the Taliban recognized that ordinary Afghans wanted to vote, and that the high election-day turnout dissuaded its forces from further alienating the populace by attacking polling places.
"Eight million people all objected to the Taliban," said Abdullah Abdullah, the Afghan foreign minister. "With one voice, people have rejected Taliban, extremism, terrorism." The Taliban, he added, "should feel a bigger defeat than the military defeat."
A third contributing factor might be far more germane to the Taliban's future; there are growing signs of a serious, three-way split within a once hierarchical movement dominated by a single religious leader.
The first indications of a split came soon after the Taliban was ousted from power in late 2001. Wahid Mojdah, an Afghan court official who worked in the Taliban foreign ministry, said some fighters became active in the armed resistance to the new government headed by President Hamid Karzai. Others began cooperating with authorities and some fled to Pakistan, hoping to eventually return under an amnesty. The last group is the largest, he said, and includes some ex-ministers.
"There are a lot of them already in touch with the central government," Mojdah said. "They want to find a way to cooperate." Karzai has offered an olive branch to this group, saying they are welcome to return and help rebuild the country, except for a handful who have committed crimes or acts of terrorism.
Recently, Mojdah and others said, there had been a further split among the fighters. Last year, a Taliban commander named Akbar Agha announced he was forming Jaish-e-Muslimeen in a challenge to the rule of Mohammad Omar, the longtime Taliban commander who is being hunted by U.S. troops.
Some sources said Agha was an anti-Soviet fighter in the 1980s and a latecomer to the Taliban. According to several analysts, Agha objected to Omar's attempts to both reorganize the group and put his loyalists in charge of running the insurgency in key provinces. The mainline Taliban accused Agha of indiscipline and corruption.
Agha's group has asserted responsibility for kidnapping the three U.N. workers Oct. 28, a daring, first-ever assault against Westerners in the heavily guarded capital. But Yusufzai, the journalist, said Jaish-e-Muslimeen had used the tactic before, kidnapping several Turkish and Indian highway workers during the last two years. Most were released after a ransom was paid.
Analysts said the new kidnappings, as well as the suicide bombing on a street of tourist handicraft shops, were troubling signs that Jaish-e-Muslimeen and the mainstream Taliban movement might be moving toward tactics inspired by al Qaeda and used against U.S. forces in Iraq. Even during the decade-long fight against Soviet occupation, Afghan fighters never carried out suicide bombings, Afghan observers said.
"There's a saying in Afghanistan: When an Afghan attacks, he first looks around for an escape, an exit," Yusufzai said.
Still, Yusufzai and others said they believed the suicide attack and kidnappings indicated a borrowing of al Qaeda tactics by one group rather than a major new influence on the Afghan conflict. They said mainstream Taliban forces were probably maintaining a low profile, waiting to strike if the new government faltered or foreign troops began to withdraw.
"The majority of the Taliban are inactive," Yusufzai said. "They are not fighting. They are not supporting Karzai or anyone else." But he said there might be as many as several thousand men willing to die, if the Taliban called for their aid.
"The Taliban believe they have time," he said. "They think they can bide their time and wait."
--------
Afghan Poppy Growing Reaches Record Level, U.N. Says
November 19, 2004
By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/international/asia/19afghanistan.html?oref=login&pagewanted=all
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 18 - Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, the source of most of the opium and heroin on Europe's streets, was up sharply this year, reaching the highest levels in the country's history and in the world, the United Nations announced on Thursday. "In Afghanistan, drugs are now a clear and present danger," said Antonio Maria Costa, director of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, on the release of the 2004 Afghanistan opium survey. "The fear that Afghanistan might degenerate into a narco-state is becoming a reality."
Afghan officials and foreign diplomats called the sharp rise in cultivation and production a major failure for President Hamid Karzai and the international effort to counter narcotics.
More than 321,236 acres of land were planted with poppy in 2004, a 64 percent increase over last year, the United Nations survey found. Poppy has spread to every province in the country, it said.
It was only by chance that drought and disease ravaged much of the crop and prevented the harvest from exceeding the all-time high, the report said. The harvest in 2004 was estimated at 4,200 metric tons, an increase of 17 percent from last year.
The scale of poppy cultivation is particularly alarming, because of the growing stranglehold wealthy traffickers and drug lords hold over farmers, and their influence over the economy and government, Afghan officials and foreign experts said.
The income from production and trafficking of opium in 2004 was estimated at $2.8 billion, equivalent to about 60 percent of the country's legal gross domestic product, or more than a third of the total economy, the report said.
If the drug problem persists, "the political and military successes of the last three years will be lost," Mr. Costa said in a preface to the report. There are indications that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are profiting from the Afghan trade, the report said.
Gen. Muhammad Daoud, the recently appointed deputy interior minister in charge of countering narcotics, noted that "87 percent of the world's opium is produced by Afghanistan."
He added, "Unfortunately that is a very negative point for our country, and we will not gain any benefit from it, except a few smugglers in our country and neighboring countries."
Indeed, most of the profits go to a very few traffickers, warlords and militia leaders, rather than the impoverished farmers, who are often heavily in debt to the drug lords, the United Nations report said.
There are signs, too, of a move toward a greater vertical integration of the business and the growing involvement of international organized crime, according to a recent report by Barnett Rubin of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.
Law enforcement teams destroyed 78 drug-processing laboratories this year, General Daoud said. The existence of laboratories and seizures of more heroin than opium in neighboring countries are signs that heroin processing is increasing inside Afghanistan, the United Nations said.
The surge in cultivation, however, is a sign of the general impunity with which farmers can grow and harvest poppy, despite decrees outlawing it by Mr. Karzai, interim leader of Afghanistan for the last three years, foreign officials in Afghanistan say.
Until now, the Afghan government has not made the narcotics problem a priority. But since his election to a five-year term last month, Mr. Karzai has made more determined statements about combating the trade. In his acceptance speech, he vowed to make the fight against narcotics his first priority.
His administration has included known drug lords, and many of his provincial governors, police and army chiefs are widely rumored to profit from the trade, diplomats and Afghan officials acknowledge. Commanders of the powerful Northern Alliance, which with American help overthrew the Taliban in 2001, continue to profit from the trade in northeastern Badakhshan Province.
The minister of tribal affairs, Muhammad Arif Nurzai, and the governor of southern Helmand Province, Sher Muhammad Akhund, both staunch Karzai allies, are widely believed to profit from the drug trade, although both have denied any involvement and voiced support for the government's anti-narcotics stand.
Diplomats say there are even reports linking Mr. Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, an influential figure in the southern city of Kandahar, to the trade. A senior presidential adviser denied the reports, saying it is propaganda aimed against the president as well as his brother.
The government is finally trying to get the word out that poppy cultivation is illegal and that farmers will be penalized. The council of senior clerics recently issued a religious edict forbidding poppy growing.
But international assistance has been inadequate and ill focused, Mr. Rubin says. "U.S. cooperation with warlords and militia leaders tied to trafficking has sent the wrong signal about the U.S. commitment to combating narcotics," he said.
Britain, which has been leading the counternarcotics program here, says the job is a long-term one, and includes building up the justice system so traffickers can be imprisoned and creating alternatives for farmers.
But critics call the effort small and ineffective, and the British themselves are quick to recognize that their program is underfinanced and have welcomed new American involvement. The United States said Wednesday that it would give $780 million to combat narcotics in Afghanistan this year.
American plans, which focus on eradication, possibly with the use of defoliants, also have their critics, including Mr. Rubin, who argues that effort should concentrate on intercepting the narcotics at the borders and catching the big smugglers. Agriculturalists warn that defoliants could damage Afghanistan's already precarious agriculture.
Gen. Muhammad Zaher Agbar, head of a new unit set up within the Interior Ministry to eradicate poppy, said the experience this summer showed that the task was not as simple as cutting down poppy fields.
"It is not the ordinary people that are the problem," said Col. Miakhel Muhammad Mangal, commander of the force's Third Battalion, who found mines laid in the fields against his unit. "It is the groups behind them, the mafia."
-----
U.N. Pleads for 3 Captives
Nov. 18
By The New York Times
KABUL - The United Nations appealed Thursday for the safe return of three of its workers, kidnapped from their car in Kabul three weeks ago. The three - Annetta Flanigan of Northern Ireland, Shqipe Hebibi of Kosovo, and Angelito Nayan, a Filipino diplomat - were working on the Afghan presidential election when they were abducted.
A Taliban splinter group is claiming responsibility and is demanding the release of 26 Taliban and Qaeda prisoners, but Afghan officials have said negotiations through mediators were centering on ransom payment.
-------- africa
At Unusual U.N. Session, Sudanese Factions Vow to End War
November 19, 2004
The New York Times
By MARC LACEY and CHRISTINE HAUSER
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/international/africa/19cnd-sudan.html?oref=login
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov. 19 - The Sudanese government and southern rebels vowed today to end Sudan's long civil war by the end of this year, putting their pledge on paper in front of United Nations Security Council envoys who had convened an unusual session in Africa to try to bring peace to that country.
The memorandum signed by the government and the rebel group, called the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, promised to complete a final peace accord by Dec. 31 to end the 21-year north-south war that has become the continent's longest-running conflict.
While the occasion was marked by grand witnesses and the unusual context of having the Security Council meeting in Nairobi instead of at its usual New York venue, it was not certain whether the promise on paper would translate into peace on the ground.
The main peace negotiators, the Sudan government's Vice President Ali Osman Taha, and the rebel leader John Garang have made similar pledges to complete an accord in the last year.
"It's up to you to prove the naysayers and skeptics wrong," the Security Council's current president, John C. Danforth, told Mr. Taha and Mr. Garang at the council meeting, Reuters reported. "The violence and atrocities being perpetrated must end now. You have heard this message clearly from the Security Council - heed it, " said Mr. Danforth, who is also the American ambassador to the United Nations.
But hanging over the meeting was another military clash, the war in Darfur, in western Sudan, which has continued unabated. On Darfur, the Council continued to hedge. Council ambassadors believe a north-south peace accord for Sudan could serve as a blueprint for Darfur.
Council members waved a carrot at the government, pledging international aid if it reaches the peace deal with the southern rebels after 21 years of fighting. But when it came to Darfur, where the government has been accused of unleashing armed militias on the people, Council members had a hard time coming up with a stick.
Members have agreed on a resolution that suggests unspecified action against those parties that do not cease hostilities in Darfur. But critics said it was just as toothless as two past United Nations declarations. Tougher language has been rebuffed by Russia, China, Pakistan and Algeria.
It was just the fourth time that the Security Council had met outside the United States. The session was organized by Mr. Danforth, who argued that meeting in the region would put pressure on the parties to resolve the north-south war in Sudan and, as a consequence, help put out the flames in Darfur.
Whether it will have its intended effect remains to be seen.
Negotiations to end the north-south war have stretched on for three years despite strong pressure from the United States and other governments. Last year, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell visited Kenya, where the talks have been held, and secured a promise that the negotiations would finish in 2003.
"We've heard it so many times before, so there is skepticism," acknowledged Abdallah Baali, the Algerian ambassador to the United Nations, said on Thursday.
The Sudanese government has signed numerous agreements aimed at calming the situation in Darfur, which the American government has said amounts to genocide. Still, the crisis continues. Earlier this month, Sudanese officials agreed to a cease-fire with Darfur rebels, but the deal was quickly violated.
"I regret to report that the security situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate," Secretary General Kofi Annan told the Council on Thursday, pointing the finger at "the government and its militias as well as the rebel groups."
Marc Lacey reported from Nairobi and Christine Hauser contributed reporting from New York.
--------
Colonial Tensions Reemerge in Ivory Coast
Younger Generation Is Embracing Anti-French Sentiment
By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 19, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60915-2004Nov18?language=printer
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast -- Christophe Gnonrou Sibi, 28, drives a cab and lives in a shantytown on the edge of this muggy West African city, Ivory Coast's commercial capital. But last week, he was manning the barricades of a street rebellion against French troops that gave him a new sense of purpose, power and patriotism.
During several days of protests, Sibi's defiance grew. First, he said, he watched a woman being shot by a soldier in a French military helicopter. Then, at another rally, bullets grazed his arm. Finally he fashioned a roadblock near the president's home, using a tree limb, a pair of tires and some construction rubble. Nine days later he was still there, checking every car and waiting for the French to attack.
"Before they pass here," vowed Sibi, a slender man with a wispy beard and a long silver necklace, "they have to kill me."
The outbreak of demonstrations and clashes left some parts of Abidjan in smoldering ruins and sent thousands of French civilians into flight, threatening to destroy the tenuous post-colonial relationship that Ivorian society had made with the French expatriate establishment.
But rather than the raucous rioters depicted in news reports, Sibi and other young Ivorians described themselves as waging a nonviolent struggle against an armed opponent and as seeking to complete their country's breakaway from its colonial masters. Ivory Coast gained formal independence from France 44 years ago. The demonstrations were initially urged by a group called the Young Patriots after French warplanes bombed an Ivorian airfield Nov. 6. The group, which backs President Laurent Gbagbo, warned that French military forces intended to stage a coup and called on young Ivorians to stop it.
French officials have said the bombing was carried out in retaliation for an Ivorian air attack on French military post the same day that killed nine French troops and an American agricultural researcher, Robert Carsky of Syracuse, N.Y. "The colonial time is finished," declared one Young Patriot, Ibrahima Baye Boliga, an unemployed 26-year-old who helps Sibi guard the checkpoint near Gbagbo's home. "Now the Ivorian wants to take his future in his hand."
The man at the nerve center of the Young Patriots is Charles Ble Goude, 32, a former student activist with a hip, savvy demeanor. His young admirers call him "the general" and greet him with fist-pumping salutes.
The organization has no formal structure or membership list, and Ble Goude said he had no idea how many followers he has. For the most part, he communicates with the masses via government-controlled radio and television stations, which have become a propaganda arm for the movement. When he convokes a rally, young men pour into the streets.
Ble Goude is close to Gbagbo, and their rhetoric is almost identical, but he holds no official position and insists the government is neither bankrolling nor commanding the Young Patriots. Its aims, he said, are nationalistic and anti-colonial, not just pro-Gbagbo.
"It's a revolution for my country to confirm that we are independent, to tell the French government that we are no longer living in colonial times," he said in an interview. The French in Ivory Coast, he said, are losing only money. "We are losing our country. We are losing our freedom. We are losing our dignity."
Ble Goude compares himself to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and insists that his movement is nonviolent. Any looting or other crimes committed during the protests, he said, were the work of criminals who took advantage of a chaotic situation. Young Patriots are not armed, but they collaborate with government troops, trading shifts with them at roadblocks since the protests began.
At a rally Monday, hundreds of Young Patriots overflowed a large auditorium in Abidjan's city hall to hear Ble Goude speak. Onstage, a screen flashed images of dead and wounded Ivorians, including one person Ble Goude said was a Young Patriot whose head had been blown off by bullets from French troops.
"French soldiers must withdraw!" he shouted to the cheering crowd. "It is our duty to free our country!"
The rising Ivorian fervor against French colonialism seems puzzling at first, given Ivory Coast's gentle birth as an independent nation in 1960. The world's largest producer of cocoa, the country remained prosperous, peaceful and pro-French for several decades under the presidency of Felix Houphouet-Boigny.
But French business interests kept control of most of the Ivorian economy, and the expatriate community maintained a somewhat insular existence, driving French cars, eating at French restaurants and enjoying the protection of French soldiers based near Abidjan's international airport.
A period of political turbulence and growing nationalism began with Houphouet-Boigny's death in 1993. At the same time, the economy began to decline and a strain of xenophobia crept into national politics.
In 2000, Gbagbo, a former history professor, was elected president after the constitution was changed to disqualify any candidate without two Ivorian-born parents -- including a major opposition leader -- and thousands of Gbagbo's young supporters took to the streets.
Two years later, an attempted coup linked to rebels in the largely Muslim north was thwarted. In Abidjan, mobs of youths rallied again for Gbagbo. This time, their leaders had an organization, the Young Patriots, and a leader, Ble Goude.
Until recently, the movement's principal targets were the northern rebels and immigrants to Ivory Coast. But the events of the last 10 days have dramatically reordered Ivorian politics.
The trouble started Nov. 4, when Gbagbo broke a cease-fire with the rebels by attacking their positions in the north. Two days later, Ivorian fighter planes struck a position held by French peacekeepers, charged by the United Nations with protecting the terms of the cease-fire.
The French immediately counterattacked, destroying Ivory Coast's only two warplanes and some helicopters. French troops seized the Abidjan airport and several sections of the city, but over the next few days, rioters destroyed businesses and looted homes, particularly those owned by French or whites.
As unrest spread, thousands of French citizens -- including business owners and investors crucial to the economy -- fled in an airlift, reducing the expatriate population from more than 100,000 to about 10,000. It is not clear when, if ever, they will return.
'I Did It for My Country'
"Help me, doctor!" screamed Alaim Ouraga, a 19-year-old Young Patriot, clinging to his sister, Laura, with both arms. "I will never walk again!"
Ouraga, who was being treated Monday for a foot injury at Treichville University Hospital in Abidjan, was wounded during the demonstrations last week. His brother, Elvis, 27, was also shot. Laura, 23, said she was proud of the price the family had paid for their activism. "The men of this country, they are the future of this country," she said.
According to Ble Goude, 70 Young Patriots were killed and 1,400 injured during the clashes, mostly in Abidjan. His assertion could not be confirmed, but hospital officials reported treating hundreds of casualties, most of whom had bullet wounds.
At Treichville, doctors said they almost ran out of anesthesia within 24 hours. Later in the week, in a makeshift outdoor operating room under a blue and white tent, victims moaned as medics dressed their wounds. Claude Sodoua, an electrician, had his left leg amputated. He said he had been shot by French troops.
"I didn't do it for my president," said Sodoua, 29, his eyes glassy as medicine dripped into his arm through a tube. "I did it for my country."
Yet even as the violence ended and tension eased, passions fired by the confrontation remained high. Most Young Patriots have now returned to their homes, schools or jobs. But many said they were prepared to return to the streets as soon as Ble Goude called for the next demonstration.
Sibi, for one, said he planned to remain at his checkpoint until the French military left Ivory Coast, even if that meant continuing to sleep on a piece of cardboard, eating food donated by the government and wearing the same clothes he has had on since Nov. 6.
Every time a car approaches, Sibi and his friends check the trunk and back seat, pull aside their makeshift roadblock and let the vehicle through.
"I cannot go home," Sibi said. "We are here until the new order."
-------- arms
How Russia keeps China armed
Asia Times
Nov 19, 2004
By David Isenberg
http://atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FK19Ag02.html
WASHINGTON - China may have lost the latest skirmish with the European Union to get the latter to lift its arms ban, but Beijing is still able to buy what it needs - solid, serviceable hardware and technology - from Russia, former Soviet-bloc nations and Israel. And the embargo gives China greater incentive to develop its own weapons systems.
On Wednesday, the European parliament in Brussels voted, as expected, to maintain the EU embargo on arms trade with the People's Republic of China until the PRC improves its human rights record. It voted not to weaken national restrictions on such arms sales and said the ban should continue in force until the EU itself had adopted an improved code of conduct, providing legal restraints on arms experts. The current ban is largely voluntary, and strongly opposed by France and Germany.
No matter, China is still a big arms buyer, though economic constraints if maintained at the current level probably will keep Beijing from doing anything extraordinary, military-wise, for the next decade, experts say.
There is a famous incident recounted by the late Colonel Harry Summers, author of the classic 1982 book On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War. In it he notes that at the very end of the war he was in Hanoi trying to make an agreement on the former Republic of Vietnam. In the course of the conversation he said, "Well, at least we never lost a battle to you." One North Vietnamese general then replied, "That's true, but it doesn't matter."
Much the same thing might be said concerning the debate over lifting the arms embargo on China. While China does not have the most modern weaponry or military technologies, the reality is that it has most of what it needs and is not having great difficulties in procuring from other countries, outside the European Union and the United States, what it does need. So the European parliament vote is not that significant to China.
Where does China turn when it shops for military weapons? In a word, Russia. According to the Russian Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), China constitutes the largest single importer of post-Soviet Russian arms and military equipment, with purchases ranging between 30% and 50% of Russia's entire annual deliveries.
Without those arms exports to China, Russia would lack the funds to modernize its own military. In fact, in the past Russia has prohibited the export of certain of its military aircraft, or production licenses, to China only to revoke the ban later on.
Rosoboronexport, the sole state intermediary agency for Russia's military arms sales and exports, estimated that sales will total US$4.1 billion this year, down from $5.1 billion in 2003. Aircraft and ships account for over half of the exports.
China purchased eight missile systems this summer from Russia and has already received 24 Su-30MKK fighters. Jane's Defence Weekly reported last month that China is in talks with Ukraine to obtain 42 turbofan engines to power its NAMC JL-8 basic jet trainer/light attack jet. The talks are a follow up on the 58 engines ordered in 1997 and since delivered to Beijing.
China is also reported to have launched preliminary talks with Ukraine on the potential acquisition of the Antonov An-124 and An-225 Mriya heavy-transport aircraft to address long-standing strategic lift requirements for the People's Liberation Army. The former is the world's largest production aircraft and can carry a payload of at least 120 tons. The latter is even bigger, with a payload capacity in excess of 250 tons.
In October, the Admiralteiskiye Verfi shipyard in St Petersburg turned over the first of two improved Kilo-class attack submarines to China's navy, PLAN (People's Liberation Army Navy). The two submarines were unveiled at the shipyard last summer and are part of a Russia-China deal worth $1.5 billion that was signed in May 2002. The contract called for five submarines. Two are being built by Admiralteiskiye Verfi, while two others are being built by Sevmash in Severodvinsk. The final one is being built by Krasnoye Sormovo in Nizhni Novgorod.
The Kilo is considered one of the most advanced diesel-electric submarines in the world and the subs will boost China's ability to conduct a naval blockade of Taiwan. According to a November 17 article in the Asian Wall Street Journal, by 2007 the PLAN force will have 12 Kilo-class subs. Most will be armed with "Club" anti-ship missiles, which have a range of 136 miles.
According to John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a non-profit research group in Alexandria, Virginia, "China has acquired an enormous number of Sukhoi [fighter aircraft] variants from Russia, as well as destroyers and subs." He thinks the debate over an embargo is unimportant. "The EU decision to keep the arms embargo on China is not relevant to China insofar as Taiwan, or asserting rights in the South China Sea, is concerned," he told Asia Times Online.
Sometimes when China is blocked from obtaining military systems it desires, that denial serves as an incentive to develop the arms and technology domestically. For example, in 2000, the US pressured Israel to back out of a $1 billion agreement to sell China four of its Phalcon phased-array radar systems, which would have been used for a Chinese AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System). Last week the Washington Post reported that China has developed its own AWACS, using a domestically produced advanced radar mounted on a Russian-made Il-76 transport aircraft, and is test-flying the first models for early deployment in the Taiwan Strait. The AWACS could be operational within one or two years, assuming the tests are successful.
Israel has also been a long-standing supplier of advanced military technologies to China. According to the findings of a past US congressional committee chaired by Representative Christopher Cox (Republican-California), Israel has "offered significant technology cooperation to the People's Republic of China, especially in aircraft and missile development", including helping China build its current F-10 fighter jet. The Chinese F-10 is virtually identical to the discontinued Israeli Lavi fighter, an aircraft designed using $1.5 billion in US aid. The Lavi program, funded by the US and based largely on the F-16, was intended to provide Israel with its first domestically built fighter jet.
Israel also transferred to China its STAR-1 cruise missile technology that incorporates US stealth technology and is a version of Israel's Delilah-2 missile, which contains US parts and technology.
Perhaps the biggest constraint on advanced Chinese military modernization is economic, not political. According to Ted Carpenter, director of foreign policy studies at the Washington, DC-based Cato Institute, qualitatively, "they are still close to a generation behind the United States. Chinese progress will depend on how much economic resources they want to devote to it," he told Asia Times Online. "At the current level they would be hard put to do anything in the next decade."
David Isenberg, a senior analyst with the Washington-based British American Security Information Council (BASIC), has a wide background in arms control and national security issues. The views expressed are his own.
-------- asia
Trouble in Thailand
19 November 2004
UK Independent
Jan McGirk
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=584366
A huge upsurge in sectarian violence, including beheadings and bombings, is bringing chaos to southern provinces, where Muslims outnumber Buddhists. The royal family has issued a call to arms, but the police and army have little idea who they are fighting.
Speaking falteringly into the camera with tears in her eyes, Thailand's Queen Sirikit told the story of how a young girl had tried in vain to replace her father's severed head on the stump of his neck while his corpse was laid out in their front room. Close to breaking down, the revered 72-year-old, who is a reluctant actor on the crowded stage of Thai politics, vowed to overcome her poor eyesight and become directly involved in the increasingly bloody battle against the phantom enemy that has ravaged the southern provinces of Thailand, claiming 540 lives this year.
Speaking on national television she promised "that even at the age of 72, I will learn how to shoot guns without using my glasses". She then called on the government to instruct women and children in the use of fire-arms to protect themselves against the "brutal bullying".
The monarch's rare emotional outburst was echoed by the King who warned the country "might fall into ruin" unless the cycle of sectarian violence in the Muslim-majority south can be brought under control.
Since January, more than 630 attacks with homemade bombs, of arson or of vandalism have been made in the deep south, a 20-fold increase over recent years. Notes left next to three beheaded Buddhists are not the only grisly warnings that resentment towards central government is mounting; one government railway worker was tied to tracks last month and left to be dismembered by an express train.
These are just the latest victims in a spate of attacks this year on officials, teachers, Buddhist monks and increasingly, ordinary Thai Buddhist residents in the country's three southernmost provinces - Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala. Some 1.7 million of the 2 million people living here are Muslim, making it the only region with a majority Muslim population in mainly Buddhist Thailand.
No one in Bangkok seems to know at whom they should be shooting. The government has variously blamed the violence on gun-runners, drug smugglers, bandits, crooked politicians and Islamic separatists.
A senior army commander, Sirichai Thanyasari, was talking tough but had no more answers than anyone else on who the phantom enemy is. "I admit I don't know who the enemy is but I will try my best to get him," he said.
More than 500 guns, rocket-propelled grenades and tons of dynamite and fertiliser used for mobile phone-triggered bombs have been pilfered from military facilities and private companies in the past 11 months.
Violence erupted in January when militants raided army barracks for weapons and shot dead a half dozen soldiers, then it surged again after 107 Muslim men were killed by government forces last spring as they allegedly assaulted security posts with machetes. That day culminated in the siege of the Krue Se mosque, where more than 30 young men had tried to take sanctuary, only to be attacked with rockets. Buddhist temples in the area have since been transformed into fortresses with sandbags and sentries armed with Sten guns.
The response of Thailand's billionaire Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, has been by turns brutal and bizarre and is blamed by many for edging the situation into another Kashmir crisis. After condoning the military's excessive force in a crackdown against Muslim protestors that left 85 dead last month, Mr Thaksin was told by the usually reticent King Bhumibol Adulyadej to show restraint.
Now, after dozens of retaliatory killings against southern Buddhists, the Prime Minister has implored all 63 million Thais to get busy folding up origami doves in a show of sympathy for the families of more than 500 people who have been murdered since January. In an eccentric shock-and-awe tactic, he has ordered fighter jets to bombard the restive Malay-speaking region on 5 December with millions of these paper pigeons to mark King Bhumibol's birthday.
Many academics and Muslim leaders dismissed Mr Thaksin's ambitious "fowl-folding" project as a useless gesture. Long-suffering Muslim residents, who live in the country's most impoverished region, will be left to sweep up this peace litter. They say that a more meaningful gesture would be to lift martial law in the three provinces.
One distinguished Islamic cleric suggested that most Muslims would much prefer prayers - even proffered by Buddhists. Since late April, armed escorts have had to shadow barefoot monks on their rounds for alms, after several were gunned down by passing motorcyclists.
Nimu Makajae, an Islamic leader from Yala, warned that Mr Thaksin's plan of bombing the south with paper birds might goad some militants to commit more violence and suggested that this overwhelming peace offering ought to be presented formally to community elders. But the wacky national craft project is going ahead, largely because of the influence of Queen Sirikit, who recently returned shaken from a two-month stay in the south.
The prospect of a gun-toting queen has galvanised the nation into a frenzy of origami-folding. Mr Thaksin, who is adamant in his refusal to apologise for his mishandling of the Tak Bai riot on 25 October, told a meeting of civic leaders that the queen's sentiments should be heeded.
"We will not have our Queen use a gun to defend the country, but she has shown she is ready to defend the country. All Thais can't sit idly by," he said.
Mr Thaksin warned: "Those who want to divide our country must be punished strictly by law. This is not too harsh. I will take care of them." Human rights activists consider this an allusion to tactics used to quell the Tak Bai riot, which erupted outside a police station in a border town last month.
After failing to disperse when warning shots were fired, some 1,300 prisoners were packed five-deep into transport lorries. They were placed face-down, like logs, and 78 men were crushed to death during the five-hour ride to an army interrogation centre in Pattani. Rumours circulate that as many as 40 protestors still cannot be accounted for and are presumed dead.
Government officials deny that there are further victims, and insist that the stories are linked to 20 unidentified bodies hurriedly buried in mass graves after no one came forward to claim them. Authorities have trawled the Tak Bai river for further victims, and claim to have found grenades.
A government spokesman, Jakropob Penkair, said the trouble began because the military and police forces were "so nervous ... so fearful ... so tense''. He said so many Muslim protestors were arrested because the 100 hardline militants whom the soldiers sought managed to disperse into the rioting mob. So everyone there was hauled in for questioning.
"A few low-ranking soldiers were in charge of putting them into the trucks. They were so fearful that the people in the trucks would rise up to attack them. We, as human beings, couldn't stand that fear," Mr Jakropob said. "They foolishly asked the suspects to turn their stomachs to the floor and piled one on top of another.''
Political opponents doubt the truth of this version. Many believe eyewitnesses who say that security forces aimed directly into the crowd. Six were killed instantly.
Thailand's Muslim neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia, have expressed concern. Malaysia's former prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, proposed autonomy for the south. "This is like the Palestinian issue," he said. "If settled early, there will be no problems. But the situation will get difficult if it is left to the command of the local army." Anwar Ibrahim, the Malaysian opposition leader, said. "Thaksin's initial reaction seems to be pathetic - to completely ignore the problems, and to be so arrogant," he said.
Islamic leaders have called for calm, but the grief is turning to anger. A government fact-finding mission has not soothed the situation much, as Buddhist residents feel their plight is not being addressed by international human rights advocates.
"The situation will become worse," one Pattani woman predicted to radio reporters last week. Fearing reprisals from local officials, she asked not to be named, but her assessment was scathing. "The government has used violence to solve the problem, and it hasn't worked," she said. "Police and soldiers don't understand the culture here. The authorities should use local people, but they don't."
These appeals for a calmer approach have fallen on deaf ears, while Buddhist soldiers and police have been queuing for sacred tattoos that they believe will make them invulnerable to bullet wounds. After Ah-duenan Singha, a Thai soldier, claimed to have emerged miraculously unharmed from gun battles in Narathiwat this summer, the guru monk Phra Chaiya has been overwhelmed with requests for similar protection. Once he etches a tattoo, the monk blesses the design by chanting a mantra, and then administers a swift kick to the recipient with his right leg.
Imam Winai Simun, of the Central Islamic Council of Thailand, says there is more to the armed struggle than a battle for autonomy. "It is the assumption of the state to always focus on separatism. But violent incidents have been partly caused by influential figures with underground business interests.
"This war among rival gangs and influential figures involves many people and a huge financial interest. This is caused by the illegal arms trade, the illegal oil trade, smuggling and other underground trades,'' he said.
Half of the region's 400 state schools have been barricaded due to security fears. Islamic schools are under scrutiny, after rumours that radical teachers may be preaching Jihadi doctrine learned in Pakistan's religious schools. The changing pattern of violence since a low-level separatist insurgency in the 1980s is causing alarm. Attacks have been considerably better organised, and have targeted ordinary citizens.
Few officials in the Bangkok administration are talking about addressing the underlying economic problems in the region where more than 70 per cent of companies are owned by the Buddhist minority, while Muslim labourers must often cross into Malaysia for casual work.
While, on the surface, the flocks of folded doves set to fall on the south show Mr Thaksin heeding calls for a gentler approach, the Prime Minister remains determined to ignore outside criticism of his handling of the spiral of violence. A United Nations expert on extrajudicial killings, Philip Alston, asked the government to allow him to investigate the incident. But he received a curt refusal: "It is not the right time to come," Mr Thaksen told him.
-------- business
Army chief has many pals
San Francisco Chronicle
David Lazarus
November 19, 2004
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/11/19/BUGVD9TQA71.DTL&type=business
It's nice that a local boy, Los Gatos resident Francis Harvey, received U.S. Senate approval this week to serve as Army secretary.
But his appointment -- the first of President Bush's second term to be cleared for takeoff -- raises troubling questions about private-sector influence over the military.
It also highlights the extraordinary clout of a single corporate entity, the politically powerful Carlyle Group, which now enjoys a close relationship with the overseer of nearly $100 billion in Army funds.
Harvey, 61, is former chief operating officer for a division of Westinghouse Electric, a leading defense contractor. He also serves on the boards of two Carlyle-affiliated companies, Duratek and Kuhlman Electric.
Carlyle appointed Harvey to both positions.
Duratek, which reported sales of $286 million last year, specializes in the disposal of radioactive materials. It has contracts with both the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, which itself is one of the nation's top defense contractors.
Carlyle acquired Duratek in 1995. It has since steadily divested itself of the company's shares and says it sold off the last batch this week. However, Carlyle Managing Director Daniel D'Aniello still serves as Duratek's chairman.
Harvey also serves on the board of Carlyle-owned Kuhlman Electric, a maker of transformers. It has no apparent defense contracts.
As for Westinghouse, Harvey worked for the defense giant from 1969 to 1997. Westinghouse Electric's defense division was acquired by Northrop Grumman in 1996.
The Pentagon said in a statement that Harvey has agreed to "divest himself of certain assets and holdings within 90 days of his confirmation." It didn't specify which assets and holdings.
Harvey didn't return a call to his Los Gatos home for comment.
"It's outrageous," said Theodore Postol, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of science and national security policy. "What you want is to choose people who are not only independent but who have the appearance of independence."
The Carlyle Group counts among its leaders and advisers former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, former Secretary of State James Baker and, until last year, former President George H.W. Bush.
In a report released Thursday, the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, said Carlyle was the ninth-largest U.S. defense contractor between 1998 and 2003.
The group said a dozen companies in which Carlyle owned a controlling interest earned more than $9.3 billion in military contracts during this period.
Postol likened Harvey's appointment at the Pentagon to the Bush administration awarding millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to Halliburton, the Texas company formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney.
"It's been a problem throughout this administration," he said. "All the checks and balances have been eliminated."
I first wrote about Harvey in July, when his name surfaced as the front- runner for the Pentagon post. He was formally nominated by the White House in September and received Senate approval this week in an 85-12 vote.
The Army secretary, who reports to the secretary of Defense, oversees most noncombat operations, such as mobilizing and supplying troops. The secretary manages a budget of $98.5 billion.
Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, expressed concern during the confirmation hearing that Harvey has an extensive defense-industry background but little direct experience with the Army.
"There are numerous challenges that the Army faces, and it would be preferable that the secretary of the Army be one more knowledgeable of the service that he will lead," Levin said.
Republican senators countered that Harvey's success in the business world proves him to be a capable manager.
Carlyle approached Harvey about serving on the Duratek board in 1998. He joined the company in 1999 and has been re-elected by shareholders every year since then.
Chris Ullman, a Carlyle spokesman, said there are clear rules and procedures that govern how political appointees like Harvey interact with erstwhile business associates.
"There are safeguards in place to ensure the integrity of the procurement process," he said.
Col. Gary Keck, a Pentagon spokesman, said Harvey will be bound by the Defense Department's ethics regulations, which he said prohibit conflicts of interest.
"It is expected that Mr. Harvey will honor his position and not use it to help people he knows," Keck said.
Officially, the Pentagon said Harvey "will not participate personally and substantially as a government official in any particular matter that would have a direct and predictable effect on the financial interests of the entities in which he held such positions or assets."
The Pentagon statement didn't address the possibility of favoritism being shown to companies with which Harvey enjoys personal ties.
One such company is United Defense Industries, a leading maker of combat vehicles (including the Bradley fighting vehicle), artillery and missile launchers.
United Defense, formerly owned by Carlyle, is chaired by Carlyle Managing Director William Conway. He's joined on the board by Carlucci, Carlyle's chairman emeritus, and Peter Clare, another Carlyle managing director.
In the three months ended Sept. 30, United Defense earned about $300 million from Army contracts, said Doug Coffey, a spokesman for the company.
He said the Army accounts for about half of the company's annual revenue. United Defense posted record sales of $2 billion last year.
Coffey said he doesn't think Harvey's Carlyle connections represent a conflict with United Defense's Carlyle-laden board.
"People in this town know each other," he said. "I don't see how this would give us better access than anyone else."
Well, there it is. Maybe United Defense's chairman will be able to get the new Army secretary on the phone anytime he pleases, and maybe he won't.
But do we really want this to be an issue, especially as the nation fights two overseas wars and as defense spending steadily grows?
The answer should be obvious.
David Lazarus' column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He also can be seen regularly on KTVU's "Mornings on 2." Send tips or feedback to dlazarus@sfchronicle.com.
----
Boeing Chiefs Knew of Insider Data, Lockheed Says
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 19, 2004; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61531-2004Nov18.html
Citing unreleased documents, Lockheed Martin Corp. alleged in a court filing that former Air Force official Darleen A. Druyun shared with senior Boeing Co. officials proprietary Lockheed information during a 1990s rocket launch competition.
The November court filing relies on notes from a meeting Druyun attended and an e-mail from Harry C. Stonecipher, Boeing's chief executive, but details from both are redacted in the version made public. Lockheed declined to release an unedited version.
"High-level Boeing officials discussed their proposal strategy and Lockheed Martin's pricing with Ms. Druyun shortly before final EELV [rocket launch] proposal submissions," according to Lockheed's filing. "The inescapable conclusion is that the very apex of Boeing's management structure was privy to and willing to exploit the bribery scheme between Boeing and Druyun in connection with the EELV competition."
Druyun was sentenced to nine months in prison last month after admitting she showed favoritism to Chicago-based Boeing for years before accepting a job with the company. Boeing said it hasn't seen any evidence that it received preferential treatment.
Boeing dismissed the allegations, saying Lockheed had misrepresented the documents. "There is absolutely no basis to the claim that Darleen showed favoritism towards Boeing in the EELV competition," said Dan Beck, a Boeing spokesman. "We clearly prevailed over Lockheed in that original competition, both on the merits of our proposal and as the only contractor who met all Air Force requirements."
Bethesda-based Lockheed filed a lawsuit against its rival last year after Boeing acknowledged that several of its employees had Lockheed information, including its pricing for the rocket launch competition. Boeing won the 1998 competition and was awarded 19 rocket launches, with seven allocated to Lockheed.
Boeing filed a countersuit against Lockheed, contending that Lockheed is seeking through the court to discredit Boeing and gain a competitive advantage in the rocket launch market.
Lockheed also said in the filing that it wants to depose Boeing officials about Druyun's involvement in the rocket launch competition. Boeing has opposed the motion.
Boeing's space business was suspended last year from competing for contracts. Pentagon officials have said Druyun's recent admissions have made it difficult to determine when the suspension could be lifted.
----
Pentagon Updates Rules on Post-Government Work
Move Follows Boeing Recruitment Scandal
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 19, 2004; Page E05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61238-2004Nov18.html
The Pentagon has added new procedures to ensure that senior officials seeking employment in industry abide by the rules governing post-government work.
The move follows the Oct. 1 admission by Darleen A. Druyun, a former Air Force procurement official, that she showed preferential treatment to Boeing Co. for years before taking a job with the company. Druyun has been sentenced to nine months in prison, and Michael M. Sears, Boeing's former chief financial officer, pleaded guilty earlier this week to illegally recruiting Druyun to the company while she was still overseeing Boeing programs at the Air Force.
Under the new rules outlined in a memo from Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, when employees file their financial disclosure forms they must now certify that they are aware of post-government employment restrictions and have not violated the rules. The new procedures also will add lessons on post-government employment rules to ethics training sessions and will provide guidance on the employment restrictions to employees leaving government positions, the memo said.
The new rules should "ensure that DOD personnel are aware of and comply with statutes and regulations that apply to their transition from Federal service to private employment," according to the Oct. 25 memo signed by Wolfowitz. The memo has not been publicly released or relayed to all senior defense officials, said Cheryl Irwin, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
After Boeing fired Druyun and Sears last year for holding illegal employment talks, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld also ordered the general counsel's office to review the post-government employment rules. No report related to that review has been released, and it was unclear yesterday whether the Wolfowitz memo was in reaction to that review.
The additional provisions are a good start, but they do not go far enough or address the weakness in the system, said Scott Amey, an investigator with the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group. For example, Druyun was able to accept a job at Boeing after her retirement from the Air Force because she signed on with the Chicago-based company's national missile defense unit instead of its air systems business with which she had dealt closely while in the military. The new provisions do not address that loophole, Amey said.
Also, senior government officials who take jobs in private industry are prohibited from lobbying their former agencies for a year, but they can help a company develop strategies to pursue contracts with that agency, Amey said.
Government and industry officials have fought against additional post-employment restrictions, worrying that an overhaul could diminish the attractiveness of government work. Defense contractors pay top dollar for government recruits who can help them decipher the Pentagon's goals and focus their contract proposals, industry officials have said. Retiring government workers often have spent years in public service with the expectation that one day they would be able to turn their expertise into lucrative salaries, they said. Limiting those possibilities could discourage employees from taking government jobs, they said.
-----
Carnegie Military University :
How the Pentagon Funds Universities to Contribute to War
Friday, November 19th, 2004
Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/19/1525206
The Defense Department and weapons contractors provide massive amounts of funds to universities and colleges across the country for military-related research. We take a look at Carnegie Mellon University, one of the largest academic military contractors in the country. [includes rush transcript] As the situation in Iraq grows more bloody by the day, people across the country continue to protest the war and the Bush administration's policies through marches, rallies and acts of civil disobedience.
Dissent is usually directed towards the conventional symbols of the military-industrial complex: The White House, weapons contractors and companies like Halliburton and Bechtel. But there is one institution directly involved in the war effort that generally goes unnoticed: universities and colleges.
The Defense Department and weapons contractors provide massive amounts of funds to universities and colleges across the country for military-related research. These hundreds of millions of dollars are used to directly support scientific and technological research that help create the tools of war and fuel the military-industrial-college complex.
Carnegie Mellon University here in Pittsburgh is one of the largest academic military contractors in the country. Many of the software guidance systems, general communications networking systems and robotics technology used in Iraq were developed at CMU. So much so that some have nicknamed CMU, Carnegie Military University.
David Meieran, an antiwar activist in Pittsburgh and member of the Pittsburgh Organizing Group in the Thomas Merton Center. He is one those leading the campaign against military funding of Carnegie Mellon University.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: Many of the software guidance systems, the general communications networking systems and robotics technologies used in Iraq were developed here at C.M.U. so much so that Carnegie Mellon has a nickname, at least according to David Meieran, our next guest, an anti-war activist in Pittsburgh, a member of the Pittsburg Organizing Group and the Thomas Merton Center, one of those leading the campaign against military funding Carnegie-Mellon University. We welcome you to Democracy Now! David.
DAVID MEIERAN: Thank you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what's the nickname?
DAVID MEIERAN: We the military ties at Carnegie-Mellon University are so extensive that we have dubbed the place, "Carnegie Military University." Everywhere -- every department you look, there's some military contract, or defense, or security contract in place. From studies at the Psychology Department that are intended to help naval officers make better decisions under stress, to even in my own department, when I was a graduate student there, for terrorist detection networks. But the really big institutions that loom large in C.M.U.'s contribution to the war effort are the Software Engineering Institute, which has long been a target for anti-war activism here in the city, and now the Robotics Institute, which this year we have mounted a campaign to draw attention to the fact that many of the robotics systems that have gone into the war fighting if Iraq were developed at C.M.U. are being developed for future deployment in places like Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean by robotics?
DAVID MEIERAN: Well, I'll give you an example. One weapon that is being developed is called "Gladiator." What it is is an unmanned combat vehicle that has sitting on top of it an M-35 machine gun, and a launcher that can fire C.S. gas. It's part of a sequence of robotics -- robot vehicles that have been developed by Carnegie-Mellon University. One that just made the news recently earlier this year is "Dragon Runner," which is a type of vehicle that can go and do surveillance and you know, go into places where the Marines for example, can not go. One of the things that C.M.U. has constantly tried to downplay is the fact that these aren't really weapons, that they're really for dual use and they sort of pass it off and sanitize their military ties, saying, "Well, you know, it's like a driverless car." But the fact remains that it's only with these tools that the U.S. is able to sustain its quote, unquote, international peacekeeping efforts.
AMY GOODMAN: How aware of the students? How much support do you have, and how much you are criticized for this?
DAVID MEIERAN: One of the interesting things is just -- no one in the university that you speak to has any idea of just how extensive the military ties are. So, for example, students will go to a psychology study and not know that they are indirectly contributing to the military academic complex. Or people will apply for a job, not knowing that their programming is actually being funded by or is supporting some military project of some sort. So, one of our demands that we have in our campaign is for the university to reveal the full scope of its military ties. There are many, many different -- I mean, one of the problems is that for any university as big as Carnegie-Mellon, it's difficult to really identify, because the funding streams associated with military come from so many different sources. The Department of Defense, of course, D.A.R.P.A., O.N.R., there's a stream of acronyms that many people are unaware of, and then there are all those third party contractors, when Boeing and Lockheed contribute funds to either individual researchers or centers like the Robotics Institute and Software Engineering Institute.
AMY GOODMAN: So the weapons contractors contracting with the university as opposed to the Pentagon directly doing it?
DAVID MEIERAN: Yes, and one of the things that's also been happening is this development of what's called "future combat systems," which is the whole vision that's being unfolded in the new U.S. military with the idea by 2010, I believe it's 30% of the armed forces are supposed to be unmanned and operating with elaborate networking systems, and robotics systems. So, the way that's been working is rather through a network of different, quote, companies, working together. Largely, Boeing is the main one behind it, but there's all of these other companies involved. General Dynamics, Lockheed, Jet Propulsion Lab at NASA. So C.M.U. is one of many different entities that are contributing to this overall war effort and this sort of high-tech, sanitized form of warfare that we are seeing.
AMY GOODMAN: We have been hearing rumors that the head of the Department of Homeland Security, the former Pennsylvania Governor, Tom Ridge will be resigning, although that hasn't turned out the way other members of the cabinet, at least so far. Does he have a special relationship, being the former Governor of Pennsylvania, to Carnegie Mellon?
DAVID MEIERAN: Well, shortly after he was named into office, President Cohen of Carnegie Mellon university was named to the Homeland Security Council. One article reported that C.M.U. hit the jackpot when it comes to Homeland Security and reported that C.M.U. was receiving as much as $100 million in Homeland Security funds.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking military. What about other parts of the university? You are a graduate student in --
DAVID MEIERAN: Philosophy.
AMY GOODMAN: So, would you have anything to do with that?
DAVID MEIERAN: Well, the irony is that one of the professors that I work with, and was a T.A. for, invited me to be a researcher for a project that he was working on to detect terrorist cells. So even in the Philosophy Department, there are military ties.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean to detect terrorist cells?
DAVID MEIERAN: Well, it was a -- an algorithm that was used to sort of look at communication patterns and see whether or not there were -- because of the sort of different cells that are involved in communications and difficulty identifying, quote, unquote, terrorist cells. There was a need for an elaborate computer system in order to do that. One of the reasons why that is sort of ending up in the Philosophy Department at C.M.U. is because just as Carnegie Mellon has -- many people describe Carnegie Mellon as a big Computer Science Department turned inside out. So, in any case, one of the things that we have done here in our local campaign with Carnegie Mellon is to any time we have -- with the Pittsburgh Organizing Group -- an action that's associated with the war, we really try to bring it back to Carnegie Mellon University since it stands out as this big anti-war symbol. So in January of 2003, there were thousands of people who were gathered outside the Software Engineering Institute and it was in fact at that action that I decided to withdraw from Carnegie-Mellon and dedicate my efforts to anti-war activism than contributing to the war effort.
AMY GOODMAN: What about the idea that robots mean fewer U.S. casualties?
DAVID MEIERAN: That's sanitized warfare. It makes it easy for the government to pass off that it can go out and massacre civilians without affecting the troops here at home. It's part of a larger effort, I believe with -- to sanitize warfare, that also includes less lethal weapons, as a chief part of its mainstay.
AMY GOODMAN: Let's talk about less lethal weapons. It seems to be what you have focusing most of your efforts on right now. We only have a few minutes, but one of the stories that has not gotten very much attention in the last month, which in one odd way involved baseball, was a young woman who died in Boston the night that people in Boston were celebrating the Red Sox victory. You can talk about that, and what that has to do with less lethal weapons.
DAVID MEIERAN: Sure. The weapon that actually killed the student in question, Victoria Snelgrove was an FN303 Launcher. It was the same weapon that we saw in Miami, when they fired at us at the Free Trade Area of the Americas protest in November. The weapon was actually purchased by the Boston Police Department for use against protesters at the Democratic National Convention. In the end, they didn't use it there, although they wielded it as a way to intimidate protesters and subdue them, but this was the first time that that particular weapon, as far as we know, actually resulted in a fatality. It's interesting that the officer who actually fired that weapon, which fires this pepperball projectile, was a trained instructor in the use of that weapon, yet he fired it in defiance of the manufacturer's specifications which say: "You don't fire it at head level," and basic common sense. So what happened is that the weapon imploded in her eye and ended up killing her. In the aftermath of that, another group that I'm involved with, the Save Our Civil Liberties Campaign together with Massachusetts National Lawyers' Guild launched a campaign to curb the use of less lethal weapons until there's more independent research and testing done on them. But the FN303, the launcher that killed Victoria Snelgrove is just the tip of the iceberg. From tazers to sonic devices called long range acoustic devices, there's this new cornucopia of less lethal weapons that are being used, both in Iraq and at the war on home on our own populations.
AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned tazers quickly. We have 60 seconds. We have heard in the last week about tazers used on the six child in Miami and a 12-year-old girl. The six-year-old child, because he was about to hurt himself. What was -- what was the tazer that was shot at him? What did it do?
DAVID MEIERAN: Well, the tazer is actually part of this -- is being manufactured by Tazer International, which is one of the fastest growing companies in the stock market. I think either today or Monday, its stock is actually splitting. And what you don't hear about the tazer is that it is used for compliance in prisons, and that it has resulted in numerous fatalities, just two alone in the last few weeks. So Amnesty International, for example, has called for a ban or a moratorium on the use of tazers, pending further investigation, and what again we see with those examples of the 6-year-old boy and the 12-year-old girl is that rather than curtail or limit the effects of violence that they're supposedly supposed to do, and as opposed to using regular firearms, they actually increase the threat of violence, because officers are more likely to resort to something that they believe to be less lethal, you know, rather than using conflict resolution or negotiation and other forms of...
AMY GOODMAN: David Meieran, your website.
DAVID MEIERAN: I encourage people to visit, www.nolesslethal.org where they can find out less lethal weapons and how to challenge their use in cities across the country.
AMY GOODMAN: David Meieran, anti-war activist here in Pittsburgh, member of the Pittsburgh Organizing Group and the Thomas Merton Center. We thank him for being with us.
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Intelsat Government Solutions Becomes Intelsat General Corporation
Washington DC (SPX)
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/satellite-biz-04zzzzzzzzq.html
Intelsat Government Solutions Corporation announced Thursday that it has changed its name to Intelsat General Corporation, following its recent acquisition of the assets, contracts and staff of the former COMSAT General business.
The change is intended to reflect the complementary nature and competencies of the two businesses, as well as their dual heritage of success and worldwide brand recognition in the satellite communications industry.
Intelsat General Corporation and its affiliates completed the acquisition of the COMSAT General business from Lockheed Martin in late October of this year.
Intelsat, Ltd., in its 40th anniversary year, is a global satellite communications pioneer, with a worldwide network of 28 owned and operated satellites, plus teleports and terrestrial interconnections.
In 2003, it created Intelsat Government Solutions Corporation as a Washington, DC-based subsidiary focused on the communications needs of key prime contractors serving US and NATO government users with satellite and managed satellite-based services.
Prior to its acquisition by Intelsat, the COMSAT General business had a 30-year history of serving government and commercial customers requiring quick response, high availability and fully integrated communications solutions.
Its expertise includes the design, engineering, installation, implementation and licensing of end-to-end, fixed and mobile satellite telecommunications networks.
COMSAT General communications solutions leverage bandwidth from multiple commercial satellite system operators and networks have been provisioned in over 100 countries on six continents.
"Uniting two great businesses under one banner, Intelsat General Corporation looks to continue an important legacy of success by enhancing its portfolio of world-class, cost-effective, secure communications solutions, backed by exceptional service," said Susan Miller, President, Intelsat General Corporation.
"The addition of COMSAT General's staff and contracts strengthens and deepens our competencies to serve customers, while positioning Intelsat General Corporation as a leader in the provision of end-to-end, on-demand broadband satellite communications infrastructure and services supporting fixed and 'on-the-move' government and military applications."
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US company fined for illegal sale of military parts to China
WASHINGTON (AFP)
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041118231559.5v9chq3b.html
A US federal judge Thursday ordered an aircraft parts supply company in Los Angeles to pay a 500,000-dollar fine for illegally exporting military aircraft and missile parts to China, officials said.
Interaero Inc. pleaded guilty August 17 to violating the Arms Export Control Act, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said in a statement.
The Westlake Village, California, company admitted to exporting more than 40,000 dollars of military aircraft and missile parts to China between June 2000 and March 2001, without the required State Department export licenses, the statement said.
"Money speaks louder than patriotism in some cases and I am disappointed that that would be the case for this company," Judge John Garrett Penn said.
Interaero is the latest of several companies caught up in an undercover investigation targeting aircraft parts suppliers selling defense articles and military parts over the Internet in violation of US export control laws, the statement said.
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Bridging Beijing to Tibet with each new track
November 19, 2004
By Erling Hoh
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20041118-104553-2405r.htm
Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series on recent developments in Tibet. The final part will run next Friday.
AMDO, Tibet - The tracks for a railroad being built to Tibet recently reached the northern bank of the Tuotuohe River, the headstream of the Yangtze River, about 310 miles from the terminus in Lhasa.
Framed by the snowcapped Tanggula Mountains, where the railroad will tunnel through the highest pass 16,640 feet above sea level, a reporter from Tibet television recorded the event for the evening news, and interviewed an engineer with an armband labeled "Communist Party Vanguard Project."
"We lack oxygen, but we don't lack the right stuff," the engineer confidently informed the reporter.
In Tuotuohe, a muddy truck stop along the Qinghai-Tibet highway, a man named Zhao, proprietor of the Lanzhou Handmade Noodle Tavern, was chatting with the owner of another restaurant in the village. It had snowed in the Kunlun and Tanggula Mountains during the night, and traffic on the highway was at a standstill.
Sitting by the iron stove in the middle of the room, Mr. Zhao sucked his cigarette, surveyed his empty noodle shop and reminisced about the golden year 2002.
"If you had been here then at this time of day, every table would have been taken," he said.
Come 2007, when the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is scheduled for completion, Mr. Zhao's business may decline even further as the movement of people and goods to Tibet shifts from the road to rails. The 695-mile-long line from the garrison town Golmud in Qinghai province to Tibet's capital, Lhasa, will reduce Tibet's geographical isolation and allow Beijing to tighten its annexation of the territory.
With an official price tag equivalent to $3.2 billion, the project is one of the most complex and daring railways ever undertaken. About 485 miles of the line run more than 14,765 feet above sea level, and 342 miles of track traverse permanently frozen earth, presenting a formidable challenge to the project's engineers.
The journey from Beijing to Lhasa, in rail cars pressurized like airplane cabins, will take 48 hours.
All along the highway from Golmud to Lhasa, work on the railroad is forging ahead, as billboards proclaim the importance of the project with slogans like: "Build the Qinghai-Tibet railway, create prosperity for people of all nationalities."
The seven main tunnels on the line, including the two-mile-long Yangbajain tunnel 50 miles north of Lhasa, have been completed.
Construction on one of the world's highest railroad stations recently began in the Tanggula Mountains. In Lhasa, work on the 3,281-foot-long railroad bridge that will span the Lhasa River, one of 286 bridges being built along the route, is nearing completion.
In Amdo, the first town on the Tibetan side of the Tanggula Mountain pass, situated at an altitude of 15,750 feet, Hui Muslim migrant workers from Qinghai Province were squatting outside the national railroad company's medical clinic, whiling away their day as they waited for news from their boss regarding the railroad work he had assured them. Having been in Amdo for more than a week, they were still suffering altitude sickness, which causes throbbing headaches and loss of appetite. All workers are required to present a clean bill of health, but one of the migrant laborers explained: "Eighty percent of the doctor's certificates are fake."
Xinhua reported in December that not a single death from altitude sickness had occurred among the 100,000 workers laboring on the project. Although that report is impossible to confirm, the harsh conditions under which the railroad is being constructed make it seem unlikely - and the same report said more than 3,000 workers died during construction of the Qinghai-Tibet highway in the 1950s.
The cold and the weather are so fierce that railway construction crews can work only five months out of the year.
"Every construction worker has a health clearance before stepping on the plateau. Everyone passes a strict physical examination before being enrolled into the construction team," Lu Chunfang, director-general of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Construction headquarters, told Xinhua.
A group of about 30 migrant laborers from Qinghai said the railway construction company pays their boss 2,000 yuan (about $245) per month per worker. The boss, a Hui Muslim also from Qinghai, takes half, leaving each worker with 1,000 yuan for a month of backbreaking toil. With five months of work per year, the boss stands to pocket 150,000 yuan ($18,315), and the workers return home with about 5,000 yuan ($610).
Asked about the absence of Tibetan railroad workers in Amdo, the boss replied: "The railway company does not like to employ Tibetan workers. The Tibetans think the land belongs to them, and that they should decide how fast to work."
When the railway is completed, 16 trains per day will make the journey between Golmud and Lhasa, bringing 5 million tons of goods into Tibet and 2.8 million tons out annually.
The Beijing government says the railroad will reduce the cost of transportation to Tibet from 6 cents to less than 21/2 cents per kilometer/ton, help speed up Tibet's economic development, generate nearly $500 million in direct and indirect income, induce businesses to set up shop, and bring about 900,000 tourists to Tibet each year.
Other key infrastructure projects also are under way. Altogether, investments in fixed assets in Tibet, mainly by the central government, totaled the equivalent of $1.6 billion last year.
In the past three years, the gross domestic product of the Tibet Autonomous Region has grown by 12 percent annually, and annual per capita income among its urban population has quadrupled over the 10 years to 2002 to roughly $980. However, annual per capita income for Tibet's rural population was just more than $195 in 2002.
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Supercomputer Advances To New Level In China
China's fastest supercomputer, Dawning 4000A.
Nov 19, 2004
Shanghai, China (XNA)
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/supercomputer-04l.html
The fastest supercomputer in China - Dawning4000A, which operates at a speed of 11 trillion calculations per second, was officially started at Shanghai Supercomputer Center (SSC) on Monday.
It signifies not only that China has become the third country after the US, Japan, which has surmounted the development and application of computers with a speed of 10 trillion calculations per second, but also that the largest main grid node in China has launched into operation and a "Three Gorges Dam" is being constructed in the information technology area.
At the launching ceremony Chen Liangyu, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Party Secretary of the Shanghai Party Committee, started the Dawning4000A system and the first group of 11 application tasks were submitted to the system.
As the southern main node of the national grid Dawning4000A also successfully connected with China's national grid for the first time to provide computing services to users far in Beijing.
With the development of science and technology and economy high-performance computer level is increasingly become an important indicator of a country's R&D strength.
In order to meet the growing demand for high-performance computing in Shanghai, east China and even the whole country, the fully loaded SSC started in 2003 to plan the second-phase expansion project - one of the main projects of Shanghai information port.
The 10 trillion-calculations computer, Dawning4000A was favorably viewed and became the main content of the second-phase expansion project.
Under the joint efforts by the Institute of Computer Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dawning Corporation and Shanghai Supercomputer Center, Dawning4000A was developed in June and ranked 10th on the list of world's top high-performance computers released that month.
In August installation of the system was completed in Shanghai and in September it entered test operation phase.
During the test operation phase as the largest main node in China's national grid and the information network center that provides services for east China and even the whole country, the SSC added commercialized application software worth of tens of millions of yuan and successfully conducted a series of tests in high-performance computer application.
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In ''triangle of death,'' killing Americans reportedly nets $3,000, Shiites $1000
11/19/2004
Associated Press
By Maggie Michael
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/324/world/In_triangle_of_death_killing_A:.shtml
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) A portly Shiite cleric, Abu Qusai sheds his black robe for a training suit and exchanges his white turban for a baseball cap, an effort to mask his identity for a risky trip through what has become known as the ''triangle of death.''
The region has become a death zone for many Shiite Muslims, Westerners and members of the Iraqi security services, many of whom have become the victims of Sunni Muslim insurgents and gunmen some who receive bounties of several thousand dollars.
The triangle, formed by the cities of Youssifiyah to the northwest, Latifiyah to the south and Mahmoudiya to the east, holds the fastest routes from Baghdad southward to the Shiite shrines in Najaf and Karbala.
The area is no less dangerous for foreigners than the better known insurgent strongholds west of the capital, including Fallujah and Ramadi.
French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot disappeared Aug. 20 on their way from Baghdad to Najaf. They remain missing, though their Syrian driver, Mohammed al-Joundi, was found by U.S. troops last week in Fallujah.
Two members of a Polish television crew were killed and a third was wounded in an attack near Mahmoudiya in May. Four months earlier, two Iraqis working for CNN were shot and killed while traveling through the same area.
Bayan Jaber of the major Shiite political party said that a week ago, five Shiites traveling to Najaf from Diyala province near the Iranian border were waylaid in the ''triangle of death'' and shot dead. The attackers demanded and received $15,000 from their families to return the bodies.
According to Jaber, insurgent leaders in the area offer cash bounties for killing certain kinds of people: $1,000 for a Shiite, $2,000 for a member of the Iraqi National Guard and $3,000 for an American.
Abu Qusai, who asked that his real name not be published out of concern for his safety, goes through the triangle on trips to the Shiite holy city of Najaf. He said he disguises himself to avoid the fate of two colleagues, Shiite clerics Basheer al-Jazaeri and Karim Baghdadi.
They were gunned down in separate incidents while en route to Najaf for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ended last week.
According to Abu Qusai, gunmen chased al-Jazaeri's car after he stopped for gasoline. Gunmen blocked the road, dragged him from his car and demanded his identification papers.
''They killed him and set fire to his car when they found out that he is a Shiite,'' Abu Qusai said.
Baghdadi received the same treatment, Abu Qusai said.
''Dozens of people have been killed during Ramadan because of their sect,'' said Hussain al-Shahristani, a close aide of Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. ''The government is responsible for protecting its citizens and for securing a safe way for them to move.''
U.S. Marines operate in the area, reinforced for the month by Britain's Black Watch regiment. Shortly after arriving from the relatively peaceful south, the Black Watch lost three soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter in a suicide attack Nov. 4.
One day after the Black Watch attack, insurgents blew up a bridge near Latifiyah, and four buses carrying Shiite pilgrims to Karbala plunged into the Euphrates River, killing 18 people. Two days later, 12 Iraqi National Guardsmen were abducted and murdered on their way home to Najaf by militants dressed as policemen.
With U.S. and Iraqi forces unable to stop the killings, many professional drivers are taking a 150-mile detour from Baghdad to Najaf. The route takes travelers well east of Latifiyah, whose name derives from the Arabic word for ''decent'' but which is the most dangerous point on the ''triangle of death.''
A taxi driver from Najaf, who gave his name only as Abu Maki, said Latifiyah residents call the insurgents the ''Opel gangs'' because they often use Opel cars looted from police stations to carry out their attacks.
Abu Maki said that he was stopped once on the Baghdad-to-Najaf highway by the Opel Gangs, who ''beat me up with two of the passengers, broke the windows and warned us not to approach this area again.''
Some Iraqis attribute the trouble in the area to demographic changes in the 1980s, when Saddam Hussein relocated large numbers of Sunni Muslims into what historically has been a largely Shiite area. The plan was to settle members of his own religious community along main routes from Baghdad to the Shiite heartland of the south.
Saddam recruited members of Sunni clans and tribes in the area into the Republican Guard and the intelligence services. During the failed Shiite uprising of 1991, Sunnis, especially from the al-Janabat tribe, were used to curb the rebellion.
Many of the Sunnis that relocated to the ''triangle of death,'' including the al-Janabats, came from Anbar, the volatile Sunni province at the heart of the insurgency where Fallujah is located.
Residents said insurgents have been distributing leaflets warning that Sunni landowners who lease land to Shiite farmers face death if they don't dismiss their tenants. The U.N.-funded ReliefWeb said last month that about 500 Shiite families had fled the Latifiyah area for Karbala because of threats.
That has raised prospects of a backlash among Shiites who have decided that they must defend themselves if the government and the multinational force cannot.
In Basra, a group called the ''Brigades of Anger'' has emerged, vowing to defend Shiites in Iraq from any group deemed a threat. A leader of the group, Dheya al-Mahdi, told The Associated Press that he will give the go-ahead for his followers to avenge the killing of Shiites.
Al-Mahdi blames Wahhabis, an extreme sect of Sunni Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia, for encouraging and funding operations aimed at Shiites in Iraq.
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Beheaded Bodies Found in Mosul; U.S. Storms Baghdad Mosque
November 19, 2004
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/international/middleeast/20iraqcnd.html?hp&ex=1100926800&en=4e057aeee10cec64&ei=5094&partner=homepage
MOSUL, Iraq, Nov. 19 - As many as a dozen beheaded corpses have been discovered in western Mosul, while in Baghdad today Iraqi and American troops killed at least three people during a raid on an influential Sunni mosque that had been accused of inciting terrorism against United States forces.
Mosul, the northern city that is the third largest in Iraq, has been wracked by violence since a bloody uprising last week, and while United States commanders say the situation has eased, American troops are still engaging in routine fights with insurgents who use rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and large and powerful homemade bombs to attack the troops and armored vehicles.
Some of the beheaded bodies found in Mosul are thought to have been Iraqi soldiers killed for collaborating with Americans. Tonight, an official with the Army battalion that oversees the most dangerous and insurgent-ridden portions of western Mosul said that the decapitated bodies had not yet been recovered because of concerns they might be booby-trapped to trigger explosions when moved.
The discovery followed the posting of a statement on an internet website operated by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claiming that two officers from the Iraqi National Guard were publicly beheaded in Mosul. According to a translation by the Reuters news agency, the Zarqawi organization claimed that an Iraqi major and lieutenant "were both slaughtered in Mosul in front of a large group of people." "Just when the enemies of God thought they would crush us with their tyrannical military campaign in Falluja . . . the al Qaeda organization in Iraq slaughtered two 'National Guards' on Thursday afternoon," the statement said.
A 35-year-old businessman in Mosul who said he was a witness to the executions, Senan Shukri, said that the two Iraqi soldiers were brought by car to a public square, where they were surrounded and beheaded immediately. The killers then announced that anyone who removed the bodies would also be beheaded, Mr. Shukri said. "The bodies are still on the street because they have threatened everybody not to come near them," he said.
Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla, the commander of the First Battalion of the 24th Infantry Regiment, said he had been in contact with his counterparts at the Iraqi National Guard but that they had been unable to say whether any of their officers were missing. They said that a number of guardsmen have left on leave and cannot be tracked down, Col. Kurilla said.
Iraqi and United States forces continued to go on the offensive in the dangerous western districts of Mosul that have become an insurgent haven.
This afternoon, about 300 Iraqi commandos backed by soldiers from the First Battalion captured 23 suspected insurgents in the oldest and most densely-populated district of Mosul, which American commanders believe is the refuge of the most hardeneed anti-American fighters in the city. The district is only about one square mile, but it is home to 500,000 people, or about one-quarter of Mosul's population.
The incident in Baghdad took place at the hard-line Sunni Abu Hanifa mosque, the last place that Saddam Hussein was publicly seen during the American invasion last year before he was found hiding months later in a hole in Tikrit. An Iraqi policeman who was praying in the mosque said that Iraqi national guardsmen opened fire on people inside. He was wounded in the arm.
The purpose of the raid was unclear, and the American military had no comment on the operation late today. But on Thursday, a spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister said that the government was pursuing imams who incite violence. At the time of the attack, the imam at the mosque was giving a sermon for a funeral, urging his audience to turn Mosul and other Iraqi city "like Falluja," a witness said.
One cleric on the scene was weeping after what he said was rough treatment by the Iraqi national guard. He showed the red imprint of a boot bottom on his side. The treads and even the faint outline of the number 42 - apparently the shoe size - were visible.
In Sadr City, a top lieutenant of Moktada al-Sadr was arrested on charges of torture.
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Insurgent Base Discovered in Fallujah
U.S. Troops Find Ammunition, Written Orders in House Used by Zarqawi's Network
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 19, 2004; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59519-2004Nov18?language=printer
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov. 18 -- U.S. soldiers discovered a house in southern Fallujah on Thursday believed by U.S. military officials to be a main headquarters for the network of the Jordanian guerrilla leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, whose group has claimed responsibility for numerous bombings, kidnappings and beheadings across Iraq.
A black and white mural painted on a wall in the house, similar to banners shown in videos that have depicted the beheadings of foreign hostages, indicated that the house belonged to an "al Qaeda organization." Zarqawi has declared his allegiance to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and his group, initially called Monotheism and Jihad, recently adopted the name al Qaeda in Iraq.
In the house, the soldiers found documents that translators described as letters written by Zarqawi to his lieutenants, medical supplies from the U.S. Agency for International Development and boxes of ammunition from the Chinese and Jordanian armies.
Controlled by insurgents from late April until this month, when American and Iraqi forces mounted a massive offensive aimed at restoring government authority, Fallujah had become a hub for foreign guerrillas who joined Zarqawi's network, U.S. military officials have said.
Military officials said it was unclear when, if ever, Zarqawi had been in the house discovered Thursday in Fallujah's southern neighborhood of Shuhada. A U.S. intelligence source said Zarqawi apparently did not use Fallujah as his base of operations, and none of the leaders of the principal insurgent groups based in Fallujah -- Zarqawi, Abdullah Janabi and Omar Hadid -- were known to have been apprehended during the U.S. offensive there. Janabi had said he and Hadid remained inside Fallujah, and U.S. military officials suggested that Zarqawi might be in the northern city of Mosul.
Fighting persisted Thursday in Mosul and a string of other towns stretching across the region north and west of Baghdad known as the Sunni Triangle.
In Mosul, where 2,500 U.S. troops entered Tuesday, insurgents attacked the governor's office, killing a bodyguard, and mortars were fired at a U.S. base. Bombings in the northern towns of Kirkuk and Baiji killed six Iraqis, news agencies reported, and clashes erupted again in Ramadi, a provincial capital west of Fallujah. Fighting has surged in Ramadi since U.S. troops began their Fallujah offensive last week.
In Baghdad, where a car bomb near a U.S. convoy killed two people, U.S. and allied Iraqi forces swept through a restive swath of the capital that runs along Haifa Street. The Interior Ministry said 104 suspects were arrested, including foreigners.
Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said Thursday that 51 U.S. troops and eight Iraqi soldiers had been killed in fighting in Fallujah and that 425 Americans and 40 Iraqi soldiers had been wounded. About 25 civilians were wounded and treated by U.S. military doctors, but no civilians were killed, Sattler said.
Marine and Army units continued on Thursday to clash with insurgents in Fallujah's Shuhada neighborhood. A Marine and an Iraqi soldier were killed in the fighting.
Uniformed, masked insurgents in Shuhada had attacked U.S. troops for several days with more than 15 rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds and sniper fire. U.S. warplanes and artillery subsequently bombed the area, and U.S. soldiers and Iraqi security forces returned there to look through the rubble.
The house said to have been used by the Zarqawi network, a simple concrete structure, was discovered Thursday on a block that Army Maj. David Johnson described as a "one-stop shop for terrorists."
"That part of town is the most dangerous place on Earth," said Johnson, a historian attached to 1st Infantry Division's Task Force 2-2, which conducted the raid.
Johnson said soldiers discovered at least nine bodies dressed in military fatigues, including that of a Sudanese man.
Iraqi security forces, acting as translators, identified letters written in black ink on white paper as correspondence between Zarqawi and his top aides. The letters reportedly contained requests for financing and weapons, Johnson said.
Soldiers hauled boxes filled with passports and identification cards out of the house. They also found bicycles and notes with instructions such as: "Go to the flour factory. There is something there for you."
In warehouses not far from the house, soldiers found a classroom with drawings of U.S. F-16 and F-18 fighter planes, a repair shop for anti-tank rounds and a factory for making car bombs where a Ford Explorer with a Texas registration sticker was parked. A garage with a roll-up door had been turned into a makeshift mosque.
Dead bodies were scattered among the rubble, and soldiers said they found no one alive.
A U.S. intelligence source said that while much of Zarqawi's organization was based in Fallujah, he apparently divided his time mainly between Baghdad and Ramadi. The source, a senior participant in the hunt for Zarqawi by U.S. and allied special forces and intelligence officers, spoke on condition of anonymity. The source said U.S. intelligence has been able to track Zarqawi occasionally, but never in time to move against him.
Sattler, the Marine commander, said the Fallujah offensive had "broken the back of the insurgency" in Iraq, disrupting rebel operations across the country.
"Each and every time we can force these individuals to go to new locations, expand their circle of friends -- if you want to call it that -- to include some that they don't know and they don't trust, they'll bring in rookies, more-junior people that will, in fact, make mistakes," he said. "This is going to make it very hard for them to operate."
But a veteran military analyst in Washington asserted that the United States arguably had suffered a political setback. "Fallujah has been a political victory for the insurgents," wrote Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It has further polarized the Arab Sunnis, weakened Sunni participation in the interim government, and raised more questions about the independence and legitimacy of" interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's government.
Thaer Naqib, a government spokesman, acknowledged that the fighting in Fallujah has driven guerrillas elsewhere but insisted that their dispersal will aid U.S. and Iraqi efforts to subdue them ahead of nationwide elections planned for the end of January. "They have dispersed, but now that they have dispersed, we can finish them off as quickly as possible," he said at a news conference.
Naqib warned that Islamic clerics who incite violence would be seen as abetting terrorism. The statement echoed a similar vow by Allawi and followed a series of arrests of Muslim preachers in past weeks.
In particular, the government has targeted the Association of Muslim Scholars, which vocally supports the insurgency and has emerged as the most influential Sunni body. On Thursday, police also arrested Hashim Abu Raghif, the representative in Najaf for a militant Shiite Muslim faction loyal to the rebel cleric Moqtada Sadr, a spokesman for the group said.
In Baqubah, the U.S. military raided the office of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni group, according to the head of the office, Adnan Qaisi. This week, the U.S. military detained a high-ranking representative from the group's office in Baghdad.
A collection of 47 parties said it would boycott the election, citing the fighting in Fallujah and other cities. The group was dominated by Sunni factions, most prominently the Association of Muslim Scholars, but included a handful of Shiite groups.
"The battle of Fallujah has . . . has forced the parties to take a position," said Muthanna Dhari, the son of the association's leader. "The only way they can have elections is if the occupation forces announce the schedule of their withdrawal."
Correspondent Anthony Shadid in Baghdad and staff writers Barton Gellman in New York and Thomas E. Ricks in Washington contributed to this report.
--------
U.S. and Iraqi Troops Storm Baghdad Mosque
November 19, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html?pagewanted=all
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi forces backed by American soldiers raided one of the country's most important Sunni mosques as worshippers were leaving after Friday prayers -- part of a crackdown on militant clerics opposed to the U.S.-led attack on Fallujah. Witnesses said at least three people were killed and 40 arrested.
Congregants at the Abu Hanifa mosque said they heard explosions inside the building, apparently from stun grenades. Later, a reporter saw a computer and books, including a Quran, scattered on the floor of the imam's office near overturned furniture. U.S. soldiers were seen inside the mosque compound.
Insurgents said to be reeling from the loss of their base in Fallujah struck back Friday with car bombings and by firing rockets or mortars at the Green Zone, the leafy Baghdad enclave that houses the headquarters of the Iraqi and U.S. leadership here. Six people were killed in one car bombing in Baghdad, police said.
In the northern city of Mosul, where guerrillas launched an uprising last week, Iraqi forces backed by American troops raided a hospital allegedly used by insurgents, detaining three people, U.S. officials said.
The overnight raid in Mosul followed an operation late Thursday in which Iraqi military and police units killed 15 insurgents and captured 10, according to deputy Gov. Khasro Gouran. A car bomb attack Friday on a U.S. patrol in Mosul injured one American soldier, the U.S. military said.
A statement posted on an Islamic Web site in the name of Jordanian terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group said it had ``slaughtered'' two Iraqi National Guard officers ``in the presence of a big crowd'' in Mosul. The claim included no photos or video and could not be verified.
But The New York Times, on its Web site Friday, quoted a 35-year-old businessman in Mosul who said he witnessed the executions. Senan Shukri told the Times that the two Iraqi soldiers were brought by car to a public square, where they were surrounded and immediately beheaded. The killers then announced that they would also decapitate anyone who removed the bodies, he said.
In Baghdad, American troops were seen securing the outer perimeter of the mosque, located in the Azamiyah district, and sealing it off before Iraqi police entered. At least 10 U.S. armored vehicles were parked at the mosque, along with two vehicles carrying about 40 Iraqi National Guardsmen, witnesses said.
Five people were wounded in addition to the three deaths and roughly 40 arrests, according to members of the congregation. The U.S. military referred questions on the raid to the Iraqi government, which declined comment.
The mosque, built around the tomb of the founder of the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence, has stood for 1250 years. When Hulagu sacked Baghdad in 1257, he used it to stable his horses, but otherwise it has escaped indignities from the many forces that have invaded Baghdad. It is the most important Sunni mosque in Baghdad, and a site of pilgrimage for Muslims worldwide.
American troops have raided the mosque repeatedly since the fall of Baghdad in April 2003.
U.S. troops also raided a Sunni mosque in Qaim, near the Syrian border, a cleric said Friday, calling it retaliation for opposing the Fallujah offensive. Imam Maudafar Abdul Wahab said his mosque was gathering food and supplies for Fallujah, and that the Americans took about $2,000 worth of Iraqi currency meant for mosque repairs.
In Baghdad, a suicide car bomber rammed into a police patrol Friday, killing one policeman and five civilians, police said. A suicide bomber also struck at a police station in Hillah, a mostly Shiite city 60 miles south to the south, but the driver was the only casualty, police said.
U.S. and Iraqi authorities are concerned about a public backlash against the Fallujah offensive among the minority Sunni community, especially as word spreads of the widespread devastation there.
The Iraqi government has warned that Islamic clerics who incite violence will be considered as ``participating in terrorism.'' Some already have been arrested, including members of the Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars.
Few Shiite clerics have condemned the Fallujah operation except for followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia battled American troops in two major campaigns this year. On Friday, U.S. troops arrested an al-Sadr representative near the holy city of Karbala -- the second arrest of his aides in two days, al-Sadr's office said. Both had spoken out against the Fallujah attack, which began last week.
During the Fallujah offensive a Marine was captured on video fatally shooting a wounded and apparently unarmed man in a mosque. The death is among those under investigation by the U.S. military.
As part of the inquiry, the bodies of four suspected Iraqi insurgents arrived at Dover Air Force Base, Del., Thursday night for autopsies, said a U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The offensive against Fallujah, the main insurgent sanctuary about 40 miles west of Baghdad, triggered a spike in insurgent attacks throughout Sunni areas of central and northern Iraq, most notably in Mosul, the country's third-largest city.
U.S. and Iraqi forces began a major military operation Tuesday to wrest control of Mosul after gunmen last week attacked police stations, bridges and political offices in apparent support of Fallujah guerrillas.
On Friday, three of Mosul's five bridges across the Tigris River were reopened to traffic and most of the city was calm, though U.S. forces came under some ``indirect fire'' that caused no injuries, military spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Hastings said.
During a patrol, American troops found burned election materials inside a Mosul warehouse after a tip by an Iraqi security officer. Efforts are under way to replace the materials for the January elections.
Iraq is to hold national elections by Jan. 31 to elect a 275-member assembly in what is expected to be a major step toward building democracy. The Fallujah offensive was launched in part to pacify major insurgent areas so that elections could be held.
The Islamic extremist Al-Sunnah Army has threatened to attack polling stations and assassinate candidates because democracy is a ``Western infidel'' institution. And the coordinator of U.S. reconstruction aid acknowledged Friday that the insurgency poses a bigger obstacle to rebuilding Sunni-dominated areas now than six weeks ago.
William Taylor, director of the Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, said it would be difficult to hold elections unless the situation improves.
``In the Sunni areas and then up in Mosul it is worse today than it was, and we're having greater difficulties from security,'' Taylor told reporters at the Pentagon in a video teleconference from Baghdad. ``We're worried that in some areas -- again, not all -- in some areas it would now be difficult to have elections.''
Taylor said upward of $100 million in U.S. and Iraqi government funds will be spent to rebuild Fallujah. He said that within a week or two he expects to start restoring basic services like electricity, water and sewage.
-------- israel / palestine
Jailed in Israel, Palestinian Symbol Eyes Top Post
November 19, 2004
By JAMES BENNET
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/international/middleeast/19palestine.html?pagewanted=all&position=
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Nov. 18 - Of all the men who would be leaders of the nation that would be Palestine, he is the most popular, his personal story the most compelling, his command of Hebrew and understanding of Israelis the most sophisticated.
Yet for Marwan Barghouti, the odds of succeeding Yasir Arafat appear, for now, to be the longest. Mr. Arafat was accused by Israel of terrorism and kept a virtual prisoner in his compound here. Mr. Barghouti was convicted by Israel of terrorism and is an actual prisoner in an Israeli jail, where he is serving five life terms plus 40 years.
Still, from prison, Mr. Barghouti, a sharp, charismatic man of 45, is weighing a run for one of the jobs vacated at Mr. Arafat's death, the presidency of the governing Palestinian Authority.
"If he feels it's in the interest of his people for him to serve as president, he won't hesitate," Mr. Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, said in an interview here on Thursday.
The arc of Mr. Barghouti's career - from prisoner to peacemaker to prisoner - tracks the course of Israeli-Palestinian relations. His prominence in the political considerations of Palestinians reveals the generational, institutional and personal crosscurrents roiling Palestinian society since the death of Mr. Arafat.
Running through the political chatter among both Palestinians and Israelis since Mr. Arafat died a week ago has been speculation electrifying to both - that Israel would pardon Mr. Barghouti or release him in some sort of prisoner exchange.
That possibility is extremely remote, Israeli politicians and analysts say. An Israeli court has found Mr. Barghouti to have blood on his hands. But some Israelis also remember him for his support of a two-state solution and his formerly close relationships with Israeli politicians, including some right-leaning ones.
The newspaper Maariv published a cartoon this week that showed a prison guard sitting alone before a chessboard outside a cell door marked "Barghouti." Through the door comes a voice: "Do you need a partner?"
Mr. Barghouti is the most prominent member of the rising generation of Palestinian leaders - men in their 40's who, unlike Mr. Arafat and his fellow exiles, grew up under Israeli occupation, learned Hebrew in an Israeli prison and came to admire aspects of Israeli democracy even as they resented their occupiers. As a Palestinian legislator, Mr. Barghouti was a frequent critic of governance under Mr. Arafat.
Asked about her husband's view of Mr. Arafat, Mrs. Barghouti said that he admired Mr. Arafat's "commitment to the Palestinian people" but that "on the issue of democracy and corruption, he used to have his own observations."
Sounding a common complaint by the younger leadership, she said of Mr. Arafat's older comrades, "They look at the leadership as a kind of monopoly for their generation. It's for them only."
Mr. Barghouti also learned English in previous stints in Israeli jails. Having read his way through Marx and the biographies of Israeli leaders, he recently finished Bill Clinton's autobiography, Mrs. Barghouti said.
Some allies of Mr. Barghouti say he is unlikely to challenge Mahmoud Abbas, the new chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, should Mr. Abbas be picked as the presidential candidate of their shared faction, Fatah. In that event, they say, Mr. Barghouti is likely to throw his support behind the consensus candidate.
Unlike Mr. Barghouti, Mr. Abbas, 69, a longtime Fatah leader, is an opponent of the armed uprising. He has almost no popular following.
Mrs. Barghouti said she did not know if her husband would step aside if Mr. Abbas were nominated for president. But she said he thought the P.L.O. leader was "a person of ethics - sincere."
In internal deliberations, some senior Palestinian officials are arguing that Mr. Barghouti should be the faction's candidate, to emphasize the plight of Palestinian prisoners and to end the mixing of institutional roles under Mr. Arafat. They say the Palestinians should turn the presidency of the Palestinian Authority into a largely symbolic role, like the presidency of Israel, and let Mr. Abbas focus on the more overarching duties of chairman of the P.L.O., which represents the millions of Palestinians overseas as well as those in the West Bank and Gaza.
For all those reasons, Sakher Habash, a gray-haired member of Fatah's policy-setting Central Committee, said in a conversation near Mr. Arafat's tomb here on Thursday that he would nominate Mr. Barghouti for president. "He is a symbol of the intifada," he said, referring to the violent Palestinian uprising of the past four years. Asked how Mr. Barghouti could lead from prison, he cited the case of Nelson Mandela, who led the African National Congress from prison before becoming president.
Some Palestinians believe that Israel chose to arrest Mr. Barghouti in April 2002 and then give him a very public trial in order to burnish his credentials as a leader among Palestinians while preventing him from further tarnishing his credentials among Israelis.
Appearing in court bearded, manacled, and in a brown prison uniform, Mr. Barghouti refused to defend himself, calling the trial illegitimate and denouncing the occupation at every chance. Images of him raising his bound hands above his head in defiance were broadcast through the West Bank and Gaza Strip and throughout the Arab world.
Unlike many top Palestinian officials, who tend to live well, Mr. Barghouti became a symbol of steadfastness and suffering - a symbol, in other words, like Mr. Arafat himself. Before this uprising began, Mr. Barghouti's political base was confined to the Ramallah area. But posters showing Mr. Barghouti in chains appear now in Gaza, and Palestinians universally refer to him simply as Marwan.
An adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said last spring that in arresting Mr. Barghouti the Israelis had in mind possibly releasing him some day as an alternative to Mr. Arafat. But this adviser said that once the bureaucracy of the criminal justice system got hold of Mr. Barghouti, his release became impossible.
Mr. Barghouti - "a naughty and rebellious boy," according to a younger brother, Muqbel - was first detained by Israel in 1976, for about 18 days. Two years later, he was arrested again and sentenced to more than four years for his involvement in the Palestinian national movement and street protests, his family said.
"I never knew it was love until he was detained," said Mrs. Barghouti, who first met her future husband as a girl. She said he warned her on the day he was released, in 1982, that marriage to him would not be easy. "He said, 'Are you willing to make that sacrifice?' " she recalled.
Mrs. Barghouti, a 40-year-old lawyer, spoke about her husband while sitting beneath a giant poster of him in his prison uniform, in the office of the Campaign to Free Marwan Barghouti.
Mr. Barghouti became a student leader near here, at Bir Zeit University, where he studied political science. Israel arrested and detained him several more times, his wife said, before finally sending him into exile in Jordan in 1987. He returned with his wife and family to Ramallah 10 years ago, after the P.L.O. and Israel signed the Oslo accords that established a framework for peace talks.
The Barghoutis have four children, the eldest of whom, Kassam, 19, is also in Israeli detention.
During this uprising, which began in September 2000, Marwan Barghouti called for violence but insisted that he remained "a politician, not a military man." He said he supported attacks only against Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied territories, violence that he argued was condoned by international law.
Israeli officials say he aimed at civilians on both sides of the 1967 boundary between Israel and the West Bank. "In practice it has been proven beyond all doubt," the Israeli court's verdict read, "that the accused took part in, and headed, murderous activity which aimed at striking innocents."
In an interview with The New York Times in March 2002, while he was in hiding, Mr. Barghouti said that all his efforts were in pursuit of a lasting peace. Israel had shown that only violence would prompt it to agree to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, he said. He said that by conducting sensational attacks, Fatah had restored its popularity with average Palestinians, who he said were otherwise turning to militant groups like Hamas that were dedicated to Israel's destruction.
"We were very brave to fight for peace, and I received a lot of criticism from our side," he said, referring to his support of Oslo. "Now we are brave enough to fight for peace again - but with different tools.'"
-------- space
First Space Council To Set Course Towards A European Space Program
Brussels (ESA)
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/esa-general-04z.html
Ministers in charge of space affairs and those responsible for the internal market, industry and research meet in Brussels on Thursday 25 November for the first 'Space Council', a joint and concomitant meeting of the ESA Council at ministerial level and the EU Competitiveness Council.
This historic event marks the first step towards the development and definition of an overall European space policy and its implementation programme. A progress report on the basis of a position paper and an exchange of views will be the core of the Council's agenda.
The meeting will be chaired jointly by Mrs Edelgard Buhlman, German Minister for Education and Research and current chair of the ESA Council at ministerial level, and by Mr Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst, Dutch Minister for Economic Affairs and current chair of the EU Competitiveness Council.
At the meeting, the European Commission and ESA Executive will be represented by Vice-President Mr. Günther Verheugen, Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry, in charge of competitiveness and space matters, and Mr. Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General.
These 'Space Council' meetings have been set up for the purpose of coordinating and facilitating cooperative activities between the European Community and ESA through their Framework Agreement which was adopted in 2003 and entered into force in May this year.
The Framework Agreement has two main aims. The first is the coherent and progressive development of an overall European space policy, which will specifically seek to link demand for services and applications using space systems in support of EU policies with the supply through ESA of space systems and infrastructures necessary to meet that demand.
The second aim of the Agreement is to establish a common basis and appropriate practical arrangements for efficient and mutually beneficial cooperation between ESA and the European Community, fully respecting the institutional and operational frameworks of each institution, to facilitate the setting up of joint initiatives and to provide a stable framework for ESA-EC cooperation to benefit all European citizens.
Over the last three years, the EU and ESA have worked together to outline a European space policy that identifies and prioritises objectives for space.
The European space programme, expected to be endorsed by a Space Council session at the end of 2005, will constitute a common platform including all activities and measures to be undertaken by the EC, ESA and other stakeholders in order to achieve the objectives set by the European space policy.
The European space programme will be drawn up in the light of the recommendations set out in the White Paper on Space
-------- us
Iraq Casualties
Washington Post
Friday, November 19, 2004; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61369-2004Nov18.html
Iraq Casualties
Total number of U.S. military deaths and names of the U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war as announced by the Pentagon yesterday:1,216
Fatalities In hostile actions: 945
In non-hostile actions: 271
Pfc. Cole W. Larsen, 19, of Canyon Country, Calif.; 272nd Military Police Company, 21st Theater Support Command, based in Mannheim, Germany. Died Nov. 13, when a civilian vehicle struck his military vehicle in Baghdad.
Pfc. Isaiah R. Hunt, 20, of Green Bay, Wis.; 782nd Main Support Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg, N.C. Died Nov. 15 when the driver of his military vehicle struck another vehicle in Baghdad.
Pfc. Jose Ricardo Flores-Mejia, 21, of Santa Clarita, Calif.; 25th Transportation Company, based at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Killed Nov. 16 in Mosul.
Spec. Daniel James McConnell, 27, of Duluth, Minn.; 27th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division, based at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Killed Nov. 16 in Kirkuk.
Staff Sgt. Marshall H. Caddy, 27, of Nags Head, N.C..
1st Lt. Luke C. Wullenwaber, 24, of Lewiston, Idaho.
Both soldiers were assigned to 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, based at Camp Greaves, South Korea. Both were killed Nov. 16 in Khaldiyah.
Cpl. Lance M. Thompson, 21, of Upland, Ind.; 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.
Sgt. Christopher T. Heflin, 26, of Paducah, Ky.; 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.
Both Marines were assigned to 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif. Killed Nov. 15 in Anbar province, which includes Fallujah.
Lance Cpl. William L. Miller, 22, of Pearland, Tex.; 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Killed Nov. 15 in Anbar.
Lance Cpl. Louis w. Qualls, 20, of Temple, Tex.; 2nd Battalion, 14th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, based in Grand Prairie, Tex. Killed Nov. 16 in Anbar.
All troops were killed in action unless otherwise indicated.
Total fatalities include three civilian employees of the Defense Department.
A full list of casualties is available online at www.washingtonpost.com/nation
SOURCE: Defense Department's www.defenselink.mil/newsThe Washington Post
--------
American Teenagers as War Fodder
CounterPunch
by Mike Ferner
November 19, 2004
http://progressivetrail.org/articles/041119Ferner.shtml
He trolled for teenagers in North Carolina high schools, barked orders at recruits in boot camp, and pulled charred civilian corpses out of cars in Iraq. Now Jimmy Massey is making good on his promise to tell the whole world what he learned as a Marine. For the first 10 years, Massey loved being in the USMC. With a quick mind and an easy manner, he and his superiors knew he'd make a great recruiter. And by the luck of the draw, he was assigned to the area around Asheville, N.C., not far from where he grew up.
"It was an advantage being a recruiter in this area. I understand the mentality of mountain people. When we'd talk about topics like the economy and industry around here, I knew what people were talking about. And too, people here usually don't open up to strangers."
Contrary to what some believe, Marine Corps recruiters don't get paid commission for going over quota, the 32-year-old former staff sergeant explained. "My monthly quota was three in the summer and two in the winter. You could get five one month but still go from hero to zero next month when you started over again."
Recruiters are, however, "one of only three Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) in the Marines that get Special Duty Assignment (SDA) pay an extra $475 a month when I was in to offset the higher cost of living when you're a recruiter," he said. "An E-5 recruiter would make about $1,500 every two weeks including SDA pay. But being a recruiter is expensive. There's extra costs. When you're a recruiter, you've got to play the part."
Bling, Promises, and the "Moment of Truth"
"For example, you have to have a nice car you can't go rolling down the street in some old family wagon. You can't be sittin' there talking to a kid about financial stability and driving an old Ford Ranger. That just don't get it!" He said he drove a Mustang for his personal car, and Army recruiters he knew drove "decked-out Expeditions with 20-inch rims. You have to have a little 'bling' [gold, jewelry, etc.] on you that kind of thing. I made sure I always dressed nice when I was off duty. You gotta play the part. Young kids are really materialistic minded."
Then there's the everyday expenses of recruiting, "like taking a guy to Hooters for some wings. The government gives me a credit card, but it's in my name and the bill comes to me. I have to pay it and then get reimbursed."
Often the biggest enticement a recruiter can offer young men and women trying to escape poverty is the promise of job training, even more appealing when it's for a MOS in data systems, aircraft electronics, aircraft crew chief, or other sought-after specialties. But as Massey acknowledged, "The Marine Corps can guarantee you a job all day long, but that doesn't mean you're going to actually get it."
A common way to swindle recruits out of promised jobs is the "Moment of Truth" exercise in boot camp. New recruits are taken to a room where their DI (drill instructor) tells them to "really think about it" and see if they've lied while enlisting or filling out their application.
"They'll ask the recruits if they lied about things like ever having smoked grass, or maybe how many times they've smoked, and ask them to raise their hand if they've lied any time in the recruiting process," Massey said. When the hands go up, the DI looks at them and says, "Listen. This is what's gonna happen now. You lied to us. You can either quit in disgrace now, or since you signed a contract to be a Marine, you can stay in, but we're not going to let you have the job you asked for."
"Investigations" and Private Eyes
"There's a whole network within the community to enable recruiters to make their quotas the sheriff's department, police department, schools all the way up to the local congressional office."
Massey recalled that at one point, "There was a congressional investigation brought up against me. I enlisted someone who was handicapped. I should have been in deep sh
"A recruiter is like a private eye," Massey said. "They know everything about the kids they're recruiting."
For example, he learned the names of virtually every graduating high school senior in his seven-county district about 1,000 youngsters annually in that largely rural area.
And high school students weren't the only people he got to know well. "We knew the names of the district attorneys [DAs] in every county and went to them to get certain charges reduced or dismissed on kids we were recruiting. We took flowers to the secretaries in the clerk of courts offices. The clerk of courts can make a lot of things appear and disappear. We got to know people working in hospital medical records so we could check out, say, if a certain kid had asthma or not. We'd ask other kids 'what about Johnny Smith?' to find out if he had problems or if he might be interested."
He explained the Marines' Systematic Recruiting method that includes use of a working file of Prospective Applicant Cards on which information is routinely entered. "I'd put all the information down that I knew maybe Johnny Smith had some problems with the law. That's when I'd go to the DA and ask if Johnny was salvageable. If he was, I'd tell the DA, 'well, I talked with Johnny and he's thinking of going into the Marine Corps.' More likely than not the response I got would be, 'Oh yeah? Well, that's just great!'"
Massey said three years as a recruiter taught him "the power of the English language."
"One way we used it was to identify 'tangible and intangible traits' in applicants. We would use cards with words printed on them, like 'self confidence,' or 'financial security' and ask an applicant to pick ones they were concerned about. That way, if a kid picks 'self confidence,' he's telling you he feels like he's lacking in self confidence and you can work him from that angle."
For potential recruits with a record of criminal convictions, Massey pointed out that, "Anything is pretty much waivable in the Marine Corps even up to one felony."
Potentially life-threatening medical conditions were also waivable, according to Massey. "Johnny might come to see me his senior year and say, 'Sarge, I'm wondering if I might have something that might disqualify me I've got asthma.'"
"I'd ask him if he uses an inhaler. If he answered 'yes,' I'd tell him that if he controlled it with an inhaler then he really didn't have asthma. Then I'd tell him to give me 10 pushups. If he did that with no trouble, I'd say, 'See, you don't have asthma!'"
He described his time as a recruiter as progressively more and more difficult. By his last year at it, 2002, he was "tired of lying. I felt like I was close to a nervous breakdown from the stress. I started seeing a psychiatrist, was diagnosed with major depression and put on medication for it. I wrote a letter to my commanding officer about how Marine Corps recruiting should be changed to be more ethical. The Recruiter Instructor they sent out to monitor my efforts ended up telling me he thought it was one of the best statements anyone had ever written about recruiting practices."
Massey decided to quit being a recruiter but also to reenlist to get back to "the regular Marine Corps duty" he enjoyed. Leaving behind the deceit and stress of recruiting made him feel much better "good enough to get off anti-depressants." But soon he got orders to northern Kuwait and within two months was invading Iraq with 130,000 other U.S. troops.
"We Just Lit 'Em Up"
As he made his way north toward Baghdad, through the towns of Safwan and Basra, "our main job was to set up roadblocks. We had permission to fire on anyone who got through them."
It was this experience, barely an instant compared with his dozen years in the Marines, that showed him a side of the military he'd not seen as an instructor at Parris Island or a recruiter.
"In one 48-hour period, we killed over 30 civilians in vehicles that got past our roadblocks. We just lit 'em up with gunfire. But when we went to pull the charred corpses out of the cars we never found any weapons. They were just civilians. I could start feeling the depression come back. I knew what it was from."
In a meeting one day, his lieutenant asked him if he was feeling OK. Massey replied no, and told the lieutenant that "we're committing genocide and leaving enough depleted uranium around to continue genocidal activity for a long time."
"Do you really believe that?" the lieutenant asked.
"Yes," replied Massey, "or I wouldn't have said it."
"I knew my career in the Marine Corps was over at that point," he added.
Sent back to the States for medical reasons, Massey returned to the Marine base at 29 Palms, Calif., and was told to report to the mental health clinic. There, the first psychiatrist he spoke with told him, "I don't deal with conscientious objectors [COs]."
"I knew right away we were going to have a problem," Massey said, "because my response to her was, 'Well, if you call not wanting to kill innocent civilians being a CO' and she came back with, 'Need I remind you that you are still in the military?'"
Refusing to back down, Massey retorted, "Woman, this isn't my military because the Marine Corps I enlisted in was run by the Geneva Conventions. We didn't kill civilians, and we damn sure didn't cover it up."
Later, in a meeting with a senior non-commissioned officer (NCO), he was asked, "What's wrong?" But when Massey responded, the NCO interrupted him so he could open a desk drawer and turn on a tape recorder. Massey told the NCO he knew he was soon on his way out of the Marines, and told him, "I don't want your money. I don't want your benefits nothin'! Not with what y'all did over there in Iraq killing civilians."
Massey said he knew he would need an attorney before talking with his superiors again, so he located one in a copy of the Marine Corps Times. "Next meeting I had with the psychiatrist, my attorney talked with her on the phone. She was completely different when she got off the phone with him."
Asked what advice he would give to a teenager thinking of visiting a military recruiter, Massey thought a moment and answered, "Take a veteran with you to the recruiter. We're never going to stop that one kid bound and determined to play Rambo, but getting the facts out, educating kids on what really goes on is important. That's why I keep speaking out."
Indeed, Massey put the Marines on notice just before he left. He informed a colonel, "The moment I get out of here I'm going to tell the whole world what I've learned."
Mike Ferner is a member of Veterans for Peace from Toledo, Ohio. He returned from a second trip to Iraq earlier this year. He can be reached at: mike.ferner@sbcglobal.net
--------
Back To Basics As IEDs Change Urban Warfare
Arlington VA (SPX)
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/materials-04zzy.html
Designing new metals, from the bottom up As the Marine Corps looks for answers to the deadly dangers of improvised explosive devices in Iraq, and the Navy seeks to protect ships from sea mines and anti-ship missiles, the Office of Naval Research is exploring radically new approaches to designing metals that could lead to effective blast shielding for military units--and protection for civilian targets against terrorist attack.
In an effort prompted in part by the October 2000 terrorist attack on the Navy destroyer USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 Navy personnel, ONR's Engineering, Materials, and Physical Science division is sponsoring pioneering work at Northwestern University.
A team of crack engineering students that calls itself Team BlasTruss is being led by veteran metallurgist Greg Olson to develop "recipes," or toolboxes for the design of super-hard steels.
ONR program manager Julie Christodoulou explains that metals aren't monolithic substances, but vary widely in composition and structure.
Different types of steels are composed of crystal-like "micro-structures" that are neither uniform nor homogenous.
Metallurgists typically develop new types of steel and other metals through trial-and-error by combining, for example, percentages of certain steels, nickel, and other known metals to produce the desired degree of strength, endurance, and other characteristics.
That approach works backward from the structural level to determine the usable combinations of materials for desired applications. Instead, Northwestern's Team BlasTruss first identifies the desired characteristics of the steel.
It then looks at elementary molecular-level composition of materials in order to determine the optimal mix of metallic ingredients needed to meet Navy requirements.
The BlasTruss team used available research data on metals to identify and demonstrate the performance of a new metal, designated BlastAlloy-160, for use in fabrication of a folded-plate truss, a blast-resistant steel structure that could be used in construction of a rugged vehicle such as the commercial Hummer, as well as a safe room, trash receptacle, and a Boeing 747 cargo bay.
The team also has looked at the potential for using BA-160 for a blast-resistant luggage rack for trains that would protect passengers from the kind of blast that killed many of the victims of the Madrid bomb attack of March 11, Christodoulou says.
-------- war crimes
U.S. War Crimes in Fallujah
Democracy Now!
Friday, November 19th, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/19/1524257
A number of incidents have been captured on tape and broadcast in the United States that international law experts charge could be evidence of clear war crimes being committed by US troops. We speak attorney Jules Lobel of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of Success Without Victory. [includes rush transcript] While the reporting of embedded correspondents operating in the besieged city of Fallujah is subject to censorship by the US military, a number of incidents have been captured on tape and broadcast in the United States that international law experts charge could be evidence of clear war crimes being committed by US troops. The most prominent among these incidents was a case earlier this week of a US soldier apparently executing a wounded Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque. It was captured on videotape by an NBC cameraman.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: The most prominent among these incidents was a case earlier this week of a U.S. soldier apparently executing a wounded Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque. It was captured on videotape by an NBC cameraman.
SOLDIER 1: He's [inaudible] faking he's dead.
SOLDIER 2: Yeah, he's breathing.
SOLDIER 1: He's [inaudible] faking he's dead.
AMY GOODMAN: The excerpt of a videotape captured by Kevin Sites of NBC in a Fallujah mosque of a soldier executing a wounded Iraqi, who was laying in the mosque. We're joined now by Jules Lobel, vice president of the Center for Constitutional Rights he teaches at the University of Pittsburgh Law School, and he's the author of a new book called, Success Without Victory. Welcome to Democracy Now!
JULES LOBEL: Thank you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Great to have you us with, Jules. Can you talk about this videotape that is now being seen around the world?
JULES LOBEL: Yes. If it is correct what it apparently shows, which is that a soldier was executing a prisoner, then it's a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. But I think that the whole problem of the U.S. Government here in the war crimes area is that they're focusing on the individual. You know, there was another incident which was recorded also by a United Kingdom video crew on Channel 4 in Britain, in which another soldier was doing apparently the same thing. And if you look at Sites' website, he --
AMY GOODMAN: This is Kevin Sites, the NBC cameraman --
JULES LOBEL: Kevin Sites, the NBC cameraman, what he does is he shows that -- he puts up quotes from different Marines. He says the Marines say they were operating under rules of engagement, which said this was a weapons-free zone. And what they meant by weapons-free was that they could shoot at anything. They didn't have to determine whether it was hostile. Anything that they saw was deemed to be hostile in Fallujah. It reminds you of the free-fire zones in Vietnam. Under the Geneva Conventions, commanders have a responsibility to ensure that civilians are not indiscriminately harmed and that prisoners are not executed. The real problem here is coming from the top, not from the individual soldiers. I think the investigation should really be on what the rules of engagement were that these Marines were operating under, and whether they were given instructions not to kill prisoners, not to discriminate between insurgents and civilians, and my hunch is that they weren't.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, is there a distinction between an innocent civilian who's killed and a resistance fighter who was wounded, who is unarmed? Kevin Sites, the NBC journalist said that he didn't pose a threat, and he was unarmed.
JULES LOBEL: Yeah. There's a distinction, but both of them are protected. An unarmed fighter, who is wounded, is considered to be out of combat and therefore treated as if they were a civilian. Therefore, to kill a combatant who's wounded and unarmed and is not taking part in the fight, is similar, is identical to killing a civilian, and both of them are protected under the Geneva Conventions.
AMY GOODMAN: The Channel 4 videotape, which I haven't seen, is this also a case in Fallujah?
JULES LOBEL: It's a case in Fallujah. It's almost the same thing. I don't think in a mosque, but almost the same thing. The only thing they didn't capture was the actual killing of the person. You saw a marine shooting at a -- at an unarmed, wounded insurgent, and you don't see what happened, but the marine says, he's done for.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, what does it mean to say that it violates international law? I mean, are these the laws that the U.S. Marines abide by, have to answer to? JULES LOBEL: Well, for 50 years, the United States has ratified the Geneva Conventions and believed that the Geneva Conventions protect both our soldiers, and are the rules of combat which our soldiers should fight by. In this conflict, as we saw from the top, there's this whole effort by Gonzales and other people to say, well, the Geneva convention's provisions are now quaint. That was Gonzales's word in his memo. And not to abide by them. And it's very disturbing, and you know, amnesty international has called for an investigation of this. Louise Arbor, top U.N. Official, has called for an investigation. I really think that the investigation should start from the top. As to how these soldiers are being trained and told to fight in this conflict. But the Geneva Conventions was passed after World War II, and it was designed to overcome the terrible abuses that we saw that occurred in World War II. If we're going to go back to the era, the world is in for a very sorry state.
AMY GOODMAN: Jules Lobel is author of Success Without Victory. You pursue a lot of these human rights cases. You don't usually win.
JULES LOBEL: No. They're hard cases to win. But you know, for example, right now, we're suing the military contractors who were involved in the torture at Abu Ghraib. It's a hard case. We're hoping to win. And we're representing the people in Guantanamo.
AMY GOODMAN: Let's talk about Abu Ghraib for a minute and also Gonzales. You are talking about Alberto Gonzales, the white house counsel whose just been nominated by President Bush to become the Attorney General. Can you explain his significance when it came to the underpinnings, the memos that were written, sort of providing the legal framework, how Abu Ghraib prisoners should be dealt with.
JULES LOBEL: Yeah. His memos said that not only with respect to Al Qaeda, but with respect to the Taliban prisoners, who the world believes are covered by the Geneva Conventions, that the Geneva Conventions should not apply. I think that's set in train a whole series of events whereby the U.S. Government began to take the position that not formally, maybe informally, that we're not going to abide anymore by the Geneva Conventions or that we'll try to circumvent them. And there have been various memos, I think, attempting to circumvent them. For example, the Geneva Conventions requires that you cannot deport people from Iraq, from occupied territory, and take them out, because of what happened during World War II where the Germans deported people and killed them. Well, the United States has been, it's come out, that we have been deporting or we have been taking people out of Iraq, secretly, to interrogate them where the red cross would not know about it, and presumably using much harsher measures which would violate the Geneva Conventions. But there's a move to get around all the different provisions of the Geneva Conventions. Taken as a whole, what the U.S. Government has done, is tried to avoid many of the restrictions of the Geneva Conventions.
AMY GOODMAN: The contractors who worked at Abu Ghraib, who are they?
JULES LOBEL: These are the Titan Corporation and the Khaki corporation. They're military contractors. We allege that they were involved in the torture, that some of their people were involved in the torture, and because they're private military contractor, we believe we can sue them.
AMY GOODMAN: It's interesting is there a precedent? Because just this week, a federal judge ruled a case can go forward in the United States of prisoners, detainees, at a facility in New Jersey, who, they applied for political asylum, they were being held, and they were abused by the guards at the facility. Now, the government, the judge ruled that they cannot go after the U.S. government, but they can go after the private contractor that ran the jail. Would that have relevance in this case?
JULES LOBEL: That's one of the reasons we sued the private contractors. Because that would have relevance to show that even if the government has immunity, and there are statutes and there are provisions that give the government itself immunity in some of these cases, the private individuals, the private contractors should not have immunity, nor should the commanders have immunity.
AMY GOODMAN: And how far along is this case?
JULES LOBEL: The case is, we're arguing about motions to dismiss. The contractors have moved to dismiss the case and it's going to be a hearing in San Francisco in the beginning of December, I think.
AMY GOODMAN: And how involved were Khaki? Were the two, and Titan, in Abu Ghraib? Were they running the whole facility?
JULES LOBEL: I don't know if they were running the whole facility, but I think they were intimately connected with what was going on, particularly the interrogations parts of it.
AMY GOODMAN: Aren't a lot of these guys actually from the U.S. military?
JULES LOBEL: Sure. There's a total intermixing of these private contractors and the U.S. military folks.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about Guantanamo?
JULES LOBEL: Well, in Guantanamo, we just sued on behalf of Mr. Rasul who is our lead plaintiff, who was a British citizen, who claims he was tortured in Guantanamo. We filed a suit against the officials who we claimed did the torturing, but also who set up again the rules under which these people could be tortured. You know, the U.S. government has said, well, if there's any abuse, we'll go after the individual Marine or the individual soldiers, but nobody's looking at the commanders, the people really responsible, for creating a situation in which people could be tortured or where prisoners could be executed.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, what does it mean to have Alberto Gonzales become the Attorney General of the United States, talking about Geneva Conventions as what was it, quaint, and saying that they don't apply?
JULES LOBEL: To have the chief law enforcement officer of the United States be somebody who in his memos showed a total disregard for one of the key international law provisions, is just outrageous. It's inconsistent with the whole notion of a chief law enforcement officer.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think Democratic Senators will be opposing this?
JULES LOBEL: I'd hope some of them would have the backbone to oppose it. But in the past, you can't be very optimistic about that. AMY GOODMAN: Well, Jules Lobel, I want to thank you very much for being here. Jules Lobel, Vice President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, teaches at the University of Pittsburgh Law School, author of the new book, Success Without Victory.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- homeland security / national intelligence
Compromise Sought on Intelligence Legislation
Negotiators Scramble As Deadline Approaches
By Charles Babington and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 19, 2004; Page A27
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60939-2004Nov18.html
House-Senate negotiators, trying to craft a far-reaching bill to revamp U.S. intelligence, worked last night against a fast-approaching deadline in hopes of achieving a compromise that can be passed before Congress adjourns for the year, most likely this weekend.
The four principal negotiators met privately for hours but provided little information on their progress, even to their aides. Staffers close to the situation said the lawmakers had seemed rather optimistic in the morning, but less so in the afternoon, as they haggled over proposals to change immigration laws and law enforcement guidelines as part of the battle against terrorism.
Some legislators suggested that today would be the last day to produce a bill that the full House and Senate could approve before they close down the 108th Congress. Others, however, said it is impossible to specify an absolute deadline.
"People will be up very late" trying to resolve the remaining differences in the extensive House and Senate bills, said Harald Stavenas, spokesman for House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), a key negotiator.
Some Democratic aides said they believe that the only outstanding issues involved immigration and law enforcement, and that lawmakers had resolved the other chief sticking point -- how much budgetary power should go to a new national intelligence director. But Stavenas said it appeared that senators were still pressing Hunter to give the director more authority over some Pentagon-based intelligence agencies than the House has proposed. "My boss is not budging" on that issue, Stavenas said.
Despite the outstanding differences, the House and Senate have reached agreement on many proposals by the Sept. 11 commission, including the need to strengthen U.S. efforts to combat radical Islamic movements through public diplomacy. Even if the negotiations fail to produce a final bill this year, these agreements point to policy shifts that Congress and the administration seem likely to embrace next year.
The intelligence reform legislation would vastly increase spending and activities in international broadcasting, expand educational and cultural exchanges in the Muslim world, and boost the stature of public diplomacy not only in the State Department but throughout government as well.
The House bill contains a requirement that the secretary of state provide an annual assessment of public diplomacy's impacts on target audiences in the previous year and an outline of goals for the coming year. It would also increase foreign service training in that field and would require foreign service officers to have one tour involving public diplomacy as a prerequisite for promotion.
Other provisions call for funds to go to programs that promote independent broadcast facilities in the Middle East.
"We need short-term action on a long-range strategy . . . that invigorates our foreign policy with the attention that the President and Congress have given to the military and intelligence parts of the conflict against Islamist terrorism," the Sept. 11 commission said in its July report. It concluded that "the United States must do more to communicate its message."
At the time, the top U.S. post for directing that activity, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, was vacant. It remains unfilled. Margaret Tutwiler, who once headed the State Department's public affairs and served as ambassador to Morocco, took the job last December but left at the end of June.
The current acting undersecretary, Patricia de Stacy Harrison, a respected businesswoman in the public relations field and former co-chairman of the Republican National Committee, continues to serve as assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs.
She occupies an office almost 20 blocks from State Department headquarters, and moving her exchange-program operation to the department's building is one of the proposals in the House intelligence reform legislation. In her official biography, Harrison cites the bringing of the Iraqi National Symphony to the Kennedy Center last December and the reestablishment of the Fulbright scholarship program in Iraq as two of her achievements as acting undersecretary.
The Defense Department is taking a closer look at what it could be doing, at the suggestion of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. A recent Defense Science Board study of public diplomacy, prompted by Rumsfeld's questions after the Pentagon's initial attempts to run a media network in Iraq failed, called for expanding media and other cultural exchange programs across the government.
A congressionally initiated study, whose report is still being drafted, has found that the United States is losing the battle for world opinion, according to F. William Smullen III, director of the national security studies program at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
"We are gaining more enemies faster than we are gaining friends," said Smullen, a member of the congressional panel and a former top aide to outgoing Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. He serves on the State Department's Advisory Committee on Cultural Diplomacy. "We have got to upscale what we are doing," Smullen said.
--------
Agreement May Be Near on 9/11 Bill
November 19, 2004
By PHILIP SHENON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/politics/19panel.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 - House and Senate negotiators came tantalizingly close to a deal on Thursday to enact the major recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission but continued to haggle into the night over a handful of issues that could still block agreement on a compromise intelligence bill, Congressional officials said.
The officials said that the negotiators on a House-Senate conference committee had largely reached agreement on the central provision of the bill, the creation of the job of national intelligence director to oversee the work of the C.I.A. and other government spy agencies.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, Congressional aides said the compromise would allow the Pentagon to maintain significant power over how tens of billions of dollars are spent each year for intelligence gathering, as House Republican leaders had insisted.
The Senate negotiators, backed by House Democrats and the members of the Sept. 11 commission, had urged that the new national intelligence director have essentially exclusive control over intelligence budgets, including those of spy agencies within the Defense Department.
"But reality set in," said a Democratic Congressional aide who has been involved in the negotiations. "We've run out of time, and the Republicans and the Pentagon just weren't going to budge. I think our best hope is that the national intelligence director is a person of such stature that he can assert his authority even if he doesn't have explicit control over the appropriations."
During marathon talks this week, House Republicans have insisted that they, too, were willing to make significant compromises to get a final bill before Congress adjourns for the year, probably next week.
Congressional officials said Thursday that the compromise bill would give the national intelligence director far more authority to draw up the government's overall intelligence budget than the House Republicans had earlier suggested they would consider. "There have been plenty of compromises on both sides," the Democratic Congressional aide said.
Congressional officials had suggested at midafternoon Thursday that a final agreement was imminent in the negotiations to reconcile the separate House and Senate bills, which were passed last month in response to the final recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission.
But the negotiations continued into the evening, with lawmakers and their staffs suggesting that the talks might still collapse over a small number of issues, including the insistence of House Republicans that a final bill contain law enforcement and immigration provisions that were not directly related to the commission's recommendations and that have been criticized by civil liberties organizations.
The Senate bill, which was adopted by a 96-to-2 vote, provided the national intelligence director with far greater budget and personnel authority than did the House bill, which was prepared by House Republican leaders with little input from House Democrats. The Sept. 11 commission sided with the Senate bill, while senior Pentagon leaders expressed support for the House bill in its limits on the powers of a national intelligence director.
The House and Senate negotiators say they are facing an imminent deadline for completing a bill, since both the House and the Senate are expected to shut down before the Thanksgiving holiday and not return until next year. The White House has insisted that it is eager for a bill before the Congress adjourns, and as evidence of its campaign, President Bush has been pressing lawmakers for weeks to agree on a bill he can sign this year.
The negotiations Thursday were being conducted behind closed doors by the four most important lawmakers on the conference committee: Senators Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, and Joseph I. Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, the chief authors of the bipartisan Senate bill; and Representatives Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Jane Harman of California, the committee's ranking Democrat.
Ms. Harman supports the Senate bill, while Mr. Hoekstra has argued the House Republican leaders' case.
---------
RQ-5 Hunter UAVs Deployed For US Border Patrol Missions
Nov 19, 2004
San Diego CA (SPX)
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/uav-04zzzi.html
From now until the end of January, foreigners who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally into Arizona will have to contend with more than just rugged terrain, desert heat and rattlesnakes. Now, they'll also have to be on the lookout for two U.S. Army RQ-5 Hunter UAVs equipped with electro optical infrared sensors began making reconnaissance flights along the Arizona border area 90 miles southeast of Tucson.
The Northrop Grumman-developed RQ-5 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is being used by the Department of Homeland Security to help monitor illegal border traffic as part of the new Arizona Border Control.
"A critical part of Northrop Grumman's layered defense approach to homeland security is to help strengthen the weakest links in the nation's defense," said David Zolet, vice president, Homeland Security, Northrop Grumman Corporation.
"Unmanned aerial vehicles provide unparalleled surveillance capabilities that not only cause greater levels of apprehension among potential terrorists, but also provide safer working conditions for Border Patrol agents who risk their lives on a daily basis."
Hunter is just one of several UAVs in Northrop Grumman's portfolio of unmanned systems that could support the Arizona Border Control's surveillance and reconnaissance requirements.
"Hunter UAVs provide a variety of battle-tested capabilities and sensor options that are well suited to Border Patrol operations," said Chris Hernandez, sector vice president for Northrop Grumman's Unmanned Systems unit in San Diego.
"These capabilities include sustained autonomous flight, high resolution day and night time visual and infrared sensors, integrated GPS location systems, and the ability to relay communication signals to border patrol agents."
In addition, says Hernandez, individuals on the ground may be unaware of this law enforcement activity because of the vehicle's low visual profile at altitude and its quiet engine.
The Arizona Border Patrol initiative is an effort by the U.S. Border Patrol to stem the tide of illegal border crossings from Mexico. Use of new technologies, such as UAVs, helps the border patrol provide more comprehensive and complete coverage over a variety of terrains.
The Border Patrol is now part of U.S. Customs and Border Protection within the Department of Homeland Security.
-----
Haitian pastor dies on U.S. doorstep
The 81-year-old fled after a gang destroyed his church.
He sought asylum in Miami, but got detention, and a lonely death.
St. Petersburg Times
By DAVID ADAMS, Times Latin America Correspondent
November 19, 2004
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/11/19/Worldandnation/Haitian_pastor_dies_o.shtml
MIAMI - Haitian-Americans watched in awe this week as a group of 44 Cuban entertainers applied for political asylum in Las Vegas, unmolested by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The treatment of the Cubans could not have contrasted more sharply with the experience of Joseph Dantica, an 81-year-old Haitian Baptist minister who recently applied for asylum in Miami.
U.S. immigration officials took the Rev. Dantica to jail, where he died before he had the chance to make his case for asylum. His family held a wake for him Thursday at a Miami funeral home.
"He died alone in a hospital bed," said his niece Edwidge Danticat, 35, who is a U.S. citizen. "It's not that the others (Cubans) don't deserve it. But there should be some fairness."
The Rev. Dantica founded the Church of the Redeemer in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, 25 years ago. He was the senior pastor.
His family says that late last month, Haitian police were rounding up armed gang members supposedly loyal to ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. On Oct. 24, police and United Nations peacekeepers came to Dantica's church, in a gang-infested slum of the capital.
Dantica let them in. Police took advantage of the church's upper floors to open fire on gang members in the streets below. The next day, after police withdrew, furious gang leaders visited Dantica. They said 15 of their members died in the gun battle, and they held the elderly pastor responsible.
Dantica went into hiding; the gang attacked his church and burned the altar in the street.
On Oct. 29, Dantica and his 56-year-old son, Maxo, boarded a plane bound for Miami. Dantica carried a valid U.S. visa. He had taken the flight many times to visit family and religious colleagues in Miami and New York.
Instead of passing through immigration as a regular visitor, Dantica decided to do things right. Unlike his previous visits, he knew this time he might never return to Haiti.
When it was his turn to present his passport he announced that he wanted to seek asylum. By telling the truth, he gave up the chance to enter the country on his tourist visa. Instead, Dantica and his son were detained.
They were taken to Krome Detention Center, an immigration facility outside Miami. There, father and son were separated. The family says Dantica's high blood pressure medication was taken away from him.
The following Monday, the family secured the pro bono services of a prominent immigration law firm. Attorney John Pratt contacted the Department of Homeland Security to explain Dantica's situation and ask that he be granted a humanitarian parole on the grounds that he was an elderly clergyman in poor health.
Pratt said he was told that Dantica would have to pass a "credible fear" interview to establish that he was telling the truth about the risks he faced back home.
He was given an appointment the next morning. Dantica was brought to the hearing in his blue detainee uniform, Bible in hand. Moments before the interview he asked another Haitian to tell Pratt he needed his medicine.
Two minutes into the interview he suddenly became ill. "He started throwing up. He couldn't speak," said Pratt. "He seemed to be having a seizure."
He was taken to a medical facility.
Soon after, when Pratt spoke to the Homeland Security supervisor at Krome, he was informed that Dantica would be released without the credible fear interview. By then it was too late.
The medical details of what happened next are not clear. Dantica was moved to Jackson Memorial Hospital in downtown Miami; Homeland Security officials refused to allow the family to visit him there.
"They said it was for security reasons," said Pratt. "It seemed preposterous. What are they going to do, break out a sick old man?"
Later that night the family learned that Dantica had died.
Homeland Security rejected any responsibility for Dantica's death. "Mr. Dantica died of pancreatitis while in Homeland Security custody, which an autopsy by the Miami-Dade County medical examiner's office revealed as a pre-existing and fatal condition," the department said.
It added that it was "unfortunate" that he died during the asylum interview. "We understand his family's grief, but there is no connection between the pre-existing terminal medical condition he had and the process through which he entered the country."
Homeland Security said Dantica was carrying "no legitimate prescribed medicine." All he had in his possession was a "folk remedy," which the department described as some kind of "poultice" or dressing.
"We're completely outraged by the way he was treated," said Danticat, the pastor's niece. She is an acclaimed Haitian-American novelist and winner of the 1999 American Book Award, among a host of literary triumphs.
"He was no threat to this country. He had family nearby. We only live 15 minutes from the airport. We were ready to take responsibility for him," she said.
Dantica's death comes amid heated political debate over the status of some 20,000 undocumented Haitians who are seeking "temporary protected status" to prevent them from being deported to Haiti.
"The government of the U.S. has hunkered down in a policy that says no Haitian at any cost will be treated evenly and fairly," said Jocelyn McCalla, director of the New York-based National Coalition for Haitian Rights. "It's a take no prisoners attitude."
In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, said Dantica's death "warrants higher level attention than it has received, particularly in the light of previous complaints about the treatment of Haitians."
Pratt and other immigration attorneys say the handling of Dantica's case is not so unusual under the tight post-Sept. 11 immigration regulations.
Unlike Cubans fleeing communism, who are allowed automatic entry if they reach U.S. shores, undocumented Haitians are routinely detained. U.S. officials have gone as far as arguing that the Haitians represent a national security threat; Attorney General John Ashcroft recently cited intelligence reports that Muslim terrorists were trying to use Haiti to infiltrate the United States.
In Dantica's case, what most perplexes immigration rights advocates is Homeland Security's insistence on isolating him from his family.
Said Pratt: "To not allow a man who is 81 years old to spend the few remaining hours of his life with those closest to him - that's unconscionable."
Some relatives will be missing at Dantica's funeral in Brooklyn Saturday. The family says U.S. consular officials in Haiti rejected a visa application Wednesday by Dantica's sister, Anne-Marie, and three nieces.
At Thursday night's wake, Danticat fondly recalled how Uncle Joseph raised her in Haiti after her parents left for the United States. Though many of his relatives moved to the United States, she said the pastor remained committed to his work. "He never expressed any desire of coming here."
-------- human rights
Belarus Accuses U.S. of Rights Abuses
Associated Press
By EDITH M. LEDERER
Nov 19, 2004 http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&ncid=732&e=10&u=/ap/20041119/ap_on_re_eu/un_us_belarus
UNITED NATIONS - Angered at being targeted by the United States for its poor human rights record, Belarus hit back with a resolution accusing the U.S. government of disenfranchising voters, abusing prisoners and other rights violations.
Last week, the United States introduced a resolution in the General Assembly's human rights committee attacking electoral violations in Belarus' recent presidential election and harassment of the political opposition. Belarus countered with a rival draft attacking the United States.
It was a clash between the world's lone superpower and a former Soviet republic whose authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has been in power since 1994 and has been branded Europe's last dictator.
By Thursday evening, both draft resolutions were dead, and Belarus was claiming victory.
Belarus' U.N. Ambassador Andrei Dabkiuinas introduced his resolution on Nov. 10, accusing the United States of aspiring "to be seen as a stronghold of democracy and world protector of human rights" but not meeting its domestic and international obligations.
The draft resolution expressed concern about numerous alleged violations, including limiting human rights under the pretext of fighting terrorism, blocking poor and minority voters in U.S. elections and attacking press freedom.
Dabkiuinas also cited the "regretful example" of the United States "arm-twisting" other countries to exempt Americans from possible prosecution for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, which President Bush (news - web sites)'s administration opposes.
"We believe that this resolution should send (a) strong and timely message to the government of the United States and encourage it in a positive and constructive way to take all necessary measures to improve the human rights situation in the country," Dabkiuinas said.
But he also made clear that Belarus introduced the resolution "as an action of last resort" in response to the resolution introduced by the United States. He said "the most responsible way out of this mutual exchange of accusations would be the withdrawal of both drafts."
The following day - Nov. 11 - Belarus' deputy representative, Aleg Ivanou, announced to committee members that Belarus was withdrawing the draft resolution. He said Belarus had "no intention whatsoever of making its friends and like-minded delegations face a tormenting choice in voting."
The primary reason for introducing the resolution, he said, "was to demonstrate to the international community with hard facts that no country in the world, including the most mature of democracies, is immune from human rights problems."
"We believe that the draft resolution, which some claim to be the first of its kind in the U.N. history, has achieved that objective," Ivanou said.
He again urged that the anti-Belarus resolution be withdrawn. But the United States and the European Union (news - web sites), who had gathered 37 co-sponsors for their draft resolution, refused.
The resolution noted that senior officials in the Belarus government "have been implicated in the enforced disappearance and/or summary execution" of three political opponents and a journalist.
It cited reports of harassment and closure of non-governmental organizations and serious irregularities in last month's referendum that would allow Lukashenko to run for a third term.
U.S. diplomat Frank Urbancic introduced the resolution Tuesday. He told the human rights committee that the Belarus government "beat leading political opponents after the elections and arrested and beat peaceful demonstrators and foreign journalists from Russian First Channel He noted that Belarus has failed to heed resolutions approved by strong majorities in the U.N. Human Rights Commission the past two years.
But when the U.S.-EU resolution came up late Thursday in the human rights committee, Russia made a motion not to discuss it and was backed by China and Malaysia.
A vote was held on the Russian motion and 75 countries supported it, 65 opposed it, and 28 abstained, killing the resolution.
"It's a great victory," Ivanou said, noting that "the American delegation did not even receive the right to have a statement." A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "We are disappointed that the US-EU resolution was not considered on its merits because we strongly believe that there are serious human rights issues in Belarus."
-------- torture
Official Allegedly Hinted at Saudi Torture of Va. Man
Lawyer's Affidavit Attributes Remark To U.S. Prosecutor
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 19, 2004; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60916-2004Nov18.html
A federal prosecutor in Alexandria made a comment last year suggesting that a Falls Church man held in a Saudi Arabian prison had been tortured, according to a sworn affidavit from a defense lawyer that was recently filed in federal court in Washington.
The alleged remark by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon D. Kromberg occurred during a conversation with the lawyer, Salim Ali, in the federal courthouse in Alexandria, according to Ali's affidavit. The document was filed Oct. 12 in connection with a petition by the parents of the detained man, Ahmed Abu Ali, who are seeking his release from Saudi custody.
The lawyer stated in the affidavit that he asked Kromberg about bringing Abu Ali back to the United States to face charges so as "to avoid the torture that goes on in Saudi Arabia."
Kromberg "smirked and stated that 'He's no good for us here, he has no fingernails left,' " Salim Ali wrote in his affidavit, adding: "I did not know how to respond [to] the appalling statement he made, and we subsequently ceased our discussion about Ahmed Abu Ali."
Kromberg did not return a reporter's call seeking comment on the affidavit. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria said that Kromberg had forwarded the reporter's request to her and that "the office has no comment" on the affidavit's contents.
Abu Ali, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen who is not related to attorney Ali, has been held in Saudi Arabia since June 2003. No public charges have been filed against him, and U.S. and Saudi officials have declined to give an explanation for his detention.
In his affidavit, Salim Ali wrote that his conversation with Kromberg occurred "on or about the time of June 2003" as they were walking to the elevators after a hearing before U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris during which Ali's client, Ibrahim Ahmed al-Hamdi, entered a plea.
But according to court records, Hamdi entered his plea June 5. That was six days before Ahmed Abu Ali, then a student in Saudi Arabia, was arrested.
Salim Ali, who has since moved to Kuwait, where he works as a consultant to a law firm, declined to explain the discrepancy or to expand on the affidavit. In an e-mail to a reporter, he said only, "I stand completely by its content."
Salim Ali, 32, was born in Arlington, and he graduated from George Mason University and Rutgers University Law School. In 2001-2002, he clerked for a New Jersey Superior Court judge, Melvin L. Gelade, who said in an interview that Ali was "one of my best law clerks."
Salim Ali has not been an attorney for the family of the detained man, Abu Ali.
It is unclear why Abu Ali was arrested. Saudi officials initially suspected that he might be involved in terrorist activities, U.S. officials have said. The Saudi government has since indicated that it would consider handing him over to the United States if formally asked to do so by U.S. officials.
Soon after his arrest, the FBI became interested in Abu Ali because he knew some of the 11 men in the so-called Virginia jihad network case, who were charged, and later convicted, of conspiracy to wage armed combat against allies of the United States. Three of those defendants were arrested in Saudi Arabia about the same time as Abu Ali and extradited to the United States. Kromberg was one of the prosecutors in that case.
Abu Ali's parents argue in their court petition that their son's detention is an example of "extraordinary rendition," a practice in which U.S. authorities transfer individuals suspected of terrorist connections to foreign intelligence services that use coercive interrogation techniques illegal in this country.
The Justice Department is seeking to have the family's petition dismissed. It has argued in court papers that under U.S. Supreme Court rulings, U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over a U.S. citizen's detention by foreign powers.
Morton Sklar, executive director of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, a group assisting Abu Ali's family with its petition, said court decisions have held that a U.S. judge does have jurisdiction in such a case if presented with evidence that "shocks the conscience of the court." Allegations about torture of a U.S. citizen would be an example of such evidence, he said.
Sklar has argued in court papers that Salim Ali's affidavit "demonstrates exactly the type of circumstance that 'shocks the conscience of the court,' and indicates a 'joint venture' between the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United States with respect to [Abu Ali's] arrest, detention and interrogation."
Sklar also has argued that the U.S. government has "not even taken the minimal step of requesting . . . Abu Ali's return to the U.S. in response to indications from Saudi officials that they would be responsive to such a request."
The matter is pending before U.S. District Judge John D. Bates.
-------- POLITICS
Canadian PM expels anti-Bush MP
bbc
19 November, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4024379.stm
The Canadian prime minister has expelled an MP from the ruling Liberal Party because of her outspoken criticism of US President George Bush.
On Wednesday the MP, Carolyn Parrish, appeared on a TV comedy show, in which she stamped on an effigy of Mr Bush.
Paul Martin acknowledged Ms Parrish's right to express her views frankly, but he said he could not tolerate behaviour that "demeans and disrespects others".
Ms Parrish will now sit as an independent in the Canadian parliament.
Correspondents say her dismissal further weakens the position of the Liberal Party, which returned to power in June but with a minority in parliament.
The Liberals and their New Democrat allies have fewer MPs than the combined opposition.
'Unacceptable'
Ms Parrish, who represents a district near Toronto, has made several outspoken comments in the past.
She has called supporters of the US ballistic missile defence plan the "coalition of the idiots" and this month described Mr Bush as "war-like".
She also told a reporter that she "wouldn't shed a tear " if Mr Martin were to lose the next election, and that his team "can all go to hell".
"It is unacceptable. There are better, more civil and more effective ways to make your case than those she has chosen," Mr Martin said on Thursday.
Ms Parrish was quoted by the Canadian media as saying that she had no regrets about her statements.
President Bush is due to visit to Canada at the end of the month.
--------
A softer-style Putin defends his policies on national TV
scotsman.com
19 Nov 2004
CHRIS STEPHEN IN MOSCOW
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1331522004
RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin launched an extraordinary defence of policies his critics have labelled as authoritarian in a series of nationwide TV broadcasts last night.
In a defence of moves that have seen elections for regional governors scrapped and limits on the number of parties in parliament, Mr Putin said he wanted to protect democracy, not destroy it.
"These proposals are totally unconnected with any attempt by the head of state to obtain some kind of additional ... power over the regional authorities," he said.
Instead, Mr Putin said tough measures were necessary to save the nation imperilled by both international terrorism and corruption.
"We all know international terrorists and criminals are not planning tank attacks to capture Moscow, Leningrad or Stalingrad," he said, using the former names for St Petersburg and Volgograd.
But he said terrorists were intent on setting up their "infamous caliphate" - a reference to Osama bin Laden's vision of bringing the Muslim world under one ruler.
"That would mean huge losses of territory for us, and a possible disintegration of the whole country," he said. "This threat should prompt us to perfect our government structure, improve its effectiveness, and solve a range of other economic and social problems."
As important as the conciliatory tone of his statements was the body language in last night's TV appearances. Gone were the sharp suits and flags and stern image. Instead, he appeared in a black polo neck and jacket, sitting with three journalists in armchairs.
His interviews amounted to the most wide-ranging defence of his leadership since he came to power in 2000. Defending his decision to scrap regional elections and appoint governors himself, he said this was a reaction to corruption.
The statements come with the Kremlin facing multiple crises: Mr Putin's inability to win the Chechen war, and demonstrations against rises in fuel and electricity prices.
-----
Putin Denies Retreat From Democracy
November 19, 2004
Associated Press
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RUSSIA_PUTINS_REFORMS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
MOSCOW (AP) -- President Vladimir Putin sought to convince the nation Thursday that his electoral reform was not a retreat from democracy but was needed to save Russia from international terrorists and to limit the political influence of business barons.
Putin said in a nationwide television interview his plan to end direct elections of regional governors and parliament deputies will help strengthen the government, which he said was being eroded by ethnic divisions and turf battles between local clans.
Putin shrugged off criticism that the reforms would push the nation back toward its authoritarian past.
"We can create a well-balanced system of government authority, which doesn't violate democratic principles," he said.
Putin announced his electoral reforms shortly after the hostage-taking at a school in southern Russia in September in which more than 330 people died. He said it was necessary to strengthen federal authority to avert further attacks.
He reiterated that argument in the interview, saying international terrorists want to carve out a caliphate, or Islamic state, on Russian territory.
"That would mean the loss of a large territory, primarily in the south of the country, and the possible disorganization of the entire state," he added.
In many regions, elections for governors are often guided by "ethnic motives," he said, arguing that his proposal to have governors nominated by the president and appointed by provincial legislatures would help avoid possible future conflicts.
"I have been watching with concern the growing influence of economic groups and clans on the regional authorities," Putin said. "The regional clans are fighting for spheres of influence and ... redistribution of assets."
For example, he said the tensions that have roiled the southern province of Karachayevo-Cherkessiya were being driven by a local struggle over financial assets. The disappearance, and subsequent killing, of seven men in a crime linked to the regional president's former son-in-law has led to mass protests and the ransacking of the regional administration building.
In an apparent bid to assuage concerns of regional elites, Putin said governors and speakers of regional legislatures could regain their seats in the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council. But he did not explain how that could happen. Putin kicked them out of the council earlier as part of his efforts to curb regional autonomy, replacing them with provincial appointees cleared by the Kremlin.
Ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky told Echo of Moscow radio that Putin's proposal was a "carrot to regional leaders."
Last month, the Kremlin-controlled State Duma, or lower house of parliament, gave preliminary approval to legislation ending direct elections of governors. Putin said Thursday the bill must become law before the year's end.
Putin also said he plans to submit a bill that would abolish the election of Duma lawmakers from individual electoral districts, instead having the entire chamber elected from party lists. Currently, half the Duma is elected in district races, and critics say that change would stifle dissent and weaken fledgling parties.
He also vowed to make a stronger effort to uproot corruption and other abuses in the nation's police force.
-------- budget
Debt Limit to Rise to $8.18 Trillion
Tax Cut, Spending Caps Are Rejected
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 19, 2004; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60963-2004Nov18.html
The strict rules that once limited tax cuts and entitlement spending increases lapsed two years ago. Limits on spending lost their teeth. This year, Congress failed to pass a budget altogether.
Last night, with the federal government warning that it was on the verge of defaulting on its debts, the House rejected efforts to reimpose restrictions on tax cuts and spending, then joined the Senate to raise the federal debt limit by $800 billion, to $8.18 trillion.
The collapse of statutory restraints on the growing budget deficit has alarmed Wall Street, befuddled the Treasury Department and elicited calls for a rethinking of the way the government handles its authority to tax its citizens and spend those proceeds.
"The fact is, very little [budgetary restraint] is left in any real form or substance," said Robert D. Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, now president of the Urban Institute.
With last night's passage of the debt ceiling increase, the government's borrowing limit has climbed by $2.23 trillion since President Bush took office: by $450 billion in 2002, by a record $984 billion in 2003 and by $800 billion this year. Just the increase in the debt ceiling over the past three years is nearly 2 1/2 times the entire federal debt accumulated between 1776 and 1980.
A recession, a sluggish economy and five tax cuts in four years -- coupled with soaring defense spending on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and rising domestic spending -- have turned record surpluses that Bush inherited into a record deficit of $413 billion in the past fiscal year.
Economists and budget hawks fear that rising deficits are contributing to the steadily declining value of the dollar, which will increase consumer costs, and that those deficits eventually will drive up interest rates and slow the economy.
As the national debt continues to mount, Washington is having difficulty keeping up. In August, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow implored Congress to raise the debt limit to ensure that the Treasury could continue to borrow the money it needed to finance government operations and pay benefits such as Social Security. But with an election looming, lawmakers declined to act.
Last month, the government crashed into the debt ceiling, and the Treasury began borrowing from a civil service retirement fund. On Monday, the Treasury announced it had postponed an auction of short-term Treasury bonds because it was prohibited from borrowing the money. Yesterday, amid continuing uncertainty about Congress's intentions, the agency delayed revealing how many government securities it plans to sell next week. Treasury again warned that the government could default on its debt as soon as today if Congress did not act.
The House convened yesterday morning for a short debate on raising the debt ceiling, then promptly recessed to allow members to attend the opening of Bill Clinton's presidential library in Little Rock. Lawmakers reconvened last night to reject a Democratic motion to reimpose "pay as you go" budgetary rules that would force any increase in entitlement spending or cut in taxes to be funded by equal spending cuts or revenue raisers. Lawmakers later raised the debt ceiling.
Much of the drama amounted to "The Perils of Pauline," Reischauer said, with little real doubt that the damsel in distress on the railroad tracks would be rescued just before the train barreled down upon her.
On Wall Street, however, Congress's lackadaisical response raised eyebrows.
"There's generally a denial that the government would allow itself to default, but some of us are getting a little nervous," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's, the bond rating company, as he watched the House recess yesterday morning without a vote.
By passing such a huge increase in the debt limit, with no strings attached, Congress has effectively given the Bush administration a blank check to continue running large deficits, said Stephen S. Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley. "An open-ended license for this kind of fiscal irresponsibility is a recipe for disaster," he said.
Republicans and Democrats in Congress agree that the budget process is badly broken.
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who will chair the Budget Committee next year, said the measure of his success will be "putting in place a very definitive budget with strong enforcement mechanisms on the discretionary and entitlement [spending] side."
Beyond such vows, there is little consensus about what to do, said G. William Hoagland, the top budget aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). The deterioration of tough budgeting has been a slow and steady process. In the 1980s, the size of the annual budget deficit was limited, with rules to force automatic cuts if that ceiling was breached. In the 1990s, similar enforcement mechanisms tried to keep Congress from exceeding annual spending limits and from cutting taxes in such a way that increased the budget deficit. Those rules have now lapsed.
Hoagland said some effort will be made next year to strengthen the authority of the budget committees, possibly by bolstering their membership with party leaders and other committee chairmen. The committees could also be granted the power to usurp other committees' authority if they are not complying with the annual budget blueprint.
But congressional leaders thus far have shown little appetite to rein in deficits through such authority. This year, under White House pressure, House and Senate Republicans simply opted against adopting a 2005 blueprint for tax and spending policy, rather than accede to the wishes of Senate Republican moderates to reimpose pay-as-you-go rules.
--------
Congress Passes $800 Billion Debt Limit Increase
November 19, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-economy-debtlimit.html
CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush will sign into law by Monday a measure authorizing an $800 billion increase in the credit limit of the United States, the White House said.
In a statement issued late on Thursday after Congress gave its final approval to increase the limit to a new $8.184 trillion ceiling, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the legislation ``was important to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.''
``The president intends to sign it into law before the close of business on Monday,'' McClellan said in the statement.
The statement was issued from Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, as the president prepared to attend a weekend summit of Pacific rim leaders in Santiago, Chile.
The Republican-controlled House voted 208-204, largely along party lines. Senate approval came on Wednesday.
Democrats said the debt limit increase, the third in as many years, was necessitated by Bush's ``irresponsible'' fiscal priorities, including what House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, described as tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate handouts.
The Treasury Department had been forced to take special accounting steps to avoid piercing the debt ceiling in recent days and make sure it could pay its bills. On Thursday Treasury was forced to postpone its announcement of weekly bill auctions and its two-year note auction, another measure aimed at staying under the limit.
Failure to raise the ceiling could eventually lead to a default on government-issued securities, but Congress has never let this happen.
Republicans say the 2001 recession and the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks are responsible for the fiscal shortfall.
The deficit hit a record of $412 billion in the 2004 fiscal year ended Sept. 30 and the Congressional Budget Office has projected $2.3 trillion in accumulated deficits over the next decade.
--------
Congressional Leaders Work on Compatible Spending Bill
November 19, 2004
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/national/19debt.html
WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 - Working behind closed doors, House and Senate leaders struggled Thursday to resolve differences on a $388 billion spending bill that would squeeze dozens of domestic programs and favor a few.
Under pressure to show progress in reducing the budget deficit, White House officials threatened that President Bush would veto any measure that exceeded the spending limits set earlier this year. But they also warned lawmakers not to shortchange some of Mr. Bush's priorities, like his plan for preliminary work on a mission to Mars.
"The president's senior advisers would recommend that he veto any bill that exceeds the agreed-upon spending limits" or that uses "unacceptable budgetary devices" to disguise the true level of spending, wrote Joshua B. Bolten, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The much-delayed bill lumps together nine individual spending bills that Congress failed to pass during its regular session, mainly because of bruising tug-of-wars in a year when discretionary spending outside of defense and domestic security has essentially been frozen.
Mr. Bush has yet to veto a single spending bill, and federal spending has soared since he took office, but the administration is under increasingly intense pressure to show a tougher hand on spending cuts.
House Republican aides said that they had narrowed most of their major differences with the White House and that the remaining battles were mostly about individual programs rather than overall spending levels.
The total spending package at issue now is still about $4 billion higher than White House officials wanted. Lawmakers would pay for that by imposing an across-the-board budget cut of three-quarters of a percent on the agencies being financed.
As negotiators worked into the evening on Thursday, they continued to wrestle over spending on President Bush's Millennium Challenge program, which provides grants to impoverished nations, as well as over financing for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. But they did add in energy programs, including $800 million for the nuclear waste disposal site planned for Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Lawmakers also stripped out a provision, passed by the Senate and House, that would have blocked the Labor Department from enforcing new rules on overtime pay. Labor unions and many other groups complained that the new rules deny overtime pay for millions of workers, especially in white-collar jobs, but the administration insisted the old rules were outdated and fostered litigation.
Over all, the bills would increase domestic discretionary spending, not including military and domestic security, about 2 percent this year. After adjusting for inflation, that would translate to a freeze on spending with cuts in many areas.
With money tight, Congressional Republican leaders have been in a tug-of-war with the Bush administration over which programs would get any increases at all.
President Bush had sought $16.2 billion for NASA, but House and Senate lawmakers originally wanted to provide about $1 billion less. By Thursday, aides on the House Appropriations Committee said the bill would provide about $15.9 billion.
The House voted 208 to 204 late Thursday night to increase the federal debt ceiling by $800 billion, enough to allow the federal government to keep borrowing for about another year at its current pace.
Coming one day after the Senate passed an identical measure, the vote will prevent the federal government from running out of cash and allow it to proceed with its next scheduled sale of Treasury securities on Monday.
--------
Greenspan Warns That U.S. Deficits Pose Risk to Dollar
November 19, 2004
By MARK LANDLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/business/19cnd-greenspan.html?ei=5094&en=265918b7fd2a8d29&hp=&ex=1100926800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all&position=
FRANKFURT, Nov. 19 - Alan Greenspan came to the home of the euro today and warned anxious Europeans to expect little relief from the relentless decline of the dollar against their currency.
In a speech to a banking congress here, Mr. Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, said the United States' persistently high current-account deficit in world trade posed a risk to the dollar's value, since foreign investors would eventually resist buying more American assets.
"It seems persuasive that, given the size of the U.S. current-account deficit, a diminished appetite for adding to dollar balances must occur at some point," he said. "But when, through what channels, and from what level of the dollar? Regrettably, no answer to these questions is convincing."
Mr. Greenspan likened predicting the dollar's path to "forecasting the outcome of a coin toss."
But the implication of the speech was clear to this audience of European bankers, who laughed nervously at his metaphor: The dollar, which has fallen to record lows against the euro this week - giving fits to European politicians and business executives - is likely to fall further still.
Currency traders reacted swiftly, driving the dollar down near its record low against the euro and to a four-and-a-half year low against the Japanese yen. The euro was quoted at $1.3019 in New York trading this afternoon, versus $1.2968 late Thursday. The dollar was also trading at 103.08 yen, down from 104.09 yen.
Mr. Greenspan's comments came two days after Treasury Secretary John W. Snow appeared to rule out helping the European Central Bank or any other central bank stem the decline of the dollar. Mr. Snow, speaking in London, prodded European leaders to tackle their home-grown economic problems.
Taken together, the two speeches have sent an unmistakable message that the Bush administration, on the heels of its re-election, is prepared to tolerate a weaker dollar for the foreseeable future.
That could aggravate tensions between the United States and Europe, which is increasingly worried that the rise of the euro is choking off its tenuous recovery. In France and Germany, economic growth in the third quarter dropped to 0.1 percent, as the countries' exports dried up.
European leaders are hoisting distress flags. Germany's minister for economics, Wolfgang Clement, urged the United States, Europe and Asia to take coordinated action to stop the dollar's slide. The president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, has called the exchange-rate shifts "brutal."
Mr. Trichet, who traveled a few blocks from the headquarters of the European Central Bank to appear on the same panel as Mr. Greenspan, pointedly declined to repeat that characterization.
Both central bankers later flew to Berlin for a meeting of the Group of 20, which includes the Group of 7 industrialized countries, as well as economically emerging countries. The downward path of the dollar is likely to be high on the agenda, but there is little hope of a concerted response.
Analysts said Mr. Greenspan's speech made it clear that the Federal Reserve would make no effort to influence the process, either through raising interest rates more sharply than planned or by intervening in the currency market.
"It was an either/or message," said Thomas Mayer, the chief European economist at Deutsche Bank. "Either the current-account deficit comes down. Or the market will do it, but at a cost to the dollar. Will the Fed play a role in this? Probably not. It will stick to its mandate."
Speaking on a panel that also included the deputy governor of the Bank of Japan, Kazumasa Iwata, Mr. Greenspan devoted much of his remarks to the effect that American fiscal policy has on global markets.
"Current account imbalances, per se, need not be a problem," he said in a characteristically technical speech, "but cumulative deficits, which result in a marked decline of a country's net international position - as is occurring in the United States - raise more complicated issues."
Mr. Greenspan said foreign investors, who finance the American deficit by buying Treasury bills and other dollar-denominated assets, would eventually become reluctant to take on more such assets.
"This situation suggests that international investors will eventually adjust their accumulation of dollars assets or, alternatively, seek higher dollar returns to offset concentration risk," he said.
This is not the first time Mr. Greenspan has warned about the risks of a spiraling current-account deficit. In testimony before Congress last February, he said "foreign investors, both private and official, may become less willing to absorb ever-growing claims on U.S. residents."
As he did last winter, Mr. Greenspan said today that his preferred remedy would be for the Bush administration to bring down both the current-account and budget deficits. That would encourage household savings in the United States, which are also at extraordinarily low levels.
But analysts did not interpret Mr. Greenspan's remarks as a rebuke of the White House, which has indicated it will seek to make the deep tax cuts of its first term permanent. If anything, they said, his speech had a laissez-faire tone - leaving events in the hands of the market.
That will be cold comfort to many Europeans, who believe their currency is absorbing the bulk of the pressure from the declining dollar, since Japan and other Asian countries have intervened aggressively in the market to prevent their currencies from rising against the dollar.
Mr. Greenspan took issue with that suggestion, saying that, based on his review of recent statistics, Asia's "very large" central bank interventions had had only a "moderate" effect on exchange rates.
For his part, Mr. Trichet seemed determined not to breathe another word about the dangers of a rising euro. Describing his previous comments on the subject as "poetry," he turned aside questions about the exchange rate.
Mr. Mayer of Deutsche Bank said Mr. Trichet's silence suggested his earlier efforts to talk down the currency had fallen short. "They are basically seeing that there is very little they can do about it," he said. "They are not in a position to change interest-rate policy to address it."
Even Mr. Greenspan, who was welcomed like a rock star in this financial city, seemed to give the euro short shrift. Asked how he felt the currency had performed in its short history, he said, "surprisingly good."
-------- corruption
House Ethics Panel Warns Lawmakers About Complaints
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 19, 2004; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61469-2004Nov18.html
The House ethics committee yesterday chastised the Democratic lawmaker who filed a complaint this year against Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and warned all House members they might be sanctioned if they lodge complaints that contain innuendo, speculation or "conclusory statements."
Some Democrats and watchdog groups said the committee's four-page letter could have a chilling effect on the House's self-policing apparatus, even in cases where a lawmaker may have violated ethical standards.
The bipartisan committee's chairman and ranking Democrat acknowledged that some of the allegations made against DeLay in June by Rep. Chris Bell (D-Tex.) were valid. Bell's complaint prompted the ethics panel on Oct. 6 to admonish DeLay on two counts -- one involving the use of a federal agency in a Texas partisan squabble, the other for his conduct that suggested political donations might influence legislative action.
But the validity of the allegations, yesterday's letter to Bell said, "does not mitigate your violation" of a House rule that says complaints against fellow lawmakers "shall not contain innuendo, speculative assertions or conclusory statements."
"This is a serious matter," said the letter, signed by ethics committee Chairman Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) and top Democrat Alan B. Mollohan (W.Va.). "The committee is putting all members on notice of the need to comply" with the guidelines. "All members are also now on notice that violation of any of those rules is a basis for summarily rejecting a complaint . . . and depending on the circumstances, may also be the basis for initiating disciplinary action against the member who makes the filing."
The letter said the rule about innuendo and conclusory statements has been in effect for 10 years, but it never resulted in a complaint being dismissed nor prompted "any interpretations" by the ethics panel.
The letter said Bell's complaint contained several exaggerated charges against DeLay, including bribery. Upon investigation, it said, the facts "did not come even close to supporting this extremely serious claim."
Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington -- which helped Bell draft his complaint against DeLay -- said last night the committee's letter places too great a burden on a lawmaker who files a complaint, suggesting that every allegation must be fully proved rather than leaving that task to the panel. House rules bar groups and people outside Congress from filing ethics complaints against lawmakers.
The letter took no official action against Bell, who lost his reelection bid this year and is retiring from Congress. Bell said in a statement: "We are pleased that the bi-partisan Ethics Committee acted to admonish Mr. DeLay for his unethical conduct in response to the complaint I filed in June. . . . I gladly accept the Chairman and Ranking Member's Letter of Clarification of the Committee's rules on the proper procedure for filing an ethics complaint."
-------- propaganda wars
R.I. Reporter Found Guilty In Trial for Not Naming Source
By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 19, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60962-2004Nov18.html
A federal judge in Providence, R.I., convicted a veteran local television reporter of criminal contempt yesterday for refusing to identify the person who gave him an FBI videotape showing a top city official taking a bribe.
Investigative reporter Jim Taricani, 55, who had heart transplant surgery in 1996, faces six months in prison when he is sentenced Dec. 9 by Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres.
A rough-hewn man known for plying the back streets and bars of Providence in search of stories, Taricani, of WJAR-TV, an NBC affiliate, read from a statement on the courthouse steps after his 45-minute trial.
"When I became a reporter 30 years ago, I never imagined that I would be put on trial and face the prospect of going to jail simply for doing my job," he said. "The government has used its resources and power and the threat of jail to try to coerce me to identify a confidential source.
"This assault on journalistic freedom exacts a high price," said Taricani, whom the judge had fined $1,000 a day until he named the source. NBC paid about $85,000 on the reporter's behalf until the judge dropped the sanction two weeks ago when he decided it was not persuading Taricani to cooperate.
The Providence case is similar to many in the federal courts now, as prosecutors turn with new vigor to the task of trying to get reporters to name their sources. Judges have found eight journalists in contempt of court in recent months, and several could end up in jail in the near future. Prosecutors have pursued two of them, New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper, as part of a federal probe into the identity of the White House official who leaked the name of a CIA officer to syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak.
Both reporters have refused to reveal their sources.
Thirty-one states have journalistic shield laws, which allow reporters to protect sources. But federal law offers no such protection.
"We're really in a bad way -- it's sort of a 'Perfect Storm' for reporters now," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "We're seeing more of these cases than any time in the past 35 years."
Taricani committed no crime by airing the tape, which reveals an FBI informant handing an envelope thick with cash to a top aide to former Mayor Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci Jr. Taricani's news report and the tape aired in 2001, just before Cianci and the aide, Frank E. Corrente, went on trial. A jury convicted the defendants, who are serving federal prison terms.
Torres, who had ordered defense lawyers and prosecutors not to release any tapes related to the case, was furious about the airing of the tape. He appointed a prominent local lawyer, Marc DeSisto, 49, as special prosecutor and assigned him to find the source of the leak.
DeSisto soon homed in on Taricani and said he had no protection and therefore no justification under federal law for withholding the name of his source.
"A reporter has the same obligation as any other citizen to disclose information that the reporter possesses regarding the commission of a crime," DeSisto told the court in March, according to a transcript of those proceedings. "This is not a case where the source acted lawfully and out of some civic-minded desire to expose wrongdoing that otherwise might go undetected."
DeSisto noted that in this case, the prosecutors already had brought an indictment. The risk is that Taricani's decision to air the videotape could have tainted the jury pool, DeSisto said.
Such arguments, however, failed to move Paul K. McMasters, First Amendment ombudsman for the Freedom Forum in Arlington. He said that journalists often find themselves balancing complex demands in cases such as this, and that prosecutors and judges do damage to the Constitution by trying to force testimony.
"If a defendant can't get a fair trial, there's a remedy in law. There's no remedy if you censor a reporter," McMasters said. "We have a heart transplant survivor prepared to go to jail to defend his principles -- I wouldn't want to be this judge."
--------
Reporter Convicted for Refusing to Give Identity of a Source
November 19, 2004
By PAM BELLUCK
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/national/19reporter.html?pagewanted=all&position=
PROVIDENCE, R.I., Nov. 18 - A local television reporter was convicted of criminal contempt on Thursday for refusing to identify the person who leaked him an F.B.I. videotape in 2001 related to an investigation of government corruption in Providence.
Jim Taricani, a longtime investigative reporter for WJAR, an NBC affiliate, faces the possibility of up to six months in jail when he is sentenced on Dec. 9.
Mr. Taricani would be one of only a handful of journalists to go to jail for refusing to identify a source. He is also one of several reporters currently facing court action over their refusal to reveal confidential sources, but he is the only one to go on trial on criminal contempt charges.
"When I became a reporter 30 years ago, I never imagined that I would be put on trial and face the prospect of going to jail simply for doing my job," Mr. Taricani said outside the courthouse after Judge Ernest C. Torres, chief judge of the Federal District Court in Providence, pronounced him guilty.
Mr. Taricani, a gray-haired 55-year-old who has won several awards, including four Emmys, added: "I wish all my sources could be on the record, but when people are afraid, a promise of confidentiality may be the only way to get the information to the public, and in some cases, to protect the well-being of the source. I made a promise to my source, which I intend to keep."
Mr. Taricani, who had two heart attacks 18 years ago and who received a heart transplant in 1996, said his major concern about going to jail was his health.
The judge said that while he was aware that Mr. Taricani "requires special care," he was also aware that Mr. Taricani "has continued to live a very active life" and had "traveled abroad recently." Judge Torres said that there were prison hospitals that had "successfully managed the needs of heart transplant patients."
Mr. Taricani was convicted in connection with a long-running federal investigation called Operation Plunderdome, which resulted in the conviction of at least nine city officials, including Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., who was sentenced to 64 months for racketeering conspiracy.
Mr. Cianci's top aide, Frank E. Corrente, was also convicted on corruption charges, in part for taking a $1,000 bribe from a businessman who was acting as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was secretly videotaping his transaction with Mr. Corrente.
Someone gave Mr. Taricani a copy of that videotape, and in February 2001, his station broadcast it, prompting Judge Torres to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate who had leaked the tape.
After the prosecutor interviewed 14 people, all of whom denied being the source, Judge Torres last March found Mr. Taricani in civil contempt. When that finding was upheld by an appeals court, Mr. Taricani was fined $1,000 for each day he continued to refuse to name his source.
When Mr. Taricani would not relent, two weeks ago, after he had paid $85,000 - for which he was reimbursed by his employer - Judge Torres changed the civil contempt case into a criminal contempt case. On Thursday, the judge was stern and declarative.
"The evidence," Judge Torres said "is clear and overwhelming and undisputed." He added, "the evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty of criminal contempt."
Mr. Taricani's lawyers did not say whether they planned an appeal, which would be filed after sentence is passed.
Mr. Taricani's lawyers had argued that he was protected by the First Amendment, and said broadcasting the tape had not affected the defendants' ability to have a fair trial, since its existence had been made public in an indictment months earlier.
Judge Torres said his sentencing decision could be swayed by how Mr. Taricani responded to a question about whether he knew that the person giving him the tape was doing so illegally. Mr. Taricani said he and his lawyers had not yet decided whether to answer that question.
Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press, said Mr. Taricani's case was unusual because he faced the jail time not to force him to reveal his source, but as punishment for refusing to do so.
Ms. Dalglish said his case - along with those involving a Central Intelligence Agency officer, Valerie Plame, and a government nuclear physicist, Wen Ho Lee - suggest that there is "an atmosphere where the government is keeping a lot more secrets, the courts are keeping a lot more secrets, and you've got whistleblowers and other people who are within the government seeing something going on who say 'You know, I really feel this information should get out.' ''
Much of the attention has centered on the case of Ms. Plame. Government prosecutors have been trying to learn who leaked Ms. Plame's identity to Robert Novak, a syndicated columnist. A reporter for The New York Times, Judith Miller, who never published an article about Ms. Plame, has been held in contempt by a federal judge for refusing to name people she interviewed about the subject.
Matthew Cooper, a White House correspondent for Time magazine who did write about her case, was also held in contempt and threatened with up to 18 months in jail.
Both reporters are appealing the decisions.
As a result of these cases, Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, hopes to introduce a bill calling for a national shield law, said a spokesman, Marvin Fast. Shield laws, which are on the books in 31 states, protect journalists from having to reveal confidential sources.
If Mr. Taricani is sent to a jail hospital, he may end up in Fort Devens, Mass. - the same place where Mr. Corrente is serving his sentence of 5 years and three months.
On Thursday, Mr. Taricani, who is well known in Rhode Island, where he is on the boards of the Providence Public Library, a food bank and an organ donor association, was asked how it felt to sit at the defense table in the same courtroom where he had once covered the cases of Mr. Corrente and others.
"It's not a nice seat to sit in," Mr. Taricani said. But, he added, when asked about his decision, "I have no regrets whatsoever."
--------
Spain re-arrests al-Jazeera man
Alouni was released on bail because of a heart condition
Al-Jazeera
Tayseer Alouni
19 November, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4025315.stm
Authorities in Spain have re-arrested a Syrian-born al-Jazeera television reporter charged last year with fundraising for al-Qaeda.
Tayseer Alouni, a Spanish citizen who lives in Granada, was arrested on Thursday evening on his way home.
Mr Alouni is one of al-Jazeera's best known reporters, and has interviewed Osama bin Laden for the Qatari channel.
Officials are said to have feared that he would flee the country after confirmation that he would face trial.
However, no official reason was given for taking him back into custody.
Spain's EFE news agency reported that the decision was made after a judge linked him to the banned Islamic group, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Mr Alouni was held overnight in police custody in Granada and then transferred to the capital Madrid, the agency said.
Mr Alouni was among 35 people arrested and charged with terror offences in September 2003 under orders from Spanish High Court judge Baltasar Garzon. He was accused of having links to al-Qaeda and using reporting trips to Kabul, Afghanistan, as a cover for fundraising activities.
Confirmation that he and 20 others would be tried came earlier this week.
Mr Alouni was released last year on bail of 6,000 euros (£4,200 or $7,800), and was not allowed to leave Spain without the court's permission. He also had to report to court weekly.
Al-Jazeera has consistently stood by its reporter since his arrest and has accused the US and Israel of inciting Spain to incriminate him.
Mr Alouni's wife, Fatima, told al-Jazeera that she was surprised at her husband's re-arrest and claimed that Judge Garzon had turned the issue into a "personal affair"
-------- voting
Release of Future Election Day Poll Results Is to Be Delayed
November 19, 2004
By JACQUES STEINBERG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/politics/19exit.html
The news organizations overseeing the polling system that served as an early handicapper of the presidential race on Election Day have decided to delay the release of future races' results by at least three hours.
Their decision is intended to remedy one of the main breakdowns associated with the new $10 million system: that preliminary results showing Senator John Kerry with an apparently sizable lead over President Bush began appearing on Internet sites in the early afternoon, not long after they had been released, on strictest confidence, to newspaper editors and television producers at 1 p.m. Eastern time.
The decision to delay future release of data until at least 4 p.m., and perhaps as late as 6 p.m., was made on Wednesday by representatives of the six news organizations that monitor the system: the three main television networks, CNN, Fox News and The Associated Press. The decision was first reported yesterday by USA Today.
Kathleen A. Frankovic, director of surveys for CBS News and a member of the panel overseeing the voter survey system, said delaying the results until after 4 p.m. ensured that news organizations would receive more accurate data, based on results from more polling places nationwide.
"It certainly would delay leaks,'' Ms. Frankovic said. "And it would delay the use of the information by people who aren't aware of all the caveats associated with it.''
In a post-mortem issued after the election, the architects of the polling system expressed alarm over the way the early polling data - so early that it did not include results from the West Coast - spread throughout the Internet. Those Web logs that posted the raw data often did so with little skepticism and little warning that the results were preliminary and often fell within margins of error, the post-mortem found.
Ms. Frankovic said the news organizations have left until later a discussion of precisely when results will be made available next time. She declined to comment on whether the panel had discussed a related issue: what to do to dissuade some apparently loose-lipped journalists from leaking such information to friends and others in the future.
-------- ENERGY
-------- alternative energy
Ethanol Plant Would Run on Methane Produced from Cattle Manure
Omaha World-Herald
By Chris Clayton
November 19, 2004
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=410
A proposed ethanol plant near Mead, Neb., would use manure from a cattle feedlot to generate the energy needed to make the corn-based fuel.
Nebraska BioClean plans to build the facility about two miles south of Mead. It would produce about 20 million gallons of ethanol a year.
The company's plans include building a methane digester that, using manure, would generate steam needed to fuel the plant's boilers.
Company officials believe this would be the first project to use energy from a methane digester to power an ethanol facility. Nebraska BioClean holds a patent on designs combining the systems.
"What we're doing is combining technologies that have been done in the past," said Mark Kraeger, chief operating officer for Nebraska BioClean. "It will be the first time all those things have been tried together."
Mead Cattle Co. and its 30,000 or so cattle would supply manure for the project. The facility would use about 7 million bushels of corn to produce the ethanol, and the byproduct of wet, distilled grain would then feed the cattle.
The facility would cost about $28 million and employ about 30 people, Kraeger said.
While methane digesters are a known source of energy production, only recently have they become used in agriculture operations around the country. This fall, a Colfax County farmer began building a methane digester on his hog farm to produce electricity that would be sold to local utilities.
Nebraska BioClean has received a zoning change and conditional-use permits from Saunders County officials. George Burreson, Saunders County zoning administrator, said residents offered no opposition. Most people want to know when construction will begin, he said.
"After the discussion, everybody thought it was a great idea."
Saunders County Board Chairman Kenneth Kuncl said the county board also had received no complaints.
The county has approved a $380,000 community development block grant for Nebraska BioClean, though conditions of possible disbursement or repayment are not final. Depending on the success of the project, the county could waive any repayment.
The fact that the plant is a unique agricultural project appeals to local officials, Kuncl said.
Officials with the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality received one letter signed by 13 people specifically asking for a public hearing on the project. The department will hold an informational session at 7 p.m. Thursday at the University of Nebraska Agricultural Research and Development Center, 1071 County Road G in Ithaca.
On Dec. 7, state officials will hold a public hearing on the facility's air-quality permit at 7 p.m. at the same location.
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
Greens Paint Grim Picture of Future, Warmer World
Story by Ed Cropley
REUTERS WORLD:
November 19, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28199/story.htm
BANGKOK - Environmentalists forecast a grim future for planet Earth on Thursday, predicting that droughts, heatwaves and hurricanes will become increasingly common and more severe if global warming is allowed to continue unchecked.
A coalition of eight of the world's largest conservation organisations said Russia's recent ratification of the Kyoto protocol on carbon dioxide emissions had given fresh impetus to the drive to cut global output of greenhouse gases.
However, they said more had to be done if the world's average temperature was going to stop short of a critical two degrees Celsius rise above its mean in the pre-industrial era.
"We collectively feel that if we were to go beyond the two degrees warming... we are bound for complete chaos and disaster on this planet," WWF director-general Claude Martin told a news conference at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in the Thai capital.
"Everything must be undertaken to ensure that we do not pass beyond the two degree threshold of global warming because the results will be absolutely devastating, not just for nature but the whole of humanity," he said.
Australia and the United States are among those countries that have refused to ratify the protocol, putting a major dent in global efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
The United States is by far the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, while Australia, which generates most of its electricity from coal power stations, is also a major polluter.
The Bush administration says the Kyoto pact is too expensive and is flawed because it doesn't commit major developing countries such as India and China to curb their greenhouse gas emissions. Australia says the pact is bad for industry.
Much of the private sector has also been slow to catch on to the need for greener, more efficient modes of power generation and transport, but Martin said the world community must not move at the pace of its slowest members if changes were going to happen.
"We should not be steered by those backward-looking fossil-fuelled companies, but should go forward with the progressive ones," Martin said.
In a joint statement with green groups such as Birdlife International and Conservation International, WWF drew particular attention to the impact of climate change in the Arctic, where temperatures appear to be rising at twice the rate of the rest of the world.
Up to 95 percent of the world's coral reefs, home to some of natures wierdest and most wonderful creatures, might also be dead from coral bleaching within 60 years if ocean temperatures continue to creep up, the group said.
Steve Howard of The Climate Group said it was impossible to predict the precise impact of climate change, but a recent slew of record hurricane seasons and temperatures -- such as the 2003 European heatwave that killed thousands of people -- suggested it would be a rough ride.
-------- genetics
U.S. Ends Effort at U.N. to Ban All Human Cloning
November 19, 2004
By WARREN HOGE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/science/20nationscnd.html?hp&ex=1100926800&en=57a7f9aabf157b91&ei=5094&partner=homepage
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 19 - Faced with polarizing division in the 191-member General Assembly, the United States abandoned a bid today that it had aggressively pursued to obtain a United Nations treaty banning all human cloning, including that done in the name of medical research.
The outcome - an agreement to come up with a nonbinding declaration against human cloning - fell far short of the American goal and represented a setback for President Bush. He called for a worldwide ban on all cloning when he spoke at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in August and made limiting stem cell and other research known as therapeutic cloning an issue in his presidential campaign.
All 191 United Nations members are agreed on the need for a treaty that would prohibit cloning human beings, but they have been stalled for three years by sharp differences over whether to broaden the ban, as the United States wishes, to cover therapeutic cloning.
The push for a total ban has set the Bush administration against close allies like Britain and much of the world's scientific establishment, which contend it would block research on cancer, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis and other conditions. The White House argues that enough stem cells from human embryos exist for research and that cloning an embryo for any reason is unethical.
Negotiations have been going on for more than a year in the General Assembly's legal committee, which draws up treaties, and a vote was scheduled for today on two competing versions with scant hope that the necessary consensus would emerge for an effective treaty.
The United States backed a resolution proposed by Costa Rica to outlaw all forms of human cloning, while opponents of such an absolute prohibition supported a Belgian measure banning reproductive cloning outright and offering nations three options for therapeutic cloning: outlawing it, putting a moratorium on the practice or regulating it through national legislation to prevent misuse.
Instead of proceeding to a showdown vote tonight, the committee agreed instead to take up a nonbinding declaration proposed by Italy with ambiguous language that avoided raising objections and to schedule meetings in February to shape the final wording. The Italians' proposal prohibits "any attempts to create human life through cloning processes and any research intended to achieve that aim."
Regardless of what language emerges, the result will be a declaration, not a treaty, which would have been the outcome had either the Costa Rican or Belgian versions been adopted, and nations will be under considerably less pressure to change their existing views on cloning.
"A declaration is important for what it's not," said Bernard Siegel, the executive director of the Genetics Policy Institute, who had lobbied against the American-led campaign. "It is not a treaty, it is nonbinding and it will have no chilling effect on therapeutic cloning, and stem cell research will advance. We consider this a triumph."
Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, acknowledged that a global ban would not now be adopted but said the administration still viewed the result as positive. "Obviously, we'd like to get a total ban," he said. "We recognize that that may not be possible right now. On the other side of the coin, you can also say that we have been successful in preventing any endorsement of cloning."
-------- poverty
Concerned somebodies help the homeless
washtimes
By Adrienne Washington
November 19, 2004
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20041118-105847-4011r.htm
It wasn't easy, but Sherry Matthews, an ambitious 33-year-old Silver Spring mother, is getting her life together with the help of a network of somebodies.
"Somebody knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody," Ms. Matthews said yesterday, explaining how she called on a variety of individuals who lead her each step of the way toward independence. "I'm a determined individual," she said.
That first somebody contacted by Ms. Matthews worked for a life skills program and she helped Ms. Matthews enroll. Another somebody gave Ms. Matthews information about a county-subsidized housing complex where she secured her first apartment.
And a whole lot of somebodies laced up their walking shoes so 180 District-area organizations might fund the type of social services programs that helped Ms. Matthews and countless others leave homelessness behind.
Some of those bodies again will take to the streets around the Mall tomorrow morning to raise money at the 17th annual "Help for the Homeless Walkathon." Last year, organizers said 100,000 participants raised $6.5 million, and the main sponsor, the Fannie Mae Foundation, is hoping to exceed that number this year.
The 5 kilometer walk also is designed to raise awareness about the changing face of homelessness, said Stacey D. Stewart, president and chief executive officer of the foundation. Yesterday, she talked seriously about the long-term problem of homelessness. With the housing crisis, "the regular, everyday, average family faces a harder challenge in trying to have a roof over their heads." The nonprofit Fannie Mae Foundation seeks to create affordable homeowning opportunities through partnerships and to prevent homelessness. Some walkathon funds go to emergency shelters, but a wide range of self-help services receive grants, too.
On any given day, about 14,000 people in this area have no permanent residence. Nearly half are families, while one-third are children. This figure includes people utilizing shelters, staying with friends and family, living on the streets or living in transitional or subsidized housing.
While the stereotypical face of homeless is that of adult alcoholic or drug-addicted men, only 10 percent of the area's homeless population lives in the streets. Many more, almost one-third, are employed adults, primarily working mothers.
Two factors contribute to homelessness even for the working poor: unemployment or low wages and the lack of affordable housing.
To increase purchasing power, D.C. Council member David A. Catania, at-large independent, won approval of a bill to raise the city's minimum wage from $6.15 to $7 an hour by 2006. It was last adjusted in 1997. The rate in Virginia and Maryland is $5.15 an hour.
Working full time at $6.15 an hour nets $12,792 annually, barely above the national poverty guideline for a family of two. The Fannie Mae Foundation estimates that 100,000 households in the region live on less than $10,000 annually. Working full time at $6.15 an hour, it takes 26 eight-hour days to afford the average one-bedroom apartment at $1,300 per month.
"We need policies over time that support the supply of affordable housing, which will ultimately bring an end to homelessness," Mrs. Stewart said. On Wednesday, a coalition of more than 50 D.C. organizations started the Campaign for Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning to spur more development of housing for low- to moderate-income residents. Their proposal would require all developers to include cheaper units in their projects.
Based on their data, the price of homes for sale rose four times faster than incomes, while rents rose three times faster from January 1999 to March 2003.
"Every county is experiencing pressure trying to find housing for people who make under the median income," Mrs. Stewart said. Last summer, the Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless opened a transitional housing complex developed from a renovated motel. It also operates a pilot program called "Housing First" in cooperation with the Partnership for Permanent Housing.
"Homeownership is my next goal," said Ms. Matthews. Once, she shared space with her mother, two daughters and her sister and her four children.
Montgomery County's training programs for the homeless "afforded me a chance to have a little structure on parenting and life skills and getting back into the workplace," Ms. Matthews said.
She "greatly appreciates," the walkathon volunteers' support, which she hopes they continue for others "with lots of love." Now an office manager at a Rockville law firm, Ms. Matthews attends Saturday college, has learned how to manage money, "saved a little bit," and moved up to another, more spacious apartment.
"The program supported me and gave me hope," she said.
Ms. Matthews earns "more than $10 an hour" and pays $488 a month rent plus utilities for a two-bedroom apartment (that rents normally for more than $1,000).
She dreams of someday owning her own business with which she can "help others who struggle through life and are not able to move forward." No doubt she will be successful with the help of a whole lot of somebodies.
The Help the Homeless Walkathon begins tomorrow with sign-up at 7 a.m. and the walk at 9 a.m. on the Mall. The starting line begins around Fourth Street NW. The registration fee is $25 for adults and $15 for children. All proceeds, with the exception of $5 that pays for a T-shirt, go directly into the fund. You can sign up online at www.helpthehomelessdc.org, or call 877-WALK-HTH.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Protests Erupt in Chile in Advance of Bush's Arrival
November 19, 2004
By LARRY ROHTER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/international/americas/19cnd-chile.html?hp&ex=1100926800&en=8321a68df10b1105&ei=5094&partner=homepage
SANTIAGO, Chile, Nov. 19 - With President Bush scheduled to arrive here within hours to begin his first trip abroad since re-election, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets today to protest his presence at a weekend summit meeting that they accused of fostering economic inequality and exploitation.
Mr. Bush is one of 21 world leaders planning to attend the annual Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, being held here for the first time. The group, known as APEC, aims to encourage economic growth and trade among member nations, who account for more than half the world's economy, and the Chilean government has trumpeted the decision to hold the meeting here as an indication that this country of 15 million has achieved elite status.
Protest organizers said that 30,000 people participated in the late morning march, which followed a convoluted route through downtown streets, far from the actual site of the conference in a remote business complex surrounded by a mountain range. The police refused to offer an estimate, and local radio stations put the number of marchers at about 15,000.
The protestors were a combination of graying veterans of the Salvador Allende era, mixed with younger environmental advocates, punks, goths and anarchists. They carried placards and banners portraying Mr. Bush as a vampire, carrion-eating vulture, demon and ghost, as well as Cuban flags and a large Iraqi flag bearing the exhortation "hang on Fallujah!"
"We want Bush to know that he is not welcome here," said Monica Cerón, a college student, who was wearing a "Bush Stinks" t-shirt and a red headband emblazoned with "Down with Bush" and a hammer and sickle. "Our government may want to do business with him, but the Chilean people oppose his genocidal war on Iraq and his designs on Latin America."
Citing the same international accords that made possible the detention of Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Great Britain in 1998, opposition groups here even filed a complaint to have Mr. Bush held as a war criminal. A judge dismissed the complaint early this month, however, arguing lack of jurisdiction.
A few older demonstrators also complained of American support for the military coup that overthrew Dr. Allende on Sept. 11, 1973. Secretary of State Colin Powell last year offered an indirect apology for that policy, saying it was "not a part of American history we are proud of," but marchers like 58-year-old Tomás Soto described the episode as "an example of the kind of state terrorism that the United States always claims to be against."
The march, organized by the Chilean Social Forum and nearly 100 other groups opposed to corporate-led globalization, was the only legal means of mass protest the government here was willing to authorize during the summit. But some other left-wing and anarchist groups have defied that ban and led smaller street protests of their own all week, resulting in rock-throwing confrontations with police officers and several hundred arrests.
Security precautions have been extraordinary by Chilean standards, with an estimated 4,000 police officers in the streets or around leading hotels, helicopters in the air, streets blocked off and armored cars in reserve. The government declared a holiday here in the capital today to encourage people to stay off the streets, and though schools and most businesses were closed, that seemed to encourage university students to join the protests.
In a flier distributed to schools and government offices, the national police warned that "Chile may be at the end of the world, but international terrorism is never far enough away." The text made little distinction between antiglobalization and terror groups, and urged citizens to tell the authorities about any "suspicious attitudes" or "the places of anti-APEC meetings."
A protest organizer, Sara Larrain, called the police flier "an effort to intimidate and spread fear" that was unjustified. "We're not bomb throwers," she said. "We want to confront APEC, but only in the realm of ideas and paradigms."
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Protesters Denounce APEC Summit in Chile
November 19, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-APEC.html?pagewanted=all
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- Thousands of protesters marched peacefully through downtown Santiago on Friday, expressing anger at a weekend summit of Pacific Rim leaders, particularly President Bush. But violence later erupted at a rock concert.
About 50 masked demonstrators threw rocks at police, overturned park benches and tore down traffic signs around the Santiago park hosting the concert. One news photographer was hit in the head with rock, but was not badly injured.
Concertgoers yelled at the group to leave, but the masked demonstrators hurled Molotov cocktails at a car dealership a block away, burning two vehicles, before fleeing.
Organizers said 40,000 protesters participated in the government-authorized march downtown, far from the conference center hosting the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. Police put the number at 25,000.
While some protesters said they oppose the APEC summit, which they likened to a rich man's club that does nothing for the poor, much of the rage was aimed at Bush and the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Bush arrived Friday night. Administration officials said he will seek more international support to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Marchers chanted and held up posters criticizing the U.S. leader. Some also expressed sympathy with the Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah.
Earlier Friday, riot police used water cannons and tear gas to break up an unauthorized demonstration by hundreds of rock-throwing protesters. They also hurled stones through the windows of a shuttered McDonald's restaurant. No serious injuries were reported, but police detained about 40 people.
It was the fourth straight day of confrontations between police and activists opposed to the APEC summit.
Leaders from around the Pacific have flown into Chile in the last few days, and more were expected Friday, including Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Numerous bilateral meetings were planned, including a key meeting Sunday between the leaders of Japan and China over a Chinese nuclear submarine's recent intrusion into Japanese waters.
At the APEC conference center Friday, business executives, economists and other experts were gathered for seminars and informal talks about trade and growing business ties between Asia and Latin America.
The protests came a day after trade and foreign ministers from 21 Pacific Rim economies issued a strong show of support for ongoing World Trade Organization talks. They also agreed on new counterterrorism measures aimed at protecting everything from air travel to shipping and food stocks.
APEC members also pledged to implement new security measures to tighten access to shoulder-fired missiles, preventing the possibility of terrorists acquiring them and downing civilian jetliners. They also scheduled for development a counterterrorism passenger alert system to make flights safer.
APEC's members include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.
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Anti-Bush Protesters Battle Police at Chile Summit
(Reuters)
By Jason Webb
Nov 19, 2004
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=QSWFDJ0ZMLGZWCRBAEZSFFA?type=topNews&storyID=6873130&pageNumber=1
SANTIAGO, Chile - Hooded anti-American marchers protesting an Asia-Pacific summit in Chile on Friday hurled Molotov cocktails and stones at police who retaliated with water cannons and tear gas.
A large march against the weekend meeting of 21 leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum turned violent when a few dozen youths broke away from the main group to attack police.
About 100 people were arrested and four were injured, police said.
President Bush arrived late on Friday for a visit that has been a lightning rod for protests.
Tens of thousands of people streamed through central Santiago carrying banners and chanting slogans against the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, including "Fascist Bush is a terrorist."
The area hit by the violence was small and had no effect on pre-summit bilateral talks between APEC leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's President Hu Jintao. All 21 leaders meet on Saturday and Sunday.
Ministers paving the way for the weekend meeting have discussed ways to revive global trade talks launched in Doha three years ago. Cooperation against international terrorism is also on the agenda, at the urging of countries including the United States and Russia.
The nuclear arms programs of North Korea, one of few Asian-Pacific countries not part of APEC, will be one of the main security topics in bilateral meetings such as Hu's talks with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun on Friday and the Hu-Bush summit on Saturday.
'MUTUAL DISTRUST'
"Everyone is very clear that the extreme mutual distrust between the two major parties -- the U.S. and the DPRK (North Korea) -- is the biggest barrier" to resolving a two-year-old impasse, said Chinese foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan.
China's Hu has taken advantage of his South American trip to guarantee supplies of key commodities for his booming economy. He launched free-trade talks with Chile, the world's largest copper exporter, and agreed to begin work on a market-opening pact with New Zealand.
China also promised investments during Hu's visits to soy-producing Brazil and Argentina.
Police estimated the number of marchers at 25,000, but protest leaders said the real number was 70,000.
"The turnout is much bigger than we'd expected. This is a polite response to Bush's barbarity," said Ernesto Medina, a march organizer.
APEC officials were far away in their hotels or in a convention center overlooking the foothills of the Andes on the outskirts of Santiago.
Protest organizers from leftist, indigenous and environmental groups said the rights of workers and the need to protect the environment were being ignored in the free-trade agreements promoted by APEC members.
A violent minority pulled shirts over their faces and started throwing rocks when the march ended in Santiago's Bustamante park. They smashed park benches and burned a U.S. flag.
Police doused them with water cannons and fired tear gas from armored vehicles at protesters who dodged behind trees.
Chile's government canceled all police leave and decreed a public holiday in Santiago on Friday as part of the strict security. (Additional reporting by Katie Burford, Ignacio Badal and Paul Eckert)
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Ivorians Deliver a Wake-Up Call To White House
Washington Post
By DeNeen L. Brown
November 20, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63916-2004Nov19?language=printer
On the edge of the Ellipse, beyond the circular sidewalk that hugs the iron gate that hugs the trees that hug the South Lawn of the White House, 38 people stand single file, chanting for freedom. "We want French government to get out of Ivory Coast! Africa belongs to black people! We need French to get out! They killed too many Ivorians so far!"
They hold signs written in orange and green ink and wave tiny orange, green and white flags. They are Ivorians who live here and work here, still trying to maintain connection to a homeland. In calls and e-mails to friends, parents, brothers and sisters, they heard of the unrest there. How, they thought, could they do something about it while so far from home?
There are 4,000 or so Ivorians scattered across the Washington area, and through churches, their embassy and the grapevine, one told another about the demonstration and so they came yesterday -- lawyers, shuttle bus drivers, nurses, taking a day off to shout at the White House about a crisis back home, which has been on the brink of war since a cease-fire was broken earlier this month.
"We protest French holding my country," shouts Patrick Nangue on a megaphone. "My country was attacked by the French army. Rebels supported by the French have invaded our country. The rebels, armed by the French, took over our country. . . . The French government is killing people. We ask rebels to disarm. The French say Ivorians killed nine French army people. Now they gun down people of the Ivory Coast. They killed 63."
He points the megaphone toward the White House over the trees, leading a cheer: "What do we want?"
"Freedom!" the chorus shouts back.
It seems like a vain and faint complaint so far away from the recent unrest in the former French colony, but the protesters cling to hope that somebody powerful in the house behind the trees is listening.
"I think Bush is listening," says Josephine Seri, 59, a hair braider holding a sign that reads "Ivory Coast; French Troops Stop Shooting Unarmed Civilians."
Their chant is a complicated cry in a country where protests are common, but even more common is an ignorance of far-away tiny countries -- tiny countries that believe American power can help. Curious tourists walk by, point their cameras and click. Without apology, joggers run between the protesters and their leaders. A speed-walker with a Barbie Doll tan, white shorts and a cloud of sweet perfume passes without looking up. Workers in the distance climb cherry pickers to carefully place light bulbs on the National Christmas Tree.
Two women sitting on a park bench think the protesters must be angry at President Bush. Isn't that why most protesters gather? The women have no idea of where Ivory Coast is, what happened there recently, what its relationship to France is or why the protesters have gathered on this small patch out of earshot of the White House.
"They are from Africa?" asks Isabelina Perches, 18.
"They don't like Bush," offers Edith Lopez, 18.
"We don't like Bush," Perches says in sympathy.
The Ivorian civil war began in 2002 when rebels tried to overthrow President Laurent Gbagbo, whose economic policies displease the French government. After Ivory Coast gained independence in 1960, France signed an agreement to maintain a military presence there to protect the country if it were attacked.
Two weeks ago, Ivory Coast warplanes fatally shot nine of the French troops and an American aid worker. France retaliated, destroying the entire Ivorian air force. Rioting erupted, and France evacuated its citizens. Then some Ivorians claimed that French troops killed at least 63 unarmed people. The U.N. Security Council condemned what it called hate messages broadcast on television and radio, prompting Gbagbo to complain, according to news reports: "We are at war -- they want us to behave in the middle of a war as if we were on our way to the opera."
At the edge of the Ellipse, protest organizer Augustin Douoguih, who is a U.S. citizen, says he believes France is trying to overthrow Gbagbo and impose a president of France's choice. "Unarmed demonstrators were killed by the French army for an alleged killing of nine French soldiers by the Ivorian army," Douoguih says. He does not believe that French soldiers had actually been killed. "The French government never presented any proof of the killing to its Ivorian counterpart. . . . The French never produced any bodies."
Protester Andre Kipre says: "We cannot fight the French army. We know that. We are not stupid. There is no way any member of our army or president would order our military to bombard the French troops. If it did really happen, it was a mistake."
Nathalie Loiseau, a spokeswoman for the French Embassy in Washington, says it's unclear why the Ivorians here would claim that the French soldiers were not killed.
"The Ivorian president does not deny the soldiers were killed," Loiseau says. "Rockets were launched from Ivorian aircraft on the military camp. There were indeed casualties. These people, their bodies were sent back to France. Nobody is denying that."
The protesters pass around photos of Ivorians they say were maimed by French troops. Olivier Bollou, 41, a nurse who moved here 15 years ago, shouts: "I'm touched about the civilians getting killed. I'm very touched about the unarmed civilians killed by French troops. America is a strong country. I believe if the White House can hear us, it can influence the U.N., so truth can be known. We don't have any other way to make ourselves understandable."
He turned to the line of protesters, which, by now, was sagging.
"Are you guys tired?" Bollou shouts.
"No!"
"Some of our brothers and sisters have not eaten for the past week," Bollou continues. "We have a chance to be here eating, to be here drinking. You guys should be ready to fight for our country. You shouldn't be tired. We are free in this country. I believe you should go through hell for freedom in the Ivory Coast."
Across the street and the barriers, past the gates and the guards that surround the White House, the curtains are parted. On the green lawn, a fountain is flowing while, nearby, tourists press themselves against the iron gates to get closer. From here, they cannot hear the protesters who are still shouting.
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