November 2001

Afghan talks split over top jobs
Posted: Friday, November 30, 2001

BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Talks between rival Afghan factions over choosing leaders to share power in a post-Taliban government have stalled as splits emerged in the dominant Northern Alliance over who should fill which positions. MORE

Three Israelis are killed in suicide bomb attack on bus
Posted: Friday, November 30, 2001

The ruthless and indiscriminate tactics of the suicide bomber returned to the Middle East last night when a Palestinian man blew himself up on a bus, killing himself and at least three other passengers. MORE

Rep. Barr Criticizes and Bush Defends Investigation Tactics
Posted: Thursday, November 29, 2001

WASHINGTON –– Georgia Rep. Bob Barr, a harsh critic of President Clinton in the previous administration, now has become the most outspoken Republican opponent of President Bush's efforts to expand law enforcement powers to combat terrorism.

Barr, a staunch conservative, says he generally supports the way Bush has handled the war against terrorism.

But there are parts the former federal prosecutor doesn't like, such as more wiretaps and possible military tribunals. He has gone on television, written newspaper columns and issued statements to draw attention to what he, as well as more liberal lawmakers and groups, sees as infringements on privacy rights. MORE

Bush Defends Investigation Tactics

WASHINGTON (AP) - Brushing aside criticism, President Bush defended his authorization of military tribunals and the questioning of Middle Easterners in the United States. "We're an open society, but we're at war," the president said Thursday.

"We will act with fairness and we will deliver justice, which is far more than terrorists ever grant to their innocent victims," the president told federal prosecutors visiting the White House. MORE

US Feds to Launch Missile Defense Test
Posted: Thursday, November 29, 2001

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon plans to conduct a missile defense test Saturday in which an interceptor rocket fired from the central Pacific will attempt to shoot down a mock warhead soaring through space, officials said Wednesday.

The test date is scheduled to be announced at a Pentagon news conference Thursday.

The test, which is designed to stay within the limits of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty governing missile defenses, had been scheduled for Oct. 24 but was delayed because of technical problems.

President Bush has said repeatedly that the United States needs an effective defense against long-range ballistic missiles and that the ABM treaty must not be allowed to stand in the way. Administration officials have said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, while not involving missiles, show the country is vulnerable to unconventional surprise attack and one day this could come from missiles. MORE

Most Americans Back U.S. Tactics
Posted: Thursday, November 29, 2001

Washington Post

Most Americans broadly endorse steps taken by the Bush administration to investigate and prosecute suspected terrorists and express little concern that these measures may violate the rights of U.S. citizens or others caught up in the ongoing probes, according to a survey by The Washington Post and ABC News.

Six in 10 agree with President Bush that suspected terrorists should be tried in special military tribunals and not in U.S. criminal courts -- a proposal that has come under increasing fire from civil libertarians as well as some influential Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Seven in 10 Americans believe the government is doing enough to protect the civil rights of suspected terrorists. An equally large majority believe the government is sufficiently guarding the rights of Arab Americans and American Muslims as well as noncitizens from Arab and Muslim countries.

The findings reflect a wellspring of public support as the Bush administration continues even its most controversial investigative methods to bring suspected terrorists to justice. The administration is clearly counting on such support to help counter mounting concern on Capitol Hill. MORE

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West's feminists under fire from female general
Posted: Thursday, November 29, 2001

www.thetimes.co.uk

THE general leans forward in the gathering gloom, her eyes glinting with anger, and delivers a surprise attack on an unexpected foreign enemy.
Not the Soviet Union for invading Afghanistan, nor the Americans still bombing her country. Not the Pakistani-backed Taleban, nor yet their Arab legions, whose Wahhabi fundamentalism fuelled much of the regime’s misogyny.

Instead General Suhaila Siddiq, 60, sighs with exasperation at Western feminists and their obsession with the burka, the all-enveloping veil whose forcible use symbolised for many outsiders the Taleban’s oppressive rule.

"The first priority should be given to education, primary school facilities, the economy and reconstruction of the country but the West concentrates on the burka and whether the policies of the Taleban are better or worse than other regimes," she says dismissively. "Let these things be decided by history."

She believes that the burka, which was worn long before the Taleban and still is by most women around Kabul, is not the battlefield upon which to fight their war. MORE

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The preservation of global elite rule
Posted: Wednesday, November 28, 2001

The most important issue before the elite at this point in history is the preservation of global elite rule, the acceleration of globalisation, and the suppression of the anti-globalisation movement. They must deal with the crisis of global capitalism.
- By Davy De Verteuil

Business controls US power, says Chomsky

By Zubeida Mustafa

On Tuesday, Chomsky dilated on some of his political theses which should give a better understanding of the Sept 11 catastrophe and the war in Afghanistan. He said that his theory about America's power structure has remained unchanged since he started speaking about this issue in the sixties. The events of the last few decades have continued to move in the same direction.

His basic premise is that the business establishment in the United States which controls power and wealth, manipulates the democratic process and official policies in that country. Describing the American democracy as not being perfect, he said that it has, of course, vastly improved from what it was a hundred years ago. But there is still much further to go, he remarked comparing the process to climbing a mountain. "When you reach one point, you find there is still a higher peak to conquer."

"I agree with the overwhelming population of the United States that we have a formal democracy, but not a functional democracy," Chomsky said. The political system is in the hands of a small right-wing group which creates the candidates and manipulates their election. This group decides which are the issues that must be debated and addressed. MORE

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Let UN team in or else, Bush warns Iraq
Posted: Tuesday, November 27, 2001

Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
The Guardian

President George Bush yesterday suggested that Iraq could be the next US military target, and warned Saddam Hussein to let United Nations weapons inspectors into the country or face the consequences.
Mr Bush also defended the use of secret military tribunals to try suspected terrorists, and warned the American people to prepare for the deaths of US troops in Afghanistan.

Asked whether Iraq might be the next target, the president expanded his threat to go after states that harbour terrorists to include those that "develop weapons of mass destruction that will be used to terrorise nations".

At a press conference in Washington, he singled out President Saddam, suggesting that the Iraqi leader was developing a nuclear capability. "He needs to let inspectors back into his country to show us that he is not developing weapons of mass destruction," Mr Bush said. Asked what would happen if President Saddam refused, he replied: "He'll find out."

It was the second time in two days that Mr Bush had hinted that action could be taken against Iraq, which some of his more hawkish advisers have suggested should become a target of an American attack. He told Newsweek in an interview published yesterday: "Saddam is evil... I think he's got weapons of mass destruction. And I think he needs to open up his country to let us inspect... Show the world he's not [evil]. It's up to him to prove he's not. He is the one guy who has used weapons of mass destruction."

Mr Bush added yesterday: "Afghanistan is just the beginning" of a war on terrorism. MORE

News
Posted: Monday, November 26, 2001

Colours of the cornered chameleon are changing rapidly, Taliban style

You could call it the smell of surrender, the mullah talking of compromise, the young Taliban fighters vainly seeking asylum as the wind blew the dust and faeces of this filthy frontier road into their faces. But I rather suspect we were watching the colours of the chameleon change, Taliban-style. One turban for another, you see.

Take Mullah Najibullah when he turned up at this grubby border post yesterday. "We're not surrendering Spin Boldak,'' he announced, this from the man who admitted to me inside the Afghan border town just 24 hours earlier that the Taliban had ordered him not to spend the night there. "There are no negotiations going on for the surrender because the tribal commanders want too much from us. They want a complete surrender of the Taliban along with our heavy weapons, and that's not an option.''

This wasn't quite the spirit of Kandahar whose possession, so the Taliban tell us, will never be forfeited to the Northern Alliance, nor to the US Marines who yesterday landed at the Province's sporting club at which Saudi Arabia's princes once arrived to hunt animals with the Taliban. We're still hearing about a "last stand" for Kandahar, 66 miles down the main road from here. And, say the truck drivers we chatted to today, still very much in the hands of the world's most obscurantist militia. MORE

Marines fly in as four SAS troops injured in gun battle

The military campaign inside Afghanistan entered a new and perilous phase yesterday when 500 United States Marines were flown in close to the Taliban's last stronghold of Kandahar.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence announced the first British casualties of the war yesterday. The MoD said four members of a special forces unit had been wounded one seriously in action close to Kandahar and have been brought back to Britain for hospital treatment.

The men, picked up by a helicopter rescue team, are understood to have been SAS troops on a "search and destroy" operation against al-Qa'ida and were said to have been attacking a command centre. One of those injured is said to be the son of an SAS soldier killed in the Falklands War. MORE

Bush turns terror focus on Iraq

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush has demanded that Iraq allow international arms inspections to resume, saying the global war on terrorism also targets those who make weapons of mass destruction used by terrorists.

Bush's comments were the most explicit linkage of Iraq to the U.S.-led war on terrorism launched in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States, and came amid renewed speculation Iraq could be the next U.S. target. The White House said the remarks did not represent a shift in U.S. policy. MORE

Attack hiatus over; black leaders resume racism battle
Posted: Monday, November 26, 2001

Published in the Asbury Park Press 11/24/01
By LARRY BIVINS GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON -- Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many black leaders have suppressed harsh criticism of President Bush as the nation mourned the loss of thousands of lives and prepared for retaliation and defense against another potential assault.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon came just four days after the conclusion of the United Nations World Conference on Racism and Xenophobia in Durban, South Africa. The U.S. delegation had withdrawn from it, angering black delegates from the United States and abroad, but that controversy was obliterated by Sept. 11.

Now, however, the subject has popped back up. "The administration made a mistake by not staying at the table," said Thomas Daniels, a leader of the Asbury Park-Neptune chapter of the NAACP. "We will never solve any of the racial problems in our world by walking away from the table. We need to address the issue of racism."

Although the horror of Sept. 11 remains fresh in the minds of many Americans, black civil rights leaders, politicians, and community activists say now is as good a time as any to prick the nation's conscience. They are determined to refocus attention and passion on racial profiling, election reform and slavery reparations. MORE

Tricks of Free Trade

by Mark Weisbrot

Future historians will certainly marvel at how trade, originally a means to obtain what could not be produced locally, became an end in itself. In our age it has become a measure of economic and social progress more important even than the well-being of the people who produce or consume the traded goods. President George W. Bush recently declared free trade "a moral imperative." His predecessor, Bill Clinton, was prone to making wild economic claims for unfettered trade—for example, that it had added to employment and growth in the 1990s, contributing to the longest business-cycle expansion in American history. This is an economic and accounting impossibility, since our trade deficit, now running at a record $400 billion annually, actually ballooned during Clinton's presidency. Nevertheless, such assertions are rarely challenged in the press.

Technically, "free trade" refers to the absence of tariffs or other barriers that hinder the flow of goods and services across international boundaries. But it has recently morphed into a marketing tool to sell a whole range of new property rights for investors and corporations through an alphabet soup of sweeping international pacts: NAFTA, GATT, MAI, FTAA. In the last few years the environmental movement has increasingly opposed these agreements. Together with organized labor, environmental groups were a major force in the collapse of the World Trade Organization's Millennium Round in Seattle at the end of 1999. More recently, they helped organize mass protests at the April 2001 "Summit of the Americas" in Quebec City. MORE

Belgium behind murder of Patrice Lumumba in 1961
Posted: Monday, November 26, 2001

In a messy, controversial end to 40 years of soul-searching about one of the darkest chapters of the country's colonial past, Belgian MPs said that King Baudouin knew of the plans to get rid of the charismatic African leader, but did nothing to save him.

It is the first time for more than half a century that the Belgian Parliament has criticised the normally sacrosanct monarchy.

No single conclusively incriminating document was found in the two-year inquiry, but it did unearth a telegram from Count Harold d'Aspremont Lynden, then minister for African affairs, which spoke of Lumumba's "definitive elimination". Two Belgian officers linked to other attempts to kidnap or kill Lumumba operated under Aspremont Lynden's "political responsibility", the MPs said. He and other ministers lied about their role.

Lumumba, an articulate nationalist, was freed from jail in 1960 and elected prime minister when the Belgians left the vast country they had ruled with a mixture of greed and paternalism since King Leopold II won his "place in the sun" 80 years earlier. MORE

Research shows Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical
Posted: Sunday, November 25, 2001

Journal axes gene research on Jews and Palestinians
The Observer

A keynote research paper showing that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical has been pulled from a leading journal. Academics who have already received copies of Human Immunology have been urged to rip out the offending pages and throw them away. MORE

U.S. targets three more countries
Posted: Saturday, November 24, 2001

by James Clark, Nick Fielding and Tony Allen-Mills, Washington

Sunday Times - The war on terrorism is to be extended to three new countries as soon as the campaign in Afghanistan is over.

Targets linked to Osama Bin Laden in Somalia, Sudan and Yemen will be at the top of the hit list, according to senior sources in London and Washington.

Tony Blair and President George W Bush have agreed that the momentum created by the anti-terror coalition's successes must be maintained with swift action elsewhere.

"We have the wind at our backs and we don't want to lose it," said a senior Washington source.

Preparations are under way in all three countries.

Intelligence officers from both Britain and America have been on the ground to gather information about terrorists and ascertain their links with Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organisation. MORE

It's almost official: the U.S. economy is in recession, ending the longest uninterrupted expansion in American history.

U.S. Patriot Act Turns Retailers into Spies
Posted: Saturday, November 24, 2001

By Scott Bernard Nelson, The Boston Globe

Nov. 18--Ordinary businesses, from bicycle shops to bookstores to bowling alleys, are being pressed into service on the home front in the war on terrorism.

Under the USA Patriot Act, signed into law by President Bush late last month, they soon will be required to monitor their customers and report "suspicious transactions" to the Treasury Department -- though most businesses may not be aware of this.

Buried in the more than 300 pages of the new law is a provision that "any person engaged in a trade or business" has to file a government report if a customer spends $10,000 or more in cash. The threshold is cumulative and applies to multiple purchases if they're somehow related -- three $4,000 pieces of furniture, for example, might trigger a filing. MORE

More World Focus

US shuts down Somalia internet
Posted: Friday, November 23, 2001

BBC - Somalia's only internet company and a key telecoms business have been forced to close because the United States suspects them of terrorist links.

The two firms, Somalia Internet Company and al-Barakaat, both appear on a US list of organisations accused of funnelling money to the al-Qaeda network.

Both companies have stated they are not linked to terrorists.

Along with denying all internet access to Somalis, the closures have severely restricted international telephone lines and shut down vitally needed money transfer facilities.

Correspondents say the closure of the companies will have a devastating effect on the country, which desperately needs the services they provide. MORE

U.S. Death Penalty Stops Spain Extraditing Suspects
Posted: Friday, November 23, 2001

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain cannot extradite suspected Islamic extremists to the United States while the death penalty is in force there, judicial sources said on Thursday.

Eight suspected members of a radical Spanish Islamic group were detained in Spain last week, accused of involvement in the September 11 hijacked aircraft attacks on the United States.

High Court Judge Baltasar Garzon said in a committal order that the men, mostly Spanish citizens of Arab origin, had links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group.

The United States accuses bin Laden of masterminding the attacks on New York and Washington that killed thousands.

The arrested men have denied the charges, judicial sources said. MORE

Same Flower Chemicals Tell Some Insects "This Bud's For You,"
Posted: Thursday, November 22, 2001

Source: Cornell University (http://www.cornell.edu)

ITHACA, N.Y. -- When some insects zero in on a flower for nectar, their ultraviolet vision is guided by a bull's-eye "painted" on the plant by chemical compounds. Now, chemical ecologists at Cornell University have discovered a second job for these compounds: warding off herbivores. MORE

Toll From WTC Attack Falls Below 3,900 -NY Times
Posted: Wednesday, November 21, 2001

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The official count of the dead and missing from the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center has fallen sharply in the last few weeks to below 3,900, nearly 3,000 less than initially feared, The New York Times reported in its online edition on Wednesday.

Citing city officials, the Times said the number of dead and missing could fall to 3,000, as officials discover more duplications and errors.

"Thank God so many of these people are alive and well," the paper quoted Charles Campisi, the chief of the New York Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau, as saying. MORE

Smith and the great £120m football scam
Posted: Wednesday, November 21, 2001

The government's handling of the Wembley stadium project was yesterday exposed as a scandalous waste of public money, marred by a series of blunders and unaccountable deals between ministers and sports officials that led to millions of pounds of lottery money being paid to the Football Association, one of the richest sports bodies in the country.
The report by the culture, media and sport select committee is damning of Sport England, the government quango which distributes sports lottery money, for giving the FA £120m towards the cost of constructing Wembley in January 1999. This was a "cavalier and egregious use of public funds".

And it is particularly critical of former culture, media and sport secretary Chris Smith for the way he conducted a deal with Chelsea chairman Ken Bates over the handing back of £20m of lottery money once it was decided that Wembley would be for football only and would not host athletics.

The report claims this deal represented a "scandalously inept treatment of public money" and criticises the FA for failing to pay the money back, claiming that it has a moral obligation to do so. MORE

UK Government's anti-terror proposals

By Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor
22 November 2001

The Government was forced to climb down over emergency anti-terror legislation on Wednesday night when it announced that new powers to detain suspects without trial would last no more than five years.
In an attempt to head off a revolt by Labour MPs and the House of Lords, David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, agreed a so-called sunset clause for the Anti-terrorism Crime and Security Bill. The Government will need a new Act in November 2006 if it wants to continue interning suspected terrorists who claim asylum.

When he unveiled the controversial proposals, Mr Blunkett suggested the legislation would be in place indefinitely, though subject to an annual review. MPs warned that this risked repeating the errors of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, introduced in the 1970s and upheld every year since. MORE

British Officials Condemns US War Policy
Posted: Wednesday, November 21, 2001

CLARE Short yesterday launched a stinging attack on the United States for hindering the relief effort in Afghanistan as relations between London and Washington sank to their lowest point since the start of the military campaign.

The International Development Secretary claimed that a breakdown in communications between the US military and aid workers on the ground was obstructing the massive humanitarian programme.

Her outburst coincided with reports of a rift between Britain and America over the deployment of ground troops, with the White House balking at demands for a significant peace-keeping force amid fears it would create a second "Vietnam".

Although Downing Street insisted relations between the coalition partners had not broken down, Tony Blair used a speech in Germany yesterday to pledge his long-term support for the people of Afghanistan. MORE

Criticism over aid widens US rift

RELATIONS between Britain and the US fell to their lowest point since the 11 September attacks yesterday after Clare Short broke ranks to criticise heavily the American commitment to the humanitarian relief work in Afghanistan.

In a series of stinging observations, Ms Short, the International Development Secretary, claimed the US military was hampering aid effort in the war-torn country and rebuked the US government for its parsimonious contribution to the alleviation of global poverty. MORE

Britain may be forced to withdraw troops

Britain's main and only overt military force in Afghanistan may be pulled out, defence sources in London said yesterday amid continuing uncertainty about what role, if any, UK troops could play there.
The 100 troops from the Royal Marine's Special Boat Service flew in unannounced to Bagram airbase, north of Kabul, last Thursday. The ministry of defence said their task was to assess the security of the airfield - a potential landing point for aid workers, diplomats, and more troops, it said - though SAS soldiers had already staked it out.

But yesterday a defence source said: "We may not add [troops] to them [the SBS squadron], we may even pull them out".

A withdrawal would come as an embarrassment to Tony Blair, who has trumpeted the potential role of British forces in stabilising Afghanistan and distributing aid. MORE

Butcher of Palestinians Summoned by Belgian Court
Posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2001

TEHRAN A Belgian court has summoned Zionist Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, known as the butcher of the Palestinians, to appear November 28 concerning civil suits over his role in the 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, the daily ** Le Soir ** said Monday.

The civil complaint was brought by 23 victims of the massacres or their families under a 1993 Belgian law which allows war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide to be tried in Belgian courts, regardless of where they took place or the nationality or residence of the victims or the accused.

An estimated 800 to 1,500 Palestinian refugees were brutally massacred in the Sabra and Shatila camps by Christian militiamen after Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, when Sharon was Israeli defense minister. MORE

UK: Blunkett under fire from all sides on terror bill

Patrick Wintour
The Guardian

David Blunkett, the home secretary, yesterday told MPs that his emergency anti-terrorism bill was required to protect the country from terrorists who have declared open season on Britain and its way of life.
Facing a barrage of hostile questions during the bill's second reading, he denied he was riding roughshod over democracy by giving MPs only three days to debate the 124-clause bill.

The anti-terrorism, crime and security bill was given a second reading by 458 votes to five, a government majority of 453, but faces a rough ride in its committee stage and when it goes to the Lords.

Ministers have allowed just three days to rush the bill through all its Commons stages.

Mr Blunkett said detailed proposals had been published on October 15, followed proper deliberation and were less draconian than if they had been published in the immediate aftermath of September 11. He repeatedly claimed that civil right lobbyists had misunderstood the proposals, which he said built on existing judicial practice.

The bill will allow the government to detain suspected foreign terrorists without proper trial if there is no safe third country to which they can be deported. The measure requires the government to opt out from aspects of the European convention on human rights. MORE

Bush Defends Order For Military Tribunals
Posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2001

President Bush said yesterday that his order allowing foreign terrorism suspects to be tried in military tribunals is "the absolute right thing to do," despite fears expressed by both liberals and conservatives that long-cherished principles of American justice could be compromised.

Bush signed an executive order last week allowing military trials of non-citizens who are members of the al Qaeda terrorist network or who are charged with aiding or committing acts of terrorism, or harboring terrorists. Such tribunals could be held in secret and could require a lower burden of proof for the government than a normal criminal proceeding. Civilians have not been subject to such trials since World War II. MORE

Pentagon builds case to bomb Iraq
Posted: Monday, November 19, 2001

WASHINGTON - Defense Department strategists are building a case for a massive bombing of Iraq as a new phase of President Bush's war against terrorism, congressional and Pentagon sources say. Proponents of attacking Iraq, spearheaded by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, are now arguing privately that still-elusive evidence linking Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's regime to the terrorist attacks Sept. 11 is not necessary to trigger a military strike. MORE

US accuses Iraq over biological weapons

As the US government eyes other places to bomb

The United States said today that it strongly suspects Iraq of building up a germ warfare program, but stopped short of saying that country might supply biological weapons to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

John R. Bolton, under-secretary of state for arms control, also told the 144 nations that have signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention that the US finds North Korea's biological weapons program "extrememly disturbing." MORE

Dna In The Usa: Patriot Act Allows Formation Of Database
Posted: Sunday, November 18, 2001

The United States will soon begin construction on a giant database containing DNA codes of criminal offenders.

Buried in the USA Patriot Act -- signed into law by President Bush last month -- is a provision that allows for the government collection of a person's DNA for "qualifying Federal offenses, as determined by the Attorney General."

The DNA development has gone unreported in the nation's mainpress.

Section 503 of the Patriot Act now requires persons convicted of terrorism offenses and other crimes of violence to submit to DNA samples. MORE

Newsweek: Bush Insisted Only He Should Decide Who Should Stand Trial Before Military Court
Posted: Sunday, November 18, 2001

Secret Legal Document Gave Bush Wartime Powers, Including Holding Secret Tribunals

NEW YORK, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- After he signed an order allowing the use of military tribunals in terrorist cases, President George W. Bush insisted he alone should decide who goes before such a military court, his aides tell Newsweek. The tribunal document gives the government the power to try, sentence -- and even execute -- suspected foreign terrorists in secrecy, under special rules that would deny them constitutional rights and allow no chance to appeal.

Bush's powers to form a military court came from a secret legal memorandum, which the U.S. Justice Department began drafting in the days after Sept. 11, Newsweek has learned. The memo allows Bush to invoke his broad wartime powers, since the U.S., they concluded, was in a state of "armed conflict." Bush used the memo as the legal basis for his order to bomb Afghanistan. Weeks later, the lawyers concluded that Bush would use his expanded powers to form a military court for captured terrorists. Officials envision holding the trials on aircraft carriers or desert islands, report Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff and Contributing Editor Stuart Taylor Jr. in the November 26 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, November 19). MORE

Spectacular Leonid Meteor Coming
Posted: Sunday, November 18, 2001

Scientists are predicting the most spectacular meteor shower in our lifetime will occur this weekend when the Leonid meteors appear over North America.
The following is a Q&A about the celestial show

A less belligerent tone to Israel's rhetoric
Posted: Saturday, November 17, 2001

The meeting between Arafat and Peres on the fringes of the Euro-Med Formentor Symposium last week reveals just how far apart the Palestinian and Israel positions are at present. Peres took pains to ensure that the get-together was little more than a formality, stressing that he would meet with Arafat but not negotiate with him.

The distance between the two sides was apparent in their speeches to the forum. Arafat was precise, realistic and constructive, focussing on the causes of spiraling tensions. The Israeli occupation must end, he said, and an independent Palestinian state be created with Jerusalem as its capital. He declared that the PA was ready to enter into serious negotiations immediately, but stressed that Israel must withdraw its forces from PA controlled areas, lift the 14-month old blockade and halt an assassination policy that is jeopardising regional stability.

Peres' speech, by contrast, was vague and deceptive. He said that the Israelis want to live as friends and neighbours alongside the Palestinians, but they do not want to commit suicide. The obstacle to peace is the problem of security. If the Palestinians cannot ensure security, then the Israelis, however unwillingly, must do so. Peres went on to say that the Palestinians were responsible for the current deadlock, but that if the PA clamped down on illegal arms then Israel would be able to reach a solution with the Palestinians. He added that Sharon was prepared to make painful concessions, and that the problem was not land, but security. MORE

New regime is evil, warns refugee
Posted: Friday, November 16, 2001

A LEADING Afghan refugee has called on Britain and America to save his homeland from the "rapists and gangsters" who have stormed to power in his home country.

Mohammad Narveen Asif, who fled Afghanistan two years ago for refuge in Glasgow, voiced concern that "one evil has gone and another evil has come to take its place".

Speaking to The Scotsman last night, the refugee spokesman added: "I spoke to a friend in Afghanistan less than half-an-hour ago and I was told that houses are being looted and robbed, and the country is being divided. MORE

UN troops pull out of Lebanon as tensions mount near Israel border

NICOSIA — The United Nations is sharply reducing its peacekeeping force in Lebanon amid increasing tension in the south.

So far, Finland, Ireland, Nepal and Sweden have pulled their troops out of southern Lebanon. On Tuesday, the last members of the 650-member Irish contingent left Lebanon.

Lebanon has appeared jittery over the UN withdrawal. Beirut has urged the world body to maintain its peacekeeping and demining operations in southern Lebanon. MORE

Schroeder: Europe Opposes War Beyond Afghanistan

BERLIN (Reuters) - Several European Union states oppose widening the U.S.-led war on terrorism beyond Afghanistan, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said on Friday.

"Britain, France, Germany and others agree with each other that this would be wrong to do," Schroeder told ZDF television when asked about the possibility of widening the war.

Some members of the U.S. administration have hinted that the war on terrorism could extend beyond Afghanistan. One possible target could be Iraq, amid clues of contacts Baghdad had with the leader of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. From

Israel Coalition Faces New Strains; Violence Flares

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's ruling coalition faced new strains on Friday after Foreign Minister Shimon Peres expressed support for Palestinian statehood, and violence flared in the West Bank following Muslim prayers for Ramadan. From

Alliance tanks crush 520 defiant Taleban fighters to death

HUNDREDS of Taleban soldiers trapped in a school were shot and crushed by tanks when the strategic northern city of Mazar-i Sharif fell to the Northern Alliance at the weekend.

According to the Alliance 520 Taleban soldiers were killed when they refused to surrender after the Alliance swept into the city. MORE

Massacre threat to Taleban's foreigners

NORTHERN ALLIANCE forces have threatened to massacre up to 6,000 foreigners fighting with the Taleban in the besieged province of Konduz.

Local fighters would be given a chance to surrender, but Alliance commanders said they had given their troops explicit orders to shoot every foreign fundamentalist - including a handful of British Muslims - among the enemy ranks. MORE

Seizing Dictatorial Power
Posted: Thursday, November 15, 2001

By WILLIAM SAFIRE
ABSTRACT NY TIMES

Misadvised by a frustrated and panic-stricken attorney general, a president of the United States has just assumed what amounts to dictatorial power to jail or execute aliens. Intimidated by terrorists and inflamed by a passion for rough justice, we are letting George W. Bush get away with the replacement of the American rule of law with military kangaroo courts.

In his infamous emergency order, Bush admits to dismissing "the principles of law and the rules of evidence" that undergird America's system of justice. He seizes the power to circumvent the courts and set up his own drumhead tribunals — panels of officers who will sit in judgment of non-citizens who the president need only claim "reason to believe" are members of terrorist organizations.

Not content with his previous decision to permit police to eavesdrop on a suspect's conversations with an attorney, Bush now strips the alien accused of even the limited rights afforded by a court-martial.

His kangaroo court can conceal evidence by citing national security, make up its own rules, find a defendant guilty even if a third of the officers disagree, and execute the alien with no review by any civilian court.

No longer does the judicial branch and an independent jury stand between the government and the accused. In lieu of those checks and balances central to our legal system, non-citizens face an executive that is now investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and jailer or executioner. In an Orwellian twist, Bush's order calls this Soviet-style abomination "a full and fair trial."

On what legal meat does this our Caesar feed? One precedent the White House cites is a military court after Lincoln's assassination. (During the Civil War, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus; does our war on terror require illegal imprisonment next?) Another is a military court's hanging, approved by the Supreme Court, of German saboteurs landed by submarine in World War II.

Proponents of Bush's kangaroo court say: Don't you soft-on-terror, due-process types know there's a war on? Have you forgotten our 5,000 civilian dead? In an emergency like this, aren't extraordinary security measures needed to save citizens' lives? If we step on a few toes, we can apologize to the civil libertarians later.

Those are the arguments of the phony-tough. At a time when even liberals are debating the ethics of torture of suspects — weighing the distaste for barbarism against the need to save innocent lives — it's time for conservative iconoclasts and card-carrying hard-liners to stand up for American values.

Bush Order: Terror Trials by Military
Posted: Tuesday, November 13, 2001

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 - President Bush signed an order today allowing special military tribunals to try foreigners charged with terrorism. A senior administration official said that any such trials would "not necessarily" be public and that the American tribunals might operate in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

At the same time, the Justice Department has asked law enforcement authorities across the country to pick up and question 5,000 men, most from Middle Eastern countries, who entered the country legally in the last two years.

Mr. Bush signed the order allowing for the military tribunals shortly before leaving this afternoon for his ranch in Crawford, Tex. White House officials said the order did not create a military tribunal or a list of terrorists to be tried. Instead, they said, it was an "option" that the president would have should Osama bin Laden or his associates in Al Qaeda be captured. If the tribunals were created, it would be the first time since World War II that such an approach was used, officials said.

Under the order, the president himself is to determine who is an accused terrorist and therefore subject to trial by the tribunal. The order states that the president may "determine from time to time in writing that there is reason to believe" that an individual is a member of Al Qaeda, has engaged in acts of international terrorism or has "knowingly harbored" a terrorist.

In order to make such a finding, the president needs information, and obtaining information about Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorist acts is the goal of the Justice Department's effort to find and interview the 5,000 men, department officials said.

The people being sought are not believed to be terrorism suspects, and they will not be placed under arrest, the officials said. The interviews are intended to be voluntary.

Nonetheless, officials at the American Civil Liberties Union condemned the Justice Department effort, as well as the executive order allowing military tribunals.

Steven Shapiro, the national legal director of the A.C.L.U., called the effort to interview the 5,000 men a "dragnet approach that is likely to magnify concerns of racial and ethnic profiling."

Laura W. Murphy, the director of the A.C.L.U. Washington National Office, described the order regarding tribunals as "deeply disturbing and further evidence that the administration is totally unwilling to abide by the checks and balances that are so central to our democracy." MORE

Suspected terrorists will not see evidence

Suspected foreign terrorists will be interned indefinitely, without knowing the evidence against them, under emergency proposals published yesterday.
Foreigners already given asylum or extended leave to remain in Britain will be at risk of being held in a top-security jail if there is evidence that they are linked to terrorism.

The measure, which the Government wants to be law by Christmas, is aimed at about 16 suspects who are already using Britain as a safe haven.

Among those at risk are Abu Quatad, a Palestinian sentenced to life imprisonment in Jordan for alleged involvement in a series of explosions. He has been described as "bin Laden's roving ambassador in Europe". Another is Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, founder of al-Muhajiroun, which wants to create a worldwide Islamic state. MORE

Comment: Seizing Dictatorial Power

US plane bombs Kabul, al-Jazeera office targeted
Posted: Tuesday, November 13, 2001

KABUL: A US warplane dropped at least two bombs on the Afghan capital Kabul in the early hours of Tuesday morning, sparking a large fire in the southeast of the city, residents said.

One of the buildings targeted was the office of the Qatari-based satellite television channel, Al-Jazeera, which has broadcast videotaped messages from alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden and his deputies since the September 11 atrocities in New York and Washington.

The office was destroyed in the attack but neighbours said they believed it was empty and there were no known casualties. The plane flew over Kabul at 1:30 am (2100 GMT Monday) and two loud explosions were heard.

Minutes later an AFP reporter saw a fire burning in the southeast of Kabul, casting a red glow over the night sky. The bodies of several Taliban soldiers, apparently victims of the overnight raids, were seen lying on the streets in the morning as opposition security forces moved into the city.

The Taliban evacuated overnight after a lightning opposition advance across the front lines north of here on Monday. US planes also attacked Taliban positions north of Kabul as well as western Herat and southern Ghazni overnight Monday, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported.

Five Taliban soldiers died and several were wounded when warplanes bombarded a Taliban military base in Ghazni for the first time since the air strikes began on October 7. US planes also pounded Shamshad town, eight kilometers from the Torkham border post between Pakistan and Afghanistan. One Taliban soldier was injured in the attack. The Taliban's southern bastion of Kandahar was also attacked but details were not available.

U.S. tightens visa restrictions on Arabs
Posted: Tuesday, November 13, 2001

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The United States has increased visa restrictions on applicants from a range of Arab and Islamic countries.

U.S. officials said the move is meant to allow for greater examination of applicants that match a profile similar to the Islamic suicide attackers that destroyed the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon on Sept. 11. The officials said scores of people from Arab and Islamic countries have already been placed on a black list and ineligible to enter the United States. MORE

Israeli troops kill Hamas member

The Israeli army entered a West Bank village before dawn on Monday, killing a member of the Palestinian militant group Hamas who had been suspected of the deaths of two Jewish settlers.
Local people said soldiers accompanied by tanks and an armoured bulldozer entered Tell shortly after 0300 (0100GMT). BBC MORE

Giuliani: Oh my God, not again

AN AMERICAN Airlines plane with 255 people on board broke up in mid-air and ploughed into 12 homes in New York yesterday, rocking the city with another catastrophe two months and a day after the World Trade Centre attacks.

Several houses in the Rockaway Beach neighbourhood in the borough of Queens were engulfed by flames after being struck by the aircraft or its debris. More than 200 firefighters were dispatched to the burning neighbourhood to bring at least four separate blazes under control.

There were immediate suspicions that the incident was another terrorist attack, but it later appeared that it was more likely the result of massive engine failure. The Associated Press quoted an unnamed senior Bush administration official as saying: "It’s looking like it’s not a terrorist attack." MORE

U.S. Congress pressures allies to pay more for war
Posted: Tuesday, November 13, 2001

Pressure is growing in Congress for the allies of the United States not merely to help the war on terrorism but to pay for it. With the cost of the action in Afghanistan now put at $1bn (£700m) a month influential figures are drawing comparisons with the Gulf war, which was largely funded by oil-rich Arab countries.

"Are our allies going to start putting up money, or just troops or ships?" Representative Norm Dicks, a hawkish Democrat in the House appropriations committee said to the New York Times. "One measure of their level of support this time will be how much money they are willing to put up."

The paper quoted both Congressional and administration officials in arriving at the $1bn cost figure would be less than $4 - well under £3 - for every American, which could be comfortably covered without reversing President George Bush's recent tax cut. But this figure is expected to soar if and when large numbers of ground troops go into Afghanistan. MORE

Bush pledges Palestinian state after pressure from Saudis

WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia succeeded in pressuring President George Bush to reaffirm a U.S. pledge to help establish a Palestinian state.

U.S. officials said Saudi anger at the Bush administration prompted the president to revise his original speech to the United National General Assembly and include Washington's support for a Palestinian state and a solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The original draft was to have dealt exclusively with the U.S.-led war against international terrorism. MORE

Should we blame Naipaul?
Posted: Monday, November 12, 2001

By Auliana Poon
Jamaica Gleaner
IT IS not so nice when someone of the stature of the Nobel Prize winner, V. S. Naipaul, refuses to accept and acknowledge the fact that he was born in Trinidad and Tobago.

Let this be a lesson for all of us. It is easy to condemn Naipaul for his stand. But how many of us blame the past for our perils today?

How many of us can say that we are truly grateful for our past because it has crafted us and made us what we are today?

But I can tell you, the day that I became grateful for the fact that I was born in Trinidad and Tobago; grateful to Britain for enslaving and indenturing my ancestors; for bringing them to the New World, - to Trinidad and Tobago - just to produce this tiny little soul - this Auliana Poon; that was the day - a day not too long ago - the day that I was truly free; that I was finally emancipated! MORE

News
Posted: Monday, November 12, 2001

Israeli Arab Lawmaker Indicted

JERUSALEM -- An Israeli Arab lawmaker who, in speeches in Syria and at home, has praised Lebanese guerrillas for causing the Israeli army's withdrawal from south Lebanon, was charged Monday with incitement to violence.

The legislator, Azmi Bishara, said he is innocent and will prove this in court.

The charges were submitted in a Jerusalem court. A second indictment, for allegedly organizing illegal trips to Syria for Arab Israelis, was filed against Bishara in his hometown of Nazareth. MORE

General: Russians to Leave Chechnya

MOSCOW -- The top Russian military commander in Chechnya said Monday that most federal troops will be withdrawn from the breakaway republic by next spring, Russian news reports said.

Gen. Gennady Troshev said that only units stationed in Chechnya on a permanent basis will remain, the Interfax news agency reported. Those units are the Defense Ministry's 42nd motor-rifle division and the Interior Ministry's 46th brigade.

Troshev said that the withdrawal of the federal troops was part of a planned schedule to reduce the military presence in Chechnya. Troops will begin leaving early next year, he said. Similar troop withdrawals have been announced in the past, but not put into effect. MORE

American Airlines Jet Crashes in New York City
Posted: Monday, November 12, 2001

Just when they thought it was safe to go back in the skies....

An American Airlines flight crashed in New York.

Flight 587 took off from N.Y.'s John F. Kennedy International Airport and was headed to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

There were 246 passengers and a crew of 9 on board the aircraft.

At least four buildings in the Rockaway Beach area of the city's borough of Queens are on fire.

It is not known why the aircraft crashed or how many people were on board, or in the buildings now ablaze.

New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani is on his way to the crash site and has called a level one alert.

The pentagon says no terrorist attack suspected.

Crash investigators rule out nothing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Authorities are scrambling to determine what caused the crash of an American Airlines Airbus A300-600 jetliner in New York, with the government ruling nothing out but taking steps consistent with a safety probe rather than a criminal one. MORE

FBI says no sign crash was terror attack

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI, on high alert after the September 11 attacks, says there is no indication that the crash of an American Airlines jet in New York was a terror attack or that there was an explosion on board. MORE

MORE NEWS ON CRASH

News
Posted: Sunday, November 11, 2001

New York Times attacks erosion of civil liberties

Growing fears in America about the emergency security measures introduced after the 11 September attacks culminated yesterday in a ferocious editorial in the New York Times denouncing the curbing of basic freedoms.
In an unusually strident leading article, the newspaper said: 'Civil liberties are eroding, and there is no evidence that the reason is anything more profound than fear and frustration.

'Thousands of detainees being held in secret by the government; wiretaps on prisoners' conversations with their lawyers; public debate about the advisability of using torture to make suspects talk,' it said.

'Two months into the war against terrorism, the nation is sliding toward the trap that we entered this conflict vowing to avoid. It is time the White House stepped in... the Justice Department can investigate domestic attacks while respecting the basic rights that we are in this war to preserve.' MORE

Britain placed under state of emergency

Britain is to be placed under a state of 'public emergency' as part of an unprecedented government move to allow internment without trial of suspected terrorists.

In a historic initiative that will incense civil liberties groups, David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, will lay the order before the House of Commons in the next 48 hours, to be followed by anti-terrorist legislation which will be rushed through in the next four weeks.

The order, which says the events of 11 September are 'threatening the life of the nation', will allow Britain to opt out of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which bans detention without trial.

It will pave the way for indefinite imprisonment of foreign nationals who the Government suspects are terrorists, and comes less than 24 hours after warnings from America that Britain is a top target for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network. MORE

In the War on Terrorism, New Life for Propaganda

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 Late last month, Karen P. Hughes, the White House communications director, met with her British counterpart to join forces in what may be the most ambitious wartime communications effort since World War II.

The two officials agreed that there was an urgent need to combat the Taliban's daily denunciations of the American bombing campaign in Afghanistan, vitriol that was going unchallenged across the Islamic world. Soon they had set up a round-the- clock war news bureau in Pakistan and a network of war offices linking Washington, London and Islamabad that help develop a "message of the day." MORE

Iraq 'still on Bush list of target states'

PRESIDENT BUSH still has his sights set on taking action against other countries known to sponsor terrorist organisations, including Iraq and Syria, according to Richard Perle, a former US Assistant Secretary of Defence, who is close to the Administration.

Mr Perle said yesterday that after the present operation against the Taleban and the al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan had been completed successfully, “phase two” of the war on terrorism would switch to the other suspect countries. Apart from Iraq and Syria, he named Lebanon, North Korea, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Somalia. MORE

US-Saudi relations confused

THE Saudis were furious; the Americans were worried. So President George W. Bush called Crown Prince Abdullah to apologise – for the US media.

"He began the conversation by saying he was sorry," a triumphant Prince Abdullah told his people on national television last weekend, seething over US media reports linking his country to terrorism. MORE

News
Posted: Thursday, November 8, 2001

Putin Warns Against 'Double Standards' on Terrorism

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that any double standards in the international fight against terrorism could split the global coalition formed after the September 11 attacks on U.S. landmarks.

Putin was addressing journalists after Kremlin talks with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who has embarked on a tour of allies to ensure Delhi's voice is heard on the makeup of any future Afghan government. The Russian leader said after their talks that India's views had to be taken into account. MORE

Vatican Rips U.N. 'Sex Manual'

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican yesterday blasted the U.N.'s refugee agency, saying a field manual it published on reproductive health offends the dignity of people because it promotes irresponsible sexual relations and abortion.

The Vatican criticism is contained in a document sent to bishops conferences around the world. Called "The Reproductive Health of Refugees," it is intended for Catholics who work with refugees. MORE

Palestinians blast U.S. policy

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian officials have accused the United States of giving in to Israeli demands by ruling out talks at the weekend between President George W. Bush and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

In fresh violence, Palestinian gunmen shot dead an Israeli woman motorist near the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank, Israeli police said. The vehicle overturned after it was shot at on a road used by both Palestinians and Jewish settlers. MORE

Government proposes rule to eavesdrop on phone calls between lawyers and clients in terrorist probe

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government says it can get around attorney-client confidentiality as it investigates the terrorist attacks by allowing prisons to monitor phone calls and mail of some of those jailed after Sept. 11.

A rule published Oct. 31 in the Federal Register says the monitoring can take place when Attorney General John Ashcroft concludes there is "reasonable suspicion" that the communications are designed to further terrorist acts. The rule went into effect the day before it became public.

"The immediate implementation of this interim rule without public comment is necessary to ensure" that the Justice Department "is able to respond to current intelligence and law enforcement concerns relating to threats to the national security or risks of terrorism or violent crimes," the new rule states. MORE

Sedition Law Used to Hold Suspects

WASHINGTON (AP) - Prosecutors seeking to hold people they suspect were in the early stages of terrorist plots may turn anew to a very old weapon - the Civil War-era law on sedition.

Last week, prosecutors cited the rarely invoked law in the case of a student being detained in New York, and hinted they might make fuller use of it in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

With roots in laws that date back more than 200 years, the statute gives the government great flexibility in assembling prosecutions against people who plan but don't carry out criminal acts against the United States. MORE

Three killed in Pakistan violence

Three people were killed and four wounded in central Pakistan today when police opened fire on protesters blocking a railway in a pro-Taliban demonstration, reports said.
The violence came as Islamic fundamentalists were staging a nationwide strike today to protest at the pro-US policies of Pakistan's military leader, President Pervez Musharraf, bringing many parts of the country to a halt. MORE

Splits open in UK-US alliance

THE GUARDIAN - British ministers privately expressed frustration yesterday with the US prosecution of the war against terrorism, the first sign of serious differences between London and Washington since the attacks on September 11.

Although Tony Blair saw his quick trip to Washington this week as an opportunity to cement Britain's position as the No 1 ally of the US, unease is growing in Whitehall.

There is concern on both the military and diplomatic fronts over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the bombing strategy; perceived lack of US consultation with its allies; and insufficient US focus on the humanitarian crisis.

The British government is also intent on opposing the expansion of the war beyond Afghanistan and is horrified at elements within the Pentagon pushing for an all-out assault on Iraq. MORE

Musharraf calls for halt in bombing

TONY Blair was embroiled in a new diplomatic row yesterday after Gen Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan, contravened the wishes of the coalition by calling for a halt in the bombing campaign during Ramadan. MORE

United Nations and European Union sidelined

"The past two months have been good ones for leaders of large nation-states with relatively significant military capabilities," writes Anne Applebaum. For the United Nations and the European Union, however, "they've been an unmitigated disaster," she says. In this period of multi-national crises and coalitions, supposedly important multi-lateral organizations have been embarassingly sidelined while the US and its European allies call the real shots, says Applebaum. MORE

Clinton: U.S. Is Paying Price For Past Injustices Against Blacks, Native Americans
Posted: Thursday, November 8, 2001

By Joseph Curl www.washtimes.com

Bill Clinton, the former president, said yesterday that terror has existed in America for hundreds of years and the nation is "paying a price today" for its past of slavery and for looking "the other way when a significant number of native Americans were dispossessed and killed."

"Here in the United States, we were founded as a nation that practiced slavery, and slaves quite frequently were killed even though they were innocent," said Mr. Clinton in a speech to nearly 1,000 students at Georgetown University's ornate Gaston Hall.

"This country once looked the other way when a significant number of native Americans were dispossessed and killed to get their land or their mineral rights or because they were thought of as less than fully human.

"And we are still paying a price today," said Mr. Clinton MORE

Blair appeals to Bush: Push for peace in Middle East

By Andrew Grice and Rupert Cornwell in Washington
http://news.independent.co.uk
Tony Blair is urging President George Bush to throw the full weight of the United States behind a new push for peace in the Middle East.

At the White House last night, the Prime Minister warned that Arab and Muslim countries would not fully support the war on terrorism unless they were convinced America and its allies were committed to a long-term solution in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Publicly too, Mr Blair said that the Middle East could not be neglected. Triumph over Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network was not conditional on progress in the Middle East. Success was certain and he accused Mr bin Laden of "hijacking" the Arab-Israeli conflict to further a propaganda war against the West. MORE

US raid 'kills 85 Pakistani militants'

A Pakistani militant group fighting with the Taleban says it has lost 85 fighters near the northern Afghan town of Mazar-e-Sharif.

Abu Okasha, a spokesman for Harkat-e-Jihad-e-Islami, told the BBC that the fighters were killed in a US bombing raid in the Darra-e-Souf area south of the town on Thursday. MORE

Postal worker suspected he had anthrax

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A postal worker who died of inhalation anthrax last month knew he had been exposed to a suspicious letter and tried to tell postal officials, apparently to no avail.

In a 911 call placed just hours before his death October 21, Thomas Morris Jr. requested an ambulance and described symptoms consistent with the inhalation form of the disease. MORE

News
Posted: Wednesday, November 7, 2001

While the US government tries to rope in the entire world into their silly campaign in Afghanistan and they continue to finance Israel's terror on Palestine they call on Yasser Arafat to lower violence.

Bush Won't Meet Arafat at U.N.

WASHINGTON - President Bush will not see Yasser Arafat at the United Nations this weekend, believing the Palestinian leader does not take seriously the U.S. war on terrorism and the al-Qaida terror network, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Thursday.

"There are responsibilities that come with being the representative of the Palestinian people and that means to make certain that you do everything you can to lower the level of violence, everything that you can to root out terrorists," Rice said. MORE

Gunman killed after firing on Qatar airbase

DOHA (Reuters) - Security guards have shot dead a Qatari man after he opened fire on an airbase used by U.S. warplanes in the Gulf Arab state, which this week hosts a meeting of the WTO, a Qatari security source and diplomats say. MORE

Two Gunmen Kill Basque Region Judge

MADRID, Spain -- Suspected members of the Basque separatist group ETA shot and killed a provincial judge in Spain's northern Basque country, police said Wednesday, a day after the group was blamed for a car bomb in Madrid that injured nearly 100 people. MORE

Ghaddafi's son mediates case of jailed Western aid workers

Berlin, Nov 7, IRNA -- One of the sons of Libyan leader Moammar Ghaddafi, acting as a mediator on behalf of the Taliban militia in the case of the imprisoned eight Western aid workers, met here Tuesday with the head of the German chancellory, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Berlin-based Tagesspiegel newspaper reported Wednesday.

The 29-year-old Saif al Islam Ghaddafi, refusing to divulge details of his meeting with Steinmeier, confirmed in an interview with the daily that the Taliban had requested his help in mediating the stalled case of the relief workers.

He added that the Taliban demanded "politcial concessions" in exchange for the release of the aid workers.

The relief workers, among them four Germans, two Americans and two Australians, were arrested along with 16 Afghans by Taliban's religious police on August 5 following a raid on the office of the non-government organization 'Shelter Now International' (SNI).

SNI was originally founded in Afghanistan more than two decades ago by the US-based Christian relief agency.

Sharon wants 1m new Jews for Israel

The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, threatens to provoke a fresh row with the Palestinians today by warning that he has a plan to bring 1m more Jews to Israel.
Mr Sharon made the controversial remarks in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.

A wave of Jewish immigration on that scale would be ve hemently opposed by the Palestinians, who fear many of the immigrants would be sent to reinforce Jewish settlers living illegally on Palestinian territory in the West Bank and Gaza. MORE

America turns up the heat

THE drive for a pre-winter military breakthrough in Afghanistan took off yesterday, with a dramatic escalation in US bombing clearing the way for the first significant advance in weeks by the Northern Alliance.
The US deployed for the first time its fearsome 15,000lb "daisy cutter" fuel-air bombs, guided by scores of American special forces troops who were dropped on to Afghan soil at the weekend. MORE

Pentagon Should Get Extra $20 Billion -White House

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House proposed on Monday that the Pentagon get about half of a $40 billion emergency package to respond to the Sept. 11 attacks, while it warned Congress not to use the war on terrorism as an excuse to raid the federal treasury further. MORE

America as neighbour; but India not worried

In an occasional jab at belittling Pakistan, BJP foreign policy experts like to point out that long before that country and Afghanistan came into existence, India shared a common border with the Persian civilisation. Now something new is afoot at the start of the 21st century. The way things are going, the United States could soon be straddling India and Iran, creating an unprecedented American pocket of influence in the region. MORE

Anthrax threat from within US

ABSTRACT: BBC

This is Anthrax, have a nice death
Letter sent to US abortion clinics

It is a complex investigation made worse by the fact that more than 2,500 anthrax scares in the United States have turned out to be false alarms.

The National Abortion Federation (FAN) in Washington DC says about 200 "anthrax" letters have been received at abortion clinics around the country. The letters contain white powder, some bear the text: "This is Anthrax, have a nice death."

Some are signed by an organisation called the "Army of God", an underground, violent, anti-abortion movement.

"We know law enforcement officials are taking them very seriously because we don't know if any of them will test positive for anthrax," said Vicky Sapporta of the National Abortion Federation.

The letters are being tested in laboratories to see if the powder is real anthrax, but not all the results are back yet. So far none of the letters sent to the abortion clinics have tested positive.

A three-hour drive from the capital, in the woods of Virginia we tracked down an Army of God activist: a balding, middle aged man called Reverend Donald Spitz.

The Army of God openly supports violence as a means of fighting abortion. Several of its members are in jail.

But the Rev Spitz is not. He lives in a wooden house, with his dogs caged in one of the bedrooms. He keeps guns in his home, and he believes that the FBI searches his premises occasionally when he is out.

He admits that his organisation has sent the letters but would not tell us if his organisation had access to real biological weapons. He did, however, believe that using anthrax against his enemies was legitimate.

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.

Bush uses nuclear threat to keep allies in line
Posted: Tuesday, November 6, 2001

Mr Bush threatened some allies with action for moderate support.

"A coalition-builder must do more than just express sympathy. A coalition-builder must perform," the president said. "All nations, if they want to fight terrorism, must do something. It's time for action."

In Warsaw, he warned of the nuclear threat from al-Qaida. "They're seeking chemical, biological and nuclear weapons," he said. "Given the means, our enemies would be a threat to every nation; and, eventually, to civilisation itself. So, we're determined to fight this evil and fight until we are rid of it. We will not wait for more innocent deaths."

When Bush was questioned about this later, he said:
"I did say that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida were seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction. And the reason I said that is because I was using his own words. He announced that this was his intention, and I believe we need to take him seriously.

"If he does have them, we will work hard to make sure he doesn't. If he does, we'll make sure he doesn't deploy them. This is an evil man that we're dealing with, and I wouldn't put it past him to develop evil weapons to try to harm civilisation as we know it."

"We are at the beginning of our efforts in Afghanistan. And Afghanistan is the beginning of our efforts in the world."

Israel rejects deployment of int'l observers
Posted: Tuesday, November 6, 2001

Brussels, Nov 6, IRNA -- The foreign minister of the Zionist regime, Shimon Peres, Tuesday rejected the idea of deployment of international observers in Palestine to end the cycle of violence and bloodshed.

Speaking at a press conference, Peres claimed that "terrorist groups" will not let the international observers do their work. He said the issue of international observers was not discussed in the meeting with Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt here on Monday.

Verhofstadt, whose country holds the current EU Presidency, told the press on Monday that the EU has given him the mandate to begin efforts for new political dialogue for peace in the Middle East.

He said a minimum amount of security measures should be adopted by both the Palestinian and Israeli side. The Belgian official did not give details of the security measures that he wished to propose.

Peres was in Brussles to take part in the Euro-Mediterranean Conference of Foreign Ministers.

Asked on reports saying that a Palestinian state might be declared by the UN General Assembly during its current session that begins on 10 November, Peres said any one-sided move will create more problems.

Peres said Israel will not withdraw its troops from PA-territories until the PA arrests the "terrorists" and puts them on trial.

On his meeting with PA-Chairman Yasser Arafat in Brussels Monday night, Peres said he was reluctant to meet Arafat but did so on the behest of the Belgian EU Presidency, adding that such meetinsg did not produce any results.

Police Detain Turks Smuggling Uranium

ANKARA, Turkey -- Undercover police arrested an ambulance driver and his friend in a sting operation as they tried to sell agents uranium smuggled from the former Soviet Union, the Turkish news agency reported Tuesday.

The Anatolia Agency said it was not clear if the 3.52 pounds of uranium was enriched for use in weapons or reactors.

Undercover agents arrested the two in Istanbul after they showed up in an ambulance to make the sale. The uranium was wrapped in newspaper and the men demanded $750,000, Anatolia said. MORE

Iranians E-Mail Criticism to D.C.

TEHRAN, Iran -- The former U.S. Embassy in Tehran is once again the scene of anti-American protests, but now there are no angry shouts, just the clicking of keyboards.

More than 20 years after Iranian students took over the embassy, 7-year-old Mohammad Abbasi used a computer terminal at the site Tuesday to send a message to Washington.

"Why America is killing Afghan children? Are they terrorists?" Mohammad asked President Bush in an e-mail about the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan. MORE

News
Posted: Monday, November 5, 2001

Taliban halt alliance's advance

The Taliban won back a key northern district yesterday after almost 12 hours of fierce fighting, halting the opposition Northern Alliance's first significant advance towards Mazar-e-Sharif since United States-led forces began bombing in Afghanistan nearly one month ago.

As the US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, embarked on a whirlwind trip through Russia and Central Asia to shore up support for America's continuing bombing campaign, Osama bin Laden appeared on television, portraying the attacks against Afghanistan as a war against Islam and saying that the people had done nothing to deserve such an onslaught. MORE

Snowfall in Hindukush, Kabul may elude US

KHWAJA BAHAUDDIN, Afghanistan: The United States warplanes carried out intensive bombing of Taliban positions in northeast Afghanistan near the frontier with Tajikistan early on Sunday, witnesses said.

However, speculation that Kabul could shortly be snatched from the Taliban is fading fast. The first snow has appeared on the Hindukush mountain range and Kabul looks set to elude the United States or Northern Alliance until 2002 at the earliest. MORE

'The Americans don't know what they're getting into ... People here think nothing of killing'

Death came out of an autumn sky yesterday that was as blue and cloudless as it was on that fateful September morning in New York.

Horsemen fording the rapids of the Kokche river paused in midstream to look. Locals crowded on top of crumbling mud walls. The day was so clear you could see the sun glittering off the snowy peaks of the Hindu Kush in the far distance. MORE

News
Posted: Saturday, November 3, 2001

Hurricane Michelle gathered strength for a strike

HAVANA (AP) - Hurricane Michelle gathered strength for a strike on Cuba as it crept across the western Caribbean Saturday on a course that could also take it to Florida or the Bahamas.

At 7 a.m. EST Saturday, Michelle had sustained winds of up to 130 mph and was centered about 205 miles south of the western tip of Cuba, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami reported. MORE

News
Posted: Friday, November 2, 2001

South Florida told to prepare for Hurricane Michelle

MIAMI -- Hurricane Michelle could strike Florida by Monday, bringing flooding and winds of up to 110 mph to the Keys and southern portions of the mainland, forecasters said today.

Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, said some computer simulations predict the storm will veer to the northeast after striking Cuba hard on Sunday, meaning Michelle would not hit Florida directly, although its effects would still be felt. MORE

Arab militants vow jihad against Israel

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Arab militant groups have vowed at a rally in Damascus to pursue a holy struggle against Israel, two days after visiting Prime Minister Tony Blair urged Syria to restrain extremists. MORE

Neo-Nazis attack Somalian asylum-seekers in east German town

Berlin, Nov 2, IRNA -- A group of right-wing extremist teenagers, hurling racial insults, attacked Tuesday evening two Somalian asylum-seekers in the east German town of Rathenow, injuring one of them, the press reported here Friday.

An unidentified 29-year-old Somalian suffered injuries to one of his hands during the assault, as police arrested several teenagers in connection with the hate crime.

Right-wing extremist assaults against foreigners have intensified in recent months, with almost daily reports of xenophobic attacks in the German media.

International human rights groups have harshly criticized the German government's inability and often times also unwillingness to halt the tide of neo-Nazi violence which has killed at least 100 foreigners and injured thousands of them over the past 10 years.

News
Posted: Thursday, November 1, 2001

The longest economic expansion in American history has ended.

The nation's economy shrank this summer for the first time in more than eight years, the government said yesterday, with businesses further cutting investment while consumers increased their purchases only slightly. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 played a key role, pushing an already-weak economy over the brink, analysts said, as travel temporarily stopped and spending briefly froze.

"The recession has begun," Stuart Hoffman, the chief economist of the PNC Financial Services Group (news/quote) in Pittsburgh, declared. "The fourth quarter will show an even deeper drop than the third quarter."

Leader Rules Out Any Talks or Relations With U.S.

TEHRAN The Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, said on Tuesday that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not support the United States to gain illegitimate interests in Afghanistan. MORE

U.S. Using Chemical Weapons on Afghans: **La Liberation**

TEHRAN The French daily ** La Liberation ** announced on Tuesday that the United States had used chemical weapons against the human shield in Afghanistan. MORE

Israel kills 2 more Palestinians; Blair begins visit

JERUSALEM, Nov 1 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Thursday on ways to end a year of violence shortly after an Israeli missile strike killed two Palestinian militants. MORE

Pakistan sends supplies to Taliban

The Taliban militia is receiving military and other supplies covertly from Pakistan despite the Islamabad government's backing for American military operations, according to U.S. officials.

The military goods, including ammunition and fuel, are being sent with the help of elements of the Pakistani government, said officials familiar with intelligence reports of the transfers. MORE

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