October 2001

U.S.nuclear threats against Afghanistan!
Posted: Wednesday, October 31, 2001

Dear friends,

I am herewith forwarding a mail that I read in "The Hindu" which says that the U.S. defense secretary has not ruled out the use of nuclear
weapons in Afghanistan!! The barbarism of this statement shocked me as it should truly shock you! I am refusing to believe that we are living in the twentieth century!

The USA has already flaunted international law by bombing innocent
Afghan people to catch a few people it believes to be those behind the terror attacks on the USA!

If the United States army has balls it has to send armed ground troops
to engage the Taliban instead of bombing innocent Afghan civilians from the air in order to catch those individuals who were former pals of the CIA and to overthrow the Taliban regime which was created by American support and funds in the first place!

But now the threat to use nuclear weapons by the U.S. defense secretary nauseates me and I really want to throw up!! I truly detest the USA and the American people for the first time in my life! The barbarism of threatening nuclear attacks against a country which has no modern army and the real possibility of nuking millions of Afghan people to their deaths just to catch a few individuals and to overthrow a regime originally created by America is cannibalistic to say the least!! This sort of cannibalism in the internet age is made possible only by the mindless, thoughtless and fascist support accorded by the ignorant and bigoted American people to their
Government!

I want you to do everything that is possible to prevent US Government
from using nuclear weapons in Afghanistan!! Please write a letter to the local newspaper, your member of parliament, senator or congressman or go out and protest!!

Stop this shameful cannibalistic threats from becoming a reality!

Please act now!

With regards,
Iniyan Elango (alias) R.S.Sridhar

The following is the report by "The Hindu":

N-weapons not ruled out?

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, OCT. 29. The Bush administration has refused to rule out
the possibility of using nuclear weapons in its campaign against
Afghanistan if the present military hardware is unable to flush out terrorists and their operational facilities from the underground tunnels and caves.

The Defence Secretary, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, maintained in a Sunday
talk show that "the 5,000 pound bombs are going to be able to do the job of hitting the Al-Qaeda in their underground facilities. But when pressed for an answer on whether or not the U.S. would rule out the use of nuclear weapons, especially the smaller tactical nuclear weapons, he said, "I don't rule out anything".

There has been at least one person on Capitol Hill - Congressman Steve
Buyer of Indiana - who has taken the position that if the United States is unable to make much headway with the 5000 pounders to penetrate and level the cave facilities of the Al- Qaeda, the administration should think about using tactical nuclear weapons, not the larger ones in the stockpile.

During the talk show, Mr. Rumsfeld was reminded that in the Gulf War,
the U.S. had deliberately refused to rule out a nuclear strike should Mr. Saddam Hussein resort to a nuclear, chemical or biological attack.

As far as the situation in Afghanistan was concerned, Mr. Rumsfeld
would go no more than reiterating what he had said on earlier occasions. "The U.S. has historically refused to rule out the use of weapons like that," the Defence Secretary remarked.

Pak. rejects 'even the thought'

B. Muralidhar Reddy reports from Islamabad:

Pakistan on Monday rejected "even the thought" of using nuclear
weapons tactically or otherwise in Afghanistan.

"We firmly and categorically reject even the thought of using nuclear
weapons tactically or otherwise," the Pakistan Foreign Office
spokesman, Mr. Riaz Mohammad Khan, told correspondents in response to a question about a statement attributed Mr. Rumsfeld on use of nuclear weapons in Afghanistan.

News
Posted: Wednesday, October 31, 2001

Israeli state terror claims two more Palestinian victims

Al-Khalil, Oct 31, IRNA -- Israel's state terror claimed two more Palestinian lives Wednesday, bringing to four the number of Palestinians assassinated by Israeli occupation troops on the West Bank in less than 12 hours.

Palestinian sources in Nablus said Israeli occupation troops strafed the two villages of Bezaria and Burqa with heavy machinegun fire, injuring and maiming many people.

The sources said that at least two of the wounded were left to bleed to death as the Israeli army refused to allow ambulances to take the two to hospital.

The identities of the two are still unknown.

Earlier, the Israeli occupation army assassinated a businessman in Tulkarm identified as Abdullah al-Jaroushi, apparently for his Islamic
ideas. MORE

Serious anthrax case in New York as postal scare widens

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New York suffered its first case of inhalation anthrax on Tuesday and spores were detected in three more postal facilities in the Washington area and Florida as U.S. authorities battled to find those responsible for the germ warfare attacks.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed on Tuesday that a critically ill Manhattan hospital worker had been infected with the deadliest form of anthrax, adding to fears that the germ warfare agent was spreading more widely through the mail. MORE

Bin Laden underwent treatment in July at Dubai American Hospital

Osama bin Laden underwent treatment in July at the American Hospital in Dubai where he met a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official, French daily Le Figaro and Radio France International reported.

Quoting "a witness, a professional partner of the administrative management of the hospital," they said the man suspected by the United States of being behind the September 11 terrorist attacks had arrived in Dubai on July 4 by air from Quetta, Pakistan.

He was immediately taken to the hospital for kidney treatment. He left the establishment on July 14, Le Figaro said.

During his stay, the daily said, the local CIA representative was seen going into bin Laden's room and "a few days later, the CIA man boasted to some friends of having visited the Saudi-born millionaire."

Quoting "an authoritative source," Le Figaro and the radio station said the CIA representative had been recalled to Washington on July 15. MORE

Rights Groups Seek Facts on Sept. 11 Detainees

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of 21 civil liberties, human rights and electronic privacy organizations filed a request under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act on Monday seeking information about individuals arrested or detained in America after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We have been deeply disappointed with the government's refusal to respond to our previous inquiries and to release information that would assure the American public that this crucial investigation is being conducted with the basic protections guaranteed by our laws," Gregory Nojeim, the associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington national office, said in a statement.

Nearly 1,000 people have been detained since the attacks on the United States, and rights groups say they have had trouble getting information on those held. MORE

BBC Escapes Censure Over Broadcast

LONDON -- Britain's television watchdog said Wednesday it would not censure the British Broadcasting Corp. over a television debate on the Sept. 11 terror attacks that drew more than 200 complaints from viewers.

The BBC has conceded that it was inappropriate to screen the "Question Time" debate just two days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Some 217 viewers complained to the Broadcasting Standards Commission about strong anti-American opinions expressed by members of the studio audience. One panelist, former U.S. ambassador to London Philip Lader, appeared close to tears after outbursts from audience members.

On Sept. 15, BBC director-general Greg Dyke conceded that the broadcast was inappropriate and apologized to offended viewers. MORE

Muslim Leader Condemns Afghan Strikes

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- In a speech at the American University of Beirut, a senior Muslim cleric with past ties to anti-American militants likened the U.S. bombardment of Afghanistan to the Sept. 11 attacks that prompted it.

Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah told an audience of about 450 that U.S. forces are "trying out their weaponry" and are killing civilians.

"What is the difference between the terrorism of those who crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and what the Americans are doing?" Fadlallah said. "In both cases, innocents are being killed." MORE

Muslim clerics threaten Musharraf

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- Thousands of Muslim clerics and their followers plan to enter the Pakistani capital Islamabad next week, and they vow to stay there as long as it takes to topple the government.

In a statement to the Pakistani press, the Afghan Defense Council said it has asked its followers to "come to Islamabad on Nov. 7 with food, tents and blankets and stay there as long as it takes to make the government change its Afghan policy. If it fails to do so, we will stay as long as it takes to change the government."

The council, an umbrella group of 19 religious parties, opposes President Pervez Musharraf's decision to back U.S. airstrikes on Afghanistan that began Oct. 7. The group also wants the Musharraf government to take back five air bases it has allowed U.S. forces to use for operations in Afghanistan and instead support Kabul's Taliban
regime. MORE

CNN Chief Orders 'Balance' in War News

The chairman of CNN has ordered his staff to balance images of civilian devastation in Afghan cities with reminders that the Taliban harbors murderous terrorists, saying it "seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan."

In a memo to his international correspondents, Walter Isaacson said: "As we get good reports from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, we must redouble our efforts to make sure we do not seem to be simply reporting from their vantage or perspective. We must talk about how the Taliban are using civilian shields and how the Taliban have harbored the terrorists responsible for killing close to 5,000 innocent people." MORE

Information Lockdown

Viewers of the old spy spoof Get Smart will remember the Cone of Silence--that giant plastic hair-salon dryer that descended over Maxwell Smart and Control when they held a sensitive conversation. Today, a Cone of Silence has descended over all of Washington: From four-star generals to lowly webmasters, the town is in information lockdown. Never in the nation's history has the flow of information from government to press and public been shut off so comprehensively and quickly as in the weeks following September 11. Much of the shutdown seems to have little to do with preventing future terrorism and everything to do with the Administration's laying down a new across-the-board standard for centralized control of the public's right to know. MORE

News
Posted: Tuesday, October 30, 2001

Lebanon hopes to draw Gulf investment away from US

BEIRUT, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri inaugurated on Tuesday a $150 million Saudi-managed real estate project that he hopes will mark a U-turn in Gulf investment after last month's attacks on the United States.

"The fact that this project comes after September 11 is very significant. Lebanon is resurrecting itself," Hariri said during the groundbreaking ceremony of Marina Towers, a luxury apartment complex overlooking a new $170 million marina in central Beirut.

Saudi Arabia warns over harassment

BBC - Saudi Arabia has said it will call on its citizens to return from the United States if harassment against them persists.
Following the 11 September suicide attacks, Saudi citizens living in the US have reported maltreatment and humiliation from both the public and the authorities. MORE

Israel stays put in West Bank despite U.S. demand

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has maintained its grip on Palestinian areas in the northern West Bank in defiance of the United States as reports emerge that Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is drafting a peace plan.

In the West Bank city of Jenin, Palestinian gunmen prepared for a deeper Israeli incursion and said they had placed home-made mines around the West Bank city and its refugee camp.

Peres said Israeli troops would leave Jenin and move away from other Palestinian-controlled cities only when Palestinians "will be ready to take over security and be in charge of tranquility".

The United States, keen to bolster Arab support for its anti-terror coalition, has demanded Israel withdraw from all Palestinian areas. MORE

Zimbabwe demands respect from EU

BBC - Zimbabwe's government has said it is ready to meet European Union demands for discussions on the country's human rights record.

But it is continuing to reject a warning from the EU that the country may face sanctions unless it stops intimidating political opponents, and allows European monitors in to observe next year's presidential election.

Foreign Affairs Minister Stan Mudenge said Zimbabwe is ready to engage the EU with an open mind but would not be dictated to.

"It is important that the international community understands that we are not going to accept the kind of ultimatums like the one we got on the subject of election observers," Mr Mudenge said. MORE

News
Posted: Monday, October 29, 2001

Four killed in French gun attack

A gunman this morning opened fire on passers by in the French city of Tours, killing at least four people and wounding about 10 others.
An assailant was captured in an underground parking lot across from the train station after he took refuge there, the region's police headquarters said.

The suspect, who injured in a scuffle with police, was taken to the hospital. Some news sources report that a second assailant evaded the police. MORE

New case of anthrax in US

A female New Jersey postal worker has become the eighth confirmed case of inhalation anthrax in the US, it was confirmed today, as health officials continued their search for evidence of contamination and thousands of Americans took preventive antibiotics.
Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, stressed that the New Jersey case was not a new instance of the disease, but one that had been listed as suspected anthrax. Lab tests confirmed the diagnosis yesterday, he said.

There have been 14 confirmed cases of anthrax in the outbreak, including eight inhalation versions of the disease. Six people in New York and New Jersey are being treated for the less dangerous skin form of anthrax and a number of other cases are suspected.

More than 10,000 people who may have been exposed to the bacteria have been urged to begin taking antibiotics as a precaution. MORE

Taliban claim arresting alleged CIA agent

KAVKAZ CENTER - Taliban have claimed arresting an American at Spin Buldock on the Pak-Afghan joint border.Taliban authorities say documents recovered from him shows that his name is Mazhar Ayub and he was arrested when he was entering Spin Buldock from Chamman. Qari Abdul Wakil, a Taliban official says that the arrested man has served in the U.S. army from 1971 to 1991. He has also fought during the Vietnam war. He had also worked for the CNN from 1992 to 1998. After 1998, he visited Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar where he recently worked with the UNCHR in the refugee camps.

According to NNI, Taliban official said that Ayub was giving information to the Americans and other Western countries about the Afghans. Taliban also think that his name could not be Mazhar Ayub. They recovered form him maps of Afghanistan and other information and books on Afghanistan. MORE

Iran Should Remain Neutral on Afghan Issue

TEHRAN Since the U.S. war on Afghanistan is lasting longer than expected, a difference of opinion has occurred in Iran. Some believe that Iran should lend support to the Taleban, while others think it would be unwise to take the Taleban's side and they condone what the United States is doing in Afghanistan. The TEHRAN TIMES conducted interviews with a number of experts and Majlis deputies to find out their opinions on this sensitive subject. MORE

CIA Undertakes Assassination Mission: U.S. Daily

TEHRAN The U.S. daily ***The Washington Post **, the mouthpiece of the White House, said yesterday that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was planning covert missions aimed at assassinating specific individuals. MORE

Why Saudis won't change tune

By Joseph A. Kechichian
LOS ANGELES - In its effort to curb the spread of anti-American hatred, Washington has called on Saudi Arabia to end certain activities, including financial support of extremist Islamic institutions. Less erudite critics have called on the Saudi regime to "stop lying" to the United States.

But Saudi leaders are not going to commit suicide, which is where Western demands would likely lead. Simply stated, Saudi Arabia cannot change its traditional doctrines: Doing so would mean the end of Al Saud rule - and the end of stable oil prices. Senior members of the ruling family have a "will to power" that will likely withstand the current crisis. MORE

4 women shot dead in Israel

AL-QUDS, Oct 28: Two Palestinian gunmen opened fire in the Israeli city of Hadera on Sunday, killing four women and injuring 31 others before being shot dead themselves by Israeli police, Israeli radio and television reported.

The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack in a videotaped statement sent to TV stations in the West Bank town of Nablus.

It identified the two gunmen shot dead as Yussef Mohammad Ali Sweitat, 22, and Taysir Shehadeh Jabali, 23, from a refugee camp in Jenin in the northern West Bank, around 40 kms from Hadera.-AFP From Dawn.com

'War is at my Black Skin'
Posted: Sunday, October 28, 2001

JAMAICA OBSERVER - IT is wholly appropriate that Sir Vidia Naipaul should have been awarded this year's Nobel Prize for Literature. Sir Vidia, a most eloquent and gifted writer, has been a fountain of joy for those who believe that the 'end of history' has sanctified capitalism and the Mid-Atlantic way of life.

Naipaul has been at pains for four decades, to explain away the 'White Man's Burden'. He has made it his mission to explain to the Anglo-Saxon world the painful deficiencies of the lesser breeds, so granting absolution to those who may have felt guilt about mistreating the masses of humanity without the law.

My only meeting with Naipaul was 42 years ago, around the time of Jamaica's independence, when he was writing The Middle Passage. I helped shepherd him round Kingston and, unwisely, as it turned out, was responsible for inviting him to a party at a house in Trafalgar Park. There, a furious argument broke out between two of my friends, Parboosingh, the painter and Basil Keane the dentist. This row was later immortalised in The Middle Passage as one example of the 'Congolese behaviour' Naipaul found so acutely distressing.

The use of the term 'Congolese behaviour' was a giveaway. It was not only a deliberate insult to Jamaicans but to the Congolese, whose prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, had recently been murdered by the Belgians on behalf of the Americans. It was the kind of express malice which is Naipaul's signature in his dealings with his ex-compatriots in the post-colonial world.

Naipaul is, as far as I am concerned, a lifeless robot with a second-hand soul. MORE

The cocaine pile-up
Posted: Sunday, October 28, 2001

JAMAICA OBSERVER - SINCE the tragic September 11 attack on the WTC complex in New York not only have the economy of the US and those countries that rely on it as a vital trade outlet been affected, but in the illicit movement of drugs into the great market that the USA is, serious pile-ups are now occurring.

As Jamaica has established itself as one of the main trans-shipment points in the movement of cocaine from South America to the United States, at any one time there are shipments-in-waiting someplace in Jamaica ready to take off by sea or air to one of the many islands in the Bahamas or another of the outlying islands for ultimate destination, USA.

With the tightening of security worldwide and especially at the points of entry into the USA, the local handlers in Jamaica and the South American suppliers are in a panic as they attempt to figure out how to make money on goods that cannot move to their natural market.

The laws of economics apply here too. Costs are skyrocketing. Security costs both for local carriage of the goods and for gunmen; "soldiers", with high-powered weapons to do guard duty are up. MORE

News
Posted: Sunday, October 28, 2001

Nigerian Leader Breaks Silence

ABUJA, Nigeria -- Nigeria's president broke his silence about a massacre of 150 civilians by soldiers sent to put down ethnic unrest, saying on Sunday that the soldiers may have acted out of self-defense.

President Olusegun Obasanjo also said military intervention should be used only as a last resort to end growing violence in the West African nation.

Soldiers face "certain risks," he said in a state television interview. "Whatever they are taught to do or not to do, soldiers fight in self-defense." He emphasized he was not "justifying any killing."

The comments were his first on the bloodshed in Benue, a remote part of eastern Nigeria where a longtime conflict between ethnic Tivs and Jukuns has heated up in recent weeks, with tribal fighters hacking off the limbs of women and children and burning villages. MORE

Rev. Sharpton Begins Israel Trip

JERUSALEM -- The Rev. Al Sharpton, the New York civil rights activist, began a three-day visit to Israel on Sunday to show solidarity with terror victims and appeal to religious leaders to stop Mideast violence.

On Monday, he is scheduled to meet Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, dine with Jewish religious leaders and visit classmates of victims of a June 1 suicide bomb attack on a Tel Aviv disco, which killed 21 young partygoers.

"He's got a pretty full schedule meeting families of terror victims," Sharpton's spokeswoman Rachel Noerdlinger said. She added that for the moment his itinerary was focused on Israeli victims but Palestinians could also come on to the agenda. MORE

Rioting Continues in Belfast

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Rioting flared Sunday in a divided section of Belfast as Northern Ireland headed toward a crucial legislative vote. More than 20 police officers were injured.

Catholics and Protestants fought along Limestone Road, a common flashpoint for sectarian violence, a Royal Ulster Constabulary spokesman said.

One civilian was taken to a nearby hospital with facial injuries believed to have been caused by a pipe bomb, he added.

Several homemade grenades were thrown at police and army lines during fighting that continued all day, police said. They said 23 officers were wounded, and several security force vehicles were damaged. MORE

13 Civilian Deaths Reported in U.S. Raid

KABUL, Afghanistan -- U.S. attacks on Kabul killed at least 13 civilians Sunday, witnesses said, one day after U.S. missiles rocketed hamlets along the front line north of here, killing and maiming villagers.

American warplanes also pounded targets in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in the south, Herat in the west and Jalalabad in the east, said the Afghan Islamic Press, a private news agency.

In neighboring Pakistan, officials said the government had turned over to U.S. officials a suspect wanted in connection with the bombing of the USS Cole last year, a Yemeni microbiology student. It was the first known arrest outside Yemen in connection with the attack, which Osama bin Laden is suspected of organizing. MORE

U.S. bombs kill 12 civilians in Kabul

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes killed 12 civilians in air raids early today on the Afghan capital Kabul, including eight members of a family whose house was hit while they were eating breakfast.

Residents said seven children and their father died when their house was struck by what appeared to be a missile and two more people died in the neighbourhood. MORE

Gunmen kill 15 Christians in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen on motorcycles have shot dead 15 Christians at Sunday prayers in the central Pakistani town of Bahawalpur, according to police. MORE

US bombing error kills nine

BBC - A US missile fired has struck a village in Afghan territory controlled by the anti-Taleban Northern Alliance. Nine people from two families were killed when the bomb hit the village of Ghani Kheil on Saturday afternoon, according to Red Cross sources, and up to 20 were injured.

Sunday has seen fewer bombing raids, after the heaviest attacks of the air offensive so far on Saturday. The opposition had earlier called on the US to inflict heavier bombing on Taleban forces on the front lines. MORE

News
Posted: Saturday, October 27, 2001

Basque Group Lays Claim to Attacks

MADRID, Spain -- Claiming responsibility for a series of bombings, the Basque separatist group ETA hinted Sunday it was willing to lay down its arms provided Spain holds a vote on independence for the northern region.

The gesture by what is now Europe's last major group waging a violent political struggle suggests it feels cornered following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and the Irish Republican Army's move toward disarmament last week.

Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar rejected the ETA proposal, as he has previous appeals for a referendum on Basque statehood. He said the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States made clear that showing tolerance to terrorists was "suicide." MORE

Somali Gov't. Loses No-Confidence Vote

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Somalia's fledgling government lost a no-confidence vote Sunday, ending the tenure of the country's prime minister and his Cabinet after just 13 months.

Out of 174 legislators attending parliament Sunday, 141 voted against Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galaydh and his 84-member government, while 29 voted in favor, according to parliamentary speaker Abdalleh Derow Issak. Four abstained.

The government will remain in place until President Abdiqasim Salad Hassan nominates a new prime minister, who will then have 30 days to appoint a new Cabinet, Issak said. MORE

Atta Info Passed to US After Sept. 11

PRAGUE, Czech Republic -- The Czech government told the United States about a meeting between hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent only after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the interior minister said Sunday.

Stanislav Gross, whose post puts him in charge of police, said there was no reason to think too much of the meeting between Atta and Iraqi agent Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani, who was under Czech surveillance at the time and in April was expelled from the country. MORE

Israel calls off West Bank pullout

Israel says it is postponing indefinitely a troop pullout from Bethlehem and a neighbouring Palestinian town because of continuing violence, dealing a blow to U.S. efforts to calm the conflict. MORE

Red Cross Stunned by Bombing

GENEVA -- The international Red Cross has in the past seen its aid supplies looted, its staff threatened, attacked and even murdered. But it was stunned when U.S. warplanes bombed its aid compound in the Afghan capital, Kabul -- for a second time.

"The word 'astounded' comes to mind," said Kim Gordon-Bates, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Saturday. A day earlier, the United States dropped eight tons of bombs on the compound, setting fire to three of the four buildings still standing after the previous attack on Oct. 16.

Add that to the fact that its expatriate staff is in exile, visits to prisoners of war have stopped and the Afghan winter is coming fast, and the ICRC is having a hard time carrying out what it claims is vital relief work in Afghanistan.

"Afghanistan is an incredibly difficult place to work in. It's a challenge, it always has been a challenge," said Gordon-Bates, who was head of an ICRC office in Gulbahar, north of Kabul, until earlier this year. MORE

The Israeli re-conquests

AL-AHRAM - Five days and around 25 Palestinian deaths into Israel's most concerted military offensive ever against Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, the Americans finally drew a line in the sand. "The Israel Defence Forces should be withdrawn immediately from all Palestinian-controlled areas and no further such incursions should be made," announced State Department spokesperson Philip Reeker in Washington on Monday.

Ariel Sharon initially defied the imperial decree but then started to budge, courtesy of the multi-lingual prowess of his Foreign Minister. "'Immediately' in English doesn't mean 'at once'", Shimon Peres drilled Israeli reporters in Washington on Tuesday. "It means 'as soon as possible'".

It actually means 48 to 62 hours which, according to reports in the Israeli press yesterday, is when the Israeli army will leave most -- but not all -- of the Palestinian territories it has re-conquered in the last week. MORE

US demand for immediate retreat flouted

Israel issued tough new conditions for a withdrawal of forces occupying Palestinian-ruled cities yesterday, flouting the US demand for a full and immediate retreat.
Last night, Israeli and Palestinian security officials meeting under CIA auspices at a secret location in Tel Aviv decided the first withdrawals could begin as early as today in the towns of Beit Jala and Bethlehem.

The decision was reached hours after three men were shot dead in the Gaza Strip, raising the death toll in Israel's offensive against Yasser Arafat's authority to more than 50. MORE

Khatami Stresses Distinction Between Terrorists and Freedom Fighters

TEHRAN TIMES - "We believe that since terrorism is a global issue and threatens the whole humanity, the fight against the phenomenon should be deep-rooted, global and all-out," Khatami said.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran and Austria are unanimous over the fact that there should be a distinction between those who fight for the liberation of their lands and those who cause the death of innocent people through resorting to terror," the Iranian president said in reference to the popular campaign in the Palestinian lands. MORE

Vote Heard Round the World - Lee Faces Fallout for Anti-War Stand

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Pacific News Service, October 26, 2001

California Congresswoman Barbara Lee's sole vote against giving President Bush full license to wage war against terrorists may haunt her in an upcoming re-election bid -- even though her base is traditionally staunchly liberal. MORE

Death of key anti-Taliban leader deals US bodyblow

THE GUARDIAN - America's campaign to overthrow the Taliban and fashion a new political order in Afghanistan suffered a severe blow yesterday when it emerged that a key opposition figure had been ambushed and executed by the Kabul regime.
Abdul Haq, once a fearsome mojahedin fighter and the scourge of the Red Army during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, was hanged with two companions at a barracks outside Kabul. Taliban troops then peppered his body with bullets, Haq's nephew, Mohammed Yousuf, was told by reliable sources inside Afghanistan. MORE

News
Posted: Friday, October 26, 2001

Hain beats a retreat over Israeli 'atrocities'

By Anton La Guardia

PETER HAIN, the Foreign Office minister, came close yesterday to accusing Israel of committing "terrorist acts" in Palestinian areas.

Speaking to foreign correspondents in London, he said: "We are just as horrified as Arab leaders and Arab peoples about the atrocities in the occupied areas - and indeed in Israel.

"It's absolutely vital that this tit-for-tat violence stops and that people get round the negotiating table and start talking rather than fighting.

"We deplore all assassinations, all terrorist attacks, whether suicide bombs in Tel Aviv or terrorist acts in the occupied areas." MORE

US senate has just approved a $ 2.76 billion assistance for the Israeli occupation.

PALESTINE-NET.COM - Israeli occupation forces raided the village of Beit Reema (northwest of Ramallah) early this morning and massacred a number of its residents (10 people so far according to Israeli English media, 5 according to their Arabic service!). Rescue teams and the media are not allowed in. Israeli forces told the Red Cross they are 'taking care' of the victims themselves.

The Israeli forces killed six other Palestinians since yesterday (5 in Tulkarm and one on Bethlehem). Five Palestinian cities (Jenin, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Qalqilia and Tulkarm) remain partly under new occupation and curfew since last Thursday. Since the new invasion, over 35 Palestinians have been killed (some assassinated) and 100s injured. Tanks roam the streets and many buildings, schools and hotels are being used as observation and sniper positions. Some houses have been demolished.

As if friendly terror pays off, the US senate has just approved a $ 2.76 billion assistance for the Israeli occupation. MORE

Anthrax found at CIA

CNN -- Traces of anthrax have been found in a building at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, where incoming mail is sorted, U.S. officials tell CNN.

The amount of anthrax detected in what officials say were highly sensitive and sophisticated tests was "medically insignificant" an official said, but the building has been closed until further testing and cleaning can be done.

Officials say 31 different sites in the mail receiving building and the CIA's main mailroom have been checked since October 23. Only one site tested positive for anthrax. MORE

Nobel laureate says US strikes on Afghanistan "as despicable" as Sept 11

Egypt's Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz has called the war on terrorism being waged in Afghanistan "just as despicable a crime" as the September 11 attacks in the United States.

"Of course we grieved for the thousands of innocent civilians whose lives were destroyed on 11 September. But the so-called war on terrorism is just as despicable a crime," Mahfouz said in an interview published Thursday by the English-language Al-Ahram weekly.

"A million innocent Afghans will die if the bombardment does not stop," said the author and winner of the 1998 Nobel for literature.

"While the group that carried out the September 11 attack showed utter disregard for any law or standard or decency, now we find a major world power doing the same," he said. MORE

Israelis to withdraw after Dull Blade raid

GUARDIAN UK - Israel's security cabinet decided last night to start a phased withdrawal from West Bank towns entered after the assassination of cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi - if Palestinians observe a ceasefire agreement.

Israeli, Palestinian and US security officials are to meet today to negotiate terms.

The announcement came as UN diplomats meeting Yasser Arafat issued a statement supporting the Palestinian leader's attempts to enforce a ceasefire within the Palestinian Authority. MORE

The United Nations faces an Afghan nightmare

GUARDIAN UK
By Martin Woollacott

Asked to list the requirements for a successful United Nations operation in Afghanistan, a veteran of of the world body's efforts in East Timor and Bosnia raised a warning forefinger. "Number one - don't do it," he said. It was of course meant rhetorically. Everybody who works for the United Nations, from Kofi Annan down, knows they have no choice about taking on the mission to reconstruct Afghanistan being inexorably pushed in their direction by the United States and Britain.
But it was an expression of the perplexity and anxiety among UN officials and experts about a problem which, as another said, lies somewhere on the scale "between incredibly difficult and totally impossible". Cambodia, Bosnia, Kosovo or East Timor seem almost simple by comparison.

President Bush has declared that the UN must have a role in Afghanistan, while the US Congress facilitated the payment of outstanding American dues. However, this Republican conversion has less to do with a change of mind about either the UN or the previously scorned task of "nation building" than it has with America's interests. The US does not want to be the obvious patron of any new government in Afghanistan. That would be counterproductive, both inside the country and in the Muslim world at large. So it wants somebody else to craft an accommodation between the country's rivalrous neighbours and somebody else to help bring a transitional government into being. That "somebody else" is, naturally, the UN. While delegating these taxing functions, Washington seems committed to preserving Pakistan's primacy in Afghanistan and at the same time itself wants to exert a significant influence, at least on security issues. MORE

Concern mounts over methods of tracing the dead

By David Usborne

Confusion over what will be recorded in history as the final death toll for the World Trade Centre disaster of 11 September has deepened after the revelation by American news organisations that their estimates remained far below those still being put out by the authorities in New York.

The leading media outlets have all arrived at figures ranging between 2,600 and 2,950 for people dead or missing from the attacks on the twin towers, including the 157 passengers who died on the two hijacked aircraft. They are all far adrift of the city's estimated total of more than 4,700.

Criticism of the city's methods of counting the victims has been simmering for weeks, partly because the figures have fluctuated on an almost daily basis, sometimes wildly. At one stage, just a few days after the catastrophe, the city's official number for the dead and missing stood at 6,700. MORE

News
Posted: Thursday, October 25, 2001

UN Condemns American Bombing Afghan Mosque, Village

BBC - The Taleban have captured a senior opposition figure, Abdul Haq, close to the capital Kabul. Commander Haq had been widely expected to be a key figure in any post-Taleban administration.

A Taleban spokesman said he had been seized despite efforts by US helicopters to rescue him.

The BBC's Rahimullah Yusufzai says the arrest marks a major setback in US-backed efforts to replace the Taleban regime with a broad-based and multi-ethnic government.

In an immediate reaction, the son of Afghanistan's former king Mohammed Zahir Shah confirmed Abdul Haq's capture and asked the Taleban to spare him. "We appeal to the Taleban to spare his life," Mir Wais Zahir told Reuters news agency in Rome. "This is a blow to my father's peace plan." MORE

Terror attack link in alleged $100m fraud probe

(ft.com) US federal crime investigators are probing an alleged $100m fraud by an investment company that had its offices in the World Trade Center and exploited the September 11 terrorist attacks on the buildings to divert attention from the crime.

The US Attorney-General's Office and the US Postal Inspection Service are looking into the disappearance of three or four managers from First Equity Enterprises, the sales and accounting arm of Evergreen International Spot Trading, a foreign exchange broker for private investors.

First Equity offices in were destroyed on September 11 but no employees were killed, according to Evergreen. The company ceased operating on September 24.

Investigators are trying to locate $106m held by Equity on behalf of investors. The US fraud agencies refused to comment on their findings so far but private investigators are understood to have tracked some of the missing money to Swiss bank accounts. MORE

UN Condemns American Bombing Afghan Mosque, Village

TEHRAN TIMES - In a late reaction to Americans' massacre of Afghan civilians, the United Nation has acted upon its humanitarian goal and reported killings of civilians in attacks to mosques.

The UN said Wednesday that U.S. bombs has struck a mosque in a military compound and a nearby village during raids on the western city of Herat this week, adding to a growing catalogue of bombing blunders. MORE

Anthrax spreads reach to State Department

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Anthrax has spread its potentially fatal reach to the U.S. State Department in what the Bush administration has called an onslaught by "shadow soldiers" out to murder innocent people.

The U.S. health system and postal service were on nationwide alert on Thursday for deadly weapons masquerading as envelopes but investigators appeared no nearer to pinpointing the source of the anthrax bacteria that has killed three people, made 11 more sick and forced thousands of people to be tested or treated. MORE

Powell sees "gray areas" in defining terrorism

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has said some groups sometimes described as terrorist might be seeking to redress grievances, gain rights or achieve freedom from oppressors.

In language that contrasts strongly with the Bush administration's previous rhetoric on terrorism, he said on Thursday that not every case would be "black and white" and that there would be "gray areas" that might need to be treated politically.

To test whether groups qualify as targets against which the United States could sustain an alliance, one would have to ask whether they have a better way to "express grievances", "change the political problem" and "gain your rights", Powell said. MORE

Eighty missing after tunnel fire

BBC - Around 80 people are still missing following the inferno in Switzerland's Gotthard Tunnel, raising fears that the number killed in the disaster could rise significantly from the 10 confirmed deaths.

Rescue workers are still battling through intense heat to try to reach the crash site, more than 24 hours after two lorries collided head-on, sparking the fatal blaze. MORE

Israel defies US with bloody raid for killers

GUARDIAN UK - Israel observed the end of mourning rituals for a slain cabinet minister by thundering into a West Bank village with tanks and attack helicopters yesterday to hunt down his assassins, killing at least five people. The Palestinians condemned the bloody night raid as a massacre.
Ambulances and journalists were being prevented from entering the village.

Twelve hours into the army's siege of Beit Rima, the Israelis said they had captured a man from the village whom they accuse of driving the getaway car for gunmen who shot dead the ultra-nationalist icon Rechavam Zeevi in a Jerusalem hotel last week.

Eleven other men, from a list of 15 militants wanted in connection with other attacks on Israelis, were also arrested and transported with black hoods over their heads to the nearby Jewish settlement of Halamish for interrogation. MORE

Naming of Hijackers as Saudis May Further Erode Ties to U.S.
Abstract: NY Times

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 — Fifteen of the 19 men who hijacked four airplanes on Sept. 11 were from Saudi Arabia, Federal authorities have said, a disclosure that is likely to complicate an already tangled and difficult relationship between Washington and Riyadh.

The identities and nationalities of the hijackers had been uncertain since the planes crashed. But after weeks of investigation here and in Saudi Arabia, federal authorities say they are now sure.

Even before the discovery that most of the hijackers were Saudis, the attacks had exposed the hidden flaws in the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

In the best of times, relations with Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil supplier, are fraught with misunderstanding, insecurity and ignorance. The Saudis have long frustrated American policymakers with their ambivalence on military matters, regional diplomacy and intelligence- sharing. Real progress is made only when the most senior officials sit down behind closed doors, and the fruits of those discussions are often not seen until years later.

During the past six weeks both governments have struggled to paper over their differences and return to the basic compact: the Saudis deliver oil, the Americans deliver the weaponry that protects the oil.

"There have been and still are two pillars of the relationship: oil and security," said one senior American official who deals with Saudi Arabia. "Oil runs the world and the Saudis are the linchpin of oil production."

Business-class suspect caught in container

BY Richard Owen In Rome And Daniel Mcgrory

ITALIAN police were investigating last night why a suspected al-Qaeda hijacker would smuggle himself halfway around the world locked inside a shipping container with its own bed and toilet.
The bizarre discovery of an Egyptian carrying a Canadian passport was made on the dockside in Gioia Tauro in southern Italy, where detectives believe they may have foiled another hijacking.

They were questioning Rizik Amid Farid, 43, about his choice of travel and why he was carrying airport maps and airside security passes for Canada, Thailand and Egypt.

Unlike most stowaways they find, Mr Farid was smartly dressed, clean-shaven and rested as he stepped from his makeshift home.

He was, his captors said, "stunned" to be found with a laptop computer, two mobile phones, cameras, a Canadian passport, other identity documents and a certificate saying he is an aircraft mechanic. MORE

Taliban Detains 100 People for Questioning

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have detained more than 100 people in the southern city of Kandahar and threatened to execute anyone helping the United States, a private news agency reported Wednesday.

"As per Mullah (Mohammed) Omar's decree, anyone found working for enemies will be executed after a summary trial," the South Asian Dispatch Agency quoted Mullah Abdul Razzak, an official of the Taliban interior ministry, as saying. MORE

Vietnamese Floods Claim 357 Lives

HANOI, Vietnam -- Floods in central Vietnam and the southern Mekong Delta have claimed 357 lives, including at least 250 children, since August, officials said Thursday.

Flash floods caused by heavy rains in eight central provinces and seasonal flooding in the southern Mekong Delta have caused a combined $68 million in damage, Vietnam's flood agency said. MORE

Wounded Afghans die due to lack of proper medicare

Afghan source Mashhad, Khorasan prov. Oct 25, IRNA -- Head of the Mashhad Bureau of Afghanistan's Islamic Revolution Party Mohammad-Dawood Gilani told IRNA Wednesday that many of the injured victims of the U.S. air raids die in his country due to lack of proper medical care, particularly medicine.

According to Gilani, based on the latest news from Afghanistan, during the past week alone, at least 150 victims of the U.S.-British bombardments who had received medical treatment at Afghanistan's various hospitals and then released, died due to the inappropriate,
insufficient treatment.

The Afghan party official added, "today's (Wednesday) air raids were unprecedentedly heavy in areas around Kabul."

The areas bombed in the peripheral regions of the Afghan capital on Wednesday include Bagram, the Seyfi mountainous region, Soroubi, Kheyrkhaneh, Daar-ul-Aman, and Pol-e-Charkhi in the north of Kabul.

Gilani said that at Pol-e-Charkhi, in addition to the city, a prison and a military barracks were totally demolished during the air raids.

This Islamic Republic Party official of Afghanistan expressed regret that during the Wednesday attacks, too, some more residential areas were destroyed and at least twenty civilian Afghans got killed, while a lot more were brutally wounded.

Hundreds reported killed in Nigeria
Posted: Wednesday, October 24, 2001

LAGOS (Reuters) - Soldiers have opened fire on villagers in central Nigeria and razed four communities, killing more than 200 people, witnesses say.

The massacre began Monday afternoon in Gbeji and spread to neighbouring Vaase, Anyiin and Zaki-Bian near the place where the bodies of 19 soldiers were found hacked to death on October 12, regional government officials said. MORE

News
Posted: Wednesday, October 24, 2001

MID-EAST REALITIES © - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 10/24: The Palestinians are essentially defenseless with their backs up against the wall, the firing wall. Their "leadership" has been so corrupted and infiltrated that the Arafat regime has hardly any credibility with its own, not to mention anyone else. Their "friends" who advocated the disingenuous "peace process" and stuffed their pockets through it have badly mislead them, used them, and even now further exploit them for their own gain -- on the "Washington Scene" such names as Zogby, Sharabi, Maksoud and Ajami come quickly to mind as do such organizations as AAI, ADC, AMC, along with Middle East Institute, Jewish Peace Lobby...and the list goes on. The Arab "client regimes" in the region are themselves cowering and impotent, themselves so terribly co-opted over the years and thus, in a more complicated way, themselves complicitous in what is happening - Cairo, Amman, Riyadh at the top of that list. And the laughable Arab and Muslim "client organizations" in the USA are so collectively pathetic they can't even manage a little protest at the Israeli Embassy a few blocks away. Having gorged themselves on cheap Arab regime money and hand-outs for so long now they too lack any credibility and following except from CNN, Al-Jazeera, and the other state-sponsored corporate media (including of course PBS and NPR) which continue to so incestuously promote them.

Some people in the post-Sept 11 world are at least asking, as a result of the terrorism, "Why do they hate us so much'? And we will have much more to say about this in the days and weeks ahead

But another "why" question also needs to be asked: Why are the Palestinians so defenseless and abandoned, how did this state of affairs come about? We'll be dealing with this even more difficult and depressing question in upcoming MER articles and commentary as well. http://www.middleeast.org/

[BBC News Online - 24 October, 2001] Reports from the West Bank say at least eight Palestinians have been killed during an incursion into a village by Israeli forces.

The village of Beit Rima near Ramallah has been sealed off since early morning when a column of Israeli tanks rolled in, firing on a Palestinian police outpost as they entered under cover of darkness.

The incursion came as Ariel Sharon's government persisted with its partial reoccupation of Palestinian-controlled territory in six towns the West Bank, including Ramallah.

A doctor in Beit Rima told the BBC by telephone that he had seen six bodies lying in the streets in the village and had heard that many more were lying in olive groves nearby.

Villagers said troops have been going from house to house searching for suspected Palestinian militants, arresting dozens of people, and army bulldozers have demolished several houses.

Israel has rejected US demands to end the reoccupation, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the army made "very important arrests" of Palestinians belonging to "terrorist organisations" during the night.

"We have made clear that we have no intention of remaining in [Palestinian-controlled] area A and that when we are done with our mission we will leave," Mr Sharon told parliament on Wednesday.

The army has prevented anyone from entering the village, including emergency vehicles, and some of the dead and wounded have been taken to the outskirts on military vehicles. Three Apache helicopters have been flying overhead, shooting bullets, witnesses said.

In a separate incident, six Palestinians were injured near Hebron when a vehicle they were travelling in was sprayed with machine-gun fire on a by-pass road used by Jewish settlers. Earlier, Israeli soldiers shot dead three Palestinians in Tulkarm, saying the men were about to open fire. Palestinian sources said it was an Israeli ambush.

A Palestinian was also shot and killed by Israeli soldiers in Abu Dis on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

The 25-year-old was throwing firebombs at soldiers when he was shot in the face and eye with rubber-coated steel bullets, Israel army radio reported.

Israeli defence officials quoted in the Israeli media indicated that troops might pull back in two days.

But officials continued to insist that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat must hand over those responsible for the assassination of an Israeli Cabinet minister last week.

Some reports said the US softened its opposition to the Israeli reoccupation when President George W Bush dropped in on a meeting in Washington between America's National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

Mr Bush called on Israel to leave Palestinian territory "as quickly as possible".

The US State Department had earlier demanded that the Israelis leave "immediately".

Mr Bush said: "I did express our concern about troops in Palestinian territory and I would hope the Israelis would move their troops as quickly as possible."

Dozens of Palestinians have died since Thursday when Israel reoccupied parts of six towns in response to the assassination of hardline Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi.

The United States fears the upsurge in Middle East violence could interfere with its coalition to defeat international terrorism by alienating moderate Arab states.

In all, more than 900 people have died in violence related to the 13-month Palestinian uprising against Israel's occupation, including more than 700 Palestinians and 175 Israelis.

Say it loud: no more support until Israel agrees to pull out

By Polly Toynbee Guardian UK

The little town of Bethlehem does not lie still in deep or dreamless sleep. Instead a Palestinian altar boy was machine-gunned to death in Manger Square when Israeli tanks stormed in and occupied six Palestinian towns, leaving many others dead in their wake. Israeli hit-squad assassinations of suspected Palestinian terrorist leaders have now reached over 40 dead.

But six days into Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, there is still no response from George Bush. A state department spokesman did call for Israeli withdrawal and behind the scenes pressure is being applied. But what is needed urgently is the same thunderous and threatening language the president applies to the war in Afghanistan. Spell it out - no more money, no more support, no sympathy for future attacks until Israel withdraws and talks start at once on building the promised independent Palestinian state.

Israel does not get the new global message, does not see how little patience its old friends have for Sharon's dangerous hard line. That is partly because the message has still not been delivered by presidential megaphone so that the whole world hears, announcing an end to the double standards of the west's treatment of Palestinians. As the war progresses in Afghanistan, the quid pro quo must come for Palestine. It will not wait: Afghanistan may not be resolved unless Palestine gets justice at the same time. MORE

UK cannabis smokers will not be arrested

By Richard Ford
THE TIMES UK - CANNABIS will be reclassified so that possession of the drug is no longer an arrestable offence, David Blunkett announced yesterday, in the first relaxation of British drug laws in 30 years.
In the surprise announcement the Home Secretary said that drug laws had to be credible, particularly to young people. He said that cannabis would be moved from a Class B drug to a Class C drug, putting it in the same category as anti-depressants and steroids.

Mr Blunkett denied that the move, which in practice will mean that cannabis smokers are unlikely to be prosecuted if caught with small amounts of the drug, was decriminalisation by another name.The maximum sentence for possession will, however, be cut from five to two years and the term for dealing in cannabis from 14 to five.

Police will no longer have the power to arrest a person found in possession of the drug. They will, however, still be able to carry out stop and searches for it. MORE

Qatar condemns US attacks on Afghanistan

TEHRAN, Oct 23 (AFP) - Qatar's foreign minister condemned Tuesday the US-led military strikes on Afghanistan as "unacceptable", after talks in the Iranian capital.

"The attacks against Afghanistan are unacceptable and we have condemned them. It is our clear position," Sheikh Hamad bin-Jassem bin-Jabr al-Thani said.

He was speaking to reporters here after a meeting between Qatar's emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, and Iranian President Mohammed Khatami.

"What is happening in Afghanistan concerns the Islamic world, and we think that the culprits of the September 11 attacks, no matter who they are, should be tried justly. We think that the Afghan people should not be the victims of these attacks," the foreign minister said. MORE

US Bombing Kills 52 in Afghan Village - AIP

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - U.S. bombing has killed 52 people in a village near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported on Wednesday.

The village, identified as Chakor Kariz, about 25 miles southeast of Kandahar, was bombed by U.S.-led forces on Tuesday, killing 52 people, most of them nomads, AIP said quoting unnamed sources.

There was no independent confirmation of the report but a number of civilians have been killed and wounded since the United States launched its military campaign against the Taliban and their guest Osama bin Laden on October 7.

Sanctions Have Targeted Innocent Iraqi Civilians

"Slipping Through Sanctions" (Oct. 19) was commendable but seriously failed to discuss the extent of the horror the sanctions have imposed on the people of Iraq, if not on the wealthy or on Saddam Hussein. It has been fully documented by many sources, including UNICEF, that over 500,000 children have died since the sanctions were imposed by our country. Between the 1991 bombing and the sanctions, over 1 million Iraqis have died and continue to die by the thousands every month. MORE

Israelis, Palestinians in Fierce Bethlehem Battles

By Christine Hauser
BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli tanks and troops blasted Bethlehem and areas around it early on Wednesday as Palestinian gunmen fired heavy machineguns in the worst fighting there since Israel's incursion into Palestinian areas.

The fighting raged through the night until dawn in Bethlehem and the adjacent Aida refugee camp. The Israeli army said it was returning Palestinian gunfire from Aida toward Gilo, a Jewish settlement Israel sees as a Jerusalem neighborhood.

Its forces were in action in Bethlehem as part of an incursion into the city which started last Friday when Israel sent tanks and troops into or around six Palestinian towns.

Three Palestinians shot dead in West Bank

Israeli forces shot dead three Palestinian men in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem overnight, Palestinian hospital sources said.

The victims were identified as Ayman Jalad, 20, Mahmoud Jalad, 21 and Saleh Assi, 23.

Five other Palestinians were said to have been shot and injured in the incident as Israeli forces continued their incursions into Tulkarem and other autonomous Palestinian West Bank towns. MORE

Greenpeace to stage peaceful
demonstrations at WTO meeting in Qatar

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates--Greenpeace will stage peaceful demonstrations during next month's World Trade Organization meeting in Qatar, the environmental group said Monday.

The Greenpeace flagship, Rainbow Warrior, is en route to the Gulf and expected to arrive in Qatar a day before the Nov. 9-13 meeting, said Remi Parmentier, political director for Greenpeace.

"The Rainbow Warrior will be a platform to ensure that those who are most directly affected by WTO decisions, and are all to often ignored, have their voices heard," Parmentier said in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. MORE

News
Posted: Tuesday, October 23, 2001

Ex-CIA Director Confesses U.S. Supplied Iraq With Anthrax Bacteria in 80s

TEHRAN The former director of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) confessed that the U.S. had supplied the Iraqi regime with the anthrax bacteria during 80s -- Iran-Iraq wartime.

The anthrax bacteria were available at many labs of the U.S. and were distributed among different countries including Iraq during 80s, the official news agency of Spain, EFE, quoted the ex-CIA head, James Wosely, as saying on Sunday. MORE

Mideast Militants Call for Escalating Conflict

JERUSALEM, Oct. 22 -- Militants in both Israel and the Palestinian territories appealed to their leaders today to press ahead with fighting during what is already one the most intense and sustained bouts of combat in months.

In Jerusalem, thousands of right-wing Israelis thronged the center of the city tonight, likening Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden and urging Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to eliminate him.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Islamic and national political groups criticized Arafat for ordering the arrest of more than two dozen militants following the assassination of an Israeli cabinet member last week. The groups vowed to keep up attacks to drive Israeli troops out of Palestinian territories. MORE

Iraq Seeks Anthrax Tests on 2 Letters

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 22 -- Iraqi diplomats in New York and Washington have asked American authorities to test two letters containing white powder for contamination with anthrax spores, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.

U.S. diplomats said they suspect the Iraqi government is the target of a hoax but that federal and local law enforcement authorities have not provided a definitive explanation of what was in the letters. MORE

Woman denies she consented to sex with U.S. airman

The issue is particularly sensitive in Okinawa, where women who date or go to bars frequented by U.S. servicemen are sometimes referred to as "Amejo," a pejorative term combining "American" and the Japanese word for woman,"josei."

When the defense asked her whether she considered herself to be an "Amejo", or "Kokujo," a similar term meaning women who date black men, a number of people observing the trial raised their voices to object, saying this had nothing to do with the case.

The prosecution also objected, and the judge ordered that the question be withdrawn. MORE

Earliest Evidence Of Lemurs Discovered In Pakistan, Far From Their Current Home
Posted: Monday, October 22, 2001

Source: American Association For The Advancement Of Science (http://www.aaas.org/)

A handful of tiny teeth collected in the Bugti Hills of Pakistan represent the fossil remains of the earliest known lemur, say an international team of researchers in the 19 October issue of the journal Science.
They also represent something of a mystery, since today's lemurs--primate cousins to the monkeys and apes, with a tooth "comb" jutting from their lower jaw--live only on the island of Madagascar. Scientists had previously thought that Africa must have been the birthplace of lemurs, but the new find may turn heads towards a possible Asian origin instead.

The discovery of a lemur fossil on the Indian subcontinent was "totally unexpected," says Science author Laurent Marivaux of the Université Montpellier in France.

Dubbed Bugtilemur mathesoni, the 30 million year old lemur species provides an extremely rare glimpse into the evolution of strepsirrhine primates, which consist of lemurs and their close relatives, the lorises. Although the strepsirrhines are a diverse group, there is virtually no fossil record for lemurs, making their pre-Madagascar days a paleontological blank slate.

Marivaux, Jean-Jacques Jaeger of Université Montpellier, and colleagues analyzed anatomical features on Bugtilemur's teeth to determine where it fit into the primate family tree, concluding that it was most closely related to Cheirogaleus, the modern dwarf lemur on Madagascar. Bugtilemur and Cheirogaleus share a specialized dental pattern different from other living lemurs, including other members of the dwarf and mouse lemur family.

The close relationship poses a problem for primate researchers. Current evidence indicates that Madagascar and the Indian subcontinent broke away from each other around 88 million years ago, probably long before the origin of all lemurs (around 62 million years ago), and much longer before specialized lemurs like Cheirogaleus appeared (around 46-37 million years ago).

This suggests that some type of early lemur migration probably took place after the breakup of the two land masses, but that scenario presents another puzzle: which direction did the exodus take? The answer depends on where lemurs may have first evolved. Previous research suggested that Africa was the birthplace of lemurs and lorises, and that lemurs later migrated eastward to Madagascar, perhaps hitching a ride on rafts of floating vegetation to their current island home. But the appearance of a specialized, clearly recognizable lemur like Bugtilemur at such an early date raises the possibility of an Asian origin.

Teeth from several other new primate species, including some anthropoids--the ancestors to monkeys and apes--have been recovered from the Bugti Hills site along with Bugtilemur. These fossils, along with recent anthropoid discoveries in China, Myanmar, and Thailand should renew interest in Asia as a major center for primate origins, according to the Science study authors.

"The time has come for the Asian scenario to receive more serious attention, but I think that the paleontological solution to this enigma is still in the future," says Marivaux.

Bugtilemur was recovered from a site teaming with other aquatic and terrestrial fossil specimens. Fossilized tree parts, pollen, and fruit indicate that Bugtilemur lived in an environment that probably resembled a modern tropical forest. The nearby discovery of a Baluchitherium skeleton by the Science researchers also testifies to a formerly lush landscape. Baluchitherium was one of the largest land mammals that ever lived on Earth, weighing in at close to 20 tons.

"This amazing mammal probably ate more than a ton of leaves and other things per day, and shared the same paleoenvironment and paleoconditions with the minute Bugtilemur," says Marivaux.

Marivaux says that future fieldwork at Bugti Hills, the site of paleontological investigation for the last seven years, has been postponed by the recent terror attacks on the United States.

"At the moment, we are totally dependent on the effects of current events, but we actively continue to work with our Pakistani colleagues on these exciting discoveries."

The other members of the research team include Jean-Loup Welcomme, Grégoire Métais, and Stéphane Ducrocq at Université Montpellier, Ibrahim M. Baloch at the University of Balochistan, in Quetta, Pakistan, Pierre-Olivier Antoine at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France, Mouloud Benammi at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and Yaowalak Chaimanee at the Department of Mineral Resources, Bangkok, Thailand. This research was supported in part by Université Montpellier, the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, the Fyssen, Leakey, Wenner-Gren, Singer-Polignac, Bleustein-Blanchet and Treilles Foundations.

News
Posted: Monday, October 22, 2001

Anthrax Traces Found in CBS Office

NEW YORK –– Small traces of anthrax were found Monday in CBS anchorman Dan Rather's office, buttressing what had been an assumption: that the assistant who opens his mail encountered the spores at the network.

CBS News spokeswoman Sandra Genelius said Rather and his staff, including the assistant who has contracted skin anthrax, are still working in the office because the amount of bacteria found wasn't considered "dangerous." MORE

Hundreds of migrants said drowned off Indonesia

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Some 350 migrants from several Muslim countries drowned in the Java Sea off Indonesia at the weekend after a boat carrying them to an unknown destination sank, MORE

US 'risks making Ben Laden a hero' in Bahrain

By Lachlan Carmichael
Agence France-Presse

MANAMA - The US war on Afghanistan risks turning chief terror suspect Osama Ben Laden into a hero in the Gulf Arab state of Bahrain, which is home port for the US Fifth Fleet, Muslim clerics and others said here Sunday.
Protesters at an anti-US rally here on Friday for the first time expressed public support for Ben Laden, though others have uttered it privately in this island nation allied with the United States.

"With the American actions, they're making him a hero, a martyr," according to Adnan Ben Abdullah Al Ghattan, an Islamic court judge here in Manama.

Muslims are rallying around Ben Laden because US forces are attacking him without providing proof of his guilt in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States.

Two U.S. postal workers die in anthrax scare

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two postal workers at a facility that handles mail for the U.S. Capitol have died in suspicious circumstances and two more are suffering from potentially deadly anthrax inhalation, health officials have said.

The deaths of the postal workers -- who are on the front line of the anthrax scare -- come after a spate of other bioterror attacks against U.S. media and government targets following the Sept. 11 aerial assaults on the United States.

"We have two postal workers who work at Brentwood that have expired," said Washington Health Department chief Dr. Ivan Walks, referring to the postal facility that handles mail for Capitol Hill and many other places in the Washington area. MORE

Taliban say American bombings have killed 1,000 civilians

Islamabad, Oct 21, IRNA -- The relentless American bombardment in Afghanistan has so far killed one thousands civilians, a senior Taliban diplomat said Sunday.

"The Americans are targeting civilians. Even today (Sunday) Americans rained bombs on civilians in Khair Khana locality of capital Kabul," Taliban Deputy envoy Suhail Shaheen said. "Why the so-called Western human rights groups are silent over the brutal killings of the Afghan civilians," Shaheen asked.

About the American ground attacks, he said Taliban forces had laid
down a siege around the American invading ground forces in Kandahar,
forcing them to flee in frustration in the darkness. He said that
Taliban anti-aircraft guns had hit and badly damaged a fighter plane,
which later landed in Pakistani territory. "The American fighter plane can not now take off due to the severe damages", Shaheen said.

About fighting near the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, the
Taliban diplomat said that the opposition forces have been pushed back
up-to 15 kilometers. A huge quantity of weapons has also been seized
from the fleeing alliance forces, he said. To a question, he said supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar and Osama bin Laden are safe.

Bin Laden is a step ahead of foes, says opposition commander

The United States will need more than air strikes and commandos to find Osama bin Laden, a senior Afghan opposition figure who has dealt with the accused terrorist said Sunday.

"He never sleeps. He moves around all the time. Even if we recapture eastern Afghanistan, he can move into the forests and the mountains," Haji Abdul Qadir, a former governor of the eastern province of Nangahar told AFP.

"He does not have a small organisation. Where he is now -- only God knows."

Bin Laden's ability to hide is now legendary, but Qadir is one of the few Afghan opposition figures who has had close contacts with the world's most wanted man, now a "guest" of the dominant Taliban militia. MORE

FBI considers torture as suspects stay silent

From Damian Whitworth In Washington

AMERICAN investigators are considering resorting to harsher interrogation techniques, including torture, after facing a wall of silence from jailed suspected members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, according to a report yesterday.

More than 150 people who were picked up after September 11 remain in custody, with four men the focus of particularly intense scrutiny. But investigators have found the usual methods have failed to persuade any of them to talk.

Options being weighed include "truth" drugs, pressure tactics and extraditing the suspects to countries whose security services are more used to employing a heavy-handed approach during interrogations.

"We're into this thing for 35 days and nobody is talking. Frustration has begun to appear," a senior FBI official told The Washington Post.

"We are known for humanitarian treatment, so basically we are stuck. Usually there is some incentive, some angle to play, what you can do for them. But it could get to that spot where we could go to pressure . . . where we don't have a choice, and we are probably getting there," an FBI agent involved in the investigation told the paper. MORE

News
Posted: Sunday, October 21, 2001

Bombs Kill Eight Civilians in Kabul

By Associated Press

Oct-21 - KABUL, Afghanistan -- U.S.-led bombardment hit two homes in Kabul's north Sunday, killing at least eight civilians, including four children, neighbors said.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene in the Khair Khana residential district saw bodies of five of the dead -- three women and two small children. MORE

Hacker cries foul over FBI snooping

Burhan Wazir The Observer

The world's most infamous computer hacker, out of jail and eking a living as an actor in a television drama, has denounced the new Patriot Act - which would allow FBI and police to snoop on emails and monitor US internet activity in their efforts to counter terrorism.
Kevin Mitnick, 38, imprisoned for breaking into the computer systems of America's leading telephone companies, told The Observer that the legislation proposed in the wake of the 11 September attacks was 'ludicrous'.

'Terrorists have proved that they are interested in total genocide, not subtle little hacks of the US infrastructure, yet the government wants a blank search warrant to spy and snoop on everyone's communications,' he said. Mitnick also warned that hackers risked inordinately heavy exemplary jail sentences. 'Trust me, you do not want to be the next big winner of the scapegoat sweepstakes.' MORE

Three Palestinians killed near Bethlehem

Violence in the Middle East escalated today as gun battles flared around the biblical town of Bethlehem.
Three Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire, two at a nearby refugee camp and one near a hospital, Palestinians said. The Israeli military said Palestinians threw a bomb at an Israeli tank, setting off an exchange of fire. MORE

Worse Than Worthless Wartime "Promises"
Posted: Saturday, October 20, 2001

MID-EAST REALITIES © - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington

The list of broken and disingenuous "promises" made to the Arabs by Western political leaders is something befitting a "Saturday Night Live" parody skit -- if only they would dare! To get just a little idea of past historical "promises" here's another great article by Robert Fisk writing in The Independent -- and we've quickly embellished his rather short list with a quick one of our own...without even beginning to exhaust all the major historical deceptions and all the false, broken, and for the most part forgotten promises of the past:

Promises list from The Independent article that follows:

1915 - T E Lawrence promises Arab independence in return for the support of leaders such as Sherif Husseyn
1917 - In a letter from Arthur Balfour to Lionel Rothschild, Britain promises a Jewish homeland in Palestine
1944 - President Roosevelt assures King Ibn Saud that the US will not allow the Palestinians to be dispossessed
1979-90 - Presidents Carter and Reagan promise to help to rebuild Afghanistan if the mujahedin expel the Soviet invaders
1991 - George Bush promises an 'oasis of peace' in the Middle East in return for Arab support in the Gulf war
2001 - Tony Blair assures Yasser Arafat of Britain's commitment to a 'viable Palestinian state', including Jerusalem

More Promises added by MER:

1918 - Promise of "Arab self-determination and independence" shatters "Paris Peace Conference"
1939 - British and Ben-Gurion promise the Palestinian Arabs there is no intention of setting up a "separate" "Jewish State"
1947 - U.N. Promises Palestinian Arabs there own independent State if they accept "partition"
1978 - President Carter promises total Israeli "settlement freeze" as key part of new Camp David agreement between Egypt and Israel
1979 - Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Minister of State of Egypt, promises in interview a Palestinian State by next year
1991 - Arabs promised if they go to Madrid Conference U.S. will insist on compliance with all U.N. Security Council resolutions
1993 - Arafat promises his people true peace and justice - Oslo, Washington, Cairo.
1993-1999 - Arafat promises ad infinitum a Palestininan State, with absolute assurances it will come about no later than the end of 1999.

As for what's going on at the moment, nearly three weeks ago Shimon Peres, in an unprecedented step, publicly warned that top officials in Israel's army were planning to assassinate Yasser Arafat and end the "Palestinian Authority" once and for all (see MER article 1 October). Today a top spokesman for Yasser Arafat made a similar public warning crying out for the U.S. to prevent it. More, much more, to come -- stay tuned!

PROMISES, PROMISES

Colin Powell tells Pakistan's General Musharraf
that he will help solve the problem of Kashmir.
Tony Blair offers Yasser Arafat the vision of a
Palestinian state. But should we take them at
their word?
-- by Robert Fisk

The Independent, UK, 17 October 2001

Tea on the lawn. Perhaps only in the old British Empire do they make black tea and milk in the same scalding pot, poured with lashings of sugar into fragile cups. The bougainvillea blasted crimson and purple down the brick wall beside me while big, aggressive black birds pursued each other over the cut grass of my tiny Peshawar hotel. At the end of my little road lies the tiny British cemetery wherein gravestones mark the assassination of the 19th century Raj's good men from Surrey and Yorkshire, murdered by what were called ghazis, the Afghan fundamentalists of their age who were often accompanied into battle - and I quote Captain Mannering of the Second Afghan war - "by religious men called talibs".

In those days, we made promises. We promised Afghan governments our support if they kept out the Russians. We promised our Indian Empire wealth, communications and education in return for its loyalty. Little has changed. Yesterday - all day long into the sweaty evening - fighter-bombers pulsed through the yellow sky above my little lawn, grey supersonic streaks that rose like hawks from Peshawar's mighty runway and headed west towards the mountains of Afghanistan. Their jet engines must have vibrated among the English bones in the cemetery at the end of the road, as Hardy's Channel firing once disturbed Parson Thirdly's last mortal remains. And, on the great black television in my bedroom, the broken, veined screen proved that Imperial history does indeed repeat itself.

General Colin Powell stood on the right hand of General Pervez Musharraf after promising a serious look at the problems of Kashmir and Pashtu representation in a future Afghan government. The US Secretary of State and the general whom we must now call the President of Pakistan spent much of their time chatting above the overnight artillery bombardment by that other old Empire relic, the Indian army. General Musharraf wanted a "short" campaign against Afghanistan, General Powell a promise of continued Pakistani support in the US's "war against terror". Musharraf wanted a solution to the problem of Kashmir. Powell, promising that the United States was now a close friend of Pakistan, headed off to India to oblige.

Vain promises have ever been a part of our conflict. In the 1914-18 war - another struggle against "evil", we should remember - it was the British who made the promises. To the Jews of the world, especially to Russian Jews, we promised our support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. To the Arabs, Lawrence of Arabia promised independence. There's a wonderful moment in the film of the same name when Peter O'Toole, clad in an Arab gown and looking not unlike Osama bin Laden, asks General Allenby (Jack Hawkins) if he can promise Sherif Husseyn independence in return for Arab support in destroying the Turkish army. For just a brief, devastating moment, Hawkins hesitates; then his face becomes all smiling benevolence: "Of course!" he says. Did I not see that very same smile on Tony Blair's face as he clutched Arafat's hand in both of his before leading him through the door of 10 Downing Street this week?

In the end, we imposed an Anglo-French military occupation on the Arabs who had helped us and, three decades later gave the Jews only half of Palestine. "Promises", as the Palestinian academic Walid Khalidi once pointed out, "are meant to be kept." But not the kind you make in wartime.

By the Second World War, we were promising the Lebanese independence from the French if they turned against their Vichy masters. Then the French broke their promise and tried to stay on until driven out in ignominy in 1946. Two years earlier, President Roosevelt - anxious to secure Saudi oil rights from the British as the war came to an end - promised the Saudi monarchy that he would not allow the Palestinians to be dispossessed.

By 1990, after the invasion of Kuwait, we wanted the Arab and Muslim world on our side against Iraq. President Bush Senior promised a "New World Order" in which a nuclear-free - indeed arms-free - Middle East would live in an oasis of peace. Once the Iraqis were driven out, however, we called a short-lived "Middle-East" summit in Madrid and then sold more missiles, tanks and jet fighters to the Arabs and Israelis than in the preceding 30 years. Israel's nuclear power was never mentioned.

And here we go again. Scarcely three days before Mr Powell acquired his sudden interest in the problems of Kashmir, Yasser Arafat, the discredited old man of Gaza - "our bin Laden", as ex-General Ariel Sharon indecently called him - was invited to Downing Street where Tony Blair, hitherto a cautious supporter of Palestinian independence, declared the need for a "viable Palestinian state", including Jerusalem - "viable" being a gloss for a less chopped-up version of the Bantustan originally proposed for Mr Arafat. Mr Blair, of course, had no need to fear American wrath since President Bush Jnr had already discovered that even before 11 September - or so he told us - he had a "vision" of a Palestinian state that accepted the existence of Israel. Mr Arafat - speaking English at length for the first time in years - instantly supported the air bombardment of Afghanistan. Poor old Afghans. They were not on hand to remind the world that the same Mr Arafat had once enthusiastically supported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Why do we always play politics on the hoof, making quick-fix promises to vulnerable allies of convenience after years of accepting, even creating, the injustices of the Middle East and South-west Asia? How soon before we decide - and not before time - to lift sanctions against Iraq, and allow tens of thousands of Iraqi children to live instead of die? Or promise (in return for the overthrow of Sadam) to withdraw our forces from the Arabian peninsula? After all - say this not too loudly - if we promised and fulfilled all that, every one of Osama bin Laden's demands will have been met.

It's intriguing to read the full text of what bin Laden demanded in his post-World Trade Center attack video tape. He said in Arabic, in a section largely excised in English translations, that "our [Muslim] nation has undergone more than 80 years of this humiliation..." and referred to "when the sword reached America after 80 years". Bin Laden may be cruel, wicked, ruthless or evil personified, but he is very intelligent. I think he was referring specifically to the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, written by the victorious allied powers, which broke the Ottoman Empire and did away - after 600 years of sultanates and caliphates - with the last dream of Arab unity. As the American Professor James Robbins has shrewdly spotted, bin Laden's lieutenant, Ayman Zawahri - shouting into the video recorder from his Afghan cave 11 days ago - stated that the al-Quaida movement "will not tolerate a recurrence of the Andalusia tragedy in Palestine". Andalusia? Yes, the debacle of Andalusia marked the end of Muslim rule in Spain in 1492.

We may sprinkle quick-fix promises around. The people of the Middle East have longer memories. Back in the mid-1990s, I used to visit the bookshops of Algiers. Out in the triangle of death around Bentalha, hundreds of innocents were having their throats slit by an Islamist group - possibly also by government forces - many of whose members had fought in Afghanistan against the Russians. In the shops I would look for books on Islam. Muslim culture, Islamic history, Koranic thought. They were all there. And on the very next shelves - the same applied, I found, in Cairo bookshops - would invariably be text books on nuclear science, chemical engineering, aeronautics and biological research.

The aeronautical texts have, of course, a fearful new resonance today. So have the books on biological research. But the reason for their concurrence, I suspected, lay in the history of Arab humiliation. The Arabs were among the first scientists at the start of the second millennium, while the Crusaders - another of bin Laden's fixations - were riding in technological ignorance into the Muslim world. So while in the past few decades, our popular conception of the Arabs vaguely embraced an oil-rich, venal and largely backward people, awaiting our annual handouts and their virgins in heaven, many of them were asking pertinent questions about their past and future, about religion and science, about - so I suspect - how God and technology might be part of the same universe.

No such long-term thought or historical questions for us. We just went on supporting our Muslim dictators around the world - especially in the Middle East - in return for their friendship and our vain promises to rectify historical injustice.

We allowed our dictators to snuff out their socialist and communist parties; we left their population little place to exercise their political opposition except through religion. We went in for bestialization- Messrs Khomeini, Abu Nidal, Gaddafi, Arafat, Saddam and bin Laden - rather than historical questioning. And we made more promises. Presidents Carter and Reagan, I recall, made promises to the Afghan mujahedin. Fight the Russians and we will help you. There would then be assistance in Afghanistan's economic recovery. A re-building of the country, even (this from the innocent Mr Carter) "democracy" - not a concept to be sure that we would now be promising to the Pakistanis, Palestinians, Uzbeks or Saudis. Of course, once the Russians were gone in 1989, there was no economic assistance. But last year, there was President Clinton, loud once more in America's promises of economic help for Pakistan, asking for a rejection of bin Laden; yet his only sense of perspective was to tell the Pakistani people that their history was - wait for it - "as long as the river Indus".

The problem, I fear, is that without any sense of history, we do not understand injustice. We only compound that injustice, after years of indolence, when we want to bribe our would-be allies with promises of immense historical importance - a resolution to Palestine, Kashmir, an arms-free Middle East, Arab independence, an economic Nirvana - because we are at war - tell them what they want to hear, promise them what they want - anything, so long as we can get our armadas into the air in our latest "war against evil".

So there was General Powell yesterday promising to deal with Kashmir while General Musharraf pleaded for a short war and while the jets went sweeping off towards Afghanistan from the Peshawar airbase.

MiD-EasT RealitieS - http://www.MiddleEast.Org / Forum

Is Anthrax Just The Beginning?
Posted: Saturday, October 20, 2001

Source: Northeastern University (http://www.northeastern.edu/)

What could be deadlier than anthrax? Try smallpox and the bubonic plague.

Jim Matthews, an associate professor of pharmacy at Northeastern University's Bouvé College of Health Sciences, says that though the use of anthrax as a bioterrorist weapon is haunting, it is not nearly as frightening as the threat of attacks using smallpox or the bubonic plague.

"Anthrax is not easily transferred, so to develop it as a weapon is difficult, and in most cases, it responds quite well to antibiotics," said Matthews. "However, what I would be more fearful and weary of is an outbreak of smallpox or the bubonic plague, caused by terrorist acts. Smallpox, for example, is contagious and there is no effective treatment available. Even as we speak, some federal officials have reason to believe that Iraq is developing it as a biological weapon."

While Matthews believes that it is important for government to focus its energies on investigating the recent bioterrorist mailings and ensuring the availability of anthrax antibiotics and vaccines, he believes it is imperative that government accelerates work on protection against untreatable viruses.

"It's great that federal officials are working to have the anthrax antibiotic, Ciprofloxacin readily available for those believed to be infected," said Matthews. ("Incidentally the only anthrax vaccine manufactured in the U.S. by Michigan-based BioPort Corporation and sponsored by the Department of Defense, is only available through the Center for Disease Control and to members of the military.")

"However, contingency plans should be in the works to guard against other bioterrorist threats such as smallpox," warns Matthews.

New
Posted: Saturday, October 20, 2001

Jewish leader slams German author for criticizing Israel

Berlin, Oct 20, IRNA -- The President of the Central Council of Jews Paul Spiegel lashed out at German author and Nobel laureate Guenter Grass for his recent criticism of Israel's policies in the occupied Palestinian territories, Paul quoted an advance report by the weekly Focus magazine here Saturday.

Spiegel accused Grass of "directly or indirectly questioning Israel's right to exist". Grass said during a recent interview with the weekly Spiegel magazine, "Israel must withdraw from occupied territories."

He added, "Furthermore the annexation and settlement of Palestinian soil is a criminal act." The Jewish leader went on to say that Grass' statements put him on "one level with the radical enemies of Israel".

The Zionist regime has faced worldwide condemnation for its murderous policies in the occupied territories.

Israeli army hits Christian neighborhoods in Beit Jala, two killed

Al-Khalil, Oct 20, IRNA -- Israeli artillery on Saturday pounded Christian neighborhoods in Beit Jala, west of Bethlehem, killing a man and a woman and injuring several other civilians.

According to local sources, Israeli tanks fired several shells at downtown Beit Jala and strafed civilian neighborhoods with machinegun fire, killing Ranya Kharoufa, 24.

Kharoufa, neighbors testified, was trying to buy milk for her family when an Israeli sniper's bullet hit her in the head, killing her instantly.

Another local Christian, identified as Mousa George Edey, was killed yesterday in similar circumstances.

Palestinian sources said 9 civilians were killed and many others were maimed in the Bethlehem district in the past 24 hours alone.

The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers since Thursday is 23 Palestinians, most of them innocent civilians.

In addition, more than 50, mostly civilians, were wounded by Israeli bullets. Meanwhile, the Israeli army bombarded the Azza refugee camp Saturday evening, killing a 15 year-old boy, identified as Yousef Ahmed Ibayat.

A medical doctor from the nearby Beit Jala hospital was also injured while trying to save the life of Ibayat. Eyewitnesses said Israeli soldiers were pinpointing their guns at doors and windows in order to inflict maximum casualties.

On Saturday, the Israeli army effectively reoccupied most of the Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, reversing the Oslo process, a longtime goal of Ariel Sharon.

War flares up in Southern Caucasus

Kavkaz Center - According to Tbilisi time at 14:10 on Thursday in air space of Georgia again intruded four planes without recognition symbols, as informed by press center of the Georgian Defence Ministry. According to the press center, four assault fighters Su-25 appeared in air space of Georgia from Kabardino-Balkaria made flight on Mestizh district and heights of Kodori Gorge’s and exactly after five minutes departed in opposite direction.

The press center of Georgian Defence Ministry says, that all ready for combat Air Forces of the country planes such as Su-25, this day didn’t fly above the specified heights of the mountainous district, they continue performance of scheduled tasks in the sky above Western Georgia. Exactly in 30 minutes above Kodori Gorge appeared 6 more planes, which later on departed towards Russian border. Tbilisi not without justification confirms that these were Russian planes, which already bombed gorge. It is necessary to remind, that Chechen side actually has confirmed belonging of planes, having specified on the operative data that bombers took off from Mozdok. MORE

'Everything has changed'

Graham Usher - At around 7 am yesterday two Palestinians entered the Hyatt Regency hotel in occupied East Jerusalem and shot Rehavam Zeevi, Israel's Tourism Minister and leader of the ultra-nationalist National Union bloc. Three hours later he was pronounced dead.

The PLO's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack. "The blood of Abu Ali Mustafa has to be avenged, regardless of any [Palestinian Authority] cease-fire agreement with Israel," ran the wire sent to Reuters in Beirut.

In one sense, the PFLP's statement is true. When Israeli helicopters struck Mustafa in his office in Ramallah on 27 August, by far the most prominent assassination of the 59 Israel has executed during the Intifada, PFLP leaders openly declared that Israeli political leaders were now legitimate targets for retaliation. MORE

Palestinian slain in fresh violence

Israeli tanks and troops moved 150 metres (yards) into the West Bank city of Qualqilya under cover of machine-gun fire well before dawn, killing a Palestinian in front of his house as helicopters hovered overhead, Palestinian witnesses said.

Palestinian gunmen opened fire on Israeli troops and armoured vehicles as they crossed several hundred metres (yards) into the West Bank city of Tulkarm in another early raid, Palestinian witnesses said.

The Israeli army did not immediately comment on the reports it had made another incursion Palestinian-ruled territory in the wake of Wednesday's assassination of ultranationalist Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi by Palestinian militants.

Stoking fears that the year-old conflict is spinning out of control, Israeli tanks had rumbled into Palestinian-ruled Bethlehem and six Palestinians were killed in fighting in the West Bank on Friday.

The toll since Zeevi's death is 13 Palestinians and one Israeli killed, and dozens wounded. MORE

U.S. troops die in helicopter crash

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. troops have died in a helicopter crash in Pakistan during operations connected with the U.S. military campaign in neighbouring Afghanistan, the Pentagon said.

U.S. Completes Afghan Ground Raid

By ROBERT BURNS
AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — About 100 U.S. commandos carried out a secretive ground assault in the Taliban stronghold of southern Afghanistan, opening a new phase of the war on terrorism after nearly two weeks of punishing airstrikes, U.S. officials said Friday night. Two soldiers died when a U.S. helicopter, prepared for search-and-rescue duty, crashed accidentally in neighboring Pakistan.

President Bush said American forces are ``encircling the terrorists so that we can bring them to justice.''

Officials said the commandos returned to base after several hours inside Afghanistan. There was no word on possible casualties in the raid.

60 killed in US bombing on Kabul, Kandhar

ISLAMABAD, Oct 18 (Reuters): More than 60 people have been killed in a fierce bombardment of the Afghan capital, Kabul, and the Southern City of Kandahar since yesterday morning, the Afghan Islamic Press said today quoting Taliban officials.

In kandahar, the attacks have killed 42 civilians since early yesterday, AIP quoted education minister Amir Khan Muttaqi as saying.

While the attacks were less intense today, at least five people were killed early in the morning, AIP quoted Taliban spokesman Abdul Haye Mutmaen as saying.

AIP said its reports showed that 10 people had been killed in the Qalaye Zaman Khan Eastern Suburb of Kabul. In addition, two died in Kabul’s Khair Khana district and three near Kabul’s airport, which has been a constant target of attack in the last few days.

Israeli tanks seize swath of Arafat's land

Suzanne Goldenberg in Bethlehem
The Guardian

Region on the brink as cabinet hawks urge Sharon to conquer all of Palestinian Authority in reprisal for killing of minister

Israeli tanks loomed over Bethlehem's Manger Square yesterday, underlining the predicament of the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, after launching the widest offensive on Palestinian-ruled lands since the start of the intifada.
Does he stop now, or does he embark on a war to the finish against Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority?

The tanks encircling Bethlehem and the army snipers installed in hotels in the centre of town and on the edges of a refugee camp yesterday morning put the Israeli army in commanding positions of four Palestinian cities in the West Bank. After seizing large areas of Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin, the Israeli army was waiting for an order to move in and conquer all of the Palestinian Authority.

In the emotionally charged atmosphere following the assassination on Wednesday of the far-right cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi, that is precisely what rightwing figures were urging Mr Sharon to do. After Mr Arafat's officials on Thursday rejected Israel's ultimatum to hand over Zeevi's killers - who were from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - Zeevi's fellow cabinet ministers on the far-right and the upper echelons of the Israeli army are beating the drums of war.

Yesterday, Israeli newspapers outlined war scenarios that would begin with the army invasions that have isolated West Bank cities, and would end with military strikes on electricity and telephone stations, as well as economic measures that would lead to the eventual collapse of Mr Arafat's administration. MORE

News
Posted: Friday, October 19, 2001

Russian Iranologists call for more cultural ties with Iran

Moscow, Oct 19, IRNA -- Russian Iranologists in meeting Iran's Ambassador to Russian Federation, Gholamreza Shafe'i, expressed great interest in Persian language and culture and called for development of cultural cooperation between the two countries.

Russian Iranologists are mostly university professors with high-level degrees who have compiled different essays about the Persian language and culture as well as translated Iranian well-known authors' works into Russian.

Shafe'i lauded the Russian Iranologists' efforts in introducing
Persian culture and language and said that such cultural interactions
are the best methods of upgrading dialogue among the civilizations.

Misrepresentation of Iran's Commitment to International Laws

TEHRAN In a blatant misrepresentation of Iran's commitment to international regulations, Colin Powell, the American secretary of state has said during a press conference that Iran's proposal to help American soldiers whose lives are in danger during the U.S. war against Afghanistan will help to further isolate the Talebans in their country.

***New York Times***, quoting American officials, also said in its last Tuesday's issue that Iran has proposed to the U.S. Administration that it is willing to offer humanitarian help to American forces in Afghanistan.

The spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry has announced however that no such proposal has been made by Iran to the American Administration . He elaborated that Iran, in accordance with international regulations, has only declared its willingness to help those pilots that may encounter difficulties during their flight missions over Afghanistan and if and when they have to make emergency landings in Iranian territory.

Observers believe that according to international laws, the help can be given to Taleban as a warring side as well. MORE

Anthrax alert spreads to New York Post

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An employee of the tabloid newspaper The New York Post has tested positive for skin anthrax, workers at the paper say.

A number of employees at the newspaper, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, were tested and one of them came back positive for cutaneous anthrax, a less dangerous form of the disease than inhaled anthrax, during a second round of tests. MORE

Mideast Clerics Decry U.S.-Led War

KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia -- Children emptied their piggybanks and a woman donated her wedding dress as a Saudi campaign continued Friday to raise millions for Afghan victims of U.S.-led attacks.

With Muslims streaming into mosques for the day of weekly prayers, clerics in this Gulf nation and across the Middle East denounced the U.S. assault and called for holy war. MORE

Anthrax Deaths Haunt Russian City

YEKATERINBURG, Russia -- On an April morning in 1979, Lazar Karsayev awoke early as usual, drank a cup of tea and walked to work at a ceramics factory. A few hours later, the fit 64-year-old was sent home with what doctors said was a bad cold.

When medics wearing biohazard suits showed up to take him to the hospital the next day, his family suspected something much worse. A few days later, they were taken under police guard to watch Karsayev's coffin -- filled with chlorinated lime and sealed in plastic -- being lowered into one of dozens of fresh graves at the edge of a cemetery. MORE

Taliban say injured Afghans are dying due to lack of medicines

IRNA -- Afghanistan ruling Taliban Wednesday said injured Afghans are dying because of the lack of medicines. "There is no medicine in Afghanistan to treat the injured," Taliban envoy Mulla Abdul Salam Zaeef told NNI news agency from an unknown destination between Helmand and Herat. MORE

Toll mounts in Mid-East clashes

BBC - Casualties have been mounting in the Palestinian Territories in a day of high tension after Israeli forces entered the West Bank towns of Bethlehem and Beit Jala.

Four Palestinians, including a woman and a policeman, were reported killed and least 16 injured in exchanges of fire in the West Bank, while the Israeli army said a soldier was seriously wounded by a sniper. MORE

Daily warns of new plot in US-Britain's current actions
Posted: Thursday, October 18, 2001

Tehran, Oct 18, IRNA -- Although a senior official of the U.S.
Administration has recently said that there is no valuable target in
Afghanistan, Washington's ongoing deployment of more and more forces
in the region, has given rise to the question as to what America is
trying to achieve through this huge military mobilization? pondered
the English-language daily `Tehran Times' on Thursday.

The daily in its opinion column recalled that even U.S. Secretary
of State Colin Powell at a recent press conference in Pakistan said
that "there is no definite timetable for the overthrow of the
Taliban," noting that even British Prime Minster Tony Blair and U.S.
President George W. Bush have also stated that their "war on
Afghanistan may last long, and that even their air raids on that
country may take months!"

All this indicates that the so-called campaign against terrorism
is only a "pretext", warned the paper, adding that Washington is
actually trying to gain a foothold in the region by setting up
military bases in the area.

Their real intention is "to exert influence over the Central Asian
countries and getting access to the regional oil and gas reserves,"
continued the paper.

In fact, signs indicate that the U.S. and Britain have aims to
establish another "Israel" in this part of the world through
disintegration of Afghanistan by exploiting ethnic conflict in that
country.

In other words, the daily said, "some evidence indicates that the
two countries are going to partition Afghanistan and establish three
governments in north, center and southern parts of that war-ravaged
country."

According to this theory, the paper believed, "the southern and
estern parts of Afghanistan will be allotted to the Taliban and
Pashtuns, who are supported by Pakistan; the deposed Zahir Khan will
rule the central part and the Northern Alliance will establish a
government in the north of that country."

What lends probability to this theory is that some reports have
quoted Northern Alliance leaders as having said that they intend "to
choose Mazar-i-Sharif as their capital and that they have no intention
of advancing towards Kabul," examined the daily.

If this plot is carried out, then it is sure that Washington and
London will make the most of the ethnic conflict existing among
different tribes in Afghanistan, warned the article.

Moreover, "considering the political background of Zahir and his
strong leanings towards the West, it is quite clear that the
government in the central part of Afghanistan will turn into a
regional base for the US," it added.

Even while the US and Britain are planning to dominate Central
Asia and control its natural resources, the Zionist entity has also
resumed its "liquidation policy" or assassination of Palestinian
activists and leaders of the Intifada, in order to crush the
resistance of Palestinians and pave the way for the realization of its
dream of a greater Israel extending from Nile to Euphrates, denounced
the paper.

Under such sensitive circumstances, it urged those Islamic
countries, that have not yet condemned the U.S-led air strikes on
innocent lives in Afghanistan, "to respond to the demands of their
nations and join other Islamic states that have suggested that any
anti-terrorism campaign should be launched under the umbrella of the
U.N."

It warned those Islamic countries, that if they do not condemn the
unilateral U.S. attacks on Afghanistan, then "unbridled aggressions
may become the norm of the day." Consequently, these countries may
also become a target of aggressions by the Zionist regime, which is
looking for any opportunity to make its dream come true, it concluded.

News
Posted: Thursday, October 18, 2001

Life sentences for embassy bombers

BBC - All four men convicted of the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania have received life sentences without the possibility of parole.
One of the men, Wadih el-Hage, a naturalised US citizen born in Lebanon who was convicted of conspiracy, gave a 30-minute address to the judge, protesting his innocence and claiming to be a devout Muslim opposed to violence. MORE

Sixth anthrax case hits US

BBC - Officials have confirmed two more cases of anthrax infection in the United States - bringing the total to six - and offered a $1m reward for information as they tried to calm public fears.
A New Jersey postal worker and an employee of CBS News in New York both tested positive for skin anthrax.

All three major TV networks in New York City have now become sites of anthrax infection and a seventh possible case is being investigated in Florida. MORE

A grubby, vengeful war

When Tony Blair took Britain into the US war with Afghanistan, he assured us that it was a three pronged strategy - the military, diplomatic and humanitarian would be pursued in tandem. Each was equally important.
After more than 10 days of intensive bombing, Blair's pledge has been exposed as the politically expedient sham it always was. It was third way wishful thinking of the worst kind to imagine that a military attack on such a desperately poor country as Afghanistan was compatible with humanitarian needs. MORE

Report: Bomb Kills bin Laden Aide

CAIRO, Egypt -- A veteran al-Qaida fighter was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan, a London-based Islamic group said Thursday. It was the first reported death of an established figure from Osama bin Laden's terror network in the nearly two-week bombardment.

The Egyptian militant, identified by his nom de guerre Abu Baseer al-Masri, was killed by a U.S. bomb Sunday near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, the Islamic Observation Center said in an e-mailed statement to The Associated Press.

The center said two of his comrades, a Chinese Muslim and a Yemeni, were injured. No details were given. MORE

3 Palestinians Killed in Car Blast

BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- Three Palestinian gunmen, including a militia leader wanted by Israel, were killed Thursday when the car they were riding in exploded. Palestinian officials blamed the blast on Israel.

Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman Yarden Vatikay refused comment.

One of the dead men was identified as militia leader Atef Abayat, who was wanted by Israel in the killing of a Jewish settler woman last month. All three were members of a band of gunmen linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. MORE

Questions Swirl Around Men Held in Terror Probe

Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 15, 2001; Page A01

In a high-security wing of Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center, an unknown number of men with Middle Eastern names are being held in solitary confinement on the ninth floor, locked in 8- by 10-foot cells with little more than cots, thin blankets and, if they request it, copies of the Koran. Every two hours, guards roust them to conduct a head count.

They have no contact with each other or their families and limited access to their lawyers. Their names appear on no federal jail log available to the public. No records can be found in any court docket in New York showing why they are detained, who represents them or the status of their cases.

The nearly absolute secrecy surrounding the detentions is a growing concern to civil libertarians and legal observers who fear basic rights are being violated as authorities pursue the terrorist conspiracy responsible for the attacks in New York and Washington.

"How many are being held? On what basis? What kind of judicial review is available? All of those seem to be important questions to answer," said Steven R. Shapiro, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. MORE

Biological Warfare Emerges As 21st-Century Threat
Posted: Wednesday, October 17, 2001

Source: Stanford University (http://www.stanford.edu)
Originally Posted 1/19/2001

History lessons

During World War II, the Japanese military killed thousands of Chinese prisoners by subjecting them to experimental doses of anthrax, cholera, plague and other pathogens.

After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union launched full-scale bioweapons programs, which included the development of aerosol sprays capable of delivering bacterial and viral agents by plane or ballistic missile.

"Both sides also stockpiled plenty of anthrax," adds Block.

In 1969, President Richard Nixon issued an executive order unilaterally and unconditionally ending America's bioweapons program, and all U.S. stockpiles were destroyed by 1972.

That same year, 160 nations signed a treaty banning all use of biological and chemical weapons; 143 countries eventually ratified the treaty, including the United States, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Failed treaty

Despite its noble intentions, says Block, the 1972 treaty lacks any significant provisions for enforcement or verification. As a result, a number of signatories to the treaty have maintained active bioweapons programs.

"I'm fairly confident that the U.S. has stopped producing biological weapons," he says, "but the Soviet Union carried out ultra-secret bioweapons work right up until it collapsed in 1990."

In 1979, 100 people and countless livestock died following the accidental release of anthrax spores from a bioweapons plant in the Russian city of Sverdlovsk --- one of 40 such facilities that operated in the former Soviet Union.

Russia's dismal economic situation raises the question of how out-of-work bioweapons scientists are managing to find gainful employment now, observes Block.

"Some experts contend that a low but significant level of bioresearch still exists today," he adds.

Block's ultimate nightmare is that terrorists somehow could get access to the smallpox viruses being kept on ice in Russia -- a fear bolstered by the testimony of a former official in the Russian biowarfare program, who claimed that smallpox-based weapons were being manufactured there as recently as 1992.

Iraq also has violated the 1972 bioweapons treaty by mass-producing weapons-grade anthrax and conducting research on a wide variety of other biological agents. Details of the Iraqi bioweaponry program only came to light in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War.

All told, Block estimates that about a dozen countries are believed to have active bioweapons programs.

Terrorist threat

Although Block is concerned about the bioweapons buildup in Iraq and other nations, he believes a greater threat comes from terrorist groups willing to risk an out-of-control epidemic and eager to suffer casualties for the good of "the cause."

A recent example was the 1995 sarin gas attack inside the Tokyo subway by the Japanese apocalyptic cult Aum Shinrikyo. The widely publicized assault, which killed 13 people and hospitalized thousands, had been preceded by a series of failed botulism and anthrax assaults near the Imperial Palace, a Tokyo airport and two U.S. military bases.

"Groups like Aum Shinrikyo are willing to use biological agents inefficiently just for the terror and propaganda value," Block contends.

Solutions

During fiscal year 2000, the Clinton administration allocated $1.4 billion to combat both biological and chemical warfare -- a good beginning but not enough, according to Block, who believes more should be spent beefing up America's anti-terrorist intelligence effort and its emergency response capability.

Block also supports the development of high-tech devices capable of instantaneously detecting lethal bacteria and viruses in the environment, and he encourages the production and stockpiling of new vaccines -- a hot-button issue in Washington, D.C., these days.

The anthrax vaccine has stirred the most controversy. The U.S. military wants to inoculate all 2.4 million active and reserve troops, but no one knows if the current vaccine will provide immunity against inhalation anthrax -- the type commonly used in bioweapons.

As for smallpox, routine vaccinations in the United States ended in 1980, the year the virus was officially eradicated, so few Americans still have immunity today. The Centers for Disease Control will make 40 million new doses of the vaccine available beginning in 2004, but critics say that, in the event of a multi-city terrorist attack, hundreds of millions of doses will be needed to prevent the often-fatal disease from spreading throughout the country.

On the diplomatic front, Block argues in favor of strengthening the 1972 bioweapons treaty --- "giving it some 'teeth,'" he says, by requiring reciprocal international inspections to assure treaty compliance.

"Embarrassingly," he notes, "the United States itself has steadfastly resisted certain attempts to establish provisions for inspections" -- in part to protect the interests of large American pharmaceutical and biotech companies against industrial espionage.

He also makes a strong plea to his fellow biologists to break their silence and take a stand against the proliferation of biological weapons.

"Some folks simply do not take the threat seriously," he observes, "but they should. Others worry about provoking a widespread public backlash against biotechnology in general that might have a chilling effect on their own legitimate biological research."

None of these excuses stands up to close scrutiny, Block contends, adding that the time to act is now before disaster strikes.

"We should not have to wait for the biological equivalent of Hiroshima to rally our defenses," he concludes.

Editor's Note: The original news release can be found at http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/report/news/january17/bioterror-117.html

Wake up Ariel Sharon
Posted: Wednesday, October 17, 2001

Dear Editor

The man whose job it was to make Israel appear safe and secure to the world was murdered today. Where ? In a hotel in the capital Jerusalem by to assailants who escaped. The response to this by the Israeli Leader Ariel Sharon was that " this is a new era, things are never going to be the same again." My advice to the Prime Minister is to wake up and look around; things have not been the same a long time now for the Israeli people and the Palestinian people.

Maybe now that his colleague in Cabinet has been murdered a may not be the same for him, but for the people in the region it has been the same for quite sometime now.

Cindy Williams

Wednesday News
Posted: Wednesday, October 17, 2001

31 Exposed On Capitol Hill

Congressional leaders ordered an unprecedented shutdown of the House on Wednesday after more than two dozen people in Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office tested positive for exposure to a highly concentrated form of anthrax. MORE

Hollywood 'inspired US attacks'

Veteran film director Robert Altman has blamed Hollywood for "inspiring" the recent attacks on the US.

"Nobody would have thought to commit an atrocity like that unless they'd seen it in a movie," said Altman, who also directed MASH and The Player.

Violent blockbusters "taught them how to do it" and Hollywood must now stop showing mass destruction in movies, he said. MORE

Capitol shuts as anthrax spreads

The US Capitol will close down for tests after 31 Senate employees tested positive for anthrax exposure - increasing fears of new, full-blown cases of the potentially deadly disease.

Most of those infected were workers in the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle - who received a letter containing anthrax through the post on Friday. MORE

Israeli tourism minister shot dead

BBC - Israel's hard-line Tourism Minister, Rehavam Zeevi, has been shot dead by gunmen in a Jerusalem hotel.

Mr Zeevi died in hospital after being shot three times in the head and throat inside Jerusalem's Hyatt Hotel.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has said it carried out the assassination in revenge for the killing of its leader Abu Ali Mustafa, by Israeli forces in August.

Following the shooting of Mr Zeevi, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered all cabinet ministers to stay at home, according to Israel radio and called an emergency security meeting. MORE

US buys up all satellite war images

Duncan Campbell
The Pentagon has spent millions of dollars to prevent western media from seeing highly accurate civilian satellite pictures of the effects of bombing in Afghanistan, it was revealed yesterday.
The images, which are taken from Ikonos, an advanced civilian satellite launched in 1999, are better than the spy satellite pictures available to the military during most of the cold war.

The extraordinary detail of the images already taken by the satellite includes a line of terrorist trainees marching between training camps at Jalalabad. At the same resolution, it would be possible to see bodies lying on the ground after last week's bombing attacks.

Under American law, the US defence department has legal power to exercise "shutter control" over civilian satellites launched from the US in order to prevent enemies using the images while America is at war. But no order for shutter control was given, even after the bombing raids began 10 days ago. MORE

Indonesia's AMDA to send medical team to Afghanistan

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian chapter of the Association of Medical Doctors of Asia (AMDA) International will soon send a medical team to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area to provide medical services for Afghan refugees following the United States-led military attacks, an official said on Tuesday.

Chairman of AMDA in Indonesia A. Husni Tanra said as quoted by Antara in the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar that the country's AMDA medical team would join those of Japan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The doctors involved in the AMDA medical team who will leave for the Afghanistan-Pakistan border this month are Hasbullah, Muhammad Yunus, Taufik, Taqwa and a university student, he said. MORE

British envoy clarifies his govt's position in Afghanistan attacks

JAKARTA (JP): British Ambassador Richard Gozney met on Tuesday with Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI) officials to clarify his country's stance on the United States-led military offensive against Afghanistan.

"I am glad to have had a chance to clarify the background of the action in Afghanistan to the MUI, which is concerned about it," Gozney said as quoted by Antara.

He said the military action was launched based on a UN resolution on terrorism following the attacks on New York and Washington DC on Sept. 11.

"Terrorism has to be stopped by all available means, through diplomatic channels, economic channels and direct action against terrorist camps in Afghanistan," he said.

He pointed out that the military strikes were not an attack on Islam or a certain nation but on terrorists enjoying the protection of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban.

Meanwhile, one of MUI's chairmen, Amidhan, said the council and the British government had different views on how to fight terrorism.

"We have taken note of the explanations (of the British ambassador) as well as of the government's stance condemning terrorism. But we differ in views on the ways of tackling it," Amidhan said as quoted by the news agency.

Indonesia does not agree with an all-out war, he said.

Amidhan said the MUI had also noted the U.S. intelligence agencies' failure to identify the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Therefore, the military attacks on Afghanistan in effect constitutes acts of blind aggression, he added.

The U.S. and British embassies in Jakarta have become the targets of continual protests following the U.S.-led military attacks on Afghanistan. MORE

Jewish terrorist murder Palestinian laborer in al-Qods

IRNA -- Jewish terrorists Tuesday murdered a Palestinian laborer while he was working in a construction site in al-Qods, Palestinian sources said.

The latest victim of organized Jewish terror has been identified as Ahmed Ibrahim Ibayat, 35, of Bethlehem.

A Palestinian police spokesman in Bethlehem said the Palestinian worker bled to death after Jewish terrorists attacked him with knife and sharp objects.

An Israeli police spokesman said "extremists stabbed the Palestinians to death," adding that the perpetrators fled away. Israeli media refer to Jewish terrorists and murderers as "extremist elements." Ibayat is the third Palestinian to be murdered by Jewish terrorists in the past 72 hours.

Jewish terror claims second victim in 10 hours

IRNA -- Jewish terror claimed another Palestinian life Tuesday, the second in less than 10 hours. Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip said Israeli troops fired an artillery shell at the home of Iyad Lafi al-Akhras, 28, at a refugee camp near Rafah at the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.

Al-Akhras was killed instantly.

The Palestinian Authority accused the Zionist regime of assassinating al-Akhras. Jewish terrorists earlier on Tuesday murdered a Palestinian laborer in al-Quds, identified as Ahmed Ibayat.

Earlier, Zionist Prime Minister Ariel Sharon hinted that the cease-fire with the Palestinians doesn't prevent the Israeli army from killing Palestinians involved or believed to be involved in the resistance against Israeli occupation.

No Palestinian Ever Called Me A Nigger!
Posted: Tuesday, October 16, 2001

By Lorenzo Komboa Ervin

Curtis Gatewood is the outspoken leader of the Durham, North Carolina branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He recently made "controversial", though truthful and courageous remarks denouncing the United States government for planning military retaliation for the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks, and the use of Black males as cannon fodder and mercenaries in any front line attack.

At a September 15th monthly local NAACP meeting, he said that African Americans should not have to fight in any military action, and that a violent U.S. counterattack would be wrong. "Black males can no longer be used as sacrificial lambs at the time of war," he said in his three-page statement.

"Those black males who make it back home alive from war are likely to come home and be discriminated against by the [very] people whose businesses were headquartered in the World Trade Center, racially abused/profiled by an American police officer, killed on the streets in their crime-infested neighborhoods, or harmed by Bush administration policies," he said.

He also said that the U.S. government has oppressed Africans, Middle Easterners, and other people of color worldwide. Because Bush was selected president by a "right-wing Supreme Court", he said, the attacks were *not* "an attack on freedom."

Media reports of the remarks sparked threatening phone calls to the NAACP offices, according to an NAACP officer, Anita Keith-Foust. It also caused NAACP national President, Kweisi Mfume, to denounce the remarks and to apparently silence him from making other such comments in the future, similar to the fashion former Nation of Islam spokesperson Malcolm X was silenced by NOI leader Elijah Muhammad in 1963, when he spoke out about the assassination of President John Kennedy, calling it a case of "...chickens coming home to roost..."

What should we make of all this? These comments by Gatewood certainly echoed my own, and I am sure those of many other Black people. We are supposed to, as Malcolm X put it over 35 years ago, "...bark when the white man says bark, and bite when the white man says bite!" He was referring to our being used as troops all over the world. Now we are supposed to fight and die for a racist corrupt government in yet another imperialist war, when it is the USA which has clearly brought on this attack. We are supposed to fight for a country where we still have limited social, economic and political rights, and where we are still subject to death by any racist cop or citizen, where there is widespread poverty, mass imprisonment of the youth, and massive unemployment concentrated in the Black community. The obvious question is what the hell are we fighting for? To avenge America? To mourn America? Why, we don't owe this country anything, and what we do owe them, they don't want! They have killed and enslaved generations of our people, down to the present day. They have yet to pay reparations for those crimes they have committed against our people; they refused to even discuss the matter at the recent World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.

Our fight is *in America* and *with America* for full human rights and liberation, not in Kabul, Pakistan, Khandahar, Islamabad, Algiers, or hundreds of places we know nothing about and have no beef with their people. It is this country which is *our* enemy, and which is depriving us of our human rights. This hypocritical country, which is bleeding us dry and subjecting us to continued oppression and servitude in numerous forms. We ain't got this situation straight yet, and now we are supposed to go galavanting across the globe to fight for this white racist government. Colin Powell may be a dog for Bush, but it don't mean the rest of us have to be!

Curtis Gatewood just said something that all of us should be saying. We need an *independent political stance* away from military intervention, and to say *no you cannot just use Black kids for the next Vietnam*. However, shamefully, most of the Left, Liberal, and Black organizations (even so-called "radical", or "nationalist" groups) did not follow the lead of this courageous man, instead they mourned with America.

Well, our time of mourning has to be tempered with the cold understanding that we have to look out for *our interests*, not the Pentagon's or Wall Street's. We regret the thousands of deaths of people who died in the process at the WTC, but we know it is Washington's fault this happened. We also know that if this happened in the Middle East, carried out by Israel or the US Army, hardly anybody in this country would say anything.

Clearly this country is not the "peace-loving, innocent country" that George W. Bush claims it is. This is the biggest gun runner in the world, and the biggest instigator of wars. This is a government of thieves and enslavers, and they have dominated the peoples of color of the world with military and economic force ever since its creation. We cannot jump like dogs to defend these people.

It is not the people in the Middle East or Africa who call us nigger, and keep us oppressed, it is the white government in America. If anyone on the face of the earth attacks the slavemaster's plantation, I ain't going to be standing out front growling to stop them from setting his house on fire. That's his problem, and you reap what you sow. The real terrorists are in the Pentagon, the executive boardrooms on Wall Street, and in the White House, where they have always been. Hell, the United States secret intelligence services (CIA, military intelligence, DEA and others) created the Taliban as a government and Osama Bin Laden as a terrorist, if that is what he is. Do we now want to die and kill others over this cynical reality? Don't be fooled by right-wing patriotism, which is nothing but American fascism.

So we should support Curtis Gatewood, hold him up as an outspoken hero. We need to ask why all of the other Black and progressive organizations have not been as forceful in their comments, and we need to ask why they are not building an anti-war response to this military retaliation planned by Bush.

We need to all start to speak the truth to our people, and not curry favor for jobs or social approval. We need to do things which are considered unpopular in a hysterical climate, but have to be said and done nevertheless. George W. Bush is not our friend, Colin Powell is not our brother. They want to kill us off, either in war, in prison, or with a policeman's gun. We face genocide from this government, always have. Now we need to get organized to build a movement which can put forth a progressive agenda on how to use military spending, so that money they want to squander on war can be used for schools, hospitals, and to rebuild the inner cities of this country which look like bombed out cities already.

Whatever organization you belong to, start to push them to come out against the war and to actively campaign against war in the Middle East or anywhere else. We have got to get our kids to say "Hell no, we won't go!" and "No Viet Cong ever called me a Nigger!" just like they did during the Vietnam war of the 1960s.

Copyright (c) 2001 Lorenzo Ervin. All Rights Reserved.

Bombing a Myth
Posted: Tuesday, October 16, 2001

( John Maxwell ) IT'S been more or less official -- as official as science ever gets: the family of man is African. Even the most die-hard supporters of the theory that modern human populations arose spontaneously in several different regions of the world have abandoned that theology. The so-called "Multi-regional" theory was used to justify theories of "racial" differences and racial superiority. MORE

Indian Army Shells Pakistani Posts
Posted: Monday, October 15, 2001

JAMMU, India -- India's army shelled Pakistani military posts across the disputed cease-fire line in Kashmir on Monday after a 10-month border calm, destroying nearly a dozen Pakistani posts, a senior army official said.

"We have fired heavily on Pakistani positions," Brig. P.C. Das, an army spokesman based in Nagrota near Jammu-Kashmir's winter capital of Jammu, told The Associated Press. Das said the shelling occurred in the frontier areas of Akhnoor and Mendar, and that 11 posts were hit.

The shelling comes a day before U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell arrives in New Delhi from Pakistan in a visit to ease tensions between the two nuclear rivals over the disputed province of Kashmir.

There was no apparent provocation for Monday's attack. But Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had last week hinted at tough action to fight the Islamic insurgency that has sapped Kashmir since 1989, claiming at least 30,000 lives.

Apart from artillery, Indian soldiers fired rockets, mortars, flame throwers, grenade launchers and machine guns during the operation, Das said. MORE

Time for Israel to implement UN resolutions, says Blair
Posted: Monday, October 15, 2001

IRNA - British Prime Minister Tony Blair made an unprecedented call on Israel Monday to seize the moment and implement all Security Council resolutions.

"It is time for all UN resolutions to be fully implemented," Blair told a press conference after holding talks with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

Following the last month's attacks in the US, he said "now is the moment of a renewed sense of urgency" to move the Middle East peace process forward based on justice and peace.

"A viable Palestinian state, as part of a negotiated and agreed settlement, which guarantees peace and security for Israel, is the objective," the British prime minister said in his most balanced statement to date on the Middle East conflict.

He denied that his call was provoked by the attacks in the US, saying it was "important in its own right, irrespective of the events of September 11."

"Too many innocent Palestinians and innocent Israelis have died in recent months and years. We have a chance to put right the injustices that have for too long blighted our world and the Middle East in particular," Blair said.

Arafat said that during his meeting, he told Blair of the suffering of the Palestinian people, of the seizures, assassinations, bombardments, the growing Israeli settlements and the demolitions of Palestinian houses.

He said he called on the Zionist regime to resume joint "permanent status" negotiations immediately to reach "a just, comprehensive and lasting solution."

"It was high time to end the Israeli occupation," to stop the conflict and establish a Palestinian independent state, with Jerusalem as its capital, Arafat said.

Asked what pressure would be put on Israeli leader Ariel Sharon, Blair said his government would be creating the "context" to move forward.

Arafat said he was also "confident" that US President George W. Bush was "fully committed" to moving the peace process on and would exert pressure on Israel.

During his one-day visit to London, Arafat was also holding talks with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy and the Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, before leaving for Dublin to meet Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern.

UK Customs accused of Yardie racism
Posted: Monday, October 15, 2001

by Anthony France

Attempts to stop Yardie gangsters reaching London have resulted in Jamaicans being refused entry to Britain at a rate 144 times greater than other foreign visitors, two MPs warn.

One in 13 visitors from the Caribbean island - many on holiday - are returned by immigration officers. Three years ago it was one in 29.

Only a fraction of people arriving from other Commonwealth countries, including Barbados, Guyana, Australia and Canada, are refused.

Two MPs and a leading immigration lawyer are calling on the immigration service to explain the high refusal rate. London MP Diane Abbott will raise the matter in Parliament today.

Visiting Jamaicans do not need a visa to enter Britain for six months, but immigration has discretionary powers to decide who should be allowed into the country. However, the service is under pressure to prevent Yardies continuing their war over the £1 billion-a-year crack cocaine trade.

Immigration solicitor Louise Christian has won £20,000 compensation on behalf of a Jamaican client barred from visiting relatives in 1993. She said today: "These figures show there is clear racial discrimination operating among customs officers at UK airports."

Slough MP Fiona Mactaggart said: "I am concerned that decisions are based on stereotypes and I am interested to see if discrimination exists."

A Home Office spokesman refused to discuss the link saying: "Persons arriving for a visit must satisfy that they are genuine visitors."

© Associated Newspapers Ltd., 15 October 2001

Pentagon split over war plan
Posted: Monday, October 15, 2001

Guardian Unlimited

The Bush administration is growing increasingly alarmed by the direction of the military campaign in Afghanistan after a week of almost continuous bombing has failed to dislodge either Osama bin Laden or the Taliban leadership.

In the absence of new intelligence on the whereabouts of the Saudi-born extremist accused of masterminding the September 11 terrorist attacks, US generals are under pressure from civilian defence officials to send greater numbers of special forces into Afghanistan to try to accomplish what the bombing failed to do - flush out a target.

But the Pentagon's top brass are reluctant to deploy their best troops in the absence of good intelligence about Bin Laden's whereabouts, and before further bombing has softened expected resistance on the ground.

The defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is reported to be increasingly frustrated by the caution of the generals and their inability to come up with a creative battle plan. One of his aides was quoted in today's edition of Newsweek as comparing the attitude of today's Pentagon to the conventional thinking familiar in the Gulf war - a thinking now considered to be out of date and inappropriate for the delicate nature of the war against terrorism. "The media are preparing to cover a second Gulf war," the aide said, "and the military are preparing to fight one." MORE

Khatami condemns Taleban and US
Posted: Sunday, October 14, 2001

( BBC ) Iran's President, Mohammad Khatami, has lashed out at both the Taleban and the United States for the suffering they have caused the people of Afghanistan.

Mr Khatami was quoted by the official Islamic Republic News Agency (Irna) as saying the Afghan people were victims "in the hands of ignorant and tyrannical rulers who are, in the name of Islam, exporting violence, war, murder and drugs to the world".

But he added that they were also "the victims of bombs and missiles of powerful countries that seek revenge for a criminal act by making these defenceless people homeless or by killing them".

He was quoted as telling the Canadian ambassador to Tehran that the US and the Taleban were as bad as each other.

"Two superficially opposing voices are heard in America and Afghanistan, which in fact are the two sides of the same coin.

"One says whoever is not with America is a terrorist and the other says whoever does not accept this behaviour is an opponent of Islam and a proponent of America."

"Such false and arrogant judgements are the root cause of violence and terror as well as war," Mr Khatami said. MORE

Anti-U.S. rampage kills hundreds
Posted: Sunday, October 14, 2001

CNN - Hundreds of people have been killed in religious clashes after anti-U.S. protests turned violent, sources have told CNN.

The demonstrations against the U.S.-led missile strikes on Afghanistan began peacefully on Friday but spiralled into a killing spree during Saturday, CNN's Lagos bureau chief Jeff Koinange said.

Some of the unrest in the mainly Muslim city of Kano in northern Nigeria was attributed to traditional Muslim-Christian tensions, he added. MORE

Riots engulf Nigerian city

BBC - Hundreds of non-Muslims have fled to safety in police and army installations in the northern Nigerian city of Kano after two days of violence between Christians and Muslims left at least 16 people dead.

A night-time curfew was imposed on the city, and state police commissioner Yakubu Bello Uba said police had been ordered to "shoot troublemakers on sight". MORE

Israel kills Hamas militant in blow for U.S.
Posted: Sunday, October 14, 2001

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli forces have shot dead an Islamic militant, dealing a blow to Washington's drive to get Israel and the Palestinians to end a year-long conflict threatening regional support for the U.S. anti-terror war.

The killing of Abdel Rahman Hamad, 35, a member of the Hamas group, on Sunday marked a return to Israel's internationally condemned track-and-kill policy it says thwarts militants planning attacks on Israelis.

While Israeli officials pledged to continue targeting Palestinian militants as deemed "necessary", the government, responding to U.S. pressure to pave the way for eventual peace talks, said it was prepared to ease a military blockade and remove troops reoccupying a neighbourhood of the divided West Bank city of Hebron, provided Palestinian forces ensured calm. MORE

UK Reporter praises Taleban 'honour'
Posted: Sunday, October 14, 2001

( BBC ) British journalist Yvonne Ridley - who was released by the Taleban on Monday - has said her captors were "very honourable" people.
The Sunday Express reporter, who spent 10 days in captivity in Afghanistan, said she had been treated with respect.

"They were not hostile. They played a few mind games, but they were very respectful," she told the BBC's Breakfast With Frost programme on Sunday.

"I learned that the Taleban are very honourable people - they kept their word."

But she said she had been "very frightened" when a Taleban cleric asked her if she would like to convert to Islam, as she thought it might have been a loaded or trick question.

And she criticised the way women were treated in the south Asian country.

Ms Ridley, 43, who was seized near the north eastern city of Jalalabad, has said she had wanted to go to Afghanistan to see how ordinary people were coping.

She told the BBC: "The Afghanistan people are fantastic.

"They really are lovely and the women are also incredibly strong but unfortunately have no role to play in the society at present and that is very, very sad. MORE

UK Security fears over Bin Laden videos
Posted: Sunday, October 14, 2001

( BBC ) Broadcasting executives have been called to a meeting at Downing Street to discuss their use of television footage of Osama Bin Laden.

The government has expressed concern over the use of televised messages by Bin Laden and members of his al-Qaeda network this week.

A Downing Street spokesman said there were particular worries about video tapes smuggled out of Afghanistan by Osama Bin Laden and released to the Arab television channel al-Jazeera.

Some fear that the tapes may contain secret coded messages to terrorists in the UK. MORE

The gap grows wider
Posted: Saturday, October 13, 2001

ABSTRACT: Al-Ahram Weekly
By Edward Said

On his visit to Birzeit University, Lionel Jospin had the gall to speak of the Hizbullah fighters as terrorists, also expressing his "understanding" of Israel's actions against Lebanon. As is now widely known, he was greeted after his speech by many hundreds of students, who stoned his car and that of his escort, Minister Nabil Shaath. Jospin's visit to the Palestinian territories (still under occupation by Israel, which is aided in its occupation by the Palestinian Authority) was under the supposed auspices of the Authority, which was exposed for its unpopularity and incompetence.

Embarrassed and angry, the Palestinian boss, Yasser Arafat, condemned the attack, paying no heed to the justice of what the students were saying, which was that there was one common front of resistance against Israeli occupation from Beirut to Birzeit, and using his security forces to beat the students and perhaps later imprison and torture some of them. Threatened by the wave of discontent, the panicky Birzeit administration closed the university for three days, more or less acting under the Authority's injunctions.

Like dictators everywhere, Arafat has no real support anymore and has lost sight of what it is he is supposed to be doing, namely liberating his people. Far from that, he is colluding with Israel to confine them still more, all the while fattening himself and his cronies on the ill-gotten gains provided by his monopolies, casinos, skimmed-off-the-top businesses, extortion and protection money. Without any law or real civil institutions Arafat is the perfect partner for Israel and the US, who now have a native sub-contractor in the oppression of Palestinians and in the furtherance of their interests: therefore, they could not be happier. Even though "peace" isn't a step closer to realisation than under Netanyahu -- in fact, I had predicted that Barak would be a good deal worse, and he has confirmed that by allowing or encouraging more settlement building than his predecessor -- the various rulers and "peace" professionals seem not to have taken notice of a widening gap between the people ruled and the justly-maligned process. Typically though, it isn't the seasoned politicians or the intellectuals who have taken the lead in opposing the enslavement of the so-called peace, but rather the students. MORE

Al-Qaida spokesman said Leaders Will Be Punished
Posted: Saturday, October 13, 2001

CAIRO, Egypt - - Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, speaking on a videotape aired on Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite channel, said President Bush, his father, former President Clinton and the prime ministers of Israel and Britain would not "escape punishment" for the deaths of Muslims.

The statement was the third released by bin Laden's organization since the U.S.-led bombardment against Afghanistan.

He accused the United States of "wiping out villages" in its bombardment, pledged to stand beside Afghanistan and praised Mullah Mohammed Omar, the supreme leader of Afghanistan's Taliban rulers.

Abu Ghaith repeated warnings made earlier this week of more attacks. "If al-Qaida promised and warned, it will deliver, God willing.," he said. "Storms are not going to calm, especially the storm of planes until America withdraws in defeat from Afghanistan."

Muslims in the United States and Britain "should avoid traveling by air or living in high buildings or towers."

Abu Ghaith, a Kuwaiti who appeared with bin Laden in the first video released by the group on Sunday, said Bush, his father, Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were "at the head of all the criminals, the Zionists and the crusaders, who have committed the worst practices and greatest atrocities against the Muslim nation."

"Millions of Muslim men, women and children have been killed without committing any sins," he said, adding that the four leaders "are not going to escape punishment."

He said al-Qaida had ordered the Americans and British to leave the Arabian Peninsula because the "land will burn with fire under their feet, God willing."

Abu Ghaith denounced Islamic nations, accusing a gathering of foreign ministers from the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference this week of "supporting the strike."

New form of campaign against terrorism
Posted: Saturday, October 13, 2001

Tehran, Oct 13, IRNA -- Innocent civilians in several cities of Afghanistan have been the target of U.S. and British bombs and missiles for six consecutive days, suffering great casualties and destruction in what is termed by U.S. Administration as the war on terrorism.

According to the editorial of Tehran Times, following the September 11 incidents in the U.S., the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden was blamed without presenting any evidence against him to the international community.

A huge military force was then deployed to the region by the U.S. to capture him.

Considering that all nations in the world abhor terrorism, all countries expressed their readiness to take part in a global anti-terrorism campaign to root out this ugly phenomenon.

The islamic countries that have so far supported the campaign against terrorism should realize that it is the religious duty of all Islamic countries to take a united stand in support of their Palestinian brethren.

U.S. prepares peace plan calling for Palestinian state
Posted: Friday, October 12, 2001

JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States is putting together a Mideast peace plan that calls for establishing a Palestinian state with a foothold in Jerusalem, and Palestinians have won assurances that the ideas will be unveiled despite initial delays, a Palestinian Cabinet minister said Friday.

Israel said Friday it has not been presented with the ideas but registered reservations about key elements that have been reported. Israeli Cabinet minister Dan Naveh said Israel staunchly opposes "ideas which include at their core the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."

The truce talks were held in Jerusalem on Friday. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met with Palestinian Parliament Speaker Ahmed Qureia and Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat to discuss ways of implementing a Sept. 26 truce deal battered by almost daily cease-fire violations, officials said.

The three last met Tuesday night, amid recriminations and Palestinian complaints that the Israelis have not eased the closure of towns in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israel is to decide over the next few days whether to ease restrictions on the movement of Palestinians that have been put in place to try to prevent terror attacks, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said.
At a meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Peres and security officials Friday, Ben-Eliezer said such an easing would take place only in areas where fighting has stopped.

"I think that the coming days will be a test for the Israelis to implement what we had agreed upon," said Erekat. "What we want are actions on the ground and not just declarations."

Religious figure in Saudi Arabia warns ruling family
Posted: Friday, October 12, 2001

A senior religious figure in Saudi Arabia has warned the country's ruling Al Saud family against siding with the United States against a Muslim country.

In a series of fatwas - or religious rulings - Sheikh Hamoud bin Oqla al-Shuaibi has declared that those who support the non-believer against Muslims are themselves non-believers.

The Saudi authorities are reported to have asked him to stop issuing fatwas, but he has refused. MORE BBC

Ukraine admits missile may have hit Russian plane
Posted: Friday, October 12, 2001

Ukraine today admitted accidentally shooting down a Russian airliner and killing 78 people.

The Sibir Airline's plane was downed amid fears of a terrorist attack last Thursday but Ukrainian defence chiefs said a stray missile caused the airliner to explode.

They confirmed the missile was fired during military exercises in the Black Sea.

The admission confirms America’s statement that the crash of the Israel to Siberia flight was a tragic accident.

Ukraine accepted the blame after it emerged yesterday that the pilot of the doomed airliner asked one of his crew "where are we hit?" seconds before it crashed into the Black Sea. MORE

Snubbed Blair is turned away by Saudis
Posted: Thursday, October 11, 2001

By Andy McSmith in Cairo, David Graves in Muscat and Toby Harnden in Washington

TONY BLAIR'S attempt to galvanise Arab support for the war against terrorism suffered a serious setback yesterday when Saudi Arabia refused to receive him during his tour of the Middle East.

The rebuff underlined the extreme nervousness of pro-western Arab governments who fear an Islamic backlash if they are seen to support the American and British military campaign in Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia has refused to allow its bases to be used and American officials have expressed concern that Riyadh has so far refused to freeze the assets of Osama bin Laden.

Saudi Arabia was said not to have co-operated fully with the investigation into the attacks on America, and is not sharing much intelligence on bin Laden's al-Qa'eda network.

The Prime Minister had hoped to press the western case with a personal visit to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, during his three-day trip in which he has tried to convince Muslims that the West was not waging a war against Islam. MORE

Why Saudi royal rulers kept Blair at arm's length

THE Saudi response to bad news is usually to pretend it did not happen. When Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, the Saudi royal family waited for two days before telling its subjects that the region was on its way to war.

The attacks on America and the strikes against Afghanistan are, clearly, the worst news the Saudi rulers have heard in many years.

Four days ago, America and Britain fired the first cruise missiles at Afghan targets, Riyadh is still conspicuously silent, to the point that it has refused to receive Tony Blair on his tour of the region to discuss the crisis.

The House of Saud does not want to be seen to be involved in the campaign in any way. "The Saudis are under such pressure that they are putting their heads in the sand. They are finding it acutely difficult to take a stand at the moment," said one veteran British diplomat in the Gulf.

The royal family is crippled, in part, by the incapacitation of King Fahd. Much of the day-to-day running of Saudi Arabia is entrusted to Crown Prince Abdallah. But according to one Saudi watcher, the war against terrorism "is not something that Abdallah can take a decision on".

The attacks of September 11 have left Saudi Arabia even more paralysed. It has to balance contradictory elements: the American demands for political and military support; Riyadh's loathing for Osama bin Laden; Islamic solidarity with Afghans under attack by the Americans, and the growing popularity of bin Laden and hatred of America in the Arab world.

Saudi rulers feel acute embarrassment, not least because many of the 19 suspected hijackers appeared to be Saudis. Bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia - though his citizenship was later removed - and had close links to the royal family. Until recently, Riyadh was one of only three capitals to recognise the Taliban regime.

There is a deeper malaise in the kingdom, however. Wealth has not dispelled the frustration of many Saudis who feel that the House of Saud - which conquered the Arabian peninsula in 1925 in alliance with the rigid Wahhabi religious movement - has become corrupt, despotic and immoral. MORE

Iraq calls US warning "Stupid"
Posted: Thursday, October 11, 2001

Iraq has dismissed as "stupid" a warning it received from United States not to take advantage of the Western campaign against Afghanistan to launch military action in the region.

In a rare meeting with Iraqi diplomats, the chief U.S. envoy to the United Nations, John Negroponte, warned on Sunday night that Iraq would pay a heavy price if it used the current situation to act against its own population or any neighbouring states.

The Iraqi government on Thursday made public the text of a the reply delivered to the U.S. mission by its ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Aldouri.

"Your message is stupid. Iraq is not afraid of you or anyone else when it has a right to claim. What you warned about is not on Iraq's agenda," Aldouri said. MORE

Saudi gift to New York rejected
Posted: Thursday, October 11, 2001

New York city officials have rejected a $10m donation from a prominent member of the Saudi royal family after he said America should "re-examine its policies" in the wake of the attacks on New York and Washington.

On a visit to the city, Prince Al-Walid bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz - a nephew of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and one of the world's richest men - called the destruction of the World Trade Center a tremendous crime.

But in a separate statement, he said that the US Government should reconsider its polices in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinians. MORE

Black Man Created All Other Races
Posted: Wednesday, October 10, 2001

An analysis by
Dr. Kwame Nantambu

It is quite clear that any human that had its birth in Afrika could not have survived in an equatorial region without pigmentation. According to Senegalese scientist, deceased Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop (pronounced Jop), the world's modern-day multi-genius or Imhotep, since nature does not do anything by chance, then humankind that was born in a sub-equatorial region was given melanin to protect its skin from the hot rays of the sun.

For this reason, it is certain that the first man had to be a BLACK man.

It is only after that Black race left Mother Afrika to people other parts of the world that had different climate conditions that that original Black man changed and took on different aspects or physical characteristics.

He acquired a different look as a result of his migration. Indeed, scientific evidence suggests that nature created six specimens of man before we get to man as we know him today.

According to this evidence, it appears that the first three of these species never acquired the potential to leave Afrika. Three others did leave Afrika.

The fourth and fifth of these species disappeared. What remains is man as we know him today B that is, the sixth species. The fifth species did not have a forehead; the eyes were situated very close to the top of the head.

However, the brain inside this species was very different from the brain of man today. He did not have the anterior lobe of the brain. That's the major difference between Homo sapiens sapiens B what we are today and the fifth specimen.

This species was never able to overcome nature to an extent that he was able to create works of art.

The sixth species was a BLACK man who in pre-historic history is called Grimaldi man. He is the man whom we are today.

Between 40,000 and 20,000 years ago, this BLACK man left Mother Afrika and went into Father Europe at a time during the last glaciazation. The climate in Europe was extremely cold; it was much colder than it is now and during this period of some 20,000 years, this BLACK man underwent significant physical adaptations to eventually become what we call or know today as the WHITE man.

This original BLACK man had to adapt or adjust to his new cold environment.

In other words, this BLACK MAN DID NOT need his sun-required melanin in this cold environment. He lost that. He DID NOT need Black skin in this cold environment. He lost that.

He DID NOT need his sun-required broad nose, large, thick lips and hair in this new cold environment. His environmental adaptation caused him to loose all of these Afrikan physical features. As a result, his nose had to contract and become thin and narrow so that the cold could not enter, his lips also became thin and the colour and thickness of his hair had to change.

He thus became WHITE to survive in his new cold climatic surroundings. However, a more vital adaptation took place.

In his original Afrikan form, this human man was in-tuned with nature but in his derived European human form, he became anti-nature as a result of 20,000 years spent in the ice cold caves during the Ice Age. According to Dr. Diop, it is very clear to all the scientists in this field that the man we know conventionally today to be a White man evolved from a Black man over a period of some 20,000 years of adaptation to a different climate.

That is the only scientific conclusion at which to arrive. If this sixth specimen has never left Afrika to people in other parts of the world and if those people in other parts of the world in different climates had not through the process of adaptation become what they are in various regions of the world, all humankind would be homogenous and all humankind would be BLACK.

If that sixth species, that Black man, had not left Mother Afrika then the rest of the world would be just a desert; it would never have been peopled.

The bottom-line is that the first man was BLACK and it was he who gave birth to other races of the world.

In terms of human anthropology, there are two theories in regard to the origin of man.

They are first; the monogenetic theory which contends that man was born in one place and subsequently became different as he migrated to populate other parts of the world. There is only one source for the origin of humankind.

The second is the polygenetic theory, which suggests that man was born in Africa and also in Europe and Asia. In other words, there are different and several sources or locations for the origin of humankind. Africa is just one of them but NOT the primary one. At face value, the polygenetic theory may seem to make a lot of sense but under very strict scientific scrutiny and analysis, it quickly falls apart and collapses just like a deck of stacked Euro-centric, racist, supremist cards.

There are two basic flaws in this theory; namely first, nature never creates the same being twice or it never strikes twice in its evolution.

Second, in the animal kingdom, throughout the evolution of animals, a being was created and it either disappeared or changed somewhat or a new being was created completely.

The same being was never created twice. And if we are to remain strictly scientific, it does not make common sense to say that man was created twice.

This is total circular reasoning which does not even compute in the arena of historical sanity.

In Kenya, the most ancient evolutionary information of humankind is found and it is for this reason scientists can state with certainty that man can only have been created one time.

All fossils that were found outside Mother Afrika have only been found much recently compared to those found in Afrika.

In fact, no other Continent contains the complete set of the six human species of man but Afrika.

The only species that appears in America is that Homo sapiens sapiens. America was peopled through the Bering Strait at the end of the final glaciazation and it is only for that reason we find only Homo sapiens sapiens in America.

In Asia, we have Homo erectus, Neanderthal man and Homo sapiens. In Europe, we have Homo erectus, Neanderthal man and Homo sapiens. Through their migration process from Mother Afrika to populate and civilise the rest of the world, the original Afrikans used the Suez Canal or the Isthmus of Suez to go into Asia and Eastern Europe or the Straits of Gibraltar to the north into Europe.

It must be borne in mind that the polygenetic or polycentric theory seeks to establish a hierarchy among races and to indicate that some races are superior to others.

This theory thus represents European anthropological supremacy at its racist zenith.

This is all part of the manifestation of "the evil genius of Europe" in their attempt to maintain, perpetuate and strengthen their global power control intent.

In sum, the polygenetic theory represents the Euro-centric thought process in its geo-politically coded, multi-diversified supremist context.

It seeks to deny Afrika and Afrikans of any sense of human originality.

It suggests that Mother Afrika and Afrikans cannot stand-alone; we need a European or Asian connection or imprimatur to make us legit. Indeed, history of humankind totally rejects this European racist and supremist master-plan.

It must be understood that within the context of European global supremacy, Asians are regarded, treated and respected as "honorary Whites" or "quasi Europeans".

In the United States of America, they are regarded, treated and respected as "probationary Whites".

On the contrary view, if man has the same origin then, of course, there can be no intellectual hierarchy because all the three races of the world have the same intellectual ability and capacity.

If the three races had different origins then one can argue that they had different intellectual capacity as a result of having a different intellectual history.

The polygenetic theory is essential to defend the position that there must be inequality between races.

On the other hand, the monogenetic theory supports the notion and contention that because our origins are the same then we have the same intellectual capacity.

This theory DOES NOT contend that BLACKS are superior to Whites; that would also be false in the reverse.

The salient fact of the matter is that no race is superior to any other; all races have the same intellectual capacity and human dignity.

However, as a result of the original and derivative aspects of the human race, we now have two different peoples existing on the planet today.

We have the Afrikan from the so-called "Southern Cradle" and the European from the "Northern Cradle". These are two different modern-day peoples with two different ways of life, mind-sets and value systems.

According to Dr. Diop, the characteristics of the "Southern Cradle", Afrika, are:
1. Abundance of Vital resources
2. Sedentary agricultural economy
3. Gentle, idealistic peaceful nature
4. Matriarchal family structure
5. Emancipation of women in domestic life
6. Territorial state
7. Xenophilia
8. Cosmopolitanism
9. Social Collectivism
10. Material solidarity of right for each individual which makes moral or
material misery unknown
11. Ideal, peace, justice, goodness and optimism Literature emphasis, novel, tales, fables and comedy

Those of the "Northern Cradle", Europe, are:

1. Bareness of resources
2. Nomadic hunting economy (piracy)
3. Ferocious, war like nature with a spirit survival
4. Patriarchal family structure
5. Debasement/enslavement of women in domestic life
6. City, state
7. Xenophobia
8. Parochialism
9. Individualism
10. Moral solitude
11. Disgust for existence, pessimism
12. Literature favours tragedy

The fact of the matter is that as a result of this ancient Afrikan global migration and adaptation, if one were to go to any part of the world, including Europe and Asia, one would find remains, remnants and reminders of Afrikan original life forms.

The monogenetic theory proves scientifically that Afrikans are the ancestors of Europeans.

This theory rejects the slightest notion of Afrikan superiority; it only proves the Afrikan human originality in Mother Afrika.

It does not represent reverse supremacy.

The monogenetic theory coincides with the reality that in real life, there is only one original life to live, not three as the polygenetic theory contends.

Furthermore, in the musical arena, there is only one original master copy, not three; in real life, a child has only one original mother and father, not three.

Afrikans are the original peoples with original ideas; we are the global majority.

Every human being on this planet, whether European, Asian, Chinese, Syrian, Indian, Portuguese or even "Dougla" is derived from the original Black, Afrikan race.

Shem Hotep

Dr. Nantambu is an Associate Professor, Dept. of Pan-African Studies, Kent State University, U.S.A. a Public Policy versus Human Needs
http://www.trinicenter.com/kwame/

US asks Israel for "information on assassination operations"
Posted: Tuesday, October 9, 2001

Al-Khalil- The United States has asked Israel for specific and detailed information on the "assassination techniques" the Zionist state used against Palestinians for possible application in Afghanistan.

The Israeli Hebrew paper, the Yedeot Ahranot, reported that American military circles sought and received comprehensive information on the methods and techniques the Israeli occupation army employed in assassinating Palestinian freedom fighters and political leaders.

Columnist Alex Feishman, a Yedeot Ahranot's columnist, said the Americans were apparently intending to apply the Israeli methods of assassination against Osama bin Laden and his group in Afghanistan.

Israel used a variety of methods to murder Palestinians intifada activists and members of resistance groups, including apache helicopter gunships, laser-guided bombs fired from fighter airplanes, car-bomb attacks, and death squads.

As many as 50 Palestinians are believed to have been assassinated by forces of the Israeli army since the Palestinian intifada or uprising against Israeli occupation and apartheid more than a year ago.

Al-Qaeda threatens fresh terror attacks
Posted: Tuesday, October 9, 2001

A spokesman for Osama Bin Laden's militant group, al-Qaeda, has delivered a defiant statement urging all Muslims to join in a holy war against the United States and to attack American interests around the world.

The spokesman, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, was speaking in a pre-recorded message broadcast by the Qatar-based television station al-Jazeera.

He praised the suicide attacks against America on 11 September and said there would be more of them.

"The Americans should know that the storm of plane attacks will not abate," he said. "There are thousands of the Islamic nation's youths who are eager to die just as the Americans are eager to live."

He said the US and Britain, by attacking Afghanistan, had opened a door that would never be closed.

Several times, he used the word "crusade" as a derogatory term to describe the actions of the US and its Western allies. MORE BBC

Study Suggests Mechanical Forces Drive Early Heart Development
Posted: Tuesday, October 9, 2001

Source: Washington University In St. Louis (http://www.wustl.edu/)

The poet in us might see the heart as "a lonely hunter"; the adolescent as a toy that’s easily broken. But the biomedical engineer sees the heart as a pump, plain and simple, a machine shaped by genetics and complex biomechanical forces.

Larry A. Taber, Ph.D., professor of biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has been probing the forces, stresses and deformations of the heart since the mid-1980s. A major focus of his work is to show that biomechanical forces may be as important as genetics in shaping the heart. Recently, he has developed a theory on tissue growth and morphogenesis (shape change) and applied it to understanding the developing heart in chicken embryos, which is remarkably similar to its counterpart in humans. MORE

Iran, EU stress exchange of views on Afghanistan
Posted: Tuesday, October 9, 2001

Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and European Union (EU) Chief of Commission for Foreign and Defense Affairs Javier Solana, in a telephone conversation, here Tuesday discussed the latest situation in Afghanistan.

Solana stressed the role Iran has in the region and called for continuing exchange of views with Iran.

Kharrazi lamented the situation in Afghanistan and stressed the need for paying attention to the public opinion in the Muslim world. He also welcomed exchange of views with EU on the Afghan crisis.

The Iranian foreign minister also expressed hope that the extraordinary meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) foreign ministerial in Doha will present a clear definition of terrorism and its distinctions with liberation movements.

He added that there is no one in the Muslim world that views the legitimate right of liberating occupied lands as terrorism, although people believe that Israeli acts of assassination of Palestinians personalities as terrorism.

"We will put forth our views and plans to our friends and hopefully will reach a consensus among Muslims countries, he said.

Terror turns Bush's focus inside out
Posted: Tuesday, October 9, 2001

The go-it-alone approach of US foreign policy before September 11 may now be seen as the last hurrah for American unilateralism, writes Julian Borger

It is difficult to remember now just how unilateralist the Bush administration's approach to foreign policy was in its first eight months in office.
Like so much that happened before September 11, it is ancient history. The White House has since found a use for the rest of the world.

The most inward-looking US government since the Reagan era has been transformed by blood, fire and shock into a team of internationalist globetrotters.

It listens to the concerns of the Arab world about the state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a far-off irritant it had previously filed in a thick dossier labelled "not our problem".

It checks in almost daily with Vladimir Putin, who had not been thought important enough to warrant a meeting with George Bush until the administration had dealt with a long list of other priorities.

Since September 11, the White House has even managed to persuade Congress to pay its arrears to the United Nations.

This apparent conversion to the uses of multilateralism is just one way in which Washington is learning the asymmetries of being the world's sole superpower.

Its military and economic dominance fooled the Bush administration into believing that the US did not need to waste time and manpower negotiating with the rest of the world over global warming or missile defence, or proliferation.

It could set out its position and leave foreigners with the dilemma of going along or defying US power.

Thus Moscow was told that it was welcome to renegotiate the anti-ballistic missile treaty, but if it did not want to Washington would proceed with missile defence in any case.

The Kyoto accord on global warming was jettisoned and the rest of the world was asked to halt its efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions while the US thought out an alternative Americans felt more comfortable with.

But the global dominance which allowed the Bush administration to behave is such a nonchalant manner, also made America a target.

Osama bin Laden chose the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon as targets because they symbolise not just US power, but western civilisation. Its hubris made it vulnerable.

Bin Laden did not need broad Arab support to carry out the stunning massacre on September 11, but his actions and his subsequent justifications struck a chord on the street in the Arab world, where the general populations feel powerless and frustrated, their views ignored by the only power on earth that counts.

The question now is whether the Bush conversion to multilateralism will outlive Operation Enduring Freedom.

The cynical line heard in Washington these days is that Iraq will be left off the target list until the Arab "anti-terror coalition" has served its purpose in the hunt for bin Laden, and then anything is possible.

Better to use the opportunity to rid the US of a persistent threat like Saddam Hussein, and pick up the pieces in the Middle East at some later date, so the argument goes at the hawkish end of Pentagon thinking.

On balance, however, it is more likely the newly-powerful diplomats will win out in the end.

September 11 proved that all the satellites and hi-tech gadgetry in the world could not keep America safe from a determined bunch of men with knives.

The US is short of human intelligence, and in particular rumours and gossip on the street.

For that it needs good relations with other intelligence services and their governments.

To try to keep track of all the dangerous nuclear, chemical and biological matter floating around the world, it will need to agree a global monitoring system, in which it will have to depend on other countries.

And to stem the flow of willing Arab martyrs, another grand effort will have to be made to bring compromise between Israelis and Palestinians.

Ultimately, Americans may look back at the period from January to September 2001 as their country's last serious attempt to embrace unilateralism, before discovering that unilateralism in the 21st century is far too dangerous.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/
For fair use only

Arafat Decides to Take a Gamble on the West
Posted: Tuesday, October 9, 2001

By JAMES BENNET

JERUSALEM, Oct. 8 — Today, Yasir Arafat took a gamble, confronting a radical Palestinian crowd in a bid to shore up his own position and assert his international credibility as the possible leader of a Palestinian state.

For the first time in years, Mr. Arafat's security forces used deadly force against Palestinians to suppress a demonstration in support of Osama bin Laden. In a cloud of tear gas and a hail of bullets, two Palestinians — one of them only 13 — were slain. Another was close to death.

It was the most dramatic evidence to date that the terrorist attacks on the United States have dented the entrenched thinking of the enemies in the conflict here and created a new chance for peace at the same time as causing a spike in violence.

Many Palestinians sympathize with Mr. bin Laden regardless of whether they supported the attacks on the United States. They say he is a fellow Muslim, accused on trumped- up evidence out of a secret desire by the United States to assault Afghanistan. They say Americans react only to their own suffering and economic interests, and will make no effort — much less war — to provide other peoples with enduring freedom.

Yasir Arafat knows this bitterness better than anyone. For years, he has deftly capitalized on it. And today he took brutal measures against the people of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to stop them from expressing it.

In the Persian Gulf war, Mr. Arafat backed Saddam Hussein and saw his international support vanish. On Sept. 11, some Palestinians were filmed celebrating the attacks and Mr. Arafat was once again given a glimpse of the abyss, of life as an international pariah.

Turning his back on this possibility, Mr. Arafat opted to preserve his links with Western governments, while at the same time to send a clear message to radical Palestinian factions, some of whom threaten his authority that the time has come to rein in their agitation, at least for now.

The message he wanted to send out was the one that the Bush administration wanted to hear. As Mr. Arafat himself stayed silent, his spokesman delivered it in response to Mr. bin Laden's televised attempt Sunday to rally support by invoking the Palestinian cause. His spokesman, Yasser Abed Rabbo, said that what he called crimes against Palestinians could not justify killing civilians in New York. There was wriggle room left even in that statement: Mr. Abed Rabbo did not say that Mr. bin Laden was behind the attacks. Regarding the airstrikes in Afghanistan, Mr. Abed Rabbo said that Mr. Arafat was waiting to develop a joint statement with other Arab and Muslim foreign ministers. But a few hours later, Mr. Arafat's guns, turned on supporters of Mr. bin Laden, were more explicit.

Mr. Arafat's calculation appears to be that most Palestinians, even if they sympathize with Mr. bin Laden, will accept today's police action as necessary.

"There is a Palestinian political state of maturation," said Dr. Ziad Abu Amir, a political scientist who is the head of political committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Dr. Abu Amir noted that Mr. Arafat, Mr. bin Laden and President Bush had one thing in common: all have expressed sympathy for the Palestinian plight — some far more recently than others — in hopes of generating Arab support.

But Palestinians are jaded when it comes to low-cost compassion. "Over one year of intifada and Palestinian resistance, people saw a level of Arab or Islamic intervention or support that was below expectations," Dr. Abu Amir said. This fact inevitably makes Mr. bin Laden's appeal to the masses more attractive. The Israelis have been pushing Mr. Arafat to arrest militant Palestinian leaders to demonstrate a commitment to the peace process. For the most part, he has resisted. But now it seems his hand may be forced.

Hamas, the radical Islamic movement with broad backing in Gaza and the West Bank, today expressed strong support for Mr. bin Laden. The violence in Gaza began when the police tried to stop demonstrators from Islamic University, a Hamas stronghold.

Late tonight, Palestinians wre still battling against Palestinian police forces in Gaza.

In 1996, at another critical juncture in the peace negotiations, Mr. Arafat arrested some leaders of Hamas, dramatically reducing violence against Israelis. It is that experience that Israeli officials keep citing as they press Mr. Arafat for action now. Mr. Arafat later released those leaders, and they are now more popular, and their followers better armed, than they were in 1996.

Mr. Arafat, a senior Israeli intelligence official said, has not yet "had his Altalena." That was a reference to a fateful decision taken a month after Israel's founding by David Ben- Gurion, then the new nation's prime minister. Rather than permit a ship called the Altalena to bring in guns for a right-wing Israeli movement, he ordered it shelled. It sank off Tel Aviv.

If Mr. Arafat does crack down on militants — to protect himself, to promote peace, or both — then it is Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel who will be put to the test. The world may learn if has been seeking to provoke civil war among the Palestinians, as some Palestinians believe, or whether he wants a secure peace, as he says.

The Bush administration's new commitment to a Middle East peace effort will also be tested. Colin Powell, the secretary of state, has also been urging Mr. Arafat to make arrests.

..........................................
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
For fair use only

UN workers killed in Afghanistan strikes
Posted: Tuesday, October 9, 2001

( Guardian UK ) Four civilian Afghan employees of a mine-clearing agency affiliated to the United Nations died overnight in US-led raids on the Afghan capital, Kabul, UN officials said today.
The deaths were the first civilian casualties independently confirmed in the three-day-old air campaign, which saw the first daylight raids today after more limited bombing last night.

The four had been working for a non-governmental organisation called Afghan Technical Consultants (ATC) and died in the agency's office, located in a village 3km (1.8 miles) east of Kabul, one of the world's most mined cities. The office was totally destroyed.

Close to the ATC's building was what locals call "TV mountain" - where a Taliban communications tower is located, as well as placements of anti-aircraft guns. The tower was used for TV broadcasts before the Taliban banned it.

Confirming the deaths, Stephanie Bunker, a spokeswoman for the UN, speaking in Islamabad, said: "All four died on the spot ... pieces of their bodies are still to be recovered from the wreckage."

The US has previously stressed that it is not targeting civilians in its military campaign but the UN today appealed for greater protection for aid workers. Ms Bunker said: "Today the UN coordinator for Afghanistan appeals to the international community to protect innocent civilians while military strikes are going on."

Mohammed Afzl, who said he was one of the brothers of a killed ATC worker, wept today as he waited for bulldozers to clear the rubble and remove the bodies from the office. "My brother is buried under there," he said. "What can we do? Our lives are ruined."

The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, told reporters today that "tens of people have been killed" in the attacks since Sunday night. It is understood from reports that Osama bin Laden, the main suspect in the September 11 attacks on the US, is still alive. MORE

Palestinians indignant at Anglo-American bombing of Afghanistan
Posted: Monday, October 8, 2001

IRNA -- While denouncing the 11 September terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the vast bulk of Palestinians seem squarely opposed to the Anglo-American aerial and missile bombings of Afghanistan, a Muslim country.

"It is a shame to see the world's richest and most powerful country gleefully bullying the world's poorest and decimated country," said Sheikh Hasan Yousef, an Islamist spokesman in Ramallah.

However, he added "but shame and morality have never been part of American foreign policy and behavior. The country that has so blithely killed a million innocent Iraqi children and helped kill and maim hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians will do anything imaginable or unimaginable. It is the arrogance of power and the absence of justice."

Even people associated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat are strongly opposed to western attacks on Afghanistan, although their public reactions are somewhat circumscribed for obvious reasons.

"I may not approve of Taliban's behavior, but unleashing American military power against a poor country and a helpless bellicosity ," said one of the top leaders of Fatah in the al-Khalil area, who asked for anonymity.

PA Chairman Yasser Arafat earlier instructed all PA officials not to comment publicly on the western attacks on Afghanistan.

PA official Yasser Abed Rabbo said the PA was still studying "this matter," adding that Arafat would seek to reach a common stance on the subject with fellow Arab states.

But, apart from Arab officialdoms, it seems abundantly clear that hostility to the United States is at a very high level and is even on the rise.

"You want me to love America and sympathize with it, never ever," said Mahmoud Al Shami, a taxi-cab driver from the Hebron countryside.

"Any Arab or Muslim sympathizing with America must be either out of his mind or a CIA agent. How can we forget that it is America that enabled Israel to do to us what it has been doing. America is the ultimate author of the Zionist genocide against our people."

Meanwhile, Palestinians enthusiastically lauded the videotaped statement of Osama Bin Laden, screened last night on al Jazeera satellite television.

Bin Laden said the death and destruction caused by the 11 September bombing were only a small part of what American has inflicted on Muslims in the last eighty years.

"I disagree with his tactics, but he said the truth," said Sharif in Hebron.

Palestinian newspapers printed Bin Laden's remarks on their front pages, highlighting the linkage between his struggle against American and the Palestinian cause.

"The world must realize that Israeli terrorism against the Palestinian political violence all over the world," said the editor of the PA-semi official paper, al Hayatul Jadida.

U.S. warns may strike other states
Posted: Monday, October 8, 2001

By Irwin Arieff

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Washington says it is still looking into who was behind last month's attacks on the United States and has warned that it may have to launch military strikes against other nations and groups besides Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

"We may find that our self-defense requires further actions with respect to other organisations and other states," U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said in a letter to the 15-nation U.N. Security Council.

Britain, Washington's closest ally in the military campaign launched on Sunday, quickly insisted the current action was limited to targets in Afghanistan.

"The agreement at the moment is that (the strikes) are confined to Afghanistan. That is where the problem is and that is the military action in which we are involved," Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in Luxembourg when asked about the U.S. statement. MORE

Iran says U.S. attacks "unacceptable"
Posted: Monday, October 8, 2001

Tehran, Oct 7, IRNA -- Raising deep concerns, the Iranian foreign ministry has immediately reacted to the U.S. military attacks against Afghanistan, saying the "vast U.S. attacks" are "unacceptable."

"These attacks which have been launched regardless of the world public opinion, especially the Muslim nations, and will damage the innocent and oppressed Afghans are unacceptable," the ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Assefi told IRNA.

He noted that the United States should avoid any action which, he said, may encroach on the territorial integrity of the Iranian airspace.

The United States launched an attack on Afghanistan and its ruling Taliban on Sunday in retaliation for the September 11 terrorist strikes on New York and Washington.

"On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al-Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan," President George W. Bush said in a televised address. MORE

Protest demonstration in London against military strikes
Posted: Monday, October 8, 2001

London, Oct. 7, IRNA -- More than 100 people have gathered outside Downing Street to protest against the military strikes in Afghanistan.

Protesters are chanting anti-war slogans through a megaphone in front of police, according to the Press Association news agency. The demonstrators have criticised the Allies for launching an attack and chanted: "Stop the war, feed the poor."

Scores of demonstrators turned out hours after the launch of military operations despite heavy rain and gusting wind.

One demonstrator, Jamie Ritchie, a 55-year-old lawyer from Willesden, north-west London, said: "I am opposed to a war because it is going to cause more problems tan it will solve.

"We have had these wars in the past and they create more terrorism than they prevent. "I would like to see a big change in the policies of what they call the international community." MORE

Italian airport disaster kills 114
Posted: Monday, October 8, 2001

( Guardian UK ) At least 114 people were killed at an airport in Italy today when a passenger jet struck a building after apparently trying to swerve away from a smaller plane which was said to have been on the wrong runway.
The Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) jet collided with a small Cessna plane on the runway of Milan's Linate airport and burst into flames after crashing into a baggage handling depot.

Government officials ruled out terrorism. Italy's interior ministry said the accident was most likely the result of "human error" compounded by poor visibility due to heavy morning fog.

The SAS plane, an MD 87, had around 104 passengers and six crew members on board, according to the ministry, which said the Cessna was on the wrong runway.

Italy's transport minister, Pietro Lunardi, put the death toll at 114 with four ground workers missing. Of the victims, 56 were Italians, he told an airport press conference. MORE

Panic Grips Pakistani Cities, Fear Taliban Retaliation
Posted: Monday, October 8, 2001

PESHAWAR (PNS) Oct 8, 2001 - Panic hits Pakistani cities as people rush to stores to stock up on groceries and consumer items on hearing reports of American-British attack on Afghanistan.

Most people reported fear of Taliban retaliation due to Pakistan's strong stance on support and providing resources including airspace to America.

Other reasons for stocking up on items included fear of possible price hikes and curfews in Pakistan as a result of war next door.
Taliban had earlier vowed to attack Pakistan and moved troops and missile launchers close to Pakistan-Afghan border

Refugee children 'thrown from ship'
Posted: Sunday, October 7, 2001

The Australian navy has fired shots across the bow of an Indonesian ship carrying asylum-seekers, in an attempt to force it to leave Australian waters.

Officials say the refugees have been throwing children off the boat to force the navy to rescue them.

Personnel from HMAS Adelaide intercepted the boat, thought to contain some 300 mainly Iraqi refugees, as it entered Australian waters about 200km (120 miles) from Christmas Island off the north-west coast on Saturday evening.

A party was sent aboard to see if help was required, but also to tell the captain and crew of stiff new penalties for anyone caught smuggling illegal immigrants into Australian territory.

The navy officers have been trying unsuccessfully to persuade the boat's crew to return to international waters.

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said the fact that the children being thrown overboard were wearing lifejackets showed the action was premeditated.

"It would be unfortunate if the steps being taken by the passengers leads to a loss of life but we will do our best to ensure that doesn't happen," he said. MORE BBC

BBC: Bin Laden warns US
Posted: Sunday, October 7, 2001

Osama Bin Laden has warned the United States that it will never enjoy security unless Islamic territories are also safe.

In a statement broadcast on Al Jazeera television, thought to have been recorded during daylight hours on Sunday, Bin Laden said the United States had declared war on Islam and called on Muslims to support their religion.

The statement was also broadcast on CNN television shortly after US President George Bush announced retaliatory attacks on Afghanistan had begun. MORE

German chancellor supports US military attacks on Afghanistan
Posted: Sunday, October 7, 2001

Berlin, Oct 7, IRNA -- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder indicated Sunday evening his support for retaliatory US military strikes on Afghanistan, DPA reported here.

"I support the attacks on terrorist targets in Afghanistan without reservation," Schroeder was quoted as saying.

He added that US President George W. Bush had earlier contacted him via phone to say military attacks were imminent.

The chancellor was due to meet with his cabinet later Sunday evening to discuss the latest developments.

Meanwhile security forces in the German capital Berlin have been placed on high alert in the aftermath of American military strikes inside Afghanistan.

Kill bin Laden or risk catastrophe, says FBI
Posted: Sunday, October 7, 2001

Investigators tracking Osama bin Laden have emerged as a cogent voice of caution over widespread United States military strikes against Afghanistan.

There is pressure in America for action to match the rhetoric of President George Bush and others during the first weeks of the crisis, but one official from the security services said: 'This is not a war that will be won by impatience.'

But those charged with the most onerous task of all - killing or catching the world's most wanted man - acknowledge that widespread military action might crush the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which protects their target.

But, say sources in the intelligence community, the FBI and those preparing the legal case against bin Laden at the Justice Department, if such action allowed their target to escape it would prove catastrophic, igniting his terrorist network with 'more resolve than ever'.

In briefings with The Observer, sources said an absolute priority had to be placed on his delivery for trial in the US, or else production of a forensically verifiable corpse, whatever the ambitions for Afghanistan or wider aims in the war against terrorism. MORE

CNN Caves in to Israel over its References to Illegal Settlements
Posted: Sunday, October 7, 2001

By Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent

[The Independent, UK, 3 September 2001] Just as the BBC last month ordered its reporters to use the phrase "targeted killings'' for Israel's assassination of Palestinians, CNN under constant attack from right-wing Jewish pro-settler lobby groups has instructed its journalists to stop referring to Gilo as a "Jewish settlement''. Instead, they must call the settlement, built illegally on occupied Arab land outside Jerusalem, "a Jewish neighbourhood".

Arabs have long protested over CNN's reporting of the Middle East especially its pejorative use of the word "terrorist'' but they are likely to be outraged by this latest "softening" of the station's reporting in Israel's favour. Some of the land on which Gilo is built was taken from the Palestinians of Beit Jala Gilo is Hebrew for Jala but no hint of this historical background will be permitted on CNN. Israeli soldiers in Gilo have been involved in nightly battles with Palestinian gunmen in Beit Jala.

The instruction from CNN's headquarters in Atlanta is straightforward. "We refer to Gilo as 'a Jewish neighbourhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem, built on land occupied by Israel in 1967','' the order states. "We don't refer to it as a settlement.''

This extraordinary climbdown in favour of the Israelis follows months of internal debate in CNN, which has been constantly criticised by CNN Watch, honestreporting.com and other pro-Israeli pressure groups in the United States which monitor all its reports on the Middle East.

Many journalists at CNN headquarters are angered by the new instruction. "There's a feeling by some people here that what we are doing is searching for euphemisms for what is really happening," one of them told The Independent yesterday. "We've managed to eliminate the word 'terrorism' we now talk about 'militants' because we know that the word 'terrorist' is used by one side or another to damage the other side. But now there's pressure on us not to use the word 'settler' in any context but to just refer to the settlers as 'Israelis'."

In the past, CNN used "terrorist" only about Arabs the Israeli settler who murdered 29 Palestinians in a Hebron mosque in 1994 was always called an "extremist" on CNN and at one point described Arab protests at the illegal settlements built by Jews on Palestinian land as "conflicting heritage" claims.

However, by censoring the word "settlement" for Gilo, CNN is perpetrating a lie. Gilo was illegally annexed by Israel after the 1967 war not just "occupied" as CNN wishes its viewers to believe and far from being a "neighbourhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem", it was built on land which Israel again illegally used to extend the boundaries of Jerusalem.

"There has been an intense internal debate over the use of words," the CNN reporter said. "And sometimes we still do use the word 'settlement' about Gilo. In fact, we don't necessarily say all that stuff about 'occupied by Israel in 1967'. But we're having problems. There are many small pro-settler Jewish groups who're trying to win the war of words."

A CNN spokesman in Atlanta said last night: "We have no response to make to you. We don't want to get into a discussion on this ... In fact we'd rather not say anything about this at all."

* Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians in gun battles in the West Bank city of Hebron yesterday, creating a violent backdrop for the arrival of the European Union's foreign policy representative, Javier Solana. He was due to help lay the groundwork for a meeting between the Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat, and Israel's Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, which might be held in Italy at the end of the week.

[AND A COMMENT about this latest CNN "enforcement action" from a Canadian reader]:

Dear CNN:

Since the beginning of the Palestinian intifada, against the Israeli military occupation, almost a year ago, the Zionist-controlled mainstream media has been a shameful platform for whitewashing Israeli belligerence. This by 1) Using euphemisms; 2) Selective reporting (of incidents or pertinent information, including omitting the historical context); 3) Injecting factual errors into the reports (Zionist myths); 4) Implementing lexical apartheid (selective use of repulsive words to describe Palestinians and/or their actions (militants, terrorists, and so forth) while using plausible descriptions for Israelis; and last but not least 5) Forced publishing of pro-Israeli articles. The CNN, has been a pioneer in succumbing to expediential pro-Israeli articles in the USA.

Closer to (my) home, the National Post holds that shameful post. (Senior editors at Aspers’ CanWest publications - owners of two thirds of Canadian media outlets - were ordered in August to run a strongly worded pro-Israeli editorial on Saturday op-ed page.)

Let’s imagine for a millisecond that we would refer to Kuwait as "disputed area" (between Iraq and Kuwait) and, listen to US spokespersons ask both sides to "show restraint" while Sadam does to the Kuwaitis what Israel is doing to the Palestinians now.

But in Israel, it is somehow okay to call what the UN body equally considers occupied territories, the Jewish colonies (again euphemized as settlements), "disputed".

Would the CNN then call Iraq’s new colonies in Kuwait "Iraqi neighborhoods"? Somehow, its okay to refer to the colony of Gilo, for example, in the occupied territories, as "neighborhood".

Iraq declares that Kuwait is its capital. Would the CNN list it as the capital of Iraq with a barely noticeable fine print saying that it is a contentious issue? (What happened when Iraq declared Kuwait as an Iraqi (19th) province?)

Were the Kuwaitis fighting off the occupation labeled as terrorists/militants?

It seems to me that the CNN news reporters also need to start an intifiada against the Zionist dominance. And, it seems for a minute, alas, that the Palestinians cannot gain their freedom before the Americans do.

Regards, Baha Abu-Shaqra

Taliban intend to release British journalist.
Posted: Saturday, October 6, 2001

Taliban representatives in Pakistan told British diplomats that they had been informed of the decision by their superiors in the Afghan capital, Kabul. But the Taliban has not confirmed when or how Ms. Ridley will be freed.

Ms Ridley, 43, was arrested eight days ago with her two local guides close to the city of Jalalabad near Afghanistan's eastern border. She did not have any travel documents with her and was in breach of the Taliban ban on foreign journalists.

Consular staff are trying to get permission from Pakistan to enter the restricted border zones with Afghanistan where Ms Ridley would probably be handed over, the British Foreign Office spokeswoman has said.

The order to free her was made by Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader, according to Mulla Zaeef. He said the British government, through its High Commissioner, had also appealed for the release.

Shooting Erupts Over Kabul, U.S. Rejects Deal
Posted: Saturday, October 6, 2001

By Anton Ferreira and Zeeshan Haider

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Taliban gunners on Saturday fired fierce volleys of shots at two aircraft flying high over the Afghan capital as the promised U.S.-led assault on the Osama bin Laden network loomed closer.

Afghanistan's hard-line Islamic rulers sought to use eight detained Western aid workers as bargaining chips to deflect U.S. anger but Washington immediately rejected any deal.

In signs of hardening positions on all sides, President Bush warned the Taliban they had much to fear for their refusal to hand over bin Laden.

But the movement's leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, said the Saudi exile could not have been responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States because "no one will commit suicide on the orders of another."

Taliban Ambassador Denounces Blair
Posted: Saturday, October 6, 2001

The Associated Press

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan –– The Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan said British Prime Minister Tony Blair came here Friday "to encourage war" and that the Afghan leadership had nothing to say to him.

Blair arrived Friday night for a show of solidarity with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who has pledged full support to the U.S.-led campaign against terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden and his Taliban supporters.

"Tony Blair has come to encourage war," Ambassador Abdul Salam Zaeef said. "We have no message for him. Had he come for negotiations and talks, then we would have liked to have said something."

Zaeef praised Iran for refusing to allow the United States and its allies use of its airspace in any attack on Afghanistan. However, Zaeef would not condemn Pakistan for its stand.

"We understand the problems of Pakistan but we have no comments to make," he said, referring to Musharraf's policy. Pakistan is the only country to recognize the Taliban as the legal government of Afghanistan. MORE

For Israel's Sake
Posted: Saturday, October 6, 2001

By ANTHONY LEWIS

The Middle East peace initiative that President Bush was planning before Sept. 11 is desperately needed now. It would help the international struggle against terrorism. But more important, it is the only hope of ending the ratcheting cycle of violence that afflicts Israel and the Palestinians.

One thing must be understood first. Our support for Israel was not the major factor in Osama bin Laden's decision to strike at America. His hatred goes far beyond any particular policy. Prof. Michael Ignatieff of Harvard put it well this week in The Guardian, London.

"What we are up against is apocalyptic nihilism . . .," he wrote. "It is absurd to believe they [the terrorists] are making political demands at all. They are seeking the violent transformation of an irremediably sinful and unjust world."

American policy on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict does negatively affect public attitudes in the Arab world toward the coalition's antiterrorism effort. Even in the pro-Western Persian Gulf states, Warren Hoge of The New York Times reported this week, there is a "general dismay about perceived American tolerance of violence against the Palestinians." A minister of the United Arab Emirates said that if Israeli killings of Palestinians continued, "most of us will certainly have to reconsider our role in the coalition."

But for me the tragedy is the unraveling of all the past efforts for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It is tragic because this need not be a situation of apocalyptic nihilism. The conflict is susceptible of political solution. But on both sides today the leadership lacks the domestic political support needed to make a deal.

The costs are terrible. Think of our ally, Israel. Week after week its people, innocent civilians, are killed by Palestinian bombers and gunmen. And the government's policy answer — to respond with punishing military attacks — is demonstrably a failure. The policy not only fails to make the Israeli public more secure; it arouses more anti-Israel violence.

This week two Hamas gunmen raided a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip and killed two Israelis. In response, Israeli tanks shelled a town, killing six Palestinians — who may have had nothing to do with the raid — and bulldozers destroyed Palestinian farmland. The result: more funerals, more deprivation, more rage.

Then, yesterday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rebuked the United States for seeking Arab support for the coalition against terrorism. And a few hours later he sent tanks, troops and helicopters against Palestinians in Hebron, killing at least five.

Mr. Sharon's coalition government has been beset by right-wing demands for ever stronger military action. I thought Mr. Sharon, for all his past acts of provocation and brutality, understood that more and more force could not assure Israelis a tranquil life. That may not be so.

The Israeli government always blames Yasir Arafat for acts of terrorism. But it is a fantasy to believe that the leader of a non-state, beset by antagonistic factions and his people's desperation, can exercise that kind of control. When he arrested four teenage militants recently, angry mobs surrounded the compound where they were held.

The single Israeli action that would most effectively reduce Palestinian desperation and militancy would be a halt to building of settlements in the West Bank and in Gaza. That process of colonization has gone right on through all the talk of peace and cease-fires. A Peace Now survey just completed shows that in the last four months 10 new settlements were established.

Some 6,000 Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip take up 20 percent of the territory, with one million Palestinians crammed into the rest. Those settlements, provoking burning resentment, are flashpoints for violence. It would be logical — and a powerful symbol — to abandon them. But Mr. Sharon would do that only if the United States put heavy pressure on him — and he could use that as an excuse with the far right.

The Bush administration has been saying that it will go ahead with its initiative only if and when violence stops. But that won't work; the violence will not stop unless we act. The most effective way to ease the violence is for America to come forward with a plan that would make Israelis and Palestinians begin to believe, again, in a political cure for their traumas.

Last chance to speak out
Posted: Saturday, October 6, 2001

Abstract: Guardian Unlimited

( Polly Toynbee ) Religious extremism must not be put beyond criticism by legislation - or accusations of Islamophobia

The only good religion is a moribund religion: only when the faithful are weak are they tolerant and peaceful. The horrible history of Christianity shows that whenever religion grabs temporal power it turns lethal. Those who believe theirs is the only way, truth and light will kill to create their heavens on earth if they get the chance. Tolerance only thrives when religion is banished to the private sphere, but bizarrely this government is marching backwards, with more faith schools, more use of "faith communities" and now Blunkett's new laws against "religious hatred" to save religion from vulgar abuse. Wherever religion burns, it seeks power: Israel has become ever more dangerous (to itself and others) as religious parties gain power over secular ones. Religious politics scar India, Kashmir, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Sudan ... the list of countries wrecked by religion is long. But the present danger is caused by Islamist theocracy.

There is no point in pretending it is not so. Wherever Islam either is the government or bears down upon the government, it imposes harsh regimes that deny the most basic human rights. Religions never accept universal human rights because their notion of rights derives from a higher revealed truth. Hundreds of emails from Muslims around the world flooded in this week claiming that UN human rights are a western construct, alien to their culture. A moderate one wrote: "Islam has its own understanding on human rights and the social order and the relationship between men and women established 1,400 years ago." Islam does have as wide a spectrum of interpretation as Christianity's long stretch from Ian Paisley to the Pope to the Quakers - but their Paisley element is alarmingly powerful.

This may be the last chance to say so before emergency measures ban "incitement to religious hatred". To say that religion is dangerous nonsense is indeed intended to incite people against irrational superstition in favour of reason. But this law will insulate religious ideas in a sanctuary beyond scrutiny, refutation or ridicule. Why does religion deserve a realm beyond questioning? MORE

American killed in Saudi explosion
Posted: Friday, October 5, 2001

A bomb blast in the eastern Saudi city of al-Khobar near Dhahran has killed two people including an American and injured four other foreigners.

A pedestrian reportedly threw a package bomb into a busy shopping area.

The US embassy in Saudi Arabia confirmed reports that one American was killed. The nationality of the other dead victim is not known, but unconfirmed reports say it is also American.

A hospital official in al-Khobar said the wounded were an American, a Briton and two Filipinos.

Al-Khobar is near the former military base at Dhahran, where American troops were stationed until 1996 when a bomb blast - blamed on Islamic extremists - killed 19 US servicemen. MORE BBC

Scientists Make Key Finding Underlying Genetic Stability
Posted: Friday, October 5, 2001

Source: Los Alamos National Laboratory (http://www.lanl.gov/)

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Oct. 4 2001 - Biologists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory have discovered new insights into how two common proteins found in mammalian cells can cause chromosomes to fuse together -mutations that can destroy cells or give rise to cancer.
The research, by Susan Bailey and Edwin Goodwin of Los Alamos' Biosciences Division, was published recently in the journal Science.

Bailey, Goodwin and their colleagues looked at the role of telomeres in protecting chromosome ends. Chromosomes are made of deoxyribonucleic acid - DNA - and are the carriers of genetic information. Human cells contain 22 pairs of chromosomes plus two gender chromosomes. Telomeres are specialized protective structures at the end of each arm of the X-shaped chromosomes. MORE

Taliban 'will try Bin Laden if US provides evidence'
Posted: Friday, October 5, 2001

Afghanistan's ruling Taliban are prepared to put Osama bin Laden on trial in an Afghan court, but only if the US provides hard evidence against him, the party announced today.
Although the Taliban's cooperation in the trial of Bin Laden hinges largely on the definition of "evidence", the statement is the clearest signal yet that they could cooperate with Nato's mission to track down the suspect for September's terror attacks on New York and Washington.

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeff, the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, said: "We are prepared to try him, if America provides solid evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in attacks in New York and Washington."

Asked whether the Taliban would allow a trial of Bin Laden in another country, he said: "We are willing to talk about that, but the first is that we must be given the evidence."

The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) quoted Mullah Zaeff as saying: "If America is not satisfied with our trial of Osama, we are also ready to find another Islamic way of trying him."

But asked whether the Taliban were ready to hand over Bin Laden, he said: "This is a later thing, we cannot take any step that hurts our Islamic or Afghan dignity." MORE

White House fury over Sharon jibe
Posted: Friday, October 5, 2001

Washington has condemned as "unacceptable" Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's accusation that the US is appeasing Arab states in order to gain support for its war on terrorism.

It was Mr Sharon's toughest criticism yet of the United States, Israel's closest ally, and it followed President George Bush's endorsement earlier in the week of a Palestinian state.

He compared the treatment of Israel with events leading up to World War II, when Britain and France helped Nazi Germany dismember Czechoslovakia.

"Those comments made by the prime minister are unacceptable in the president's opinion," President Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, told reporters.

He added that Mr Sharon had been informed of the US response to his comments through the US embassy in Israel.

Since it was signed, at least 21 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire and five Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks. MORE BBC

Congresswoman Babara Lee Under Police Protection
Posted: Friday, October 5, 2001

WASHINGTON (NNPA) - One day last week, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) emerged quietly from the conference room of the U. S. Capitol, where the Congressional Black Caucus had met for more than three hours.

She turned to the left and walked in the opposite direction from all of her colleagues, who streamed out behind her.

Awaiting her at the end of the hallway was a plainclothes police officer who had stood quietly and watchfully during the entire meeting. He escorted her swiftly through the corridors, eyeing anyone who came near, including a reporter in tow.

Two plainclothes Capitol Police officers are protecting Lee after her Sept. 14 lone vote against a resolution giving President Bush broad latitude in using military force in response to terrorist attacks without congressional intervention.

"The resolution did not allow for the checks and balances system to work during these very critical times," she explained as she walked. "I believe that whenever we're going to war, the American people should not be disenfranchised," she said. "We are a country in mourning. People are angry. People are frustrated. People need to vent... There are many people who are very angry, so we're just dealing with it."

Later in her office, Lee's press secretary, Andrew Sousa, said she has received more than 30,000 letters, emails and phone calls in response to her vote. More than half have been positive and supportive, while those that disagree did so respectfully, he said.

He declined to share any of the responses and what specific threats she has received. MORE

Here's an intriguing possibility.
Posted: Friday, October 5, 2001

By Selwyn R. Cudjoe

Here's an intriguing possibility. The President asks Patrick Manning to become the Prime Minister and thereby to form a government. Manning, in turn, pledges to ask Ramesh Maharaj to remain as the AG. To make his government as representative as possibly, Manning also grants ministerial positions to Ralph Maraj and Trevor Sudama. In this new dispensation, as many interests as possibly (business, ethnic, religious, NGO, etc.,) are represented. Even Lloyd Best and Errol McCloud can be included if need be.

The first task of such a government shall be to root corruption out of the society and bring the guilty, even this includes the PM, to justice. In this way, we can be assured that for the next decade the society's resources shall be used to make T&T a better place for all rather than for the few. Just think of it, one does not have to take one's sheets to the Port of Spain General Hospital (my mother had to do that recently) or beg for a ten days. In this new arrangement, doctors would have to work an eight-hour day, teachers would teach our children and contractors would be liable for any shabby work they do for government. Think of the boost that such an arrangement can give the country.

Such an arrangement will also improve ethnic relations in our society. Admittedly, part of Maharaj's concern is that UNC has been taken out of the hand of its original founders (read Indians) and thrust into the hands of interlopers or Johnnies-come-lately (read Duprey, Gillette, Yetming, John and others). None of the original members of the UNC is a part of the G13, the clique that runs the UNC. This means the original members of the UNC were frozen out of the running of the society. Thus, Ramesh's inclusion in a new coalition allows him to push forward the interests of the Indians and, in the process, the interest of the country. In a change of face, Manning gets a chance to re-present the interest of Africans who, under his regime, got a raw deal. In fact, under Manning, Africans were seen as outsiders. Under these new arrangements, the goals of the Three Musketeers, Africans, and the general society, are all represented and given a fair shake.

In this scenario, the interest of neither group prevails. What takes precedence is the building of a better society for all although the interests of each community must be represented, understood and appreciated. Since the interests of the other groups in the society have always been re-presented there is no need to feel that they would suffer unduly under this new dispensation. Manning has always shown a propensity to look out for the interest of other groups (remember his pronouncement after the 1993 elections: "We do not have enough Indians") and it would be in Maharaj's better interest to be cognizant of the interest of all. His political future depends on his being evenhanded.

This new coalition government can also give the society a new start. It opens up spaces for open dissent within varied political groupings. Keith Rowley might be free to prosecute his more liberal line of thinking within the PNM without being seen as an outcast and treated with suspicion. Panday can lambaste Maharaj as a nemakaram even as he sides with the parasitical oligarchy. In this new dispensation, there can be maximum discussion of political affairs without feeling that somehow one is disloyal to one's group. In other words, maximum discussion replaces maximum leadership.

In my arrangement, meritocracy is likely to prevail. It is to Maharaj's credit that he fought against Ish's contract at the airport even though he was not successful. In those halcyon days, he could not afford open war with the maximum leader. He still felt that he would be rewarded with the top political plum (deputy PM) if he stayed silent. Given our desire to get the best, we would to have rely on international competition to select the best (be they contractors or academic leaders) rather than engage in a national shakedown to reward the worst. Here, quality shall replace favoritism and we will be given a new chance to form a new society. Think of how many nationals would rush home if they felt they had an equal chance to compete and to serve based almost exclusively on what one knows rather than who one knows.

It is to Manning's credit that he ran an efficient, progressive government. I'm convinced he will be a good chief executive if he does not allow hubris to prevail. Maharaj is a good lawyer and a conscientious worker. Where prior to he crafted legislation to carry forward the interest of his group and his party, in his new position he might tend to think more about the needs of the society as a whole. Working with the PNM he might be able to clean up ancient statues that have little to do with our present circumstances.

As Panday departs, he must be credited for bringing Indians fully into the political process and giving them the space to be conscientious Trinbagaonians. In so doing, he has done more than anyone to transform the way in which Indians see the state and their capacity to identify as Trinbagonians. His picaresque(ness) has brought dynamism to the society of which neither Williams, Manning or Robinson was capably. He has also created a space in which there can be a more fruitful discussion about ethnic issues and that is all to the good.

Panday has taken the mask off Africans conception of themselves and allowed them to recognize that they must always be aware of and promulgate their self-interest. Painfully, he has taught them to understand that neither he nor Manning, in their capacities as Prime Ministers, nor the PNM or the UNC, in their roles as political parties, can really look out for African interest. Regardless of who comes into power Africans must build their own institutions so that a Sat Maharaj can never ask, as he did two weeks ago, where are the African schools, African museums, or the African temples.

Although there might be little to these suggestions, my gut feelings is that we can find room for a dynamic, forward-looking experiment from which the entire nation can benefit.

Palestinian posing as soldier kills three Israelis
Posted: Thursday, October 4, 2001

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A suspected Palestinian gunman posing as an Israeli soldier opened fire in a crowded bus terminal in northern Israel killing three Israelis and wounding 13, Israeli officials have said.

The shooting, in the town of Afula, occurred around the time when a Russian passenger jet from Tel Aviv bound for Siberia exploded over the Black Sea with up to 78 people on board.

This is the latest incident in a wave of violence that has brought a fragile ceasefire accord to the brink of collapse a week after Israel and the Palestinians renewed it.

Washington has applied intense pressure to both sides to end a year of violence as it tries to draw Arab and Islamic countries into an anti-terrorism coalition to respond to the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Witnesses said the gunman, wearing an olive Israeli army uniform and a red paratroop beret, had fired wildly into the crowd of travellers before being killed by security forces. MORE

Russian jet explodes over Black Sea
Posted: Thursday, October 4, 2001

A Russian airliner travelling from Israel to Siberia has exploded in mid-air and crashed into the Black Sea with 76 people on board.

There were conflicting reports about the circumstances surrounding the crash.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the plane might have been brought down by terrorists.

But reports from both Washington and the Ukrainian capital Kiev suggested that the airliner was accidentally been hit by a Ukrainian missile. MORE BBC

An 'informed U.S.' source tells CNN that "initial analysis indicates" the Siberian Airlines plane that crashed into the Black Sea appears to have been downed accidentally by a surface-to-air missile during Ukrainian military exercises. The flight, bound for Siberia from Tel Aviv, Israel, exploded before crashing with 77 people on board. MORE CNN

British Offer Details on Evidence
Posted: Thursday, October 4, 2001

LONDON -- Excerpts from summary of evidence against Osama bin Laden in U.S. terrorist attacks, released Thursday by the British government:

The clear conclusions reached by the government are:

Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, the terrorist network which he heads, planned and carried out the atrocities on 11 September 2001; Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida retain the will and resources to carry out further atrocities; the United Kingdom, and United Kingdom nationals are potential targets; and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida were able to commit these atrocities because of their close alliance with the Taliban regime, which allowed them to operate with impunity in pursuing their terrorist activity. MORE

Thatcher comments 'encourage' racism
Posted: Thursday, October 4, 2001

( BBC ) Baroness Thatcher has been accused of encouraging racists after saying that she "had not heard enough condemnation from Muslim priests" of the US terror attacks.

The former British prime minister's comments were roundly condemned by British Muslim leaders and politicans of all sides in the UK.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine, asked on BBC Radio 4's Today programme about the comments, said: "Frankly, I find it difficult to find words to describe my horror at what I saw."

The comments "could only encourage" those with racist tendencies to act, said Mr Heseltine, whose leadership challenge led to Mrs Thatcher's replacement as Tory leader by John Major.

Her comments come at an acutely sensitive time as Prime Minister Tony Blair prepares to embark on a new round of diplomatic talks to bolster support for the international coalition against terrorism. MORE

EDITOR: Maybe at this time Thatcher is less hypocrital about her prejudices.

NATO Backs U.S. Aid Request
Posted: Thursday, October 4, 2001

By CONSTANT BRAND
Associated Press Writer

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - NATO approved the United States' request for specific military contributions in the campaign against terrorism on Thursday, the alliance's secretary-general said.

The decision backs up earlier promises with military hardware and intelligence, after Washington's 18 NATO allies said they were convinced by U.S. evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

"Today's decision clearly demonstrates the allies' resolve to combat terrorism," Secretary-General Lord Robertson said. He added the commitments were "clearly not time-limited."

Indian hijack was 'false alarm'
Posted: Wednesday, October 3, 2001

Passengers aboard an Indian plane that was reported hijacked have left the aircraft at New Delhi airport.

The Indian civil aviation minister Shahnawaz Hussain said that the reported attack had been "a false alarm".

The Alliance Air Boeing 737 was on an internal flight from Bombay to New Delhi when it was reported seized by two hijackers.

The situation was caused by an anonymous phone call to air traffic controllers in Ahmedabad and confusion in the aircraft's cabin and cockpit, Mr Hussain said.

He said the pilot was told about the phone call and sealed his cockpit door.

He then flew the plane to New Delhi, skipping the scheduled stop in Ahmadabad.

What followed was a comedy of errors, in which the pilots thought the hijackers were in the passenger cabin, while air traffic control and the passengers thought the hijackers were in the cockpit.

Other passengers were phoning their relatives from mobile phones, saying they knew nothing about a hijacking.

Senior Indian cabinet ministers, meanwhile, had convened at the airport for a crisis management meeting.

Mr Hussain denied that the entire episode was a security drill.

"This was not a drill. Until 10 minutes ago we thought it was a hijack. It was only when the commandos entered the cockpit that even the pilots realized that it was a false alarm," he said.

He said a statement would be made later on Thursday.
More on security scare

Passenger on bus cuts driver's throat six die in crash
Posted: Wednesday, October 3, 2001

A passenger on a Greyhound bus cut the driver's throat Wednesday, causing a crash that killed at least six of the 40 people aboard and prompted Greyhound to temporarily halt service nationwide. The driver told authorities the attacker used a box cutter.

The man stabbed the driver, Garfield Sands of Marietta, Ga., and then took control of the steering wheel, the driver told Brandon. Brandon quoted Sands as saying the man appeared to be a foreigner, had a Middle Eastern accent and definitely intended to wreck the bus.

Dr. Ralph Bard of the Medical Center of Manchester talked extensively with Sands before operating on him.

He told CNN that the driver told him that the man approached him three times to ask about what stops were coming up. On the third time, the man reached around, slit Sands' throat with a box cutter or razor blade and then grabbed the wheel and intentionally steered the bus into the median.

The driver told the doctor that the attacker appeared to be trying to steer the bus into the oncoming lines of traffic on I-24. A fence in the median prevented the bus from crossing into the other lanes, but the vehicle flipped several times, landing driver's-side up.

Though wounded and bleeding profusely, Sands was able to climb out of the bus.

The driver thought the attacker had come aboard the bus in Louisville. He described him as tall, thin, clean-shaven and having a dark complexion.

The perpetrator was killed in the wreck when he was thrown through the front windshield of the bus, Brandon said this morning.

Officials found a Croatian passport on the bus, but do not yet know whether it is authentic or belongs to the alleged attacker, a federal law enforcement source told The Tennessean. MORE

Ridley 'committed serious crime', say Taliban
Posted: Wednesday, October 3, 2001

Fears have increased for the safety of the Sunday Express journalist, Yvonne Ridley, after the Taliban said they believe she may be part of "special forces".

Paul Ashford, the editorial director of Express Newspapers, is to fly out to Islamabad with representatives from the Foreign Office to discuss the situation.

The Taliban information minister said today that Ridley, who was arrested after entering Afghanistan illegally and in disguise, had committed a serious crime and may even be a member of a special forces unit.

"Surely her crime is high. How come she arrives here in such a situation without any documents despite the ban on foreign journalists in Afghanistan?" Qudratullah Jamal, the Taliban information minister, told Reuters. MORE

Patriots attack media amid cries of treason
Posted: Wednesday, October 3, 2001

Just as the war-or-no-war debate has been conducted over the internet in ways perhaps not always reflected in the mainstream media, so, too, is the debate over patriotism and what it now means. It started, as has been reported now at some length, with the television show Politically Incorrect.

To recap, comedian Bill Mayer, the host of the LA-based ABC network chat show, had on September 17 as his guest the writer and political commentator Dinesh D'Souza, who had taken issue with President Bush's frequent references to the terrorists as "cowards". Mayer agreed, saying: "We have been cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." MORE

Anti-US anger in Indonesia
Posted: Wednesday, October 3, 2001

Anti-US demonstrations have been getting steadily bigger as the US prepares for possible military action over the 11 September attacks on Washington and New York.

About 2,000 people gathered in the centre of Jakarta, right next to the British embassy.

One of the most radical groups, the Islamic Youth Movement, has warned it will call a jihad or holy war if Afghanistan is attacked, unless it has seen clear evidence of Osama Bin Laden's involvement in terrorism.

"If one Afghan is hurt or killed we'll boycott American goods," said the group's self-styled commander, Handrian Syah. "If two, we'll search for Americans living in Indonesia.

"If three, we'll take the life of the American ambassador here.

"If more, we'll destroy the American embassy."

President Megawati Sukarnoputri has appealed for calm and condemned the threats of violence.

Whilst not wanting to go into specifics, one of its leaders, Ayip Syaffudin, made it clear they were preparing for action.

"We'll see how big the American military operations against Afghanistan are - the bigger their action, the bigger our reaction," he said. "We can tell from President Bush's speech that the Americans' real policy is to launch a crusade - that means by attacking Afghanistan they'll be digging their own grave."

6 Palestinians Killed by Israeli Fire
Posted: Wednesday, October 3, 2001

BEIT LAHIA, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli tanks shelled Palestinian police stations and flattened farmland Wednesday in retaliation for a deadly raid of a Jewish settlement by Islamic militants. Two young Israelis and two assailants were shot dead in the settlement raid, and six Palestinians were later killed by Israeli fire.

The violence clouded U.S. efforts to calm the conflict. Israel and the Palestinians accused each other of violating a truce declared last week. However, neither side said it was abandoning cease-fire efforts.

The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the raid of the Jewish settlement of Alei Sinai in the northern Gaza Strip. Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority condemned the raid and said it would bring those responsible to justice.

Arab nations pledge to eradicate terrorism
Posted: Tuesday, October 2, 2001

Arab nations pledge to eradicate terrorism
but demand independence for the Palestinians

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Arab nations on Tuesday pledged to eradicate terrorism but demanded independence for Palestinians, whom they called "victims of modern terrorism."

The debate came during the second day of a weeklong session of the U.N. General Assembly to discuss terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks against the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon.

Pakistan, which has pledged support for the U.S. campaign to punish Osama bin Laden and his network blamed by Washington for the attacks, also warned that the West must do more to eliminate world poverty, which it said breeds extremists.

Diplomats from Yemen, Sudan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as well as the Palestinian envoy, endorsed a new Security Council resolution requiring all 189 U.N. member states to stop giving money, support or sanctuary to terrorists.

The U.S. ambassador, John Negroponte, said he was pleased by the show of solidarity with the United States. MORE

Bush 'endorses' Palestinian state
Posted: Tuesday, October 2, 2001

President George W Bush has said the creation of a Palestinian state had always been part of the United States' vision for the Middle East.

But he said it was vital to first reduce the violence in the region.

"The idea of a Palestinian state has always been a part of a vision, so long as the right of Israel to exist is respected," Mr Bush told reporters after a meeting with congressional leaders.

His comments followed reports from Washington that, prior to the terror attacks on 11 September, the Bush administration had been planning a new Middle East initiative - including support for the creation of a Palestinian state.

According to the New York Times and the Washington Post, the initiative was to have been launched with a speech to the United Nations General Assembly by the US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Court Backs Mugabe On Land Reform
Posted: Tuesday, October 2, 2001

The Supreme Court in Zimbabwe has given permission to the government to continue with the redistribution of white-owned farm land.

The ruling is an important reversal of a decision made last year when the court declared the government's programme unconstitutional.

It is a significant victory for the Zimbabwean Government and for President Robert Mugabe.

He can now argue that his land reform programme is legal, in compliance with international demands.

Last month, in an agreement with the British, at a Commonwealth ministers meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, the Zimbabwean Government promised not to violate the law, whilst redistributing white owned land. MORE

Muslim scholars question the authenticity suspects letter
Posted: Tuesday, October 2, 2001

Al-Khalil, Oct 2, IRNA -- Several Muslim scholars and specialists have questioned the authenticity of a letter the American FBI claims was found in the luggage of suspects in the 11 September terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

Sheikh Nayef Rajoub, a prominent Islamic leader in the southern West Bank, said in an interview with IRNA Tuesday that the phraseology used in the letter cast serious doubts on its authenticity.

"In Islamic diction, such phraseology and style are not used. Religious Muslims don't speak or write in this way."

Rajoub said he was convinced the letter might have been written by some poor experts on Islam.

"This is very grave, it would be one of the greatest falsification in history."

Another Muslim scholar, Muhammed Hurub, from Bethlehem, said the style of the letter was "un-Islamic."

"A real Muslim wouldn't be thinking of virgins of paradise when he embarks on martyrdom. He would be thinking of meeting his Lord and be accepted by Him."

Hurub said the instructions in the letter about "clean clothes and clean shoes, and the last day in life and about dispossessing victims of their belongings all suggest a definite foul play."

"This is not the way Muslims speak or think, there is a mysterious element here, and the FBI knows it for sure."

Doubts about the authenticity of the "letter" are not confined to religious scholars and linguistic experts. Most Palestinian newspapers also questioned the credibility of the letter.

The semi-official Palestinian daily newspaper al-Ayyam wrote Tuesday that "whoever reads and examines the alleged letter will have no doubts as to its real author: it is those suspicious falsifiers who never wasted any time in distorting the image of Arabs and Muslims."

Writing under the caption "who wrote the letter?" the paper described as "claptrap" the alleged instructions to kill people and dispossess them of their valuables because this is a sunna of the Prophet.

"What martyr would be thinking of worldly gains when a few moments separated him from death?" The paper concluded by urging Muslim leaders to retort and refute the malicious calumnies.

End

Germany's top prosecutor links Turkish Islamic group to Bin Laden
Posted: Tuesday, October 2, 2001

IRNA -- A spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office confirmed that members of a Turkish fundamentalist group, called the "Caliphs of Cologne", had direct contact with Saudi born terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, DPA reported here Tuesday.

According to Frauke Scheuten, members of the extremist group met with Bin Laden in either 1996 or 1997 in Afghanistan to discuss the formation of a "caliphate state".

The spokeswoman added however that both sides failed to come to an
agreement.

The militant Turkish leader of the "Caliphs of Cologne", Metin Kaplan, was sentenced to four years in jail last November for openly calling for the murder of one of his religious opponents who was mysteriously gunned down in Berlin in 1997.

Kaplan seeks to reestablish the caliphate along the lines of the House of Osman which was officially abolished by Turkey's modern day founder Kemal Ataturk in 1924.

Bin Laden named in anti-US plot
Posted: Tuesday, October 2, 2001

( BBC ) A French-Algerian man held in France has confessed to investigators that he was plotting an attack on the US embassy in Paris, judicial sources say.

Djamel Beghal, 35, is reported to have said that Osama Bin Laden, the prime suspect in last month's suicide attacks in the United States, had also ordered the attack.

A French radio report said the man, who was extradited on Sunday from the United Arab Emirates, spoke in detail about being recruited by Bin Laden.

The suspect was placed under formal investigation on Monday evening, a step short of formal charges, for alleged "criminal association in connection with a terrorist enterprise".

In a further sign that a military strike against Bin Laden may be imminent, Nato Secretary-General Lord Robertson said the United States had presented "clear and compelling evidence" of the Saudi-born militant's involvement in the suicide attacks.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is to warn Afghanistan's ruling Taleban on Tuesday that military strikes against them are close.

He will say the Afghan regime has run out of time and must now pay the price for harbouring Bin Laden. MORE

Iran warns U.S. to stay out of its airspace
Posted: Monday, October 1, 2001

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran "will take action" against American warplanes that regularly violate its airspace in the event of a U.S. strike on neighboring Afghanistan, the country's defense minister said Monday.

"Mistakes are mistakes," Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani told reporters. "But if they are repeated, it means they are planned and we will take action."

During the Persian Gulf war, Iran claims that U.S. planes and missiles repeatedly strayed into its airspace, but the country made no protests.

Iran said on Sunday that it would not support any U.S. military operations, warning that a U.S. military buildup in the region could have unpredictable consequences. Shamkhani said Tehran objects to any military operation against Afghanistan, and Iranian armed forces were vigilant and were fully monitoring all military and political developments in the region.

Shamkhani also admitted for the first time that Iran has been supplying the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance with arms, and would continue to do so.

"We will support them like we have always done," he said.

Taliban taunt America
Posted: Monday, October 1, 2001

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan's president said Monday he believes the United States will launch a military strike against Afghanistan, after the Taliban's supreme leader told the Afghan people that "Americans don't have the courage to come here."

Asked by the British Broadcasting Corp. if the Taliban's days are numbered, the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, replied: "It appears so."

"It appears that the United States will take action in Afghanistan, and we have conveyed this to the Taliban," Musharraf told the BBC, referring to the Islamic militia that rules most of Afghanistan and refuses to hand over Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States.

He added that Pakistan had tried its best to head off a confrontation over bin Laden and the Saudi exile's lieutenants.

In Afghanistan's beleaguered capital, Kabul, meanwhile, the first World Food Program convoy since the start of the crisis arrived Monday. Eight trucks carrying 218 tons of wheat made it through to the city after a bone-jarring journey over rutted roads, WFP spokesman Khalid Mansour said in neighboring Pakistan.

Militants attack Kashmir assembly
Posted: Monday, October 1, 2001

Indian police say 29 people have been killed and many more injured in an attack by militants on the state assembly building in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir.
A suicide attacker drove up to the main entrance and detonated a bomb, while at least two other militants entered the complex and seized control of a building.

Police say the remaining militants were killed after a gunbattle lasting several hours.

The Jaish-e Mohammad (Army of Mohammad) militant group said it carried out the attack and named the suicide bomber as Pakistani national Wajahat Hussain.

Thirteen people, including the bomber, were killed instantly by the blast and others later died of their injuries.

Eyewitnesses describe seeing people lying in pools of blood after the bomb exploded.

Clinton barred from US Supreme Court
Posted: Monday, October 1, 2001

( BBC ) Former President Bill Clinton has been banned from practising law before the US Supreme Court.

It comes eight months after Mr Clinton admitted giving false, evasive statements about his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

The move has little practical effect - Mr Clinton has not practised law for years and is currently writing his memoirs after securing a multi-million dollar deal with a publisher - but it is another blow to his already battered image.

Mr Clinton now has 40 days to contest the Supreme Court order. There are no fines associated with the action. MORE

The deteriorating situation in Palestine
Posted: Monday, October 1, 2001

THE deteriorating situation in Palestine today beggars belief, and yet the world community seems paralysed and unable to act in any decisive way. While Israel ups the ante in the war of words that has now turned into an all-out war between troops and civilians, the international community has been held hostage by the glib rhetoric of Israeli politicians who have managed to turn the tables around and tip the odds in their favour.

Acts of violence on the part of Israel are dubbed acts of "self-defence", while Arab children armed with sticks and stones are summarily condemned as "fanatical terrorists" instead.

This morally lopsided situation reminds one of the Wild West movies that were all the rage in the 1950s and 1960s. As a student in an all-boys school, I, like thousands of other boys, was given the special treat of watching a John Wayne movie at the end of the final term of each year.

More often than not the movie in question would be The Dirty Dozen or some Wild West flick about how the "good" cowboys would fight against the "bad" native American Indians.

At that age, most of us hadn't a clue about the facts of American history, or the historical context within which the settlement of north America took place. We happily accepted the view that the cowboys were the good guys and the Indians were the nasty ones.

Whenever John Wayne shot dead an Indian or two, the boys would cheer like malevolent little lunatics (a sad reminder of how politically incorrect education for boys was then).

But by now most of us have come to realise that John Wayne and his butch cowboy pals were not the real heroes. They were the gunmen who forced the natives off their land and it was they who performed the real atrocities against the Indians whose lands they had stolen.

The only "wild" thing about the Wild West was the so-called civilised Europeans who had come to settle there and to domesticate the natives.

The Indians who were snipping at the cowboys and settlers were doing the only thing that they could do by that stage - to defend their land and property against a foreign invader whose military might was overwhelming and unstoppable.

Worse still, the native Americans were doubly disadvantaged by the fact that they could not win the war of words and the battle to write the country's history. Up to the 1950s at least, they would be labelled the bad guys in a country that was once theirs.

In many ways the Palestinians have been dealt the same fate. They too have had their lands and properties stolen or destroyed in the aftermath of the disastrous 1967 war.

But the brunt of the burden has been borne by ordinary Palestinians - men, women and children - whose only wish was to live in peace and to survive on a daily basis.

But their lives have been disrupted by the vicissitudes of war and the conflict between governments instead. To aggravate their situation further they also have to listen to the hollow platitudes of the Western powers that claim to want to promote human rights the world over, while the collective rights of the Palestinians as a nation are trampled underfoot.

The situation in the occupied territories today really mirrors the skewered moral logic of the Wild West movies of the past. Israel insists on allowing the settlement of the territories taken by it during the earlier conflict, which in effect means forcing Arabs off their lands and giving the much-needed territories to settlers from Israel, America or Europe instead.

The Israeli settlers themselves insist that they are merely exercising their right to live there, in the same way that European settlers who colonised north America and Australasia claimed that they were fulfilling some higher moral purpose or manifest destiny by taking over these lands and "civilising" them in the process.

The fact that these lands have been occupied before by other people who had a culture, history and civilisation of their own is conveniently left out of the picture altogether.

The justification of the acts of violence committed by Israel against the Arabs is also reminiscent of the macho discourse favoured by such gung-ho characters played by John Wayne and co. The logic of "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" seems to be at work in the terrorist attacks by Israel against Palestinian targets.

Even when cases of blatant use of excessive force are recorded and reported by the world Press, Israel merely shrugs it off as collateral damage done to Arabs who should not have been there in the first place.

The same logic animates discussion on the conflict and the use of violence by Israeli troops in the disputed territories. When Israel unilaterally attacks Palestinian targets without provocation, we are told that these are cases of "pre-emptive" strikes to ensure that the enemy does not get to strike first.

When Israel uses excessive force in its counter attacks, we are told that this is intended to contain the enemy threat and to prevent the escalation of violence.

Either way, Israel manages to claim for itself a tactical victory thanks to its mastery of a political discourse which always frames its Arab and Palestinian neighbours as the aggressors, savage fanatics or militant fundamentalists.

So now that Israel wants to end the conflict and to declare peace with the Palestinians, does it come as any surprise that the latter refuses? Having learnt the hard and painful way that dialogue is not possible with an opponent who twists and turns the language of conflict to suit their own ends, the Palestinians no longer believe that dialogue is possible at all.

At best, it would merely give a veneer of respectability to an aggressor that has continually demonstrated his willingness to break the rules and to resort to violence and deception. At worse, it would serve as a delaying tactic while Israel continues to open up new territories for settlement at the cost of the Palestinians themselves.

The saddest thing about the situation in Palestine today is that the option for genuine dialogue between pacifists and well-wishers on both sides has been foreclosed.

Thanks to the monochromatic discourse which pits Israelis against Arabs in terms of "good" versus "bad", there is no way for either side to concede.

One fact remains, though. In the same way that we no longer believe that John Wayne is a hero or that the native Americans were the bad guys, there will also come a time when the generations of the future will view the events of the present in a different light, and realise that all the while it was the Palestinians who were the real victims of the disaster of 1948.

But sadly for them, as it was for the native American Indians, the past would have been irrevocable by then.

Please continue to enlighten my so-called christian Trinis
____________________________________________
My ancestors: African/Arawak. Arima,Trinidad.
Pof; Photojournalist.

Taliban Leader: U.S. Won't Attack
Posted: Monday, October 1, 2001

By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The leader of Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban told his people Sunday not to worry about U.S. attacks on their country because Americans are cowards.

"Americans don't have the courage to come here," Mullah Mohammed Omar said in an interview broadcast by Taliban-controlled Kabul Radio. He urged Afghans to remain calm and go about their business without trying to flee cities that might be targets of U.S. air strikes.

The United States has threatened military action against Afghanistan unless the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden, whom the Americans consider the mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Bin Laden has denied any role in the attacks, and Afghan authorities say the United States has offered no proof to back up its allegations against the exiled Saudi dissident. The Taliban said Sunday that bin Laden in under their "control" in a secret location and offered negotiations with the United States, something Washington refused.

During the interview, Omar repeatedly warned the United States to "think and think again" about attacking his country, which drove out Soviet invaders with U.S. assistance in the 1979-1989 war.

"If you attack us, there will be no difference between you and the Russians," the Taliban leader said. "We are peace-loving and we hate terrorism. The murder of one person is the same as the murder of all humanity." MORE

Car bomb rocks Basque capital
Posted: Monday, October 1, 2001

( BBC ) A car bomb has exploded in Vitoria, the capital of Spain's Basque region.

The explosion, at 0600 (0400 GMT), wrecked the front of a court house and set around 20 other vehicles on fire. One person was slightly injured by flying debris.

Police sealed off the area while firefighters tackled the blaze.

The bomb has been blamed on the Basque separatist group, ETA.

Telephone warning calls were made to a Spanish breakdown organisation before the blast.

"We had got used to a time without attacks but we are back to usual now, " said the Spanish government representative in the Basque region, Enrique Villar.

"We always have to fear the worst and this is just another example," he said.

The blast comes only four days after a bomb suspected to have been planted by ETA separatists went off in a disco in Lacunza, in the Navarre region of northern Spain. MORE

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