------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
Russia Plays Down U.S. Missile Decision
Russian Official Shows Kursk Damage
Hastings confident of Hanford cleanup
MILITARY
Taliban executes foe for 'spying'
Taiwan Welcomes Possible U.S. Anti - Tank Missiles
Senate anthrax could be domestic
Origin of anthrax continues to confound authorities
Early Warning Needed on Bioterrorism
Militants Stream Toward Afghanistan
Analysis A Week of Setbacks Tests U.S. Patience and Its Plan of Attack
U.S. jets pound Taliban front lines
The War Has Just Begun
OTHER
N.Y. Attack Site Releases Contaminants
AIDS Cases Rise in China
U.S. raps anti-terror allies for stifling religious freedom
ICRC Unable to Deliver Afghan Food After U.S. Bombs
Bush Signs Anti-Terrorism Bill
FBI Has a History of Change
FBI and CIA Suspect Domestic Extremists
Agents Start Digging Up Old Files on Hoaxes
ACTIVISTS
Activists Protest Afghanistan Raids
Political activists, environmentalists feel chill of anti-terror campaign
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- missile defense
Russia Plays Down U.S. Missile Decision
Suspension of Two Tests Seen as a Promising Sign
By Susan B. Glasser and Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 27, 2001; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59962-2001Oct26.html
MOSCOW, Oct. 26 -- Russian officials and analysts today called the U.S. decision to suspend missile defense testing a promising sign that indicated the two nuclear powers could reach a landmark arms agreement next month, but the Kremlin took care not to invest too much meaning in the move.
Although Washington's postponement of two tests was seen as a gesture in response to Russian cooperation in the fight against terrorism, Russian lawmakers and analysts said it would be meaningful only if it foreshadowed greater concessions at next month's summit meeting between Presidents Bush and Vladimir Putin in Texas.
"We welcome the announcement of the defense secretary of the United States and assume this might be the first swallow," Dmitri Rogozin, head of the international affairs committee of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, said in an interview.
"It's a very important and significant move from the U.S. administration at this sensitive moment," said Andrei Kokoshin, former secretary of the Russian Defense Council. "This is important not just from the point of view of negotiations on [missile defense] and Russian-American relations. It's important also as a demonstration of U.S. willingness to comply with existing treaties and to be a country that observes international law."
Yet if the test delays were intended as consideration for Putin's help in rallying support for the war in Afghanistan, the Russian president chose not to play it that way. Far from trumpeting it as a victory for his stance against a U.S. antimissile system, Putin did not even comment on the decision today; nor did his aides or ministers of defense or foreign affairs. And state television made no mention of it on tonight's broadcasts. The only public remark was a statement praising a separate congressional measure supporting the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972.
The silence represented a significant shift in the dynamics of the missile defense debate. In the months leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Russia wasted few opportunities to inveigh against the Bush plan or promote its perceived deficiencies.
Now Putin appears serious about finding a compromise, possibly during his first official trip to the United States, scheduled for Nov. 12-14, when he will meet with Bush in Washington and travel to the president's ranch in Crawford, Tex. Putin reported progress in their discussions during this week's meeting in Shanghai on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific economic summit.
"Both presidents are prepared to make the meeting in Crawford a success, and success means compromise," said Lilia Shevtsova, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, a research organization. "They will find a way for the United States to experiment with missile defense while also saving Russia's face on the treaty. They will save face and keep their rapprochement, because neither president can afford to fail just now."
Despite Putin's upbeat assessment in Shanghai, U.S. officials said little tangible movement had occurred behind closed doors. Putin's top priority is to win deep mutual cuts in strategic nuclear warheads, which Russia can no longer afford. Bush sounds willing to move toward Putin on this issue but has insisted on scrapping the ABM Treaty, while Putin has agreed only to consider amending it to accommodate limited testing.
Russian politicians were quick to see the Pentagon's new position as an acceptance of Putin's premise that the ABM Treaty should be updated rather than scrapped.
"I wouldn't call it a concession; I would call it an improvement in understanding," said Anatoly Kulikov, a former Russian interior minister. "Unilateral withdrawal from ABM is not the best variant for ensuring security for the United States in the first place. But certainly, after 30 years, some amendments are necessary."
Perhaps even more pressing for Moscow is Russia's huge Soviet-era debt. In a phone call Thursday, according to Russian news agencies, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov that the Bush administration might back a deal in which debts would be written off so the money could fund Russian nonproliferation and nuclear security programs.
U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow sounded optimistic that a pact could be finalized by next month, noting the "extraordinary transformation in the relationship," that has brought the countries closer than any time since World War II. The Shanghai meeting, he said in an online news conference today, "opened the way for a possible agreement, perhaps as early as Putin's visit to the United States, on a complex of issues relating to strategic offensive and defensive arms."
-------- russia
Russian Official Shows Kursk Damage
October 27, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Nuclear-Submarine.html?searchpv=aponline
MOSCOW (AP) -- Charred and rusting cavities littered with torn metal shards are all that remain of the compartments where commanders and most of the crew of the Kursk were stationed when explosions sank the nuclear submarine, investigators said Saturday.
``What happened inside these compartments was hell,'' said Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, who presented a seven-minute film shot by investigators inside the portion of the Kursk lifted from the Barents Sea floor and hauled into dry dock this month.
``Everything is littered with equipment that was destroyed in the explosion,'' Ustinov said. ``The strong alloys from which these compartments are built were simply ripped apart.''
In one part of the film, shown on Russian television, the camera focuses on the spot where the Kursk's periscope once stood -- now a surreally twisted column of metal. ``The explosion ... wiped out everything here,'' Ustinov said.
The chief prosecutor is leading a team investigating the wrecked submarine that sank during naval exercises on Aug. 12, 2000, killing all 118 crewmen.
He said the Kursk's commanders and most of its crew were killed in the front compartments as two powerful explosions in the bow sent the mighty submarine to the sea bottom.
``In the 135 seconds that passed between the first and the second explosions, they did not even have time to put on lifesaving equipment,'' Ustinov said. ``But even if this equipment had been put on, there was everything here -- an explosion and fire -- so nothing could have survived.''
The fire spread rapidly after the blasts and raised temperatures inside the Kursk above 14,000 degrees, Ustinov said at a separate news conference in Murmansk.
Thirty-two bodies have been removed from the wreckage since it was brought to Roslyakovo, a port near Murmansk, the Russian Navy's press service said late Saturday in a report cited by the Interfax news agency. Ustinov had said earlier in the day that 19 bodies had been found and 17 of them removed. Seven were identified, he said.
Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov, the Russian Navy's commander, said that at the request of relatives, the bodies will be transported to their hometowns and will be remembered in a farewell ceremony ``with full military honors,'' the Interfax news agency reported.
Officials have said they believe the bodies of most of the crewmen were destroyed in the explosions and fire, and they doubt they will find more than 40 bodies in the eight compartments that were lifted. The submarine had nine compartments, but the mangled bow was left undersea.
The bodies found so far have been in the stern compartments, where letters found by divers who recovered 12 bodies from the sunken vessel a year ago indicated that at least 23 sailors survived for hours after the explosions.
``We are finding the bodies of the dead, and the main cause of death is suffocation,'' Ustinov said. He said experts believe the submarine was completely flooded within eight hours at the most -- but that most ran out of breathable air before they could drown.
``Those who think there was a possibility of saving our sailors should know that there was no such possibility,'' he said, echoing other officials who contended, amid criticism of the sluggish rescue effort, that nobody could have been saved.
Ustinov said the compartment housing the submarine's nuclear reactors withstood the blasts despite their force, and was only flooded by water coming through air vents and other openings. The reactors and the vessel's 22 cruise missiles are to be removed.
The cause of the disaster remains unknown. Russian officials have focused on the possibility that a torpedo misfired and exploded inside or near the Kursk during the exercise, but some say they believe it was struck by a foreign submarine or hit a World War II mine.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- washington
Hastings confident of Hanford cleanup
Hanford News
Sat, Oct 27, 2001
By John Stang Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2001/1027-2.html
U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., believes Hanford will get enough money for fiscal 2002 to meet its legal cleanup obligations for that year.
"For 2002, I feel very confident about where we are," Hastings said.
At a Friday press conference, he pointed to Congress and the Bush administration agreeing to increase the overall federal fiscal 2002 budget from last spring's $661 billion to $683 billion now.
That $683 billion is enough to ensure that the roughly $1.8 billion needed for Hanford will materialize for 2002, Hastings said.
Right now, the Bush administration's last public Hanford cleanup budget figure, which is more than four months old, is $1.4 billion for fiscal 2002, which began last Oct. 1.
Hanford needs $1.832 billion in 2002 to meet its legal obligations for that year, according to the Department of Energy's calculations.
In a May testimony before a Senate committee, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham opposed Congress increasing DOE's 2002 nationwide nuclear cleanup money from $5.913 billion to a House figure of $6.613 billion or a Senate figure of $6.754 billion. That nuclear cleanup money includes appropriations to Hanford.
The House wants to appropriate $1.814 billion to Hanford, and the Senate wants to spend $1.834 billion. The two chambers expect to reconcile their differences within two weeks.
Abraham contended he did not want the extra money until a review of DOE's cleanup programs is completed. The Bush administration wrote a memo in late June that backed Abraham's stance of keeping DOE nuclear cleanup budget to $5.913 billion, including $1.4 billion for Hanford. Since then the administration has not provided any clue about where it now stands on DOE's nuclear cleanup programs.
The $683 billion is split among 13 appropriations bills that have more or less passed Congress, but the administration has not said yet how it wants to split that $683 billion among those bills.
------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Taliban executes foe for 'spying'
October 27, 2001
By Willis Witter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011027-9732237.htm
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The Taliban said yesterday they had captured and executed the legendary anti-Soviet mujahideen commander Abdul Haq, who was on a secret mission inside Afghanistan to persuade tribal leaders to abandon the Taliban and help form a new government.
The death, which was confirmed by Mr. Haq's family late yesterday, marks a major setback for U.S. hopes of ousting the Taliban, because Mr. Haq, in the weeks since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, had actively campaigned for a new Afghan government centering on the exiled Afghan king, Mohammed Zahir Shah.
Not a member of the opposition Northern Alliance, Mr. Haq was considered key to persuading moderate Pashtun tribal leaders to abandon the Taliban. He was against the U.S. air strikes, saying they would make defections more difficult.
Mullah Ameer Khan Mutaqi, the main Taliban spokesman, said Mr. Haq had been "executed on charges of spying."
Mullah Mutaqi also claimed that when captured, Mr. Haq was in contact with U.S. forces, which attempted to provide air cover by helicopter and rescue Mr. Haq after his party was surrounded.
The Pentagon yesterday denied any knowledge of an attempted rescue mission.
Mr. Haq's family said he entered Afghanistan on Sunday, with eight other men, to seek a political solution to the crisis that sparked the U.S.-led bombing campaign, now in its third week.
"They were on a mission of peace," Mr. Haq's elder brother, Deen Mohammed, told reporters in the Pakistani border city of Peshawar.
Mr. Haq, who lost a foot fighting the Soviets near Kabul, worked closely with the United States in the 1980s. He was one of the first commanders to be given shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, a weapon that turned the war against the Soviets.
In recent weeks, he had boasted that he could win support from enough tribal leaders in eastern Afghanistan to topple the Taliban. But he had also warned that the U.S. air campaign was a mistake that would only solidify wavering support for the defiant Islamic regime.
The Taliban spokesman said Mr. Haq was captured early yesterday morning after a brief firefight in a village near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, and was executed on the orders of the supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, after noon prayers.
"The Taliban have killed Abdul Haq along with two other people," an Information Ministry official, Abdul Himat Hanan, told the Reuters news agency in Kabul.
"This happened on the basis of the verdict of the [Muslim clerics] that anyone who assists the United States is liable to be killed."
Reports of Mr. Haq's death come more than six weeks after the assassination of another anti-Soviet fighter, Ahmad Shah Masood, who was killed by suicide bombers posing as Arab journalists just days before the terrorist attack on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
The Taliban account of yesterday's events claimed that Mr. Haq attempted to flee under the cover of fire from a U.S. helicopter.
"This bombing was to help Abdul Haq escape," Mullah Mutaqi said.
Reflecting the confusing accounts from Afghanistan throughout the day, he said that shortly after Mr. Haq's capture with four other men, the Taliban captured 50 of his fellow fighters along with a horse, jeep and satellite phone.
Elsewhere, U.S. jets struck a Kabul fuel depot after night fell, igniting a fireball that cast an orange glow over the darkened city.
One of the blasts struck a compound of the International Committee of the Red Cross for the second time this month, Red Cross officials said. The compound was hit during an attack Oct. 16.
Late yesterday, the U.S. Department of Defense acknowledged the attack, calling it an "inadvertent" bombing.
Two U.S. Navy F/A-18C Hornet jets each dropped one 2,000-pound bomb on ICRC warehouses Thursday evening, a statement by U.S. Central Command said.
At about the same time, a 500-pound bomb "inadvertently" hit a residential area about 700 feet south of the warehouses, apparently because the bomb's guidance system malfunctioned, Central Command said.
Early yesterday, two B-52 bombers also dropped three 2,000-pound bombs on the same warehouse complex, the statement said.
"The U.S. sincerely regrets this inadvertent strike on the ICRC warehouses and the residential area," the statement said.
In Pakistan, tens of thousands of people marched peacefully through the middle of Karachi to protest the bombing and the support of Pakistan's government for the United States.
Despite days of U.S. bombing aimed at crucial supply lines north of Kabul, Taliban forces appeared to hold their ground against the opposition Northern Alliance. Opposition commanders complained the attacks were too weak.
In Rome, Hamid Sidiq, a spokesman for the former king, told the Associated Press: "Commander Haq was on a mission for peace, not for war. He was not going to fight anyone, but to talk to tribal elders to inform them about the peace initiative of his majesty, the king."
But Taliban intelligence chief Qari Ahmad used yesterday's execution to send a chilling message to other Afghan exiles in Pakistan who are contemplating a similar mission.
"We have established spying networks in every state and district of Afghanistan, and we challenge anybody to get through it," Mr. Ahmad said.
He also said that Afghan spies had Mr. Haq under surveillance in Pakistan and that he was being followed from the moment he entered Afghanistan.
"We are ready for every kind of attack," Mr. Ahmad said.
-------- arms sales
Taiwan Welcomes Possible U.S. Anti - Tank Missiles
October 27, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-taiwan-usa.html?searchpv=reuters
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan welcomed Saturday a decision by the United States to consider selling the island an anti-tank missile system.
The United States said Friday it is considering selling 40 Javelin anti-tank missile systems to Taiwan for an estimated $51 million.
``We are happy to see that happen,'' a spokesman at Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said. ``With those (weapons), it will help a lot to our defense systems.''
The spokesman said he did know if the United States would sell other weapons to Taiwan in the near future.
The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement the Javelin anti-tank missile systems will enhance Taiwan's medium anti-tank capability for the infantry, scouts, and combat engineers.
The agency said the equipment would not affect the basic military balance in the region.
China considers Taiwan a breakaway province and has threatened to attack if the self-governing island declares independence or drags its feet on reunification talks.
Earlier this month, Taiwan's legislators said the island would start taking delivery of diesel submarines from the United States in 2010 as part of an arms build-up in the face of Chinese military threats.
Whether the island, which is mired in economic recession, can afford the advanced but expensive weapons remained in doubt.
Taiwan's proposed defense budget for 2002 fell 5.5 percent from 2001 levels to T$230.8 billion -- far short of the T$310 billion hoped for by the military.
-------- biological weapons
Senate anthrax could be domestic
October 27, 2001
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011027-5292152.htm
The White House yesterday revealed that anthrax sent to the Senate last week could have been made in a small laboratory without the help of a nation-state sponsor, while President Bush approved a set of tough anti-terrorism measures that the Justice Department began using immediately.
"It could have been produced by a Ph.D. microbiologist at a small, well-equipped microbiology lab," said White House press secretary Ari Fleischer of the anthrax sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle,South Dakota Democrat.
"On the good news side of it, that would indicate that this is not necessarily state-sponsored," he said. "On the bad news side of it, it does indicate there is a broader universe of people, individuals, groups that have the know-how to produce it."
The administration's chief anti-terrorism official had conceded earlier yesterday that U.S. officials might never know the source of the anthrax in any of the letters that have infected at least 14 persons and killed three.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge on NBC's "Today" show said, "We may be able to identify the source. But I say just maybe. We may not be able to do that."
Meanwhile yesterday, President Bush signed an anti-terrorism bill that gives law enforcement officials broad new powers in wiretapping and detaining suspected terrorists and punishing convicts, powers that Attorney General John Ashcroft immediately ordered all 94 U.S. attorneys nationwide and the FBI's 56 field offices to begin using.
"Today, we take an essential step in defeating terrorism while protecting the constitutional rights of all Americans," Mr. Bush said in a bill-signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
"This bill met with an overwhelming - - agreement in Congress, because it upholds and respects the civil liberties guaranteed by our Constitution," he said. "This government will enforce this law with all the urgency of a nation at war."
Mr. Ashcroft said that with the enhanced provisions, the fight against terrorism will have the "full force of the law," while protecting constitutional rights.
"Law enforcement is now empowered with new tools and resources necessary to disrupt, weaken and eliminate the infrastructure of terrorist organizations, to prevent or thwart terrorist attacks, and to punish the perpetrators of terrorist acts," he said. "The American people can be assured law enforcement will use these new tools to protect our nation while upholding the sacred liberties expressed in the Constitution."
Federal law enforcement authorities so far have arrested or detained 977 persons in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, including 172 who are being held on various immigration violations.
Mr. Ashcroft said the new provisions have two overarching principles: airtight surveillance of terrorists and speed in tracking down and intercepting terrorists. He said law enforcement has had similar provisions to fight drug traffickers and organized crime, but previously they did not apply to terrorism.
Seeking to capitalize on the urgency and momentum of a nation at war, Mr. Bush exhorted Congress to also pass new tax cuts, an energy plan and a measure that would give him trade-promotion authority. He said all three initiatives would help resuscitate the economy.
"Terrorists want to cast a shadow of fear on the businesses of America," the president said just hours after signing the anti-terrorism bill. "It's clear that our economy has been shocked."
He likened the war against terrorism to World War II and suggested he would follow in the footsteps of President Roosevelt in marching to victory.
"Franklin Roosevelt warned us 70 years ago that fear feeds on itself and contributes to the very problems that first gave it rise," Mr. Bush said. "Americans prevailed over fear in a Great Depression and in a global war. And we will do so again.
"The character of our country has not changed," he said. "Oh, the TV sets have changed, the telephones have changed, the cars have changed, but not the heart and soul of America."
Republicans hope the lofty rhetoric will help Mr. Bush enact some of the measures that had little hope of passage before Sept. 11, such as the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve to oil and gas drilling. While the GOP-controlled House has passed the president's energy plan, it is still languishing in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
"It is in our nation's national interest that we develop more energy supplies at home," the president said. "It's in our national interest to get a bill to my desk, and I urge the Senate to do so."
He also implored lawmakers to give him the ability to negotiate international trade deals that would be subject to all-or-nothing approval by Congress, but not tinkering.
"I need trade-promotion authority to expand opportunity for businesses large and small, for entrepreneurs in America," Mr. Bush said. "I need trade-promotion authority to expand the job base of this great nation."
While Mr. Bush cannot negotiate trade deals without such authority from Congress, he can unilaterally strengthen airport security if Congress fails to do so. The White House warned that the president is poised to do just that if lawmakers don't reach a compromise by next week on federalizing a portion of the work force at airports.
"The president has directly informed them that he wants very much for the Congress to pass an aviation-security measure," Mr. Fleischer said. "And he has broader authority. He hopes he will not have to use it."
Democrats want screeners of passengers and baggage to become federal employees. But Republicans want the federal role limited to the hiring and supervision of these screeners.
Mr. Fleischer recalled an incident in which a private screener failed to detect a gun that was smuggled past security.
"Well, that screener was immediately dismissed," he said. "If somebody joins the federal civil service, it's often impossible to take any disciplinary action in a prompt fashion."
•Jerry Seper and August Gribbin contributed to this report.
--------
Origin of anthrax continues to confound authorities
October 27, 2001
By August Gribbin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011027-2392119.htm
Since the first anthrax incident was reported on Oct. 5, top FBI agents and world-class epidemiologists have been scouring contaminated sites, questioning suspects and tracking clues.
But there is still no evidence they are closer to discovering the anthrax's origin than they were 22 days ago.
Yesterday, as Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge conceded authorities may never learn who is responsible for the ongoing anthrax scare, security experts said the lack of new information from authorities leaves only speculation and a nervous public.
"The administration has made an error in sugar coating the issue so as not to raise panic," said Ivan Eland, director of defense policy studies at the CATO Institute "The confused and uncoordinated initial response has made me a little bit nervous as to what would happen if we had a mass attack.
"And the only thing stopping a mass attack is the competence and sophistication of the terrorists - which clearly is increasing," he said.
While investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were discovering anthrax spores in an air filter at the Supreme Court's mail-handling facility yesterday, Mr. Ridge suggested the only way the government may ever identify the origins of the anthrax "is if we catch the culprit or culprits responsible for contaminating our mail."
"As we continue to conduct more and more tests and learn more and more about the anthrax and how it has been handled or processed, we may be able to identify the source. But I say just maybe. We may not be able to do that," Mr. Ridge told morning television viewers.
Mr. Eland and others point out that in the absence of informed observations from officials, speculation rules. For instance, security specialists reason that:
•The anthrax discoveries at widely disparate sites make it unlikely that the germs all came from the one contaminated letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat. It is, therefore, probable there are other letters in the postal system.
If the germs did emanate from that one letter, the attackers have developed a weapon of remarkable and unprecedented potency and flexibility.
If the germs are coming from a batch of letters still circulating in the postal system, people in entire neighborhoods in the District and areas nearby could soon be taking antibiotics.
•The producer of the deadly germs is quite knowledgeable and highly skilled. Defense Department documents state that the desired size of anthrax for use as a weapon is 5 microns - small enough to be readily inhaled.
The anthrax in the Daschle letter was 1 to 2 microns, meaning it is even easier to disperse and inhale than the norm.
•The anthrax was either manufactured from scratch or purchased. If purchased, it must have come either from Iraq, the former Soviet Union, or the United States, the only nations known to have anthrax stocks and the technology to chemically treat and mill the pathogen into a weapon.
•The United States is the most likely source of the anthrax because it would be simpler to get the bacterium here than import it.
•The attacker is not a disgruntled loner lashing out at society. He, or they, have money, may have worked in a biological weapons program and is, or are, waging an unprecedented campaign - if it is indeed a campaign.
Mr. Eland said terrorists typically don't conduct sequential campaigns, thus making it difficult to figure out what they are doing.
"Normally they go for maximum shock and impact," he said.
Even if such speculation is true, said Michael O'Hanlan, the Brookings Institution's homeland defense specialist, the current attack is "small and not lethal compared to what might be expected."
He added: "A person with a pistol could have killed more victims. And we are going to benefit from what we're learning about anthrax. This will help us defend against a possible wider attack."
--------
Early Warning Needed on Bioterrorism
October 27, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Early-Warning.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Spotting bioterrorism early can be crucial to preventing its spread, but few cities have even crude systems in place to identify the first patients.
Three weeks into the anthrax scare, doctors are on alert for signs of it. But a future biological attack using a different germ could go undetected until it's too late.
Most state and local governments lack early warning systems, leaving a big hole in preparedness for a biological or chemical attack. Legislation pending in Congress would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to beef up readiness.
``There are huge gaps in the system today,'' said Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn. ``There are gaps in every community in America.''
``It's extremely important to be able to identify that you have a potential problem,'' said Philadelphia Mayor John Street, one of many city leaders who has begun serious thinking about bioterrorism over the last month and a half. ``In the world we're dealing with, 24 hours is all the difference in the world.''
Public health experts say surveillance systems are key to helping doctors figure out whether they have a patient with anthrax, smallpox, the plague -- or simply the flu.
Doctors are trained to look for the obvious diagnoses first, said Rex Archer, director of the Kansas City, Mo., health department and a longtime bioterrorism expert.
``It would be nice to be able to tell doctors, we have a surge of illness,'' he said. The best systems, he said, monitor trends in hospital symptoms, prescriptions for medication and ambulance calls.
Once the first patient has been identified, doctors and hospitals are warned to look for similar cases. If the biological agent involved is contagious, finding the first infections could save thousands of lives.
In Washington, where two people have died with inhalation anthrax, local health officials credit a surveillance system with helping them get a handle on the crisis early.
Immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the District of Columbia health department put all hospitals on active surveillance, asking them to call if they saw patients with any unusual symptoms.
A week ago, a District postal worker checked into a suburban Virginia hospital with flu-like symptoms, and doctors immediately suspected inhalation anthrax. District and Virginia health authorities began testing and prepared themselves should the tests come back positive.
When they did, authorities were ready to spread the word. They immediately shut down Washington's central mail processing center and began preventive treatment for more than 2,000 employees.
``Especially when people are trying to send stuff out that you can't see -- anthrax, smallpox and what have you -- that kind of system can really save lives,'' said Dr. Ivan Walks, Washington's chief health official.
The system could be even more valuable with a contagious agent like smallpox. If just a few people were infected, and they went to different hospitals, a surveillance system could help doctors spot the pattern early and prevent the first patients from infecting others.
But Washington's system is only as good as the hospital workers who must spot suspicious patients. Case in point: Two days after the first postal worker checked into the hospital, one of his co-workers went to a suburban Maryland hospital with similar symptoms. They sent him home when a chest X-ray turned up nothing unusual. A day later, he was back, but it was too late. He died of inhalation anthrax, a disease not seen in the United States in a quarter-century.
``Every indication was that it was stomach flu,'' said David Clark, a spokesman for Southern Maryland Medical Center.
The gold standard for surveillance involves electronic monitoring of symptoms. Computers monitor the symptoms of patients at a sampling of hospitals and look for unusual patterns.
``If something happened you would start to see a blip on the screen if you had that active surveillance underway,'' said Bruce Clements, a bioterrorism expert at St. Louis University.
Others are more circumspect.
``That's years and years and years away,'' said Dr. Tara O'Toole, deputy director of the Civilian Biodefense Studies Department at Johns Hopkins University. The key, she says, is simply giving doctors the information they need to ask the right questions.
``Then they can call and say, 'I have a case here. It may be nothing, but it's a little weird. Let me tell you about it,''' she said. ``We need to get doctors in the loop.''
-------- pakistan
Militants Stream Toward Afghanistan
October 27, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-Pakistan.html
TEMERGARAH, Pakistan (AP) -- As Pakistan's leader cautioned against ``excessive'' civilian deaths in U.S. strikes, armed militants streamed toward Afghanistan on Saturday to fight the United States and blocked the fabled Silk Road with boulders and mines.
More than 5,000 men -- many armed with heavy weapons -- rolled out of a northeastern Pakistan village in all manner of vehicles, bound for the Afghan border. Their vow: to fight a holy war against the U.S. military.
They said they would help the ruling Taliban defend against any ground attacks by U.S. troops. Hundreds crossed into Afghanistan by Saturday evening, Pakistani border police said.
``I am an old man. I consider myself lucky to go -- and to face the death of a martyr,'' said Shah Wazir, 70, a retired Pakistani army officer. He carried a French rifle from the 1920s.
Also Saturday, authorities headed to the mountainous north to eject pro-Taliban militants and reopen the Karakoram Highway, Pakistan's portion of the Silk Road that once connected the Roman and Chinese empires.
Both activities were organized by Pakistani militants who oppose U.S. attacks on Afghanistan and the Taliban -- and who denounce their government's support of the military action to root out Osama bin Laden's terrorist installations.
The outrage at the military strikes is rippling across Pakistan. More than 50,000 people demonstrated in four cities Friday to denounce the United States and their president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Musharraf said on ABC-TV's ``World News Tonight'' that if the United States' military strikes on Afghanistan aren't making progress, then the operation ``may be a quagmire.''
``There has been, I think, a bit of an excessive collateral damage,'' he said Friday. On Saturday, however, he added: ``Any prolongation of the operation is not in the interest of anybody. But on the other hand, everyone does understand that short is related to the achievement of objectives.''
In northeastern Pakistan, volunteers answered a militant cleric's call to enter Afghanistan for what they called Islamic holy war.
Groups hundreds strong were massing in towns across North West Frontier Province, an enclave of ethnic Pashtuns with ethnic ties to neighboring Afghanistan.
``We are in a test. Everybody should be ready to pass the test -- and to sacrifice our lives,'' Mohammad Khaled, a brigade leader, told volunteers in the frontier town of Temergarah.
The call for holy war came from Sufi Mohammad, a Muslim cleric who runs a religious school in nearby Madyan. He exhorted ``true Muslims'' to help out in Afghanistan.
What they will do there is unclear. But hundreds of vehicles containing more than 1,000 volunteers rolled Saturday night into mountains that separate the countries, said Himdallah Khan, a police official in the border area. Thousands of other volunteers were converging nearby.
In the northern town of Gilgit, along the Karakoram Highway, police described the situation as tense Saturday after tribesmen closed part of the road. Hundreds of traders and tourists were reported stuck.
Riaz Durrani, a spokesman for Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, an influential Pakistani religious party, said the highway was blocked ``to participate in the agitation launched against the government's support for America.''
The 750-mile Karakoram Highway, built along the ancient Silk Road that linked Asia with the West, connects Pakistan with Kashgar in China's northwestern Xinjiang region. It is a major trade link between Pakistan and China, though the Chinese all but sealed it after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Also in Pakistan on Saturday:
--The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees began a three-day visit to the border in Pakistan, home to the world's largest refugee population.
Pakistan is concerned about its capacity to handle more fleeing Afghans and has sent hundreds back in recent days. But Commissioner Ruud Lubbers said it had agreed to take the neediest refugees -- and not to obstruct U.N. efforts to keep camps running.
``The situation is moving in the right direction,'' Lubbers said.
--Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok met in Islamabad with Musharraf and urged ``some patience'' in judging the U.S. campaign, though he acknowledged there are ``questions all over the world about casualties and about civil victims.''
``But that does not limit the amount of solidarity with the main purposes and the way in which the military actions are pursued,'' he said.
-------- u.s.
Analysis A Week of Setbacks Tests U.S. Patience and Its Plan of Attack
By Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 27, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59474-2001Oct26.html
The execution of a leading opposition figure by the Taliban, coupled with the errant U.S. bombings of an International Committee of the Red Cross warehouse in Kabul and the apparent retreat of rebel forces in the north yesterday, capped a discouraging week for the U.S. war in Afghanistan. As the campaign enters its fourth week, with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and winter fast approaching, the Bush administration has begun to hunker down and admit to itself what it has repeatedly insisted in public -- that the war against the Taliban and the terrorists it shelters will be neither short nor easy.
Indeed, some administration officials say that despite 20 days of punishing -- if limited -- airstrikes, the U.S. military has yet to really engage the Taliban. "We're kind of like wrestlers, with totally different styles," said one official, referring to the United States and the Taliban militia that rules most of Afghanistan. "We're still trying to figure out where the leverage point is on these guys. We haven't found it yet."
Time may not be on the administration's side, especially as key Muslim allies in the anti-terrorism war, most notably Pakistan and Egypt, begin to demonstrate open impatience with the pace and results of the campaign.
The United States has about 20 days before the advent of Ramadan could begin to seriously constrain its bombing campaign. Many Muslims have been calling for a cessation of military activity during the holy month, appeals the Pentagon has so far rejected. After that, the onset of winter could slow military operations, especially in the mountains, where clouds, fog and winds will complicate helicopter operations and laser-guided bombing.
Although there is little evidence -- yet -- that the U.S. approach is succeeding, officials at the Pentagon and the White House said yesterday that they are sticking with their original strategy. It isn't time to think about "Plan B," a senior administration official said, because the administration is still at the beginning of implementing "Plan A."
"People are looking for a quicker victory than Kosovo, it seems to me, and I think this is harder and will take longer," the official said, referring to the 78-day U.S.-led air campaign against Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999.
"I would say that, at least for now, what we're trying to do is make this plan work," the official added. "If we come to a conclusion that something radically different is necessary, maybe we'll look at that."
In what has become an administration mantra, President Bush emphasized the "long struggle" theme again yesterday, telling a group of trade and business leaders that "we're slowly, but surely, dismantling" the Taliban.
"The American people are going to have to be patient, just like we are," Bush said. "They're going to have to be determined, just like our military is. And with that patience, and with that determination, we will eventually smoke them out of their holes, and get them, and bring them to justice."
The White House is not yet hugely concerned about the lack of visible military success, another senior official said, noting that the American people remain solidly behind the administration. "I've never been in any meeting where everyone was thinking, 'Oh my God, the public is going to turn on us,' " the official said.
Essentially, the U.S. plan is to use limited airstrikes to loosen the Taliban's hold on Afghanistan. To do that, U.S. jets are targeting members of the al Qaeda terrorist network led by Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden -- who the administration blames for the Sept. 11 attacks -- as well as military units associated with al Qaeda and hard-core Taliban leaders. Pentagon officials say that bombing those three sets of targets will have three important effects: improving the situation for the anti-Taliban opposition, depriving the Taliban of the ability to fight effectively and crippling the Taliban's ability to rule the country.
On a separate and equally important track, the administration is seeking to assemble a viable alternative to the Taliban that would unite the country's many ethnic groups. This effort suffered a big blow yesterday when the Taliban captured and executed Abdul Haq, a tribal leader who had entered Afghanistan on a secret mission to win over fellow ethnic Pashtuns to the anti-Taliban cause.
Whether this plan is succeeding is anyone's guess. "I don't think we're at a stage where we can claim we have any clear evidence of anything," one administration official said.
Senior administration officials insisted yesterday that they were not disturbed. While acknowledging that they were far from destroying the Taliban's ability to survive, they said the objectives had been met in what one called "the disruption phase," the overall goal of which was to "disrupt [Taliban] supply lines, their communications, their ability to hit us."
There was little dispute that Abdul Haq's killing and the bombings of the Red Cross warehouse compound in Kabul -- the latest in a string of errant airstrikes that have cost the campaign support in the Muslim world -- were setbacks.
Some administration officials are beginning to acknowledge that the tasks they set for themselves are proving more burdensome than they first thought. "The focus we had on Sept. 12 has gotten a little blurry," an official said. "The goal is still the same, but how to accomplish it has gotten a little bit more complicated."
Outside the administration, experts on military affairs, foreign policy and Afghanistan are beginning to worry more openly. It is clear that "some of the upbeat, earlier assumptions have given way to more downbeat" assessments, former ambassador to the United Nations and Balkans negotiator Richard C. Holbrooke said in an interview with CNN yesterday.
The diversion of public and political attention to the anthrax scare at home, along with congressional reluctance to appear unsupportive of the war effort, has muted what might have been more extensive questioning. But some on Capitol Hill are beginning to wonder, at least among themselves.
"I think it's pretty clear that things are not going very well at all over there," said one top Senate aide. "We're bombing the hell out of them. And every time we hit a bus or a hospital, it destroys our position there. The Taliban are getting stronger, if anything. We're no closer to finding bin Laden. The allies are getting nervous."
At the same time, noted Robert Pape, a University of Chicago expert on the use of air power, the negatives are beginning to accumulate. There has been an apparent increase in destabilizing refugee flows as civilians have fled Afghanistan's major cities. Wayward American bombs have killed an undetermined number of civilians. And the United States has had a helicopter fired upon in the supposedly friendly nation of Pakistan.
Capturing the mood, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, said in an interview yesterday that "military action must be brought to an end as soon as possible." Musharraf, whose cooperation is essential to the U.S. campaign, added that if the United States is "unable to achieve its military goals in a certain time, we need to switch to a political strategy."
Yet the administration appears to be pursuing precisely the opposite course. Officials say they are settling in for months of a low-grade war, with occasional airstrikes punctuated by Special Forces raids. "People who are looking for a magic bullet aren't listening to the president," one U.S. general said. "This is going to be a long haul."
It now appears likely that the United States will take, over the next three weeks, its best shot at seeing whether its plan is working. When Ramadan begins next month, the Pentagon and the White House will step back and assess what they have achieved.
Officials have indicated that the bombing is likely to continue into Ramadan but at a lower level, with special care taken to avoid religious sites such as mosques -- where many al Qaeda members are now hiding themselves and their weapons.
By the time Ramadan ends in December, winter will have settled in on much of Afghanistan. The cold weather is more likely to constrain the Northern Alliance, a loosely aligned opposition coalition, than it will the Taliban. As its name indicates, the rebel coalition is generally located in the northern and higher parts of the country, where the climate tends to be like that of the northern Rocky Mountains. Despite repeated U.S. bombings of Taliban positions in the area, Northern Alliance forces retreated yesterday from their previous front line southeast of the city of Mazar-e Sharif in the face of a Taliban counteroffensive.
A bigger worry over the winter will be the possibility of a humanitarian disaster that the world, rightly or wrongly, might blame on the U.S. offensive.
Bear McConnell, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development's task force on Central Asia, said that there are now 3 million Afghan refugees inside Pakistan, and that the United States projects another million will arrive there over the next three months. In addition, he said, about 400,000 refugees are expected to flee to Iran and that 100,000 or so may head north of Afghanistan.
McConnell said that drought and war -- even before the Sept. 11 attacks and the start of the U.S. bombings -- had been expected to bring death to many people in Afghanistan. He said USAID hopes to "reduce the death rates" but that there is no question that "people are going to die in Afghanistan this winter."
Staff writer Steven Mufson contributed to this report.
--------
U.S. jets pound Taliban front lines
USA TODAY
10/27/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/10/27/afghan-attacks.htm
JOM QADAM, Afghanistan (AP) - U.S. jets pounded Taliban front-line positions north of the capital city of Kabul on Saturday in what opposition fighters and local people described as the heaviest such bombardment of the air campaign. Pakistan's president, meanwhile, warned that the war in Afghanistan could become a "quagmire" for the United States and its allies. Nearly three weeks of daily air attacks have failed to break the Taliban's hold on Afghanistan or enable opposition forces to make significant advances against the Taliban.
In the north of Afghanistan, U.S. jets roaring over the opposition-held Shomali plain swooped down and dropped massive bombs in an offensive that lasted most of the day. Gul Agha, an opposition fighter, said he counted more than 20 bombs, and an elderly local farmer, Saeed Khan, called it the heaviest such bombardment to date.
Tracer fire arced through the skies, and loud explosions rang out. Some of the areas were bombed for the first time, residents said.
The private, Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press, citing Taliban officials, said nine people had died and 15 were hurt in those raids, but gave no details.
Taliban fighters fired surface-to-air guns at the American warplanes and rockets and mortars at fighters of the opposition movement known as the Northern Alliance. Explosions from all sides rang out at the front line at Jom Qadam, 25 miles north of Kabul.
At the other main front line - the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif - the Taliban claimed Saturday to have beaten back a new opposition push. The Afghan press also reported five opposition commanders had been captured in that battle and immediately hanged.
Later, though, the agency quoted a Taliban spokesman, Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi, as saying no such hangings had taken place.
The reports came on the heels of Friday's summary execution by Taliban forces of opposition leader Abdul Haq, who had crossed into Afghanistan to try to persuade Afghan tribal leaders to abandon the Taliban and throw their support to exiled former Afghan king Mohammad Zaher Shah.
"If one Abdul Haq is dead, I think a thousand more Abdul Haqs will come up," his brother Abdul Qadir, a senior rebel commander, told The Associated Press at his home in the opposition-controlled town of Jabal Saraj.
The president of neighboring Pakistan, which has allied itself with the United States in the campaign against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, suggested in an interview with ABC News that the Pentagon appeared to be having trouble making headway in Afghanistan.
"If the military objectives are such that their attainment is causing difficulty, their identification is causing difficulty, their locations are causing difficulty, then yes, it may be a quagmire," said the Pakistani leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
In Kabul, overnight raids claimed at least two civilian lives, said Dr. Mohammed Ullah, a physician at the hospital where the bodies were taken. Shrapnel killed one man and a stray bullet struck the other victim on his rooftop as he watched the fiery sky, the doctor said.
Roving Taliban artillery guns, mounted on pickup trucks for quick getaways, answered U.S. blasts with bright bursts of anti-aircraft fire.
U.S. bombs honed in on the Taliban's sprawling military compound in Kabul, just across from the long-abandoned U.S. Embassy. Other strikes hit an ammunition depot on the city's eastern edge overnight, sparking off bright-red explosions.
At sunrise Saturday, U.S. jets hammered near northern hills on the city's edge, toward Kabul's airport - a frequent target of attacks. They also struck areas around Nishrab and Tagab, about 30 miles northeast of Kabul.
The Taliban's Bakhtar News Agency said six people were killed, 12 injured and 15 houses destroyed.
Bombs also struck near the eastern city of Jalalabad and around another front line in the northern Dar-e-Suf district, Bakhtar said. The report could not be independently confirmed.
In other attacks-related developments:
- The International Committee of the Red Cross deplored a strike Friday on its warehouse in Kabul - the second this month. The Pentagon said it was an accident. The ICRC said the warehouse had contained the bulk of the food and blankets it intended to distribute to tens of thousands of needy Afghans.
- French journalist Michel Peyrard will stand trial for espionage and other charges within a few days, the Afghan Islamic Press said. Peyrard, a journalist for Paris Match who was arrested Oct. 9, is in good heath, the agency quoted an unidentified Taliban official as saying. The official did not say what the other charges are.
- A top U.N. official dismissed calls for a pause in airstrikes to allow more aid into Afghanistan, saying the U.S.-led military assault had not significantly disrupted aid flow. Kenzo Oshima, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Saturday that more aid was urgently needed, but that a bombing pause was not necessary.
- Pro-Taliban militants blocked portions of the fabled Silk Route in northern Pakistan with boulders and land mines. Traffic along the Karakoram Highway, a major trade link between Pakistan and China, has all but stopped since the Sept. 11 attacks.
- U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees began a three-day visit to refugee camps near the Pakistan border.
------
The War Has Just Begun
New York Times
October 27, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/27/opinion/27SAT1.html?searchpv=nytToday
After three weeks of American bombing runs, the limits of air power are evident in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden remains in hiding and the Taliban have not crumbled. In a costly mistake yesterday, a Red Cross warehouse was accidentally bombed again. Word also came that an important opposition leader whom Washington had looked to as a potential rallying point for dissident Pashtuns had been captured and executed by Taliban forces.
The absence of easy victories should come as no surprise. Airstrikes alone are rarely decisive in waging war. When bombs and missiles have prevailed, as they did in Yugoslavia a few years ago, it usually takes many months of bombardment. Dislodging the Taliban and disabling the bin Laden network in Afghanistan are going to require sustained force and extensive ground operations.
Predictably, the patience of some of America's coalition partners is already diminishing. The longer the bombing goes on, the more it produces political strains in Islamic countries, especially with the monthlong Muslim holiday of Ramadan less than three weeks away. For that reason, Pakistan's ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is urging an early end to the air war. Unfortunately, that is not a realistic possibility. Air and ground combat will have to continue for months.
Despite steady pounding from American planes, the Taliban's front lines have held outside of Kabul and the strategic northern town of Mazar-i- Sharif. Defections of Taliban leaders have been fewer than expected, which makes this week's capture and execution of the opposition leader, Abdul Haq, particularly damaging. As an ethnic Pashtun, like most of the Taliban and the inhabitants of southern Afghanistan, he might have drawn support from southerners uneasy over the absence of Pashtun leadership in the main opposition fighting force, the Northern Alliance.
The Taliban are not invincible. They have, however, proved to be tenacious and resourceful. To shield themselves from airstrikes, Taliban fighters have moved into civilian population centers that Washington is reluctant to hit. Some have used United Nations vehicles to camouflage their movements. Dislodging the Taliban from strongholds like Kandahar and Kabul will require some combination of ground troops, including Afghan guerrillas and American and British special forces.
Osama bin Laden's terrorist network will be even harder to defeat from the air. Barring an extremely lucky bomb or missile strike, rousting Al Qaeda leaders from their caves will take time and the infiltration of ground commandos. Winter weather will not make that any easier. After the horrific events of Sept. 11, Americans must be prepared for a lengthy military conflict with terrorism and its Taliban protectors. No early victory should be expected.
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
N.Y. Attack Site Releases Contaminants
Associated Press
Saturday, October 27, 2001; Page A11
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60045-2001Oct26.html
NEW YORK -- Poisonous chemicals and metals are being released into the ground and air at the World Trade Center site at levels that exceed federal safety standards, newly released documents show.
Low levels of contaminants also have been detected in the Hudson River and its sediment, according to documents that include hundreds of pages of raw data compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency.
City and federal officials said there was no immediate risk to people away from the trade center debris, and that workers at the site were being protected by respirators and other equipment.
The documents, first reported yesterday by the New York Daily News, show the results of daily monitoring of the trade center site since the Sept. 11 attacks. They were obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request by the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project.
The documents show the presence of soil and air contaminants including dioxins, PCBs, lead and chromium, sometimes at levels exceeding EPA standards. In addition, the EPA's Web site said, fires still burning beneath the wreckage are releasing levels of benzene above guidelines prescribed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
EPA spokeswoman Mary Helen Cervantes said Friday that the agency is still examining its data. But she said that while some samples were above EPA and OSHA guidelines, many of them, including those for benzene, were taken using deep probes inserted into the trade center rubble.
-------- health
AIDS Cases Rise in China
October 27, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-AIDS.html
BEIJING (AP) -- China recorded 5,616 new cases of AIDS infection in the first nine months of this year, more than in all of last year, a state newspaper said Saturday.
That raised the known number of people in China with the HIV virus to 28,133, the China Youth Daily said. Last year, some 5,201 new cases were reported, the newspaper said.
The report added to growing official candor about the AIDS epidemic in China, where experts believe at least 600,000 people carry the HIV virus.
Doctors reported 328 new cases of full-blown AIDS from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, up from 233 in all of last year, the Youth Daily said. It cited figures released Saturday by Deputy Health Minister Yin Dakui.
Needle-sharing among intravenous drug users and the thriving sex trade were blamed for most new cases, the newspaper said.
But in another break from previous official reticence, the newspaper said some 0.2 percent of new cases were traced to homosexual intercourse.
The report cited unidentified experts who said that as many as 100,000 of the 600,000 people in China believed to have the virus might be gay.
Officials usually are reluctant to acknowledge homosexuality in Chinese society. As a result, health experts worry that many homosexuals lack the information needed to avoid being exposed through sex.
China announced a new anti-AIDS campaign in August, promising additional spending on health care and education.
Foreign health experts have warned that without a dramatic increase in public awareness and preventive measures, the virus could spread into the general population. U.N. experts say that without effective measures, as many as 20 million Chinese could be infected by 2010.
-------- human rights
U.S. raps anti-terror allies for stifling religious freedom
October 27, 2001
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011027-26484880.htm
The United States yesterday issued a report that harshly criticizes Saudi Arabia and other Muslim states crucial in the fight against terrorism for suppressing religious freedom, but refrained from placing them on its blacklist of countries of "particular concern."
China is the only state on the list that has pledged cooperation with Washington in its anti-terrorist efforts. North Korea is the single new addition to the list this year. The other countries on the list - Iran, Iraq, Burma and Sudan - have also been designated as state sponsors of terrorism.
Afghanistan's Taliban militia, while singled out for especially severe violations, does not qualify for inclusion on the list because the United States doesn't recognize the hard-line regime as the country's legitimate government.
The annual report, issued yesterday by the State Department as a requirement of the Religious Freedom Act of 1998, is highly critical of Saudi Arabia and other Muslim regimes friendly to the United States, as well as some of Washington's new allies in Central Asia, such as Uzbekistan and other former Soviet republics.
"The report does make clear what the situation is with regard to religious freedom in Saudi Arabia, and that is that there is, essentially, no religious freedom in Saudi Arabia," said Richard Boucher, State Department spokesman. "The government requires all citizens to be Muslim and continues to prohibit any public manifestation of non-Muslim religions."
There was no reason, however, to downgrade Saudi Arabia's status to being of "particular concern," because "no significant change one way or the other" occurred over the past year, Mr. Boucher said.
He noted that the Uzbek government, which has been surprisingly helpful to the U.S.-led campaign against the Taliban for harboring Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, only partially respects its citizens' religious freedoms guaranteed by the Uzbekistan Constitution.
"Uzbekistan does not provide the respect to Islamic groups and mosques that we think is necessary or required under customary international law," he said. "In Turkmenistan, the same kind of thing. The harassments of unregistered religious groups has continued and, in fact, some say intensified there, but we didn't feel that they met the standard to be designated this year."
In Afghanistan, where "atheism and conversion from Islam are both considered apostasy and are punishable by death," the Taliban "has severely restricted freedom of religion in the territory" under its control, Mr. Boucher said.
"Due to the absence of a constitution, religious freedom is not protected and is subject to the arbitrary action of Taliban officials. Law and custom require affiliation with religion," he said. "Women have been subject to beatings by religious police for not wearing proper attire, in their view."
Last February, the Taliban destroyed Afghanistan's giant Buddha statues, defying appeals of religious and political leaders from around the world.
The religious-freedom report, which was submitted to Congress on Thursday, is similar to the State Department's annual report on human rights. It surveys the freedom to practice one's faith in every country in the world, including established democracies like Britain and Canada.
The countries of concern list was put together by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
The consequences for the countries on the list can be diplomatic and economic, but in practice, no sanctions have been imposed in the past.
Mr. Boucher said North Korea was added to the list this year because of reports that its communist government has cracked down on unauthorized religious groups in recent years.
"There have also been unconfirmed reports of the killing of members of underground Christian churches," he said. "In addition, people who proselytize or who have ties overseas appear to have been arrested, subjected to harsh penalties, according again to unconfirmed reports."
Regarding China, yesterday's report said the situation for religious freedom and spiritual movements there worsened in the past year.
Catholic and Protestant members of unauthorized churches were subjected to detention, raids and persecution.
Other religious groups also fared badly.
"According to some reports, the government intensified its harsh and comprehensive campaign against the Falun Gong spiritual movement during the early spring of 2001, and some practitioners reportedly died in prison due to torture and other kinds of mistreatment. Tibetan Buddhist monks suffered abuse and torture after being imprisoned on charges of political activity," the report said.
Russia, one of the most important allies in the war on terrorism, was also criticized in the report for its treatment of religious minorities.
"There were allegations of politically motivated government interference in the internal affairs of the Jewish, Pentecostal and Muslim communities.
"Muslims, who constitute approximately 10 percent of the population, encountered registration problems along with societal discrimination and antagonism in some areas, apparently as a result of feelings engendered by the continuing conflict in [the breakaway republic of] Chechnya," the report said.
--------
ICRC Unable to Deliver Afghan Food After U.S. Bombs
By REUTERS
October 27, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-afghan-icrc.html
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was unable to distribute food to hungry Kabul residents Saturday, a day after three of its warehouses were hit in U.S.-led air raids, an ICRC official said.
``Today we will not be able to resume our distribution,'' ICRC spokesman Mario Musa told Reuters. ``The food was for the poor disabled people.''
U.S. aircraft inadvertently dropped bombs on Red Cross warehouses in Kabul Friday, the second time its complex has been hit since the U.S.-led bombing of Afghanistan began on October 7.
The Geneva-based relief agency said the roofs of the buildings were clearly marked with the Red Cross emblem and the attacks violated international humanitarian law.
Musa said three warehouses were completely destroyed by the attack. Serious damage was caused to loaded trucks parked in the compound, jeopardizing relief work in war-shattered Kabul.
``We have five warehouses, one was destroyed in the previous attack and three Friday. We now have one warehouse left,'' he said.
The buildings contained food and blankets for 55,000 disabled people who rely completely on ICRC handouts, he said.
Washington launched air strikes on Afghanistan to punish Kabul for protecting Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, suspected of being the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks on the United States.
International aid agencies say about a quarter of Afghanistan's 20 million people depend on some form of humanitarian help after more than 20 years of war and three years of drought.
-------- police / prisoners
Bush Signs Anti-Terrorism Bill
Sat, 27 Oct 2001
By JESSE J. HOLLAND,
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush (news - web sites) on Friday signed a sweeping anti-terrorism bill into law, giving police and intelligence agencies vast new powers to ``counter a threat like no other our nation has ever faced.''
``Today, we take an essential step in defeating terrorists while protecting the constitutional rights of all Americans,'' Bush said in an East Room ceremony even as the government grappled with a series of anthrax cases that may be linked to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
``This government will enforce this law with all the urgency of a nation at war,'' Bush said.
The legislation, while somewhat weakened from the administration's original proposal, expands the FBI (news - web sites)'s wiretapping and electronic surveillance authority and imposes stronger penalties for harboring or financing terrorists. It increases the number of crimes considered terrorist acts and toughens the punishment for committing them.
The bill also gives police wide-ranging new anti-terrorism powers to secretly search people's homes and business records and to eavesdrop on telephone and computer conversations.
``This law will give intelligence and law enforcement officials new tools to fight a present danger,'' Bush said.
The ceremony, attended by Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), lawmakers and uniformed law enforcement officials, came one day after Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) said the Justice Department (news - web sites) will begin using the new powers immediately.
``Upon the president's signature, I will direct investigators and prosecutors to begin immediately seeking court orders to intercept communications related to an expanded list of crimes under the legislation,'' he said.
Lawmakers, worried about possible abuse of the new wiretapping and surveillance powers, placed a four-year cap on that part of the legislation.
``It gives us the time to investigate whether there were any outrageous abuses,'' Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news - bio - voting record), D-Calif., said.
The House and Senate approved Bush's anti-terrorism package in less than two months, skipping much of the normal committee process in their haste. Lawmakers say they still came up with a good bill.
``The gestation period has been a few weeks. But it's a heck of a lot better than to have given birth to a monster, and we didn't do that,'' said Sen. Patrick Leahy (news - bio - voting record), D-Vt., the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) chairman.
Critics disagreed. ``It is still dangerous legislation, and unfortunately there are still too many weaknesses in the bill that could end up curbing and infringing fundamental civil rights and liberties,'' said Ralph Neas, president of the liberal People For the American Way.
Sen. Russ Feingold (news - bio - voting record), D-Wis., was the only senator to vote against the package. ``This bill does not strike the right balance between empowering law enforcement and protecting civil liberties,'' Feingold said.
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (news - bio - voting record), senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, retorted: ``I don't know anybody in this country who's afraid of their law enforcement people at this time. They're afraid of terrorism.''
The new legislation allows nationwide jurisdiction for search warrants and electronic surveillance devices, including legal expansion of those devices to e-mail and the Internet. It also authorizes the use of roving wiretaps, in which officials get orders that allow them to tap whatever telephone a person uses instead of one telephone at a time.
Senators also insisted on tacking money-laundering stipulations into the bill to thwart the flow of money to terrorist groups and protect the U.S. banking system from illicit money.
The House inserted an expiration date for the new wiretapping and electronic surveillance powers. Under the bill, Congress has to renew the anti-terrorism legislation before Dec. 31, 2005, or the eavesdropping sections expire.
Ashcroft and Bush fought strongly against that provision, but Republican leaders in the House told them the bill could not muster a majority without it.
The bill is H.R. 3162.
On the Net: For bill text: http://thomas.loc.gov
----
FBI Has a History of Change
October 27, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-FBI-Changes.html?searchpv=aponline
FBI Director Robert Mueller has suggested that the terror attacks will bring with them major changes for the bureau, including a shift from investigation to prevention.
It wouldn't be the first time that social and political upheaval has led to changes for the bureau. Here's a selected chronology:
--1909: The spread of the railways and the introduction of the automobile make it easier for criminal fugitives to travel between states, leading President Theodore Roosevelt to establish the Bureau of Investigation as a federal law enforcement agency.
--1930s: Organized crime runs rampant, persuading Congress to overcome states' resistance and ``federalize'' a number of crimes. The kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby leads Congress to make kidnapping a federal offense.
--1936: The growth of domestic interest in communism and fascism leads President Franklin D. Roosevelt to authorize the investigation of ``subversives.''
--1940s: The Nazi threat prompts the establishment of the first ``legats,'' FBI agents assigned to overseas embassies as ``legal attaches.''
--1946: The threat from Russia's Joseph Stalin pervades American political thinking, and Congress passes the Atomic Energy Act, which includes a mandate to the FBI to ``determine the loyalty of individuals'' with access to nuclear data. To this day, the FBI runs background checks on senior government appointments.
--1960s: Congress passes civil rights acts authorizing the bureau to pursue civil rights violators. The FBI uses the mandate to circumvent white law enforcement officers and juries who are sympathetic to violent racists.
--1970s: The FBI makes white-collar crime its ``third national priority,'' after counterintelligence and organized crime. It recruits accountants to become agents.
--1982: The rise of terrorism leads the FBI to make counterterrorism a ``fourth national priority.''
--1991: At the dawn of the Internet age, the ``National Security Threat List'' is aimed at protecting U.S. information and technologies.
-------- terrorism
FBI and CIA Suspect Domestic Extremists
Officials Doubt Any Links to Bin Laden
By Bob Woodward and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 27, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59509-2001Oct26.html
Top FBI and CIA officials believe that the anthrax attacks on Washington, New York and Florida are likely the work of one or more extremists in the United States who are probably not connected to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization, government officials said yesterday.
Senior officials also are increasingly concerned that the bioterrorism is diverting public attention from the larger threat posed by bin Laden and his network, who are believed to be planning a second wave of attacks against U.S. interests here or abroad that could come at any time, officials said.
None of the 60 to 80 threat reports gathered daily by U.S. intelligence agencies has connected the envelopes containing anthrax spores to al Qaeda or other known organized terrorist groups, and the evidence gleaned from the spore samples so far provides no solid link to a foreign government or laboratory, several officials said.
"Everything seems to lean toward a domestic source," one senior official said. "Nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist type operation."
The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are considering a wide range of domestic possibilities, including associates of right-wing hate groups and U.S. residents sympathetic to the causes of Islamic extremists. But investigators have no clear suspects, and are not even certain whether there are other undetected letters that contained the deadly microbe.
But federal health officials said yesterday that a new case of pulmonary anthrax in a man who worked at a State Department mail facility in Northern Virginia has persuaded them that more than one contaminated letter may have been sent to the Washington area. Health experts previously believed that a single letter, sent to the office of Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), likely caused all the anthrax reports in the Washington area as it came in contact with other pieces of mail in the system.
Now the "working hypothesis would be that this is not cross-contamination," said Jeffrey Koplan, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "There is not enough infectious material from cross-contamination to do that."
However, ongoing searches of truckloads of undelivered mail to the U.S. Capitol and other government buildings has turned up no other letters laced with anthrax bacteria, leading FBI officials to assume that the Daschle letter may still be the only local source. Two employees at the U.S. Postal Service's Brentwood facility in Washington have died from inhaling the lethal bacteria, and three other local postal workers have contracted inhalational anthrax.
"This envelope, Daschle's envelope, is not watertight or airtight or anything like that," one law enforcement official said. "It's porous. At one or two microns, there's plenty of room for the spores to escape."
Although there is consensus at the FBI and CIA that al Qaeda associates are planning more serious attacks, "nobody believes the anthrax scare we are going through is" the next wave of terrorism, one senior official said. "There is no intelligence on it and it does not fit any [al Qaeda] pattern."
No links between known foreign terrorist groups and the anthrax letters have shown up on the daily Top Secret Threat Matrix, which includes the latest raw intelligence on potential bombings, hijackings or other terrorist attacks, one official said. Though "lots of things are alarming" on the list, there is little agreement on how, when or where an attack might be launched, officials said.
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III warned earlier this week that additional terror attacks are a "distinct possibility."
President Bush and other top U.S. officials have publicly voiced their suspicion that bin Laden and al Qaeda -- accused of carrying out the Sept. 11 suicide assaults on the World Trade Center and Pentagon -- may be responsible for the anthrax mailings.
But Mueller, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and other law enforcement officials have said they have discovered no links between the mailings and bin Laden. Authorities, speaking on condition of anonymity yesterday, said they are increasingly doubtful that any connections will be found.
One official said the only significant clue raising the possibility of foreign terrorist involvement is the conclusion of FBI behavioral scientists, who believe that whoever wrote the three letters delivered to Daschle, NBC News and the New York Post did not learn English as a first language.
But the writer could have lived in this country for some time, and the other evidence gathered so far points away from a foreign source, several officials said.
The anti-Israel message in the anthrax letters and bin Laden's statements are echoed by U.S. extremist groups, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.
One group, Aryan Action, praises the Sept. 11 attacks on its Web site and declares: "Either you're fighting with the jews against al Qaeda, or you support al Qaeda fighting against the jews."
Cooper said a meeting this year in Beirut was attended by neo-Nazis and Islamic extremists united in their hatred of Jews. "Some extremists are now globalized," he said.
White supremacists have been linked with anthrax in the past, but not in relation to an attack.
Larry Wayne Harris, an Ohio microbiologist and former member of the Aryan Nations, was convicted of wire fraud in 1997 after he obtained three vials of bubonic plague germs through the mail. He was arrested the next year near Las Vegas when the FBI acted on a tip that he was carrying anthrax. But agents found harmless anthrax vaccine in the trunk of his car.
Cooper and officials at the Southern Poverty Law Project, which monitors U.S. hate groups, said they have seen no evidence of a domestic group capable of launching a sophisticated anthrax attack.
One of the challenges that a would-be terrorist faces is learning how to alter the anthrax so that it will float in the air and disperse widely. The Washington Post reported this week that the spores in the Daschle letter had been treated with a chemical additive using technology so sophisticated that it almost certainly came from the United States, Iraq or the former Soviet Union.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday, however, that investigators believe a broad range of people are capable of the crime. "The qualityanthrax sent to Senator Daschle's office could be produced by a Ph.D. microbiologist and a sophisticated laboratory," he told reporters.
U.S. officials said the evidence so far does not point to either Russia or Iraq. However, FBI checks of private and government laboratories in the United States have not yet revealed any missing anthrax stockpiles, disgruntled scientists or other suspicious circumstances, one top official said.
Koplan, the CDC director, said he suspects more than one letter was involved based on his understanding of how difficult it is to contract inhalational anthrax. To cause the disease, 8,000 to 10,000 anthrax spores must enter a person's lungs.
Although some officials said it is possible for that many spores to have sloughed off the Daschle letter onto another piece of mail, Koplan said that is hard to imagine. "We all think that would be highly unlikely to virtually impossible," he said.
Koplan speculated that there may have been multiple mailings and that "there may be several places within the federal government that have been deemed targets."
By contrast, the minuscule amounts of anthrax bacteria discovered at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the CIA "may well represent cross-contamination," Koplan said.
William C. Patrick, who is retired from the U.S. Army installation at Fort Detrick, Md., said extensive studies show that once anthrax spores hit the ground or other surfaces they stick, and are very hard to "re-aerosolize.
There's a theoretical possibility that a few spores picked up by an envelope might cause a skin anthrax infection, but a case of inhalational anthrax "is highly unlikely," Patrick said.
Staff writers David Brown, Ceci Connolly, Ellen Nakashima and Peter Slevin and researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.
--------
THE INVESTIGATION
Agents Start Digging Up Old Files on Hoaxes
New York Times
October 27, 2001
By DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/27/national/27INQU.html?searchpv=nytToday
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 - A series of cases in recent years involving anthrax threats has drawn the attention of federal investigators, who are reviewing their files for clues to the source, motive and possible identity of the people behind the recent anthrax-contaminated letters.
The return to the old files has led investigators to Nevada, California and the District of Columbia to question witnesses and study documents in a search for anything that could help crack the current case, which has resulted in the deaths of two people in Washington and one in Florida.
Investigators are trying to determine whether any of the past threat letters were similar in handwriting or content to the three known anthrax letters, sent to NBC News, The New York Post and Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader (the letter believed to have caused the death in Florida has not been found). The New York and Washington letters are believed to have been written by the same person.
While the inquiry continues, law enforcement officials say their review so far has not produced an indication that the contaminated letters were sent by someone who had made earlier threats.
Even before Sept. 11, the number of anthrax threat cases had risen steadily from year to year, experts say. The experts questioned, however, said they could not recall any cases in which real anthrax had been sent through the United States mail with the intent of doing harm. But the old cases make investigators wary of too quickly linking the anthrax threat with foreign sources or the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
That is because the responsible parties in previous cases seemed to have been driven by personal grievances or concern about domestic political issues like abortion or the role of government, if they expressed any motive at all. In some cases, the motive could be inferred, when the threat recipient was an abortion clinic, school, police station or courthouse. In others, however, offices of news media organizations were targets, as they have been with the recent attacks.
One of the most high-profile past scares occurred in February 1998 when F.B.I. agents arrested two men near Las Vegas who they suspected were planning to use anthrax for terrorism. But the substance that the authorities found in the vials the men were carrying turned out to be an anthrax vaccine for animals.
A terrorism database compiled by the Monterey Institute of International Studies showed that in 1999 there were 104 threats of terrorism by chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials in the United States. Of these 81 were anthrax threats.
The study found that seldom was anyone arrested in such a case, since the responsible parties could not be identified. When a motive could be discerned, both "criminally and ideologically motivated actors appeared equally interested" in using materials like anthrax.
The letters sent to NBC, The New York Post and Mr. Daschle suggested a motive. Each of three letters contained the same phrases: "Death to America," "Death to Israel," and "Allah is great."
But investigators do not believe that the phrases necessarily link the sender to Islamic extremism, and some believe the language is intended to mislead.
Few such letters express any clear-cut political point of view. In 1999, as an example, letters containing an unidentified substance in a plastic bag and a single word, "Anthrax," were sent to The Washington Post and to the Old Executive Office Building. Similar letters were sent to an NBC News office in Atlanta and a post office in Columbus, Ga. The letters proved to be a hoax.
In 1997, someone sent a mysterious red substance in a petri dish to the international headquarters of B'nai B'rith in Washington that led the authorities to quarantine 108 people inside the organization's offices.
The dish was labeled "anthrachs," a misspelling of anthrax, and "yersinia," the bacterium that causes bubonic plague. A two-page typed letter referred to a variety of ideologies and organizations. The substance turned out to be harmless.
-------- activists
Activists Protest Afghanistan Raids
By Steve Karnowski
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, Oct. 27, 2001; 11:05 p.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011027/aponline230549_000.htm
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Hundreds of demonstrators gathered on the steps of the state Capitol Saturday to protest the U.S. military response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The rally was among similar events in a number of cities across the nation, including Los Angeles and New York.
Under the banner of "Say No to War, Say Yes to Global Justice," speakers in St. Paul condemned the attacks on New York and Washington, but said the bombing of Afghanistan will not make America safer.
"Terrorism is always, always wrong," said Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, a professor of peace and justice studies at the University of St. Thomas. But he said the attacks should be treated as a crime against humanity, not as an act of war, and that war should not be America's response.
The crowd ranged in age from young children, high school and college students to graying veterans of protests against the war in Vietnam. Organizers estimated the crowd at more than 1,100. But police put the number at 400 to 500.
The protest attracted about three dozen noisy counter-demonstrators, who waved American flags and carried signs accusing the peace activists of being traitors.
"Bin Laden needs a hug," they chanted mockingly.
In Los Angeles, some 700 demonstrators wearing makeup to simulate battle wounds held a peaceful rally to call for an end to U.S. military action in Afghanistan.
The demonstrators convened downtown in Pershing Square, which served as a staging area for protesters at the 2000 Democratic National Convention. Police said there were no arrests.
In downtown Portland, Ore., several hundred protesters both mourned the victims of last month's terrorist attacks and condemned bombing strikes over Afghanistan with a silent vigil and banners.
--------
Political activists, environmentalists feel chill of anti-terror campaign
Montreal Gazette
DENNIS BUECKERT
Canadian Press
Saturday, October 27, 2001
http://www.canada.com/montreal/story.asp?id={D08FC325-DC2F-441A-B9FB-D39CDA0BCD3F}
OTTAWA (CP) - Peaceniks beware. Rabble-rousers watch out. Tree huggers stay home. The chill is on. Activists who work on environment, peace, trade and health issues say anxiety over terrorism has made it almost impossible for them to be heard.
They allege that once-acceptable political views are suddenly being treated like heresy. They complain they can't get media attention for issues that used to be taken seriously. And they fear they could be caught up in measures intended to defeat terrorism.
"Globalization, poverty - it's as if they don't matter any more," Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians says. "But of course people's lives are still here. They're going to be looking for clean water and human security.
"The loss of attention by the mainstream press to any of these issues is very much a concern."
Even the music played on radio stations has been affected. Last month the U.S. radio conglomerate Clear Channel had to issue a release assuring its 1,000 or so member stations that a list sent out by one of its music directors of songs to avoid in the wake of the attacks did not have to be followed.
The list had included any song by the feisty anti-establishment band Rage Against the Machine. It also included Imagine by the late peace activist John Lennon.
"It was just ridiculous," said Christian Hall, music director for Rock 101 in Vancouver.
"Rage Against the Machine is a new artist. Do you stop playing them because they think sweat shops should be banned? What does that have to do with an airplane hitting a building?"
Barlow says dissidents are reconsidering everything they do to take account of the new psychological climate.
"In the post-Sept. 11 atmosphere people are rightly frightened. It would be irresponsible of us to add to their fear in any way.
"I think there's going to be a whole recasting of what social movements in civil society do. Our movement is trying to find a thoughtful place in which to participate."
The first major test will be at the G20 meeting of world finance ministers Nov. 17 to 18 in Ottawa.
Senior officials from the G20 countries will discuss trade and development with representatives of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Canada's reputation as a peaceful place will be maintained if Barlow has her way.
"We feel very strongly that whatever we do on Nov. 17 has to be absolutely peaceful; absolutely there cannot be any tolerance of violence on any side."
She says there will be no black masks, no confrontation. Protesters will rely on non-threatening tactics such as teach-ins and vigils.
Peter Tabuns, executive director of Greenpeace Canada, says all non-government groups are reconsidering tactics.
"Any organization right now has to be fairly careful in the way it acts so as to take into account the state of mind of the Canadian public," says Tabuns. "People are nervous and they don't want to be startled."
Activists are optimistic the public mood will in time return to normal, but they are not so confident about the government's proposed anti-terror legislation.
"I of course fear it will be used to round up legitimate protesters, workers going on a strike, native people on a blockade, people trying to stop clearcutting by chaining themselves to trees," said Barlow.
"We're very concerned about it. I understand the need to have legislation but I feel that in their hurry to do this they cast the net far too wide."
The bill would allow police to make a "preventive arrest" if they suspected a terrorist action was about to occur. It would allow permanent secrecy on the reasons for use of such powers.
Justice Minister Anne McLellan has said the legislation is not aimed at peaceful dissident groups.
"I'm sure that's not her intent," comments Barlow. "But there are those who will use that against us.
"There is some very rabid writing . . . against our movement and there are people who would be quite content to see the law used against peaceful protest."
She is also concerned about the increased surveillance powers provided for under the bill.
"We feel the same legislation could be used to track whoever they want to track, which was happening before Sept. 11 anyway.
"We were already worried. We're very worried that with this legislation the ante has been upped tremendously."
Angela Rickman of the Sierra Club, a group never known for confrontational tactics, has similar worries.
"What will be our rights if we want to protest something?" she asks. "These are not temporary measures, these are for good, this is very worrisome for people who don't always agree with the government. "
Rickman says her organization is putting more emphasis on direct outreach to the public through meetings, speeches, and mail, rather than media events.
"We haven't pulled back any of our policies. We're still working on the same issues."
Tabuns argues that dissent is vital to the health of democracy, pointing to the role of Martin Luther King and the U.S. civil rights movement in ending racial segregation in the United States.
"You have to have that kind of confrontation, that shaking up, that controversy to move things along," he says.
Suppressing dissent will bring a long-term price, he warns.
"When you look at societies that don't allow for peaceful dissent, that don't have really broad parameters for challenging accepted wisdom, then you see societies that tend to stagnate, to fall back.
"A society that's healthy is very dynamic, it has debate, it has disagreement. Within a peaceful framework, societies that allow dissent . . . are the ones that have prospered in this world."
Barlow says that to curb dissent would hand terrorists a victory.
"If I were a terrorist, I would just love it if a democracy started undoing the civil rights of its people and curbing free speech and curbing free assembly. I think the over-reaction is exactly what they must want."
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