------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
U.S.-RUSSIA TEAM TACKLES RADWASTE DISPOSAL
Nevada Sues Feds Over Nuke Waste
Greenpeace raids nuclear reactor
N. Korea urges 'decisive measures'
South Korea Releases Nukes Report
Russia Prepares for Nuclear Talks
Putin Warns U.S. Against Expanding War to Iraq
Jerome Morse, inventor first miniaturized nuclear generator
Formal Talks on Nuclear Cuts to Begin Next Month
Officials Back Low - Yield Nuke Strike
US won't delay Nevada waste site guidelines
New Suit Filed Against U.S. About Nuclear Waste Dump
Nevada Sues Feds Over Nuke Waste

MILITARY
US warplanes target fleeing al-Qaeda
Peacekeeping force to start arriving by Saturday
Bin Laden hunt intensifies
Al Qaeda Fleeing Toward Pakistan, U.S. Officials Say
400 Experts Try to Harvest Afghanistan's Field of Mines
Rival factions clash in northern Nigeria
Rumsfeld, in Talks With NATO, Suggests Paring Bosnia Force
Gov't to Boost Biohazard Training
N. Ireland militias get 5 years to disarm
Pentagon Terminates Raytheon Contract
China asks $2 billion for Phalcon rescission
Terrorism and science symposium
Deal Reached for Air Force Planes
Police put down coup as political crisis deepens
Saddam Hussein Wants Arab Summit
U.S. Again Placing Focus on Ousting Hussein
Powell phones Arafat about cease-fire
NATO, Russian defense ministers meet after US ABM pullout
Allies to Talk About Terrorism
Rumsfeld to call for slashing Bosnia peacekeeping force
Baltic states await NATO invitation
NATO Sets Global Sights on Terrorism
Pursuing bin Laden Into Pakistan Tough
War boosts all-news radio's ratings
Camera Has Turned on Peru's TV Stations
Holes found in Pakistan's 'sealed' border
Pakistanis might sell out bin Laden
India vows 'punishment will fit the crime'
Capitol Hill anthrax "not from CIA lab"
Russia Reports Spying by U.S. Foes

POLICE / PRISONERS
Legal tools briefing
D.C. Area May Receive $245 Million For Security
FBI report reveals overall decline in violent crimes
New towing laws on tap for District
Secret Service Agents Plead Guilty
Man on Bin Laden Tape Now Said to Be Guerrilla

ENERGY AND OTHER
Stem Cell Glossary
Monitors Censure St. Elizabeths

ACTIVISTS
Missile Defense: A Waste
Rural Villagers' Quiet Resistance
Death Sentence of Abu-Jamal Is Thrown Out




-------- NUCLEAR

U.S.-RUSSIA TEAM TACKLES RADWASTE DISPOSAL

December 18, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-18-09.html

BOISE, Idaho, A collaboration of U.S. and Russian scientists and engineers claim to have developed a new process to separate much of the radioactive material from nuclear wastes, making treating and transporting the wastes safer and cheaper.

The technique reduces the volume of high level wastes at least twentyfold. Each gallon shrinks to less than a cup, and disposal costs fall as well.

"The idea is to segregate out this very small amount of radioactive material and concentrate this element of the waste into the smallest volume possible," said Scott Herbst, a chemical engineer at the Department of Energy's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL).

Herbst and a team of scientists from the INEEL and Khlopin Radium Institute in Russia have received an $800,000, three year grant from DOE's Environmental Management Science Program to study and improve their technique. The Universal Extraction, or UNEX, process is the first demonstrated technology of its kind capable of removing multiple radioactive elements from high level nuclear waste in one step.

Even a tiny amount of radioactive elements can turn large volumes of waste into "high level radioactive waste," which is subject to rigorous and expensive storage standards.

Such waste is a byproduct of nuclear energy and weapons development and contains a mixture of radioactive fission products, such as strontium-90 and cesium-137, long lived radioactive elements such as plutonium and americium, and hazardous and toxic materials.

Separating most of the radioactive elements from the other materials can shrink the volume of high level waste, reduce the total disposal cost and minimize potential harm to the people and environment surrounding it.

In the past, it has been difficult to remove more than one radioactive element at a time. The most common process requires three separate steps: one solution removes cesium-137, the next takes out a group of similar elements called the actinide elements, and the last removes strontium-90.

Sending waste through three different steps is time consuming and expensive. At the moment, most countries do not go to the trouble and expense of separating out radioactive elements. Instead, they take the entire volume of high level waste, solidify it into a glass, and bury it whole in large stainless steel canisters for long term storage.

In 1994, a few INEEL scientists traveled to Russia to exchange the technologies each country had developed for nuclear waste cleanup. They came up with an extractant that works better than any of the original extractants alone, removing radioactive strontium, cesium and the actinides all at once.

"We're combining three separate operations into one," said Herbst. "I'm mesmerized that we've even been able to get this thing to work. It flies in the face of what everyone has attempted to do before."

----

Nevada Sues Feds Over Nuke Waste

By Ken Ritter
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, December 18, 2001; 6:11 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58490-2001Dec18?language=printer

LAS VEGAS -- Nevada has sued the Energy Department, its latest salvo in an ongoing campaign to block a possible federal government move to bury the nation's radioactive waste 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The suit, filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, challenges the Energy Department's criteria for deciding whether radioactive waste can safely be buried at Yucca Mountain. The state wants the court to stop the project before Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham decides whether to recommend Yucca Mountain as a suitable place to bury spent nuclear waste, said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency.

"The DOE is changing the rules about how they assess whether Yucca Mountain is suitable or not," Loux said. "We believe the new rules are not in compliance with the law."

The lawsuit charges that the Energy Department has constructed a new plan that relies on engineered barriers such as corrosion-resistant casks - rather than the geology of Yucca Mountain - to contain the intense radioactivity at the site.

But Joe Davis, Energy Department spokesman, said the agency reshaped its guidelines to take advantage of emerging technology. Davis said he had not seen the lawsuit.

Abraham said last week he has not made a decision on whether to recommend to President Bush that the volcanic ridge be used for storing 77,000 tons of nuclear waste for 10,000 years or more. Congress has asked for a decision by Feb. 28. Abraham's aides have said he intends to make a recommendation this winter.

Nevada state and federal lawmakers strongly oppose the project and are fighting it on political, environmental, public relations and legal fronts.

Last month, the state asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to decide whether Nevada can block the federal government from getting the water needed to develop the project in the arid desert. A three-judge circuit court panel had ordered the case heard by a U.S. District Court judge in Las Vegas. It has not decided on the Nevada request for a full hearing.

The mountain, at the western edge of the vast Nevada Test Site, is the only place under study.

-------- australia

Greenpeace raids nuclear reactor

AUSTRALIA: December 18, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13747/story.htm

SYDNEY - Members of the environmental group Greenpeace have forced their way into the grounds of Australia's only nuclear reactor, climbing onto the reactor and a nearby radio tower to unfurl banners saying "Nuclear Never Safe".

More than 20 activists embarrassed security staff at the Sydney nuclear research reactor yesterday, which has been on a heightened state of alert since the September 11 U.S. attacks, by parking a van between its gates when they were opened to allow another vehicle through and running into the complex.

Some protesters, dressed as barrels of nuclear waste, ran towards the reactor building, while others scaled it and the radio tower. One protester jumped from a smoke stack and parachuted to the ground with an anti-nuclear banner.

"Greenpeace is here to put safety of the people of Sydney and the environment first," said Greenpeace campaigner Stephen Campbell.

Extra security staff arrived on the scene after about 15 minutes and started ejecting the protesters. The protest lasted some three hours, with police arresting 24 activists for trespassing.

The Australian government plans to build a new reactor to replace the ageing Lucas Heights facility at the same site in a southern Sydney suburb. Many residents oppose the plan.

Greenpeace said its protest was not only against the new reactor, but to highlight the lack of security surrounding the existing nuclear facility.

The Australian government increased security staff and imposed a no-fly zone over Lucas Heights after the hijack aircraft attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in the United States on September 11.

-------- korea

N. Korea urges 'decisive measures'

December 18, 2001
By Jong-Heon Lee UPI Correspondent
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/17122001-114411-3644r.htm

SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- North Korea urged South Korea Tuesday to take "decisive measures" to break a deadlock between the two rivals, including the lifting of a counter-terrorism alert in place in South Korea.

"We urge the South side to make decisive measures to be accepted by all the countrymen before it is too late and thus put the North-South relations on a normal track at an early date," Pyongyang's state-run Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said in a statement.

"Hopes for the normalization of inter-Korean relations are higher than at any other time, especially with the year coming to an end," said the statement carried by the official (North) Korean Central Broadcasting Station.

The statement said the impasse in inter-Korean relations was caused by the South's security alert and definition of the North as its "principal enemy," calling for Seoul's bold decision to normalize their ties.

"The future of inter-Korean ties is wholly dependent on the South's attitude," it said, adding that North Korea would carry out the reconciliation agreement reached at last year's summit between their leaders.

Inter-Korean reconciliation talks collapsed in November after Pyongyang protested against a security alert imposed in the South following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

North Korea has publicly lambasted the move, saying it was aimed at the communist country under the pretext of fighting terrorism. South Korea is home to 37,000 American troops stationed as a deterrent against North Korea, which is on the U.S. list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

The North has denounced the United States for planning to make the communist regime the second target for its war against terrorism after Afghanistan.

South Korean officials and analysts considered the North's Tuesday statement as an indication that it was ready to revive the stalled inter-Korean peace process.

"The message can be seen as a positive response to the South's proposal last week to hold Red Cross talks to discuss reviving exchanges, including reunions of families" split by the Korean War half a century ago, a government official said.

North Korea's concerns that it may be the next target of U.S. war on terrorism may lead to Pyongyang's peace gesture toward the South, said Ko Yu-hwan, North Korea specialist at Dongguk University.

Yoo Soek-ryol of the Institute of Foreign Affairs of National Security, a government think tank, said North Korea intended to get aid from the South to overcome the cold winter amid the country's acute power and food shortages.

--------

South Korea Releases Nukes Report

December 18, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-NKorea-Nuclear.html

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea will need ``at least several years'' to complete its first nuclear weapons, although the communist state has extracted enough plutonium to build one or two nuclear bombs, South Korea's Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry revealed its estimates of North Korea's nuclear capabilities in a 225-page report on weapons of mass destruction, which was published Tuesday.

Earlier this month, President Bush threatened unspecified ``consequences'' if Iraq and North Korea produce weapons of mass destruction.

In its report, the South Korean Defense Ministry said ``available intelligence'' led it to believe that North Korea extracted 22 to 26 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium from its Soviet-designed nuclear reactors before shutting them down under a 1994 deal with the United States.

North Korea also conducted at least 70 nuclear-related tests of high explosives between 1983 and 1993, the report said. It continued the tests until 1998, but has apparently had difficulties acquiring components necessary to make their devices dependable, it said.

``North Korea may have a capability of putting together a crude nuclear explosion device,'' the report said. ``But its technology is believed to be still in a rudimentary stage.

``Even if it has manufactured an explosion device, it will be still low in dependability and it will take the North at least several years to turn the system into a weapon,'' it said.

The South Korean ministry's estimates largely confirmed widespread assessments in the United States.

In 1999, a study for the U.S. Congress said there was ``significant evidence that (North Korea's) undeclared nuclear weapons development activities continue''

That study said the efforts included moves to acquire technology for enriching uranium and nuclear-related tests of explosives.

Under the 1994 accord, a U.S.-led international consortium is building two light-water reactors worth $4.6 billion in North Korea. In exchange, the North agreed to halt use of reactors suspected of producing plutonium.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, an arm of the United Nations, wants to examine the North's nuclear history before the freeze.

On Sunday, North Korea reiterated that it felt no need to allow nuclear inspections or to resume talks on curbing its ballistic missile capabilities.

North Korea alarmed the region by firing a long-range missile in 1998 that flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean.

U.S. Congressional experts believe that North Korea has produced, deployed and exported missiles to Iran and Pakistan. The North reportedly has a more powerful missile that experts say could reach Hawaii or Alaska.

-------- russia

Russia Prepares for Nuclear Talks

DECEMBER 18, 08:42 ET
By SALLY BUZBEE
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/?SLUG=US%2dRUSSIA

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Russia still believes the United States was mistaken to withdraw from a treaty banning most anti-missile defenses, but it wants to press ahead with plans to radically cut both nations' offensive nuclear arms, the Russian defense minister said.

The two countries will begin talks next month on how and when to make new cuts in their strategic nuclear arms, despite continued disagreement over the U.S. pullout from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Russia's defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, said after a meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

In January, the two countries will begin technical discussions on both the levels and a timetable for those cuts, Ivanov said.

President Bush has proposed cutting U.S. nuclear warheads by about two-thirds, to between 1,700 and 2,200, from the current 6,000. Russia says it will bring its warheads down to between 1,500 and 2,200.

Bush announced last week that the United States will pull out in six months from the 1972 treaty so it can test and build a missile defense system to protect against terrorists and rogue nations.

Russia was not surprised by the move - after months of negotiations trying to prevent it - and has no fears for its own security, Ivanov said, echoing comments made earlier by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Instead, Russia worries America's decision could prompt other nations to decide they, too, can pull out of any international agreements they don't like, the Russian defense minister said.

Other countries might think, ``logically, that if one country won't abide, why should we?'' Ivanov said.

Nevertheless, he said the two nations are closer than ever, cooperating in the fight against terrorism and other issues at an ``unprecedented'' level. He told reporters who asked about the U.S. decision on the ABM treaty that the issue never came up during his talks with Rumsfeld, which will continue Tuesday.

Earlier, Rumsfeld said the two nations must focus on ``transparency and predictability, which both countries recognize ... as important for our respective populations to feel comfortable as we make that dramatic change.'' He called Monday's talks ``excellent.''

Russia has apparently accepted the U.S. move because it believes the size of its nuclear arsenal means the American plans for a missile defense will not weaken its security.

China, which also had tried to persuade Bush not to scrap the treaty, remains worried, however, that a U.S. missile defense system would ruin the deterrent value of its smaller arsenal.

Assistant Secretary of State Avis Bohlen, at a meeting Monday with Chinese officials in Beijing, told them the Bush administration plans a limited missile defense system not directed against China, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington.

``We felt the discussions were productive. Both sides indicated they're ready to continue their dialogue on these issues,'' Boucher said.

Bush had tried to strike a deal with Putin to allow the United States to expand testing for a missile defense system without ending the treaty. But Russia, which can't afford a national missile defense, has said it views the ABM pact as the basis of all nuclear-reduction treaties.

In a statement aimed at backing up the assertion that Russia faces no threat from America's decision, Ivanov said before his meeting with Rumsfeld that his country had plans to develop its Strategic Missile Forces ``which were drafted long before'' the U.S. decision.

----

Putin Warns U.S. Against Expanding War to Iraq

By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 18, 2001; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57255-2001Dec17?language=printer

MOSCOW, Dec. 17 -- President Vladimir Putin cautioned the United States against attacking Iraq once the war in Afghanistan draws to close, saying in an interview published today that he expects to be consulted before the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign is expanded to other nations.

Although Bush administration officials have openly discussed the possibility that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein may be the next target in the war on terrorism, Putin said he has seen no evidence that Iraq finances terrorists. He also said in the interview, with London's Financial Times newspaper, he does not believe that previous U.S. strikes have destroyed any sites where Iraq might be producing nuclear or biological weapons.

Putin's remarks underscored the new diplomatic risks the Bush administration faces as it contemplates the next phase of its campaign against terrorism. Germany and Egypt also have warned that a U.S. strike against Iraq would be viewed far less favorably than the action in Afghanistan.

Although the Bush administration appears divided on how to proceed, its rhetoric against Iraq is escalating. In late November, President Bush warned that if Iraq does not allow U.N. inspectors to survey possible sites of weapons production, Hussein will "find out" the consequences.

Putin took note of the international concern over Iraq, saying the Kremlin had failed to persuade Hussein to allow the inspectors back in after a three-year absence. But he reiterated Russia's position that economic sanctions should be lifted if Iraq cooperates with inspections.

Putin said he is reconciled to the Bush administration's decision to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, although he asserted he could not understand it. Without a treaty to bind the major nuclear powers, he said, Russians fear the arms race might extend to space as the United States seeks the broadest possible missile defense.

He voiced hope for a new treaty to codify current pledges by Russia and the United States to cut their strategic nuclear stockpiles. Russia has proposed a new level of between 1,500 and 2,200 warheads, while the United States has suggested a level of 1,700 to 2,200 warheads. Even if the Bush administration rejects a new treaty, Putin said, Russia will not necessarily lose faith in the relationship.

"It will depend on the way we develop our relations across the board," he said. "If relations between Russia and the West, Russia and NATO, and Russia and the U.S. continue to develop in the spirit of partnership and even of alliance, then no harm will be done."

Calling Bush "a reliable partner" who has not misled him, he said, "I would very much like to have our current level of mutual confidence with the U.S. maintained."

On other issues, Putin said the state has to create the "right conditions" for media organizations, because they cannot survive without outside investment. He was apparently referring to TV-6, Russia's last major independent television station, which is now on the verge of closing. A Moscow court recently ordered the station shut down because of its debts. The station's directors say the action is politically motivated.

-------- space

Jerome Morse, Physicist inventor first miniaturized nuclear generator, dies

Deaths,
Washington Post
Tuesday, December 18, 2001; Page B06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57439-2001Dec17?language=printer

Jerome Morse, 80, a Colorado School of Mines physics professor since 1976 who was credited with inventing the first miniaturized nuclear generator to provide power to space vehicles, died Dec. 10 in Littleton, Colo. The cause of death was not reported.

Dr. Morse invented the generator while a scientist with the Martin Co. in Baltimore working with the Atomic Energy Commission. The portable nuclear space fuel equaled 1,450 pounds of chemical batteries.

His 5-pound, grapefruit-size nuclear generator was kept secret until President Dwight Eisenhower showed it on national television in 1959. Today, 26 generators are in space, including four for the Mars Viking mission to power its two automated geochemical laboratories.

-------- treaties

Formal Talks on Nuclear Cuts to Begin Next Month
Rumsfeld, Russian Counterpart Stress Cooperation Despite U.S. Move to Quit ABM Treaty

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 18, 2001; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57117-2001Dec17?language=printer

BRUSSELS, Dec. 17 -- Putting differences over the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty behind them, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced today that both countries would begin formal talks in January on steep cuts in strategic nuclear weapons.

The two defense leaders, here for NATO talks starting Tuesday, traded warm remarks at a joint news conference and stressed cooperation on a variety of issues after meeting for the first time since President Bush announced his decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty.

Pressed by reporters on the ABM issue, Ivanov expressed disappointment in Bush's decision, calling it a "mistake" that could have global repercussions. "Russia is not concerned or afraid regarding its military security," he said. "But we are very much concerned how other countries will behave and whether they will comply or not to any international agreement -- thinking logically, if one country doesn't comply, why should we?"

In his opening statement, Ivanov said nothing about the treaty and noted later that it did not come up in the closed-door discussions. During the news conference, he stressed that Moscow remained committed to "reliable and predictable" security relations with Washington. He said his government's highest priority in the talks beginning next month is to nail down commitments both sides have made to slash their 6,000-warhead arsenals by about two-thirds.

"Both levels of reductions and the time frame of those reductions will be discussed, as well as the issues of verification and transparency," he said.

Rumsfeld was equally optimistic. "One way to characterize what's happened in the United States-Russian relationship," he said, "is the way President Bush did -- that we're moving from 'mutual assured destruction' to mutual assured cooperation."

Bush's decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty six months from now came after months of failed negotiating aimed at fashioning a compromise that would have enabled the Bush administration to pursue its ambitious program for testing and deploying a national missile defense shield, which the treaty prohibits.

Calling the treaty a "relic" of the Cold War, Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials hoped to convince their Russian counterparts that mutual withdrawal from the pact was in the best interests of both nations. But Russian officials made clear they had no intention of abandoning the treaty, the cornerstone of security relations between the two countries for three decades.

The treaty was negotiated by Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev in 1972 to prohibit nationwide defenses against long-range missiles and thereby curb each side's efforts to build more and more missiles to overwhelm those defenses.

Bush administration critics say scrapping the treaty and pursuing national missile defenses could lead to a new arms race. Rumsfeld, during a swing through Central Asia before arriving here, argued that discussions aimed at scrapping the treaty have produced precisely the opposite effect, bringing new U.S.-Russia understanding on the need to reduce weapons.

Indeed, as Bush announced his decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed that the two powers reduce their strategic nuclear arsenals to between 1,500 and 2,200 warheads. Putin's numbers overlapped with a proposal Bush put forth last month to reduce the U.S. arsenal to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads.

After talking today for two hours about these cuts and other issues, Ivanov and Rumsfeld promised to continue discussions Tuesday at NATO headquarters here, when defense ministers from NATO's 19 member nations begin two days of formal meetings. Ivanov will represent Russia in separate talks with NATO countries aimed at pursuing ways to further Moscow's participation in alliance affairs.

Rumsfeld went out of his way today to endorse the idea, denying recent news reports that he and other Pentagon officials had tried to scuttle a framework for greater Russian participation called "NATO at 20."

"Some weeks and months ago I sat down with the minister in Moscow and, without prompting, proposed some ways Russia and NATO might cooperate more fully," Rumsfeld said.

He and Ivanov agreed that the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan was going well, but that it was far from over, with pockets of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters hidden throughout the country.

-------- u.s. nuc weapons

Officials Back Low - Yield Nuke Strike

December 18, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Mini-Nukes.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A ``low-yield'' nuclear weapon may be the best way to destroy underground stockpiles of chemical and biological agents, Defense Department officials say in a report to Congress.

Conventional weapons cannot destroy the most deeply buried chemical and biological holding facilities, but a low-yield nuclear device could do the job, the report concludes.

The United States has no ``bunker-busting'' nuclear warhead that can penetrate deep enough and with enough accuracy to destroy such an enemy stockpile. And since 1994, the government has been barred by Congress from developing any new nuclear warhead.

Despite that, the report shows the Bush administration views a nuclear strike as ``an intrinsic part'' of dealing with deeply entombed enemy targets and ``is essentially doing all the preparation'' for a future full-scale research and development program for a new mini-nuclear warhead, said Martin Butcher, director of security programs at the Physicians for Social Responsibility.

This kind of warhead is ``the dirtiest kind of all. It's highly radioactive,'' said Butcher, whose group as been a leading voice in the nuclear nonproliferation debate. It sends ``the wrong signals'' and will add to the risk of nuclear proliferation.

A low-yield nuclear weapon generally is considered to be 5 kilotons or less. By comparison, the atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II were about 15 kilotons.

The report sent to key committees in Congress by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in October provides a general outline of U.S. capabilities for dealing with what defense officials believe is a growing gap in U.S. military response: The ability to attack deeply buried, hardened enemy targets that are suspected of housing weapons of mass destruction.

The House International Relations Committee has called for renewed U.N. inspections in Iraq on the belief that it has rebuilt its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs since Saddam Hussein stopped allowing inspections in 1998.

Notes and diagrams found in houses vacated by al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan also point to an effort to create weapons of mass destruction.

The report said that enhancements expected to be completed by 2005 to an array of conventional weapons, including laser-guided bombs and cruise missiles, should be able to destroy most underground facilities. But it maintains such weapons cannot penetrate the most deeply buried facilities.

Defense officials and nuclear scientists ``have completed initial studies on how existing nuclear weapons can be modified to defeat those (deeply buried targets) that cannot be held at risk with conventional high-explosive weapons,'' the report said.

It acknowledges that any decision to proceed with a nuclear device for attacking underground targets would be considered part of the administration's broader plans for the nuclear stockpile and overall nuclear weapons policy.

But it said that a joint nuclear planning board has been established to examine the use of nuclear weapons as bunker busters. The idea of using low-yield nuclear warheads to attack deeply buried enemy targets has been discussed for years.

It was the subject of a classified study concluded in 1997 and has been frequently discussed by nuclear weapons scientists at the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories.

But Butcher said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the anthrax scare, and the U.S. war on terrorism in Afghanistan have brought the issue of chemical and biological weapons, and how to respond to them, into much greater prominence.

And ``it clearly brings into much higher relief'' the debate over whether to develop and use a tactical nuclear weapon in response to terrorism, said Butcher. If one were used, he added, the radioactive fallout and political fallout ``would be very bad indeed.''

The essence of the report sent to Congress was first reported Tuesday by The Albuquerque Journal. A copy of the report was distributed by Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, based in Santa Fe, on its web site.

The report had been requested by Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and was part of this year's defense authorization legislation.

-------- u.s. nuc facilities

-------- nevada

US won't delay Nevada waste site guidelines

USA: December 18, 2001
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13751/story.htm

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Energy Department said last week it had denied a request from Nevada state officials to delay adoption of site suitability guidelines for study of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste depository.

Yucca Mountain - located in the Nevada desert - is being investigated by the U.S government as a possible dumping ground for tons or radioactive waste.

The revised guidelines took effect last week. Governor Kenny Guinn and state Attorney General Sue Del Papa asked for a stay pending the outcome of a lawsuit the state intended to file. Nevada says the guidelines were changed improperly.

In a letter to Guinn and Del Papa, the Energy Department said it had dealt with Nevada's concerns earlier.

It said the guidelines were revised "because both the science and the law relevant to the project have developed significantly" since the guidelines were first proposed in 1984.

Under the revised guidelines, the Energy Department said it would evaluate the performance of all aspects of the repository, both engineered and natural, an approach it said was suggested by a National Academy of Sciences study.

----

New Suit Filed Against U.S. About Nuclear Waste Dump

New York Times
December 18, 2001
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/18/politics/18YUCC.html

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 - The State of Nevada filed suit today in its continuing effort to prevent the federal government from establishing a nuclear waste burial site at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles from Las Vegas.

The suit argues that under a new rule the Energy Department plans to disregard the site's geology and make its decision based on the metal canisters that would hold the waste.

In evaluating the Yucca Mountain site, the department has found that water, which could spread the radioactive materials, moves faster through the mountain than previously believed. But the department also says it has gained confidence in the ability of "engineered features" like containers to hold the waste, as opposed to natural geology.

In the suit filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Nevada, which has fought against the choice of Yucca Mountain since Congress named it the primary site in 1987, argued that federal law required the choice be based on its geology.

Once the focus shifts to man-made packaging to isolate the waste, the suit contends, the suit contended, the Energy Department could approve permanent storage "at virtually any physical site in the United States."

A lawyer for the state, Joseph R. Egan, suggested the basement of the Energy Department headquarters in Washington as a potential site.

"Congress wanted the assurance of geologic isolation for the simple reason that we're fallible as human beings," Mr. Egan said. "We can't have any assurance that what we design is going to be perfect."

In tests carried out by Nevada on the alloy that the Energy Department plans to use for waste canisters, he said, some combinations of water and heat created corrosion through the metal in less than a year.

In a letter to Nevada officials, the Energy Department said that a National Academy of Sciences study called for evaluating the natural features of Yucca Mountain and the "engineered," or man-made parts, together as a system and that the 1992 Energy Policy Act directed the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to focus on the whole system.

Under a complicated scheme, the E.P.A. has issued standards that a repository would have to meet. The Energy Department is supposed to apply for a license to open the site from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency that regulates reactors; the regulatory commission is supposed to use the E.P.A. rules to make the decision on a license.

The new Energy Department rule was published in the Federal Register on Nov. 14 and took effect a month later. The energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, could recommend Yucca Mountain's use to President Bush in the next few months, in which case the showdown would move to Congress. The suit, though, provides another avenue for Nevada to try to block the dump.

Nevada is already suing over an environmental agency rule that to win a license, the repository must be capable of retaining the wastes for 10,000 years. The Energy Department believes that peak releases would come after that period; Nevada wants the period extended to 100,000 years or more.

The department was supposed to start accepting waste from 125 nuclear plants in January 1998, but Yucca Mountain will not be ready for at least a decade.

The project has suffered two recent setbacks. This month, the General Accounting Office, the auditing arm of Congress, said the Energy Department was not ready to make a decision, because many technical studies were unfinished. Secretary Abraham disagreed, saying the report had been "assembled to support a predetermined conclusion."

And the law firm helping to prepare an application for the dump's license, Winston & Strawn, withdrew because of a conflict of interest. The firm had been simulatenously lobbying for the nuclear industry.

But Joseph Davis, a spokesman for the department, said the firm's withdrawal would not cause any delay, because the license application was still in the future.

If the Energy Department recommends the site to Mr. Bush, Congress could step in to block it. A majority picked Yucca Mountain in 1987 as the prime site for investigation, but Nevada's senior senator, Harry Reid, is now the deputy majority leader and might be able to block the choice.

Pressure is building from the utilities for the Energy Department to make good on its contract to take the wastes. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have focused interest on the safety of the old fuel stored at reactors, which is highly radioactive and outside the containment buildings.

--------

Nevada Sues Feds Over Nuke Waste

December 18, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Yucca-Mountain-Lawsuit.html

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Nevada has sued the Energy Department, its latest salvo in an ongoing campaign to block a possible federal government move to bury the nation's radioactive waste 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The suit, filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, challenges the Energy Department's criteria for deciding whether radioactive waste can safely be buried at Yucca Mountain. The state wants the court to stop the project before Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham decides whether to recommend Yucca Mountain as a suitable place to bury spent nuclear waste, said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency.

``The DOE is changing the rules about how they assess whether Yucca Mountain is suitable or not,'' Loux said. ``We believe the new rules are not in compliance with the law.''

The lawsuit charges that the Energy Department has constructed a new plan that relies on engineered barriers such as corrosion-resistant casks -- rather than the geology of Yucca Mountain -- to contain the intense radioactivity at the site.

But Joe Davis, Energy Department spokesman, said the agency reshaped its guidelines to take advantage of emerging technology. Davis said he had not seen the lawsuit.

Abraham said last week he has not made a decision on whether to recommend to President Bush that the volcanic ridge be used for storing 77,000 tons of nuclear waste for 10,000 years or more. Congress has asked for a decision by Feb. 28. Abraham's aides have said he intends to make a recommendation this winter.

Nevada state and federal lawmakers strongly oppose the project and are fighting it on political, environmental, public relations and legal fronts.

Last month, the state asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to decide whether Nevada can block the federal government from getting the water needed to develop the project in the arid desert. A three-judge circuit court panel had ordered the case heard by a U.S. District Court judge in Las Vegas. It has not decided on the Nevada request for a full hearing.

The mountain, at the western edge of the vast Nevada Test Site, is the only place under study.


-------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

US warplanes target fleeing al-Qaeda as bin Laden search continues

Tuesday December 18, 1:49 AM
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/011217/1/24ve8.html

US and Afghan forces scoured Afghanistan's eastern highlands for Osama bin Laden and his fleeing al-Qaeda fighters, while final preparations were under way in Kabul to install an interim government.

After pounding Tora Bora overnight, US warplanes over eastern Afghanistan switched their targets to areas closer to the Afghan border, presumably to strike at fleeing fighters loyal to bin Laden.

Friendly fire wounded several Afghan fighters, but there was still no sign of the Saudi-born dissident alleged to be the mastermind of the September 11 terror attacks against the United States.

"Our assumption is that he is still in Afghanistan," Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman said in London. "The hunt goes on."

But Pentagon spokesman Richard McGraw said the whereabouts of bin Laden and his erstwhile protector, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, remained unknown.

He added, however: "The action continues today. We continue bombing."

McGraw also said the US military was holding five prisoners, including western al-Qaeda fighters John Walker, an American, and David Hicks, an Autralian, aboard the USS Peleliu in the Indian Ocean.

In Agam village, north of Tora Bora, hundreds of locals turned out to see 19 bedraggled al-Qaeda prisoners -- 10 of them foreigners, mostly Arabs -- paraded before them and a contingent of international media.

Some had bandaged wounds, others had difficulty walking; reporters were not allowed to talk to them.

In Kabul, the groundwork was being laid for the installation Saturday of an new interim administration, with two embassies reopened and news that the first troops of a UN peacekeeping force would begin arriving this week.

The leader of the new UN-backed regime, the Pashtun royalist Hamid Karzai, left for Rome via London for talks with exiled former king Mohammed Zahir Shah, a major figurehead in the bid to unite rival Afghan factions.

US warplanes, after wounding 10 to 16 allied Afghan troops in their last run over Tora Bora overnight, according to local tribal commanders, overflew the area without dropping ordnance Monday and there were no ground attacks.

But muffled explosions were heard further south, near the border with Pakistan, possibly from bombing directed at fleeing al-Qaeda forces. One of three militia comanders leading the attack on the final al-Qaeda redoubt, Haji Zaher, said militiamen would be deployed in the mountains to overcome any pockets of resistance or block escape routes.

Some 4,000 Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships are deployed on the other side of the border to prevent any al-Qaeda infiltration.

Another senior commander, Haji Mohammad Zaman, proclaimed victory at Tora Bora on Sunday but acknowledged that bin Laden's whereabouts were unknown.

"We cleared al-Qaeda from our land. We did the job," Zaman said, claiming some 200 al-Qaeda fighters killed and 25 captured.

But US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld disputed the view that al-Qaeda was finished in Afghanistan, saying it will take time to root out fighters resisting in the mountains.

"The first rule of war is that presidents decide when something has been achieved," he told reporters on his way to Brussels for a meeting of NATO defense ministers.

Rumsfeld, who has strived to dampen expectations that the war will be over soon, said he did not want his comments to be "juxtaposed adversely to my friend Colin Powell," -- the US Secretary of State.

Powell said Sunday: "For the most part, it appears that we're well on our way to success on this part of the campaign. Al-Qaeda is being destroyed in Afghanistan."

Rumsfeld said: "But the fact of the matter is, as Secretary Powell knows well, there are still any number of al-Qaeda loose in that country. That is why we are there, that is why we are chasing them, that is why we are bombing...

"It is true that they are running and hiding, and not dominating the country of Afghanistan as they have previously... But there still are a lot of Taliban in the country, and they are still armed.

"It is going to take time and energy and effort and people will be killed in the process of trying to find them and capture them or have them surrender," he said.

Rumsfeld said fighting continued in the Tora Bora area and Afghan forces were searching for al-Qaeda fighters in the mountains and going into the tunnels to gather material.

"They also interestingly seem to have captured a good deal of Chinese ammunition," he said.

The US special representative in Afghanistan, James Dobbins, said as Marines raised the US flag above their embassy in Kabul for the first time since 1989, that the first UN peacekeepers would arrive in the capital by Saturday.

Along with the US embassy, the Turkish mission as well reopened formally on Monday with Foreign Minister Ismail Cem present as the most senior foreign official to visit Kabul since the fall of the Taliban.

Cem, after meeting outgoing president Burhanuddin Rabbani, as well as the incoming defense and interior ministers, Mohammad Qasim Fahim and Yunus Qanooni respectively, pledged Turkey's assistance to "the Afghan people and the new Afghan government on every issue in every field."

----

Peacekeeping force to start arriving by Saturday: US envoy

Tuesday December 18, 2001,
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/011217/1/24uqx.html

An advance party of an international security force is expected to arrive by Saturday, when the interim government takes power, according to US special representative to Afghanistan James Dobbins.

"I anticipate that at least the lead elements of it (the UN-mandated force) will be here," Dobbins told reporters before a flag-raising ceremony at the US embassy in Kabul on Monday.

Dobbins said the number of international troops deployed in the capital would be "enough", but added it would not be "very large."

"It is a question of psychology, it's a question of symbolism ... it's a question of making people feel that the current tranquility will last," Dobbins said.

The US special envoy and visiting US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met Afghanistan's interim leader Hamid Karzai and future Defence Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim on Sunday.

Dobbins said both Karzai and Fahim had indicated a willingness to work with the international community on the deployment of the force, and on the crucial question of whether it will be allowed to use firepower.

"We don't want to be left alone," he quoted Fahim as telling him.

Dobbins added: "I don't anticipate any difficulties in (the interim administration) complying with the Bonn agreement."

Under the Bonn power-sharing accord signed by Afghan factions on December 5, it was agreed that a UN-mandated international force would be deployed rapidly to help police the war-ravaged Afghan capital of Kabul.

Under the terms of the accord, the force could possibly be extended later to other towns and cities.

Dobbins said US troops would not be patrolling the streets but "enablers" -- intelligence agents and transport coordinators -- would help "facilitate" the deployment.

With the US having led the bombing campaign against the Taliban in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, he also indicated that other members of the international coalition against terrorism should now take the lead in shaping the multinational force.

However, the US was likely to play a role alongside its coalition allies in helping integrate fighters from the various Afghan factions into a national defence force and to help train a fledgling police force, Dobbins said.

The Northern Alliance, which toppled the Taliban regime last month with the decisive help of US air strikes, has sought to limit the size and mandate of the multinational force.

Fahim told the UN's top envoy for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, last week that he wanted a maximum of 1,000 soldiers just to protect the new government.

A British diplomat in Kabul said Monday negotiations were continuing with the Afghan authorities over the role of the proposed force but that there had been no agreement yet on the size of the contingent.

With just days left before the new interim government takes office on Saturday, efforts to reach an agreement have intensified.

Major General John McColl of the British army, who is tipped to lead the security force, flew into Kabul over the weekend for talks with senior Afghan figures.

----

Bin Laden hunt intensifies

By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 18, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011218-30777428.htm

U.S. officials say they have no credible evidence that Osama bin Laden slipped across the border into Pakistan, and at least one al Qaeda captive says the fugitive remains in the Tora Bora region of northeastern Afghanistan.

With al Qaeda's guerrillas killed, captured or on the run, the hunt for bin Laden now becomes the Bush administration's main military objective in Afghanistan.

The elusive terrorist did not turn up Sunday when anti-Taliban fighters stormed the last major cave complex in Tora Bora and the remnants of a once-1,000-strong al Qaeda army fled south toward Pakistan.

On the ground, American special-operations forces have begun the tedious and dangerous search of numerous caves of Tora Bora vacated by Arab and Pakistani fighters of al Qaeda. Some may still harbor terrorists who will fight to the death. Others may be booby-trapped.

Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who commands the military coalition fighting in Afghanistan, said Sunday that soldiers may dig up bombed cave entrances to inspect the dead for al Qaeda, including its leader, bin Laden.

"Maybe he still is here; maybe he was killed, or maybe he's left," Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday.

In addition to the cave search, the military continues an air-ground operation to find bin Laden. Delta Force commandos are on the ground, and an array of spy satellites and drones and eavesdropping technology is employed to track him from the air.

CIA paramilitary officers are now interrogating al Qaeda prisoners, who are giving conflicting accounts. Some say bin Laden left Tora Bora more than a week ago. Others say he left over the weekend or may still be there.

After weeks of saying they believed bin Laden was moving among Tora Bora's caves, U.S. officials were not as confident yesterday about his general location. But officials said he could still be hiding in an "indeterminable number" of small caves dotting the region's landscape or that he may have been entombed by days of relentless American bombing.

Added a U.S. official, "There are reports he has gone to Pakistan, but not credible enough for you to believe them. He may still be in Tora Bora."

Adm. Stufflebeem told reporters the chatter of battlefield radios has all but stopped in Tora Bora, depriving the United States of a key intelligence source on bin Laden's whereabouts.

"A few days ago we believed he was in that area. Now we're not sure," Adm. Stufflebeem, the Joint Chiefs' deputy director of operations, told reporters.

Early last week, before U.S. bombing and anti-Taliban forces routed al Qaeda soldiers from caves and tunnels, American commandos picked up bin Laden's voice on a short-range radio giving orders.

"There has been less intercept of communications, which means it's quieter in that region than it has been in the past," Adm. Stufflebeem said. "So it has gone quiet. and as [Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld] has said, the more time an individual has while not being observed, there's obviously more options available to that individual. I'm not sure how close we ever really have been. We have narrowed it down to an area. Indicators were there, and now indicators are not there."

One senior administration official said, based on the intelligence he has seen, including the radio voice last week, that he is convinced bin Laden was in the Tora Bora area until a few days ago and may well be there now.

Press reports already have placed the mastermind of the September 11 attacks in Pakistan or headed to Somalia or Indonesia, determined to be reunited with Taliban commander, Mullah Mohammed Omar. Mullah Omar is believed to be hiding in cave complexes north of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

A verdict on bin Laden's stay in Tora Bora, a favorite base during the mujahideen's war against occupying Soviet forces, may not be known for weeks or months.

"There are an indeterminable number of caves to inspect at this point from what I can tell," Adm. Stufflebeem said. "Now becomes the more difficult and slower process of confirming who is still left to fight, or is this cave now empty, and was there evidence that somebody was recently there."

Pakistan last week sent 10,000 troops to its border with the Tora Bora region to block al Qaeda from retreating.

President Bush yesterday continued to express confidence his troops will find binLaden.

"We get all kinds of reports - that he's in a cave, that he's not in a cave; that he's escaped, that he hasn't escaped, and there's all kinds of speculation," the president said. "But when the dust clears, we'll find out where he is and he'll be brought to justice.

"The Pakistanis will help us and they are helping us look for not only Osama bin Laden but for all al Qaeda murderers and killers. Osama bin Laden is going to be brought to justice. He's on the run. He thinks he can hide, but he can't."

----

Al Qaeda Fleeing Toward Pakistan, U.S. Officials Say

New York Times
December 18, 2001
By BARRY BEARAK with JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/18/international/18AFGH.html

TORA BORA, Afghanistan, Dec. 17 - Hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters have fled from the caves of Tora Bora into the snow-capped mountains that mark the Pakistan border, and Osama bin Laden may be among them, according to United States intelligence officials, who acknowledged today that they had lost track of him.

American officials thought they had a bead on his location until about 48 hours ago, when radio traffic and other communications they had been intercepting between Al Qaeda leaders largely dried up.

"There has been less chatter in the last few days," said Rear Adm. John D. Stufflebeem, a Pentagon spokesman.

Anti-Taliban Afghan fighters, accompanied by United States Special Operations forces, continued to scour the caves and tunnels in the Tora Bora complex, not only for Al Qaeda stragglers but also for documents, computer disks and any other information.

The hunt was like "searching for fleas on a dog," Admiral Stufflebeem said. "If you see one and you focus on that one," he said, "you don't know how many others are getting away."

Those allied forces met sporadic resistance from pockets of Taliban fighters, who appeared to be remnants of a rear guard that was largely destroyed by American bombing or had fled. Admiral Stufflebeem said United States forces would not pursue fleeing Al Qaeda fighters into Pakistan but would ask the Pakistani Army to capture them.

The air attacks, though greatly moderated today, again struck deep in the region's forests as the remnants of Al Qaeda forces abandoned their mountain redoubts. Their hopes of escape now depend on evading both their pursuers among the tribal fighters here and the 4,000 commandos that Pakistan said it intended to deploy on the usually porous border into its lawless tribal areas. "Now the only Arabs left in Tora Bora are the corpses," said Auzubillah, a gloating midlevel commander of the eastern anti-Taliban alliance that is central to the campaign.

The bombing, local commanders agree, has provided the knockout punch against Al Qaeda fighters, whose numbers in these mountains have been variously estimated from 700 to 2,000. Whether those numbers have recently included Mr. bin Laden, the world's most wanted man, is a great unknown.

At the Pentagon today, military officials privately expressed exasperation and disappointment that the trail of Mr. bin Laden had suddenly gone cold. "It's as if all the air went out of the balloon," one senior military officer said.

President Bush, however, played down assessments that Mr. bin Laden had pulled a vanishing act. "We get all kinds of reports," Mr. Bush said, "that he's in a cave, that he's not in a cave; that he's escaped, that he hasn't escaped; and there's all kinds of speculation. But when the dust clears, we'll find out where he is, and he'll be brought to justice."

In past weeks, both the anti-Taliban commanders and American officials have placed the Saudi millionaire in Tora Bora, though always with a caveat of uncertainty.

Another uncertainty is where the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Muhammad Omar, might be. After surrendering Kandahar more than a week ago, he retreated into the mountains near the town of Baghran, about 100 miles northwest of Kandahar, but whether he remains there or has moved on is not known.

Uncertainty, it seems, often prevails on these windswept heights. It has been hard to monitor events along the Tora Bora battleground, where fortifications are hidden cavities in endless rock and the press has been denied virtually all access. Updates come mostly from three Afghan commanders whose braggadocio suggests that hot air rises from the heat of battle. Their remarks - even when aptly translated - are rampant with contradictions.

Today, the customarily convoluted remarks were accompanied by a brief display of 19 bedraggled prisoners, led down from the frigid peaks on muleback by one of the tribal factions. There were nine Arab captives and 10 Afghans. Many were whimpering.

"We don't want to face the media," said one Syrian prisoner, Abu Bakar, according to a guard named Javed. "It is better that you kill us. If we are shown on the media, our family members will then be in great trouble."

The men were nevertheless brought one by one from a holding area across from a mosque in the village of Meia Kelay. Mr. Bakar, his head wrapped in a bandage large enough to be a turban, was first. He seemed woozy and had to be helped into the tree-covered area, where he soon faced a few hundred camera operators, reporters and soldiers with assault rifles.

The other foreign prisoners followed, their clothes torn, their hair matted, their eyes regretful. They were paraded around like lame horses in a paddock. Several were limping. One was bent over like a question mark. Two were barefoot.

Following them on exhibit were the Afghans. Their hands were tied behind their backs with red nylon cord. Like the Arabs, they were not permitted to speak.

"This pains my heart," said one villager who was watching. "Some of these people were on our side in the jihad against the Soviets. This is not right. This is not Pashtunwali," he said, referring to the code of honor of the Pashtun ethnic group.

The total of Al Qaeda captives is among the many uncertainties. Hajji Zahir, one of the main anti-Taliban commanders here, said that on Saturday his troops had captured three Arabs and nine Afghans. On Sunday night, they seized 19 more, all Arabs.

Commander Zahir is a rugged- looking man whose hands chop the air as he speaks. He parried questions about whether his forces had been assisted by American soldiers. At times, he was indignant.

"My men were stationed in these mountains without proper clothes or shoes," he said, complaining of a lack of support beyond the strategic bombing.

The United States military has admitted that its forces and British troops have been active on the Tora Bora front lines, and it is widely believed that they have played a leading role. While the Afghans drive out to battle each day in their pickups, they rarely sustain casualties. It appears that they occupy only that terrain already tamed by the devastation of air power.

This afternoon, as heavy cloud cover brought a dark sobriety to the day, Commander Zahir met with Hazarat Ali, a second member of the local military triumvirate. They placed a blanket on the hard, stony ground near a command post and chatted while many of their troops used the time to say prayers and genuflect toward Mecca.

Afterward, Commander Ali complimented his own success. "For the time being, our country has gotten rid of foreigners," he said. By this, he meant the Arabs and Pakistanis in Al Qaeda and not his American allies, who have considerable work remaining in Afghanistan. The cave and tunnel complexes of Tora Bora need to be searched rigorously. After all, Mr. bin Laden - or his crushed remains - may be secreted amid some mountaintop rubble.

"The Americans are going to be restless until Osama is killed, or until someone gives them a document that shows Osama has been killed," Commander Ali said.

It was later left to Commander Zahir to explain the arduousness of the chore. He was asked how he might escape from Tora Bora if he rather than Mr. bin Laden were on the run. "It's a very big place," he said, pointing to the mountains and then whirling to show how they extend into the vastness, up and down, one after another.

"There are many ways to flee, many, many ways into Pakistan."

--------

400 Experts Try to Harvest Afghanistan's Field of Mines

New York Times
December 18, 2001
By C. J. CHIVERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/18/international/asia/18MINE.html

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Dec. 17 - Operations to clear hidden explosives from the soil and roads of northern Afghanistan, one of the world's most heavily mined areas, are scheduled to resume on Wednesday with the arrival of more than 400 demolition specialists in several provinces.

The specialists, Afghan staff members of a British nonprofit organization, will move north from Kabul, the capital, where they have been working since the city was taken from Taliban control. Their work in the region has been largely idled since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in America, and they return to a dangerous and complicated task.

Long before the American-led war against the Taliban, northern Afghanistan was cluttered with the hidden remnants of 22 years of war. Now the demolition teams must also find and disable ammunition discarded by fleeing soldiers or blasted from bunkers during two months of aerial bombardment, as well as unexploded bombs from American planes, many of which burrowed deep into the ground.

"This is quite a massive job," said Thomas P. McMullen, a coordinator for the Halo Trust, the British organization that has been destroying mines and ammunition in Afghanistan since 1988. "No matter how you do it, it's going to take years."

Relief and medical officials said time was pressing. When battle lines shifted and cities fell from Taliban hands this fall, many families began returning after long absences to villages to clean up war damage and reclaim farmland. As more people arrive in areas once abandoned, hospitals have been reporting an influx of wounded.

"We are getting several new mine victims every week," said Dr. Abdulhadi Jawid, a physician at the Spinzer Hospital in Kunduz, where on a single day last week five patients - two children, two teenagers and a farmer - were being treated for wounds caused by mines or loose ammunition. Two of the victims lost limbs that had to be amputated.

No one is certain how many mines are hidden in Afghanistan. Estimates range from the Halo Trust's 640,000 to as high as 20 million. Similarly, no one knows how many tons of American munitions lie unexploded on or under the ground. Whatever the number, it is evident that along former front lines and many strategic roads, mines and unstable ammunition are all around.

Halo Trust officials said the mines had been particularly concentrated around Kabul and cities near the border with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, where Soviet troops in the 1980's laid dense fields to protect important infrastructure, like airports, and where the Taliban and Northern Alliance buried mines and booby traps along battle fronts.

The problem was also in evidence in the south on Sunday, when an American marine stepped on a mine at the Kandahar airport. The blast severed one of his legs below the knee and wounded two of his peers.

The renewed removal effort - which will include work in Takhar, Kunduz, Baghlan, Samangan and Balkh Provinces - is being underwritten by donations from several nations, including $1 million from Canada, $3 million from Britain and $7 million from the United States, Kenton Keith, spokesman for the American-led coalition, said in Islamabad, Pakistan.

"This terrible legacy of war leaves a constant danger to the people of Afghanistan as they try to build peace," Mr. Keith said last week. "The coalition did not create this problem, but we will step forward to help Afghanistan deal with it."

Some Afghans took exception to those assertions, noting that the United States sent billions of dollars of arms and military aid through Pakistan into Afghanistan in the 1980's to assist the guerrilla resistance to the Soviets. The aid included mines and explosives training, several former guerrillas said. Mr. Keith also did not acknowledge the problem of unexploded American bombs, which in places are thick.

"America is the most powerful fighter in the world, and has been in Afghanistan for a long time," said Merzakhan, 48, whose 9-year-old son was wounded by a mine four months ago in Bangi. "Why do they say it's never their fault?"

To be sure, many Afghans laid mines without external prodding, and both sides in the recent war also laid booby traps, some of them fearsome. Departing soldiers of the anti- Taliban Northern Alliance mined one front-line area last year, with devastating results. In the worst case, a truck carrying refugees hit one of the traps, killing 64, Mr. McMullen said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which compiles injury data from hospital visits, said an average of 88 mine casualties were reported each month in the country. Mr. McMullen said the reports understated the problem because the committee was unable to visit every hospital, and many victims went to small clinics. Also, most hospitals do not have data for victims killed outright, or soon after, the blasts.

The effort this week will begin in several different areas.

In Mazar-i-Sharif, one of the trust's most experienced teams will be assigned to the Qala Jangi fortress, where American bombs, dropped last month to quell an uprising by Al Qaeda prisoners there, detonated a large munitions depot.

It created an extraordinarily dangerous mess. A tour of the former depot on Sunday found acres of loose munitions of almost every description. Many are unstable and could explode with the slightest bump.

"This is one of the most dangerous areas in Afghanistan," said Dr. Nin Muhammad, the trust supervisor in the region. Making the courtyard safe will take at least two or three months, he said. As the effort begins, the Halo trust is turning up problems peculiar to this war. For instance, its officials said, a common and ordinarily innocuous type of unexpended ammunition - airburst rounds for 23-millimeter antiaircraft guns - seems to have become volatile here. In a few recent cases, they have burst with the slightest handling.

"I thought it was a normal bullet, and when I touched it, it exploded," said Abdul Ghany, 16, who was treated last week in the Kunduz hospital.

His face was pocked with tiny shrapnel holes, with here and there a larger gash. What remained of his hands were bound in gauze. "His right hand was eliminated," said his brother, Abdul Ghafor, 27.

Down the hall was a farmer, Maruddin, 35, whose left hand was amputated after he tried to clear antiaircraft ammunition from his rice field.

Demolition teams also hope to destroy unexploded American cluster bombs as quickly as possible. The bomblets, yellow and shaped like a can of spray paint, are the same color and roughly the same size as the plastic food packets American planes have dropped for civilians. There have been reports of children picking them up, with fatal results.

"It does make you wonder who at the ministry of incompetence is responsible for that one," Mr. McMullen said.

So far the United States has not provided a list of areas where it dropped cluster bombs, although on Sunday an officer at the coalition command post in Mazar-i-Sharif told Mr. McMullen that he would request one from his supervisors.

For now, Halo Trust staff members will continue the current method: driving through battle areas in a Land Rover, looking for the little yellow bombs themselves.

-------- africa

Rival factions clash in northern Nigeria

World Scene
Washington Times
December 18, 2001
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011218-72400998.htm

KANO, Nigeria - At least nine persons were killed over the weekend in clashes between rival factions in this northern Nigerian city, witnesses said.

Despite a large deployment of armed soldiers and police, rival factions known as "Yandaba" engaged in clashes in "old" Kano, on the outskirts of the Muslim-dominated city, the witnesses said.

The security forces were deployed in strategic districts as Muslims marked Eid al-Fitr, or the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. They were still in place yesterday afternoon, residents said.

-------- balkans

Rumsfeld, in Talks With NATO, Suggests Paring Bosnia Force

New York Times
December 18, 2001
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/18/international/europe/18CND-RUMS.html

RUSSELS, Dec. 18 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told NATO today that it should reduce the peacekeeping force in Bosnia by at least 6,000 troops by the end of next year to help America, and the alliance, prepare for new missions in the war against terror.

The 18,400 troops in Bosnia - 3,100 of them American - have successfully overcome any military challenge and are now maintaining law and order, Mr. Rumsfeld said at a session of NATO defense ministers.

"There was a time when military forces, once accomplishing their mission, would declare victory and go home," he said. "Today, however, it often seems that when it comes to such missions, success means never having to say goodbye."

Assigning fighting forces to police work, Mr. Rumsfeld added, is "not an effective use of NATO's valuable military assets, putting an increasing strain on both our forces and our resources when they face growing demands from critical missions in the war on terrorism."

To be sure, drawing down the Bosnian force by 6,000 in all - with roughly 1,000 United States Army soldiers and National Guard troops returning to their bases and homes - would not in itself free up a significant new ability for the war on terror.

But a senior Defense Department official accompanying Mr. Rumsfeld said that alliance defense ministers spent the day discussing how to reshape their militaries to defeat the terrorist threat, and said the American view included telling their citizens and their solidiers that the alliance was rethinking how it managed its peacekeeping operations.

Even greater numbers of troops could be reassigned to the front lines of the war on terror from peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo under a British proposal to restructure those separate operations under a Balkans-wide command, the senior official said.

On the war in Afghanistan Mr. Rumsfeld told the NATO defense ministers that Al Qaeda was now trying to escape Afghanistan and move into neighboring countries or even farther afield, and that it was important for the coalition to halt them, follow them and carry the war on terror to them. But no specific action plans were discussed.

On Russia's role in NATO Mr. Rumsfeld said it was important to find concrete ways for NATO to work more fully with Russia. But he said full NATO membership must not be diluted and no country other than the 19 signatories to the treaty should be given privileges of full membership, which translates as withholding the right of veto from Russia.

At a news conference this afternoon he said his talks covered a wide range of issues, including terrorism, cyber attakcs and missiles of mass destructon, all of which he said posed a threat to the alliance "and none can be be ignored."

But he said he particularly emphasized the threat posed by "terrorist movements and terrorist states that are seeking weapons of mass destruction."

"The nexus between states with weapons of mass destruction and terrorist networks raises the danger that Sept. 11th could be a preview of what could come if the enemies of freedom gain ability to strike our nations with weapons of increasingly greater power."

He said he had discussed Washington's reasons for withdrawing from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and President Bush's intention to continue to work with Russia, "as we began last evening in my meeting with Minister Ivanov to continue working to find a framework for our relationship going forward, one that emphasizes mutual cooperation as opposed to mutual assured destruction."

He said he and Foreign Minister Sergei B. Ivanov of Russia had discussed the progress made by Mr. Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin in forging a new security relationship "that puts the cold war animosities and hostilies behind us and embraces 21st-century cooperation."

On Monday Mr. Ivanov declared that his nation's security was not threatened by President Bush's decision to withdraw from the ABM treaty.

Two hours of talks, accelerated by the near absence of interpreters because Mr. Ivanov speaks excellent English, also produced an agreement to convene Russian and American technical experts in January to discuss a timetable for the deep reductions in offensive nuclear arms pledged by President Bush and President Putin, as well as the ultimate number of weapons allowed and methods of verification.

Mr. Bush has proposed limiting the American stockpile to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads, and Mr. Putin's target is a level between 1,500 and 2,200.

-------- biological weapons

Gov't to Boost Biohazard Training

December 18, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Anthrax-Training.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61821-2001Dec18?language=printer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A program to train hazardous waste workers to respond to potential biological attacks is being created by the Labor Department and the Laborers International Union.

The Labor Department is providing a $206,000 grant to the union to develop a program with the help of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

``This is obviously a new hazard for all of us and we're learning as we go,'' said John Henshaw, assistant labor secretary for OSHA. ``It will be very important for us to take the lessons learned from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and other agencies and apply that in the curriculum to deal with circumstances in the future.''

A Senate office building has remained closed since Oct. 17 after being contaminated by anthrax spores from a letter sent to Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

The Laborers union, with 800,000 members, already trains workers in environmental, nuclear and asbestos cleanup. The government wants to increase the number of workers who can remove biological hazards, and improve their skills.

``We need to be prepared,'' Henshaw said. ``This is an effort to bring people up to speed, to assure the nation that we have trained workers who can handle these circumstances.''

Also, the Labor Department said Tuesday that the rate of illnesses and injuries in private industry work sites across the country last year dropped to the lowest since the information was first collected in the early 1970s.

A total of 5.7 million injuries and illnesses were reported in 2000 -- about the same as in 1999. But the number of hours worked by employees increased, resulting in a lower injury or illness rate of 6.1 cases per 100 full-time workers.

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is expected to announce this week the agency's plans to reduce workplace injuries. Congress in March repealed a Clinton-era regulation aimed at repetitive-strain injuries, and Chao promised to pursue either another regulation or voluntary guidelines.

-------- britain

N. Ireland militias get 5 years to disarm

World Scene
Washington Times
December 18, 2001
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011218-72400998.htm

LONDON - The British government yesterday revealed plans to give paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland another five years to give up their weapons.

The British minister responsible for the province, John Reid, told Parliament that the government was initially proposing to extend by a year amnesty given to paramilitary groups now in negotiations with the international disarmament commission headed by Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain.

The amnesty, intended to allow armed groups to disarm without being arrested for possessing such weapons, is to end on Feb. 26, 2002.

-------- business

Pentagon Terminates Raytheon Contract

DECEMBER 18, 08:33 ET
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=BUSINESS&STORYID=APIS7GFKB1O0

BOSTON (AP) - The Department of Defense has terminated a multibillion dollar contract with defense contractor Raytheon, saying the naval missile defense project was too far behind schedule and exceeded cost estimates.

The Navy Area Theater Ballistic Missile Defense system was designed to protect naval forces, ports and bases against medium-range air and missile threats.

``We are still assessing the impact across the business,'' Raytheon spokeswoman Sara Hammond told The Boston Globe for Tuesday's editions. She said it was unclear how many jobs would be affected.

Pentagon acquisitions chief Edward ``Pete'' Aldrige told The Wall Street Journal the program was canceled due to poor performance and a 67 percent increase in the average procurement cost of the system. The Pentagon is required to cancel programs once they exceed certain cost estimates, he said.

The Pentagon did not disclose the actual cost of the system, originally due in 2003. But the Globe reported the government had already spent $2 billion on the program, worth an estimated $9.1 billion.

It was considered the least technologically challenging of the Pentagon's missile-based defense systems.

----

China asks $2 billion for Phalcon rescission

December 18, 2001
By Abraham Rabinovich
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011218-66342548.htm

JERUSALEM - China is demanding $2 billion in compensation for cancellation by Israel last year of an agreement to sell Beijing its Phalcon airborne early-warning system, according to an Israeli newspaper.

The deal was canceled after intense pressure was placed on Israel by the United States. China had by then already paid for the first of four Phalcons it intended to purchase.

The Tel Aviv daily Yedidot Achronot reported that Israeli defense ministry officials said they had expected China to demand $500 million in compensation, twice the cost of the first plane, and were astonished when the figure was four times as great. The sum China is now demanding, said the officials, reflects the anger in Beijing.

Israel's former ambassador in China, Ora Namir, said in an interview on Israel Radio yesterday that President Clinton had threatened Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak that if Israel did not rescind its agreement on the Phalcon, he would cancel last year's planned summit at Camp David between Mr. Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

At the time, Mr. Barak had believed the summit would bring the long-sought peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Mr. Barak, now out of office, said yesterday that Mrs. Namir's claim was "inaccurate," but he declined to elaborate.

The former ambassador was highly critical of Israel for its handling of the Phalcon deal. She said that while there may have been early indications from the United States that it would not impede the sale, the opposition from Washington grew to be clear and firm.

The opposition, she said, did not stem from the American arms industry objecting to Israel's competition, as has been widely reported.

"It grew from the fear in the U.S. of the growing power of China," she said.

The United States had argued that the Phalcon, which can monitor and direct air activity over great distances, could theoretically be used against American planes in the event of a conflict involving Taiwan.

Mrs. Namir, now retired, said she had been kept out of the loop during negotiations for the strategic aircraft. "The damage to our relations with China is terrible," she said. "We have lost, at least at this stage, a real friend of Israel, the second-most powerful country in the world."

She noted that China, before it established relations with Israel a decade ago, had been aligned with the Arabs.

It subsequently became a friend of both and was a true admirer of Israel's achievements, she said.

A senior defense ministry official, Gen. Yitzhak Ben-Israel, declined to confirm the $2 billion compensation claim but said the amount was "tremendous" and that Israel is negotiating with Beijing over the amount to be paid.

Israel was supposed to sell China four Phalcon planes in a deal totaling $1 billion. China claims that it expended large amounts in preparing the infrastructure for the Phalcon system.

An Israeli defense ministry delegation last month visited New Delhi to discuss the sale of at least one Phalcon to India on the assumption that the United States would not object to sale of the system to that country.

----

Terrorism and science symposium

December 18, 2001
Daybook
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011218-444985.htm

- 8:30 a.m. - The American Association for the Advancement of Science presents a symposium, "War on Terrorism: What Does It Mean for Science?" The participants include: John Marburger III, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Dr. Rashid Chotani, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; Louis Goodman, American University; Robert O'Neil, Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression; Anne Witkowsky, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Jonathan Moreno, University of Virginia; Kevin McCurley, International Association for Cryptologic Research; and Donald Kerr, CIA. Location: Grand Ballroom Salon A-E, Marriott at Metro Center Hotel, 775 12th St. NW. Contact: 202/326-6431....

--------

Deal Reached for Air Force Planes

December 18, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Air-Force-Boeing.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- House and Senate negotiators reached a tentative agreement Tuesday on a $22 billion plan for the Air Force to lease 100 Boeing 767s that will be converted into midair refueling planes.

The deal calls for the planes to be leased for 10 years. Boeing would then take them back or sell them to the government, said Todd Webster, spokesman for Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

Critics say the Air Force would be better served if it purchased new refueling tankers and that the money looks like corporate welfare for Boeing. The company has lost business since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and has announced plans to trim up to 30,000 jobs.

A conference committee of House and Senate members would have to sign off on the deal, which is part of a $318 billion defense spending bill. Both chambers of Congress and President Bush then would have to approve the measure.

Jen Burita, spokeswoman for Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Wash., said Boeing could provide six tankers next year, followed by an additional 14 in 2003 and 20 more each year until the fleet reaches 100 in 2007.

``The interest we have is in Boeing workers,'' Burita said. And ``this is a resourceful way for the Air Force to obtain an asset that they need anyway.''

The aircraft would replace a fleet of 136 KC-135 refueling tankers. They have been used extensively in military actions in Kosovo and Afghanistan, but are getting old and need frequent repairs.

Built from the Boeing 707 commercial jet, the first KC-135s entered service in 1957 and the last in 1965.

In a statement, the Air Force said the war on terrorism is ``stretching this aging fleet.'' It estimated that it would $3 billion to support the older aircraft and said the leasing program would increase the availability and reliability of the tankers -- without that expense.

Opponents, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., say the plan is more expensive than buying new tankers. And once the leases expire, the Air Force would have nothing to show for its investment.

McCain and Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, want Bush to veto the bill unless it contains language allowing him to redirect the funds for other uses if he decides national security or lives are at stake.

The House had approved only $150 million to buy one 767 to convert into a tanker, plus $190 million more to test it as an intelligence-gathering aircraft. The Senate version, pushed by Murray and others, called for leasing 100 planes.

The work to convert the 767s into tankers is expected to be contracted out.

Washington state lawmakers have been lobbying hard for the Senate version to help alleviate the state's unemployment, which is among the highest in the country. The majority of Boeing's layoffs are expected in the Seattle area, the hub of Boeing's commercial aviation division.

Boeing has said the leasing program would add about 7,900 jobs directly and indirectly in the region.

Earlier this fall, the Pentagon chose Lockheed Martin Corp. over Boeing to build its next-generation fighter jet, a contract that will be worth at least $200 billion, the largest in Defense Department history.

-------- haiti

Police put down coup as political crisis deepens

Tuesday December 18, 7:26 AM
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/011217/1/24xvw.html

Haiti's political crisis deepened as paramilitary police put down a coup attempt at the presidential palace in which five people died.

Two more people were killed as rioters took to the streets in their thousands in response to a call by President Jean Bertrand Aristide to defend the government.

"We have defeated the coup but it is not over yet," Aristide said after returning to the palace from his residence in Tabarre, east of the capital.

Heavily armed men in two pickup trucks drove into the palace grounds and took over a wing of the building in the early hours of Monday. They exchanged fire with police for more than six hours before being overpowered, officials said.

The presidential press office said several individuals were arrested after police regained control of the National Palace, a sprawling white building in the center of the Haitian capital.

A presidential press statement described the events as "an attempted coup d'etat" which presidential guard spokesman Jean Auriol said was hatched by former senior police official Guy Philippe, who fled the country last year when he was accused of planning to overthrow the government.

"The attackers have been routed by elite units of Haiti's National Police," said Auriol.

Pro-Aristide protesters erected barricades of burning tires to block off main roads, set fire to the headquarters of several opposition parties and looted the headquarters of a French government-run cultural center.

Two workers were killed in an attack by a pro-government crowd on opposition supporters in the town of Gonaives, 153 kilometers (100 miles) north of the capital.

Calm returned to the capital by late afternoon when streets were deserted following the first coup attempt against Aristide since he returned to office in February.

In 1991, only eight months into his first term as president, Aristide was ousted in a bloody military coup. He spent three years in exile before regaining control of the country with the aid of a UN-sanctioned multinational force in 1994.

"I have said it before and I will say it again. The Haitian people will not have to live in darkness as they did in 1991," Aristide said from the presidential palace.

The suspected mastermind of Monday's coup, Philippe, left Haiti last year after then president Rene Preval, an Aristide ally, accused him of plotting a coup.

The former police chief of Cape-Hatien on Haiti's northern coast moved to the Dominican Republican and then to Ecuador.

National Police Chief Jean Dady Simeon said that once of the coup assailants had been captured near the border between French-speaking Haiti and the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic.

Other assailants were reported to be Spanish speakers who had named Philippe as their leader.

Radio Guinea, meanwhile, reported that one of the assailants had been killed.

Two Haitian police officers were also killed, along with two other people who were apparently passersby, police said. Six other police officers and a dozen passersby were injured in the attack.

The French government condemned the coup attempt and the US State Department told US residents in Haiti to remain indoors while the US embassy here was closed for the day.

The Organization of American States (OAS), which has been at the center of efforts to defuse Haiti's political crisis that dates back to contested elections in May 2000, condemned the coup and called for calm.

Foreign governments including the United States have suspended aid amounting to millions of dollars for Haiti, one of the world's poorest nations, in the absence of political reform and amid continued feuding between the Lavalas Family party of Aristide and the opposition Democratic Convergence.

-------- iraq

Saddam Hussein Wants Arab Summit

DECEMBER 18, 08:50 ET
By SAMEER N. YACOUB
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=MIDEAST&STORYID=APIS7GFKJ980

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - President Saddam Hussein on Tuesday called for an emergency Arab summit to be held at Islam's holiest city - Mecca in Saudi Arabia - to discuss Israeli attacks on Palestinians.

Saddam asked for Arab unity and warned that the United States and Israel are using the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington as a pretext to destroy Arabs.

``America is encouraging the Zionist entity to kill the Arabs,'' he said in a call to Arab governments and people carried by the Iraqi News Agency. ``The United States and the Zionist entity have one common goal, that is to destroy and humiliate the Arab nation.''

``Our position will be better if we are to hold an emergency summit ... in order to exclusively discuss the aggression toward the Palestinians,'' he was quoted as saying.

The 22-nation Arab League, based in Cairo, Egypt, has held several meetings in the past 14 months to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Though there is broad support for the Palestinian cause and condemnation of Israel, little coordinated action has resulted.

``Let the meeting place be the honorable Kaaba,'' Saddam said, referring to the cubic stone structure in the Grand Mosque in Mecca. He also said such a meeting could be held in ``any Arab capital whose selection secures the presence of all us.''

Saudi Arabia severed relations with Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990. The kingdom allowed U.S. troops to use Saudi territory to fight Iraqi forces in the 1991 Gulf War that ousted the Iraqis from Kuwait. In the years since, U.S. planes frequently have flown from Saudi bases to patrol Iraqi skies and bomb targets in southern Iraq.

Saudi Arabia, custodian of the holiest shrines in Islam, allows Iraqis into the country only to participate in the annual Muslim pilgrimage, the hajj. Recently, a 2002 World Cup soccer qualifying match between Iraq and Saudi Arabia was played in nearby Bahrain because the kingdom would not permit the Iraqi team into the country.

Saddam said all differences should be set aside to address the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

``We should only remember the causes and the reasons for our unity in this difficult crisis,'' he said. ``We should try to forget or postpone all that may lead to our division.''

--------

U.S. Again Placing Focus on Ousting Hussein

December 18, 2001
By PATRICK E. TYLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/18/international/middleeast/18IRAQ.html

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 - The option of taking the war against terrorism to Iraq and Saddam Hussein has gained significant ground in recent weeks both inside the administration and among some important allies in the Muslim world, according to administration officials and diplomats from the region.

President Bush's top national security advisers have made no recommendation to attack Iraq. But serious consideration to drive President Hussein from power, and planning how to do so, are under way in the State Department and at the Pentagon, officials said.

These new considerations appear unrelated to efforts by Iraqi opposition groups and members of Congress who have sought, unsuccessfully so far, to prove an Iraqi connection to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Rather, senior Bush administration officials, in their statements and in consultations with crucial allies, have indicated that the success of military operations in Afghanistan is changing opinion in the Middle East over the feasibility of moving against Mr. Hussein.

European opposition to any move against Iraq remains strong. But Middle Eastern diplomats say Turkey's leaders have signaled that the United States could use Turkish bases if the administration were committed to toppling President Hussein. Such regional support is almost certainly a critical factor in the administration's deliberations. But it will be equally important to Mr. Hussein's neighbors to feel that Washington is determined this time to overthrow him.

The Iraqi president, who held on to power after the Persian Gulf war in 1991, is believed to be developing both chemical and biological weapons, and is still interested in nuclear weapons, though the secret nuclear program he developed before the 1991 war has been destroyed.

Turkey's shifting view became public late last month when Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said, "We have several times said that we don't wish an operation in Iraq, but new conditions would bring new evaluations to our agenda."

In the past two weeks, at least one prominent Arab envoy in Washington has reversed his view that an American-led military operation in Iraq would be a disaster, or that it would fan the flames of Arab dissent and perhaps lead to the overthrow of some weaker rulers. (His reversal, though important, is not shared uniformly in Arab capitals.)

The diplomat, who refused to be identified, noted that most countries in the region harbor a latent desire to be rid of Mr. Hussein. He argued that the current military success in Afghanistan, the demonstration of a new model of warfare there and the undermining of Osama Bin Laden's radical message have created a new opportunity to act in Iraq.

"I now think it is doable," the diplomat said, adding that his own government might oppose such an operation in public until it became clear it was going to succeed. "This would require a lot of governments to accept big political risks, but I believe that in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, the governments are strong enough to hold the people and not have an uprising."

"How many people will cry for Saddam if he goes?" he asked.

Over the past month, the Bush administration has worked with Russia to formulate a new ultimatum to Baghdad, insisting that Mr. Hussein allow the return of United Nations inspectors to search for weapons of mass destruction, as required under the terms that ended the gulf war.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Bush's remark that Mr. Hussein would "find out" the consequences of not allowing the return of inspectors fueled speculation of an imminent attack. The remark appeared to signal the president's determination to keep Iraq on the agenda, even though his principal advisers are far from agreed on how to proceed.

Asked today whether Iraq is next in the antiterrorist campaign, President Bush said: "Oh, no, I'm not going to tell the enemy what's next. They just need to know that so long as they plan, and have got plans, to murder innocent people, America will be breathing down their neck."

Over the weekend Secretary of State Colin L. Powell reiterated a very explicit statement that it is United States policy to overthrow Mr. Hussein and that "we are constantly reviewing ideas, plans, concepts" to achieve that goal.

Secretary Powell also indicated for the first time that his dispatch of a State Department team to northern Iraq last week was part of an evaluation of "putting in place an armed opposition inside Iraq."

The State Department specifically denied reports that the team, led by Ryan Crocker, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Middle Eastern affairs, entered Iraq under Turkish escort.

Mr. Crocker was said by Iraqi opposition officials to have received a strong endorsement from one top Kurdish leader, Jalal Talabani, for a military campaign against Baghdad. But the other important Kurdish chieftain, Massoud Barzani, was said to be more circumspect. Iraqi opposition figures say Mr. Barzani has extensive business operations with Mr. Hussein's relatives.

Secretary Powell, a leader of the American military during the gulf war, is said to be counseling the White House and Pentagon to prepare any campaign very carefully, advice similar to his stance during the gulf war. His caution in 1991, his conservative critics assert, helped Mr. Hussein remain in his presidential palace.

Secretary Powell has urged that the strength of opposition in northern Iraq be examined, and that the Administration explore the prospect of bringing Iraqi exiles based in Iran into play as part of a "southern alliance" with Shiite Muslims in Iraq.

Since Sept. 11, Arab governments, including Jordan, Egypt and Yemen, have sent emissaries to Mr. Hussein counseling him to do nothing that might provoke the United States. But instead of taking the advice, Mr. Hussein and his deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, have engaged in saber- rattling toward Kuwait.

Outside the administration, there is still a lobby pressing for a move against Iraq, but it is President Bush's strong political standing as a wartime commander in chief that will be essential in preparing the country and its allies for an Iraq campaign, foreign diplomats and administration officials say.

On Dec. 5, Congressional leaders sought to frame the justification for attacking Mr. Hussein in a letter to the president.

"For as long as Saddam Hussein is in power in Baghdad, he will seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them," said the letter, signed by Senators Trent Lott, Joseph I. Lieberman and John McCain, among others. "We have no doubt that these deadly weapons are intended for use against the United States and its allies. Consequently, we believe we must directly confront Saddam, sooner rather than later."

-------- israel / palestine

Powell phones Arafat about cease-fire

December 18, 2001
By Saud Abu Ramadan
United Press International
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/18122001-014309-2321r.htm

GAZA, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Tuesday telephoned Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and praised the latter's speech over the weekend calling for a cease-fire and an end to attacks on Israel, Palestinian Authority officials said.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a top aid to the Palestinian Authority president, told reporters that Powell conveyed his satisfaction with Arafat's speech on Sunday in which he called for an end to all armed and suicide attacks against Israel.

Abu Rudeineh said that Arafat briefed Powell on the deteriorating situation in the Palestinian territories where Israeli has conducted airstrikes against PA installations and continued incursions into Palestinian towns and villages. Arafat also reiterated his commitment to the peace process.

The aid added that Arafat urged Powell to continue U.S. activities and work with other parties to save the peace process.

He also said that during the telephone call, both Arafat and Powell agreed to resume contacts soon.

In Washington, Powell's spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters Tuesday, "The secretary noted that we have seen some positive actions from the Palestinian side, but also said those actions need to be completed, they need to be made effective, there need to be more actions to make an effective end to the violence and that was the tenor of their discussion."

He said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had also been called.

A delegation of European officials led by Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign affairs chief, will arrive in Washington Wednesday to brief Powell on last week's EU summit in Laeken. But State Department officials expect the EU delegation to make the case for Washington to ease up on the Palestinians.

Since Dec. 2, U.S. officials have taken a particularly hard-line with Arafat and have been relatively mute on Israel's violence. Last week, Powell while in Europe pressed his counterparts to not invite Arafat to the continent in order to keep the Palestinian leader focused on attending to tasks at hand in the territories.

He was doing just that on Tuesday. Earlier Arafat spoke to Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem who came to extend greetings on the Eid al Fitr holiday; they came to Ramallah waving Palestinian flags and pictures of Arafat to show support and solidarity.

"I feel like I'm meeting you today while we are few meters from holy Jerusalem, and God willing our next meeting will be in Jerusalem," said Arafat, alluding to the less than 20 kilometers (12 miles) separating Ramallah from Jerusalem.

Arafat told the crowds "We are the toughest people, and I want you to hold on to that power and stay living on this land, the holy land."

His optimism ran counter to another day of violence.

Israeli troops shot and seriously wounded two 12-year-old Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip's town of Khan Younis and Jenin on the West Bank, Palestinian medical sources said.

Nasser Hospital officials in Kahn Younis said that a Palestinian boy was shot by Israeli soldiers when they fired at Palestinian teens throwing stones at the troops stationed near the Jewish settlement of Neveh Dekalim.

The clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli troops occurred as thousands of mourners buried the body of Mohamed Henedek who was killed Monday by Israeli troops.

Medical sources at Jenin Hospital said that another boy was shot and seriously wounded by Israeli troops on the outskirts of the West Bank town of Jenin.

Palestinian Authority officials accused Israel of escalating violence in the Palestinian territories to "block any success that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat might achieve from Sunday's speech.

Tayeb Abdel Rahim, Arafat's chief of staff, said that Sharon "is seeking to undermine Arafat's initiative" for a cease-fire and resumption of peace negotiations.

"Killing three Palestinians on Monday approves that Sharon is not interested in reinforcing the cease-fire deal reached with the Palestinians," said Abdel Rahim.

"Sharon is hurtinig the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, trying to escape from implementing the signed agreements and destroying the peace process," he said.

Abdel Rahim said that the state of emergency and the new measures taken by the PA "are still valid," adding that "Sharon gave orders to his soldiers to kill three Palestinians for no reason and without any justification."

From the Israeli side said Tuesday, the military's chief of general staff, Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, said that the latest Palestinian attacks increased international legitimacy for Israeli moves, and that there are signs that the Palestinian side in the 15-month-long confrontation is cracking.

Nevertheless, he said he did not expect the Palestinians to forgo their goals in the foreseeable future and that the eventual winner "will be the marathon runner, not the sprinter."

Mofaz made the comments at the Herzliya Conference that brought together current and former security and intelligence chiefs, and academics.

(With reporting by Eli J. Lake in Washington and Joshua Brilliant in Tel Aviv.)

-------- nato

NATO, Russian defense ministers meet after US ABM pullout

Tuesday December 18, 2001
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/011218/1/250gl.html

NATO defense ministers meet their Russian counterpart Sergei Ivanov for the first time since the United States withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) last week.

President George W. Bush said the US was pulling out of the treaty, over Russia's objections, in order to deploy a missile defense system.

He said the treaty "hinders our government's ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks."

The pullout will be effective next summer after the treaty's requisite six-month withdrawal notice.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who arrived here late Monday for the NATO ministerial meeting, was at Bush's side for last Thursday's White House announcement, saying he intended to talk to Ivanov here about "a framework that can replace the treaty".

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Bush informed of the pullout in advance, was not happy, calling the decision an "erroneous" one that risked triggering another cold war-style arms race.

European countries, many of which have reservations about the missile shield project, have also expressed fears of another arms race but have been prudent in their reactions to the US pullout, seeing it as primarily a US-Russian problem.

Javier Solana, EU high representative for security and foreign policy, said the Europeans should take advantage of the US pullout to strengthen their ties with Russia.

Washington also got some public support for the move.

Long-time ally Britain said the ABM treaty no longer corresponded to today's world, and the Czech Republic expressed "understanding" for the American decision.

After the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Russia made an unprecedented effort at rapprochement with the West, agreeing on the creation of a new NATO-Russian Council by next May.

Preparations for a multi-national force in Afghanistan were expected to be on the NATO agenda, despite the fact they don't concern the alliance as an institution.

The force, probably to be led by Britain, will include troops from several NATO countries.

Rumsfeld, who was in Afghanistan Sunday, arrived in Brussels in the wake of what Washington has labeled a military success in that country, even though Osama bin Laden, whom it accuses of being the mastermind of the September attacks, remains at large.

The NATO ministers were expected to discuss the Balkans, with the US reiterating its wish to cut its troop strength in Bosnia and withdraw entirely as soon as possible.

Also on the agenda will be NATO relations with the European Union, after a cooperation accord between the two was blocked by Greece at the EU summit in Laeken, Belgium last weekend.

The EU needs the accord because its fledgling venture into the defense field with a 60,000-troop rapid reaction force will be dependent on NATO's heavyweight logistic and planning support.

On the sidelines of the NATO meeting, eight of the 19 allies - Germany, France, Britain, Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg, Portugal and Turkey - will be signing a contract for the purchase of 196 Airbus A400M military transport planes.

----

Allies to Talk About Terrorism

By Jeffrey Ulbrich
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, December 18, 2001; 4:56 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58288-2001Dec18?language=printer

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, fresh from a visit to the war front in Afghanistan, joined the NATO allies Tuesday for a look at ways the 19-nation alliance can contribute more to the war against international terrorism.

The defense ministers, at their two-day winter meeting here, were expected to instruct the alliance to begin studying how NATO can better fight undercover, subversive forces and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, a senior alliance official said.

The meeting is Rumsfeld's first at NATO since the Sept. 11 attacks in New York in Washington, and fellow defense ministers are eager to hear his views on the next step in the campaign.

It is also the first occasion allied defense ministers have had to talk with a top American official since the United States announced its intention to abandon its 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia, a subject that worries many of Washington's friends.

NATO has invoked Article 5 of its founding treaty, declaring that the attacks on the United States in September should be treated as an attack on all 19. But the alliance has had no front-line role in the war in Afghanistan and none is envisaged.

Though a 1999 strategic plan developed by NATO points to terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction among the major threats facing NATO in the future, the alliance is still heavily geared toward fighting wars of territorial defense and not the shadowy forces of terror.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov also is in Brussels and will be talking with NATO about plans for closer relations between the former adversaries.

Rumsfeld met with Ivanov separately Monday night.

Earlier this month, NATO foreign ministers launched a plan for closer relations with Moscow, instructing alliance officials to begin developing new council where Russia could join with the allies in discussion, planning and even decision-making on specific subjects. Work is expected to be completed by next spring.

The defense ministers will begin to consider the subject matter that the new NATO-Russia council might cover, the senior official said.

Also on the ministerial agenda is the Balkans, where the alliance is leading about 60,000 troops in three separate military operations, in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.

The defense ministers will be looking at ways to make the Balkans operations more efficient, and, eventually, to reduce their size.

----

Rumsfeld to call for slashing Bosnia peacekeeping force

Tuesday December 18, 6:57 PM
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/011218/1/252w4.html

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to call for slashing the size of NATO's peacekeeping force in Bosnia by at least 6,000 troops by next year.

Rumsfeld planned to tell Alliance defense ministers meeting here that the time had come to restructure and shrink the size of the 18,000-member SFOR, reducing it by at least 6,000 troops, a US official said Tuesday.

NATO should commit to do so by no later than 2002, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The defense secretary was expected to argue that civil security is not an effective use of NATO's military assets at a time of growing demands from the war on terrorism, according to the official.

Instead, he would urge the European Union to consider leading an international armed police force in Bosnia that would relieve SFOR of its role in supporting Bosnian security forces, the official said.

----

Baltic states await NATO invitation

World Scene
Washington Times
December 18, 2001
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011218-72400998.htm

PRAGUE - The three Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, together with Slovenia and Slovakia, could be asked to join NATO at its next summit in Prague in November 2002, Czech President Vaclav Havel said yesterday.

During a press conference with his Polish counterpart, Alexander Kwasniewski, Mr. Havel said he had "no doubt" the invitations would be offered.

The Czech and Polish leaders also urged that Russian President Vladimir Putin be invited to the Prague summit, in light of "new relations" between Moscow and the Atlantic alliance since the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

----

NATO Sets Global Sights on Terrorism

December 18, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-nato.html

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO is to prepare for battle well beyond its own borders, ready to carry war to those who, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned Tuesday, may now target Europe after strikes on New York and Washington.

Ministers of the 19-nation bloc met in Brussels and agreed to review defense planning on both sides of the North Atlantic in light of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Secretary-General George Robertson called on them to face up to the cost of revamping an organization created in the Cold War to fight major land battles in Europe and which has been left largely on the sidelines as Washington has called on individual allies for limited help in its military campaign in Afghanistan.

``We agreed to increase the proportion of forces that can be deployed and sustained in operations far beyond Alliance territory,'' Robertson told a news conference.

``Our security environment must now be seen in a fundamentally different -- and considerably darker -- light.''

Until now, the farthest NATO troops have been deployed has been just beyond Alliance frontiers, in the Balkans.

Rumsfeld used the occasion to defend the U.S. decision to abandon the Cold War-era Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow in the interests of creating flexible defenses against the sort of unpredictable new threats seen in September.

To underline a common determination not to let differences over the missile treaty cloud better ties with NATO's old adversary, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov was also in Brussels for talks.

Within hours of arriving in Brussels Monday, Rumsfeld and Ivanov had agreed that bilateral technical talks would begin in January to plan details of joint and deep nuclear arms cuts.

Tuesday, Ivanov promised cooperation against terrorism and won assurances of a much broader, closer relationship with NATO, although with no Russian veto over Alliance decisions.

Rumsfeld also called for sharp cuts in NATO troop numbers in Bosnia in what diplomats said appeared to be an effort to free up American forces for deployment elsewhere.

LONDON? PARIS? BERLIN?

Warning of ``tumultuous decades ahead,'' Rumsfeld said, ``The only way to deal with a terrorist network that is global is to go after it where it is.''

``As we look at the devastation they unleashed in the United States, contemplate the destruction they could wreak in New York, or London, or Paris, of Berlin with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.''

Fresh from a visit to Afghanistan, he briefed allies on the campaign against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, which has been blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks.

But talks on a post-war peacekeeping force in Afghanistan were confined to the corridors of NATO's Brussels headquarters.

Britain is willing to lead the force of 3,000 to 5,000 troops, of which at least the lead elements are expected to be in place in Kabul by Saturday. Diplomats said 13 of the 19 NATO countries had signaled a willingness to make a contribution.

``The big jigsaw is gradually being put together,'' one said.

DEFENSE INVESTMENT NEEDED

Alliance countries, Rumsfeld warned, must pool resources and expertise to deal with threats from electronic cyber-attacks on satellites to low-flying cruise missiles, long-range ballistic missiles and chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Officials say defense forces also need better intelligence, more intelligence-sharing and more robust capabilities to counter proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Rumsfeld also called for ``critical investment'' on security.

``One of the illusions shattered on September 11 was the idea that, with the end of the Cold War, the world's democracies could afford large cuts in defense spending,'' he said.

Separately, Rumsfeld called for a reduction of the 18,000 NATO troops in Bosnia by at least 6,000 next year. Washington is fielding some 3,100 of the peacekeepers.

The defense ministers reviewed all NATO operations in the Balkans and the prospect of slimming down the overall presence of about 60,000 soldiers by treating the area as a single region and not three separate theaters: Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.

But few have been prepared to put a figure on the potential cut in forces, which could emerge from a NATO analysis to begin early next year, with reductions possible by the end of 2002.

A senior U.S. defense official said if there was a reduction in the Balkans, the U.S. contribution would be cut by the same proportion as those of other nations, or about 1,000 troops.

The Bosnian government said it was not alarmed by the U.S. push to cut the peacekeeping force by a third -- provided any reduction was accompanied by more stability in the country.

-------- pakistan

Pursuing bin Laden Into Pakistan Tough

December 18, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Problem.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pakistan seems a natural destination for al-Qaida fighters and perhaps Osama bin Laden as U.S.-backed forces solidify control of Afghanistan. Across a 1,344-mile, largely unprotected border, it offers hide-outs and sympathetic tribesmen even though its government stands with the United States.

Flight into Pakistan by bin Laden and his allies would raise delicate issues of jurisdiction for the United States, making U.S. ground pursuit or bombing raids unlikely.

That wouldn't necessarily be a problem.

The Pakistanis ``are helping us look for not only Osama bin Laden but for all al-Qaida murderers and killers,'' President Bush said Monday.

But the alliance between the United States and the government of Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is a delicate one.

Before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Pakistan was one of the strongest supporters of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Pakistan's Islamic schools and mosques, in fact, helped give rise to the Taliban.

Musharraf, who is still the military chief, has pledged full support for the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan. In recent days, he has increased security along the border, sending helicopter gunships as well as troops on horses and mules.

But suspicion smolders in Muslim Pakistan toward the U.S. presence in the region. And Taliban sympathizers are among the ranks of the Pakistani military. Some might quietly allow fleeing al-Qaida fighters and their Taliban allies to escape.

Still, it might be difficult for bin Laden -- tall, slim and Arab-born -- to remain at large for long, even in the mountains of Pakistan, analysts suggested.

``There are plenty of places to hide. But Pakistanis know the area better than he does. It would be just a matter of time before he is tracked down,'' said Stephen Cohen, a former State Department official who has written extensively on Pakistan.,

Furthermore, Cohen said, Pakistan's leaders ``are more likely to turn him over dead than alive, since they would not want him to recount fully what kind of connections he had with their intelligence services. He's worth more to them dead than alive, and I'm sure bin Laden knows that.''

``Everyone knows that there is a $25 million tag on his head, so there's a pretty good chance somebody would turn him in,'' said Dan Benjamin, a military analyst with the private Center for Strategic and International Studies. He referred to the U.S. bounty for information leading to bin Laden's capture.

The Bush administration is treading carefully on the issue of what happens next if it can be established that bin Laden has escaped to Pakistan.

``Pakistan, of course, as a sovereign nation, has the jurisdiction,'' Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday. ``We are not in hot pursuit across a border.'' As to bin Laden's whereabouts, Stufflebeem said, ``Anyone's guess.''

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said he would not ``engage in speculation'' on whether Bush would carry the battle into Pakistan. ``The president has made clear this is a war against terrorism, against those who would do harm to us around the world. And there are multiple fronts in that war,'' Fleischer said.

U.S. officials don't want to overplay their hand in Pakistan.

They don't want to destabilize Musharraf's government. A grab for power could put Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in the hands of radical Islamic militants.

The picture is also complicated by increasing tensions between Pakistan and India.

India said Monday it was preparing to retaliate over last Thursday's deadly suicide attack on its parliament. India contends the operation was planned by Pakistani's intelligence agency and carried out by five Pakistanis. Thirteen people were killed in the raid, including the attackers.

Among the potential targets for India: terrorist training camps it alleges are scattered across Pakistan.

``Keeping Pakistan stable matters a lot more than getting bin Laden,'' said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution. ``At this point, we can afford to keep bin Laden on the run and take our time tracking him down. Obviously, it would be better to get him sooner.''

-------- propaganda wars

War boosts all-news radio's ratings

December 18, 2001
By Chris Baker
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20011218-93339719.htm

All-news radio station WTOP, enjoying its best ratings since the Persian Gulf war, has vaulted to second place among Washington's 34 commercial stations.

The station leaped ahead of stalwart urban music stations WMMJ-FM and WKYS-FM between mid-October and mid-November, according to figures released Friday by the Arbitron Inc. ratings service.

WTOP, which broadcasts on the AM and FM bands, has been creeping up in the ratings since the September 11 terrorist attacks. It tied with WMMJ for third place in early fall, Arbitron said.

"This is a historical high for us," said Jim Farley, WTOP's vice president of news and programming.

Listeners clamoring for the latest information on the war in Afghanistan and terrorism have boosted ratings for news and talk stations across the nation.

In some cities, including Detroit and Boston, news and talk stations sit atop the ratings heap.

The challenge facing the stations is holding onto their audience when the war coverage winds down, said William M. Meyers, an industry analyst for Wall Street brokerage Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

"It is not clear if the numbers are sustainable," Mr. Meyers said.

Ratings for news stations rose during the Persian Gulf war, but fell when the war ended. "The key difference is that the Gulf war wasn't fought at home," Mr. Meyers said.

Stations often raise their advertising rates after a big ratings boost. WTOP won't consider raising its rates until mid-January, Mr. Farley said, when Arbitron releases ratings for the entire fall season.

WTOP recorded a 5.8 rating, also called a "share of radio listening," between mid-October and mid-November, up from a 5.4 rating in the weeks after September 11, Arbitron said. A rating measures the number of people who listen to a station and the time they spend listening.

WMAL-AM, a local talk station that carries the Rush Limbaugh and Laura Schlessinger shows, was ranked No. 13 in the latest ratings report.

Its 3.5 rating was slightly higher than the 3.4 rating it recorded in late summer and early fall.

WTOP's midautumn numbers helped it break the troika of urban music stations that usually dominate Washington's radio airwaves.

WPGC-FM remains the top-rated station in Washington, but WMMJ and WKYS - usually ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively - have each slid one place, Arbitron said.

----

Camera Has Turned on Peru's TV Stations
As Ex-Spy Chief's Videos Reveal Payoffs, Broadcasters Face Loss of Licenses

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 18, 2001; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57470-2001Dec17?language=printer

LIMA, Peru -- Peru's national media, traditionally a fractious, partisan bunch known for giving better than they get, have suddenly become the target of a vigorous investigation into the country's corrupt recent past.

The latest releases from former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos's vast collection of home movies feature top television executives taking dizzying amounts of cash to slant news coverage and savage the political enemies of Montesinos and his boss, disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori.

Many of Peru's most powerful people have long dreaded the consequences of their secret business alliances with Montesinos, who during a decade at Fujimori's right hand won friends and influenced people by distributing tens of millions of dollars in bribes -- and secretly videotaping most of the payoffs. Now a half-dozen broadcasting licenses hang in the balance as Congress and the nation get grainy glimpses of media barons on the take.

Take Ernesto Schutz, owner of Panamericana Television, whose October video debut before Congress prompted his flight to Argentina. Schutz, whose Channel 5 has the highest-rated national newscast, was the star of two Montesinos videos. One was made in October 1999, showing him accepting stacks of cash totaling $350,000. A second, recorded a month later, highlighted his negotiating skills.

"I have big needs -- at least $12 million," Schutz tells Montesinos on the second video. The spy chief responds with an offer of $9 million. "With that, brother," Schutz tells him, "I can't make it."

Now in a military prison in Lima awaiting trial on charges of corruption, drug trafficking, arms dealing and human rights abuses, Montesinos fled the country in September 2000 after one of his videos, which showed him bribing an opposition congressman, was made public. His disappearance, followed two months later by Fujimori's flight, prompted an eight-month manhunt that culminated in June with his arrest in Venezuela.

Earlier this month, Fujimori's elected successor, President Alejandro Toledo, weighed in on how he might clean up the media as part of the broader accounting of Peru's recent past. Whether the government has the right to pull the licenses -- and how it intends to redistribute them if it does -- has occupied much of Toledo's time and attention lately and has become a test of his commitment to an independent judiciary.

All six of Peru's commercial television stations are under investigation, and so far Toledo seems in favor of allowing a judge to decide whether to revoke the licenses. Much of the media treated Toledo harshly during his 2000 run against Fujimori, for reasons becoming increasingly clear, but the new president is hoping to avoid accusations that he is meddling to punish old enemies.

So far the television stations have found few defenders. The owners of at least three channels have fled the country. "These channels sold their editorial lines to Montesinos -- before and after the election -- to destroy moral character, to commit fraud and to cover up fraud," said Roberto Danino, Toledo's appointed prime minister. He is helping draft legislation that would create an oversight panel to handle future licensing issues.

Since the investigation of Montesinos's dealings began a year ago, 1,300 people have come under scrutiny, and 117 are in jail pending trial. Peruvian investigators working with the FBI have discovered $65 million in cash and $30 million in cars and houses belonging to Montesinos -- assets that have been returned the Peruvian treasury. Another $150 million has been frozen in accounts found in Luxembourg, Grand Cayman, Mexico, Switzerland and the United States, where the Peruvian inspector general has two agents working with federal prosecutors.

Venezuelan authorities have not been able to shed much light on Montesinos's time there, Peruvian investigators say, but have turned over e-mails he sent in the days before his capture that could help identify his protectors.

Jose Ugaz, Peru's special prosecutor for the case, said Montesinos stopped cooperating with investigators in August when he changed lawyers. Now, Ugaz said, Montesinos is looking for political support to help secure immunity in return for providing evidence against Fujimori. The former president lives in Japan, which has rejected extradition petitions.

Ugaz acknowledged that Montesinos's alleged drug trafficking has been difficult to trace. Certain police records have disappeared, perhaps stolen by authorities who did business with Montesinos in Peru's eastern jungles.

"And we also haven't been able to find Fujimori's accounts that we believe hold hundreds of millions of dollars," said Ugaz, acknowledging that only one check has been found with Fujimori's name on it -- in the amount of $200,000, drawn on a Brazil-based Bank of Tokyo account.

Part of the problem is that resources are slim. Saul Peña Farfan, an anti-corruption magistrate who works on the case behind a huge steel door in the Palace of Justice, said that despite Toledo's promise to devote more money to the case, his office has not received any additional resources apart from an agency-wide budget increase. Meanwhile, he said, Montesinos's stalling tactics are coinciding with more political debate over how his case is being handled.

"What he is doing is looking for political and economic help to break apart his case," Peña said. "There are many political, business and military men of high rank that still owe him many favors."

Ugaz joined the debate over the broadcast licenses by saying the government could revoke them as "an administrative, not judicial" matter. He said it seemed apparent that the station owners did not comply with rules requiring impartiality and violated national election laws.

Despite the Montesinos cash, Peru's television stations are broke. Shareholders have argued that this proves the money did not benefit the channels, only their owners, so they should be allowed to keep the licenses. In addition, much of the stations' revenue is from government advertising, which added to Montesinos's leverage. Investigators say his influence was such that at times he personally wrote newscast scripts and had troublesome reporters fired.

Mario Vargas Llosa, a renowned Peruvian novelist, who lost to Fujimori in the 1990 presidential election, has said that allowing the television stations to keep their licenses would be like allowing a thief to keep his weapon. But his son, Alvaro Vargas Llosa, a prominent journalist, said his father's position was part of Toledo's attempt to take over the media.

Reports that Toledo is hoping to transfer the license held by Channel 4 to a media group owned by La Republica, a pro-Toledo Lima newspaper, recalled for many here Fujimori's heavy-handed tactics.

In 1997, Fujimori revoked the broadcast license and citizenship of Baruch Ivcher, owner of Channel 2, after the station's news reports implicated the president in domestic espionage and military torture. The license was awarded to Samuel and Mendel Winter, who now stand accused of accepting $500,000 a month from Montesinos. Ivcher returned to Peru after Fujimori fled. Today he is back in charge of his station.

-------- pakistan / india

Holes found in Pakistan's 'sealed' border

By Arnaud de Borchgrave
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 18, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011218-29450475.htm

OGHAZ PASS ON THE PAKISTANI-AFGHAN BORDER - Pakistan's tribal areas are free-passage zones for Taliban and al Qaeda's foreign legionnaires escaping from Afghanistan, a weeklong visit showed.

The Pakistani army has announced that two brigades, each made up of three battalions of 850 men, or a total of 5,100, have been deployed along a 30-mile stretch of porous border in jagged mountains and have "sealed the frontier tight."

Helicopter gunships, military authorities have assured the United States, are monitoring mountain passes against infiltration. Presidential spokesman Gen. Rashid Qureshi went so far as to publicly deny that any al Qaeda fighter had made it across the border into Pakistan.

However, junior officers - all officers, and most noncommissioned officers speak English - speculate that such assurances are given to make "the Americans feel good."

Border tribal-zone populations have long been pro-Taliban and pro-al Qaeda.

Countless painted slogans and posters of Osama bin Laden, leader of the al Qaeda terrorist network, are visible in towns and villages throughout the three key tribal "agencies": Kurram, Orazkai and Kohat.

Tribal elders said that although the army had established interlocking fields of fire at four key mountain passes, it could not check dozens of other routes invisible from the air. A Pakistani captain, who asked that his name not be used, shared the same assessment.

Over a three-mile strip of foothills on the Pakistan side of the Spin Ghar range, one crest over from the Tora Bora mountains, two helicopters flew overhead at about 3,000 feet in poor visibility and could not have seen anyone on the ground. During a two-hour walk, several dozen tribesmen were seen coming from the direction of Afghanistan.

Scanning snowcapped Spin Ghar with binoculars revealed a wide range of ravines, crevasses, valleys and dry river beds - potential exfiltration routes for bin Laden's Arab fighters.

Bin Laden's picture, inscribed "Father of the Revolution," covered half the rear window of one bus that passed through army and frontier constabulary checkpoints without so much as an identification check of the passengers.

Scores of pickup trucks loaded with civilians similarly drove through the checkpoints unchallenged. Rubber-wheeled donkey carts with three or four passengers also were part of the traffic pattern.

A visiting reporter was stopped once and when the U.S. passport was produced, the civilian security official made clear that Americans were "not welcome." When asked whether that went for Taliban, too, he answered, "Taliban always welcome."

From Kohat, army headquarters for some of the tribal areas, to Parachinar, on the western edge of the frontier under surveillance, rock formations along the road had been daubed with slogans glorifying terrorist organizations and vilifying President Pervez Musharraf as an "American agent."

Bin Laden's picture was pinned to shutters and windows. Open-air markets also displayed the poster on the sides of stalls.

Sipah-e-Sahaba, or "Army of the Friends of the Prophet," and Shaish-e-Mohammed are among the most extreme religious organizations in Pakistan. They are particularly strong in the tribal belt and in Punjab, the country's largest province.

One rock-face advertisement said, "For Commando Training, Contact Shaish-e-Mohammed." Another one proclaimed, "Shaish-e-Mohammed and al Qaeda are Bubbling Blood Bothers." "Kill America" was painted on the outer wall of the "Handyside" army fort, named after a prominent colonial during the British Raj.

Once past the fort, the narrow road twists and turns alongside an ocher-colored, shrub-pocked limestone mountain on one side and a 3,000-foot precipice on the other.

Five-ton 10-wheelers, many adorned with bin Laden's face, manage to squeeze by in both directions. Shopkeepers and a cot-and-breakfast employee told our interpreter, an English-speaking native of the North Waziristan Tribal Agency, that al Qaeda had "an extensive network in the region." They did not believe that bin Laden would be turned over if he resurfaced in Kurram tribal turf.

The madrassa, or religious schools, network, local interlocutors said, easily could hide bin Laden and his top lieutenants indefinitely or until they could organize his clandestine passage by truck to Karachi, 1,000 miles south, where he could set sail for another part of the world.

This religious network works closely with the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, an organization long known for its pro-Taliban culture.

The tribal belt is also the territory of Massoud Azhe, an Indian-born terrorist who was exiled and re-emerged in this part of Pakistan where perpetrators of major crimes in government-run Pakistan would find safe haven.

Fazul Rehman, a major religious extremist firebrand, currently under house arrest, also enjoys an abundance of laudatory posters. Mullah Rehman used his mobile phone this week to try to negotiate the return of several thousand Pakistanti "volunteers" who crossed the border in the closing weeks of the Northern Alliance's campaign against the Taliban.

Some 500 Pakistani prisoners have been returned. About 8,000 are missing. They are a source of embarrassment to Gen. Musharraf and his new alliance with the United States.

• Distributed by United Press International, where Mr. de Borchgrave also is the editor at large.

----

Pakistanis might sell out bin Laden

By Willis Witter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 18, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011218-68419670.htm

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Tribal leaders in Pakistan say their Afghan counterparts are expecting Osama bin Laden to arrive in the rugged Afghan border province of Paktia, the site of numerous al Qaeda training camps destroyed by U.S. bombers in 1998.

But bin Laden would likely be sold out "for a few pennies" if he tried to hide on the Pakistani side of the border, said Abdul Lateef Afridi, a tribal elder and now a prominent lawyer in Pakistan's border city of Peshawar.

Bin Laden and several hundred al Qaeda stalwarts have been rousted from their last refuge in the cave networks of Tora Bora and forced to flee into snow-covered peaks near the Pakistani border.

Media speculation on a possible destination has centered on the Pakistani side of the border - an area with mountains even more rugged and inaccessible than Tora Bora and a population of local tribesmen known to be sympathetic to bin Laden.

But tribal elders in Pakistan say the terrorist kingpin would never find shelter in Pakistan, noting there are some 10,000 Pakistani soldiers camped along the border and that local public opinion has turned dramatically against bin Laden.

"The rebels know very well that in the tribal areas they would be sold for a few pennies," said Mr. Afridi, who represented the border area nearest Tora Bora in Pakistan's parliament before a military government took power.

"You don't need to spend $25 million. A few dollars is enough," said Mr. Afridi, referring to the reward being offered by the United States for information leading to bin Laden's capture, dead or alive.

Mr. Afridi, an elder in the Afridi tribe, said he has been in touch with people in the Afghan province of Paktia and they are anticipating bin Laden's arrival.

The area contains a number of al Qaeda training camps that were targeted by U.S. cruise missiles in retaliation for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 people.

Moreover, Paktia is one of the few areas where the Taliban militia retains some influence.

"In the beginning everyone was with the Taliban, but now [Mullah] Omar and Osama bin Laden have disappeared, and we know something is wrong. They were just using the name of Islam," said Munsif Ali Khan, another Afridi elder.

Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is believed to have fled from the southern city of Kandahar toward the Pakistani border, a direction that could just as easily take him to Paktia province.

Sheraz Khan, another elder in the Afridi tribe, said people in the area have been suspicious of Mullah Omar since shortly after the September 11 attacks when he ignored the advice of Afghan clerics that bin Laden be asked to leave the country.

"After that, there was a meeting of tribal elders in Kyber Agency," he said, referring to the tribal district south of Tora Bora in Pakistan.

"We sent a message to Mullah Omar, saying, 'You are free to do what you like in your own country, but we will never permit this in our country.' After that, we did not support him."

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said on Sunday he did not know whether bin Laden is still in Afghanistan.

But he added: "We will get bin Laden.

"Whether it's today, tomorrow, a year from now, two years from now, the president has made it clear that we will not rest until he is brought to justice or justice brought to him."

----

India vows 'punishment will fit the crime'

December 18, 2001
By Harbaksh Singh Nanda
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/18122001-030931-2329r.htm

NEW DELHI, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- India on Tuesday blamed Pakistan-based Islamic rebels for the attack on its parliament and vowed the punishment would fit the crime.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee told lawmakers from his Bharatiya Janta Party that India will crush terrorism and track down those behind Thursday's daring attack.

"I can tell you the punishment will be as big as the crime," V.K. Malhotra, a senior party member, quoted Vajpayee as saying.

India's home minister, Lal Krishan Advani, said the suicide attack was aimed at wiping out the country's top politicians.

Advani said India was considering "all options" to punish the perpetrators. Thirteen people were killed in the attack, including the five gunmen who tried to storm the parliament building but were stopped by security men.

"The investigation by police shows all five terrorists that formed the squad were Pakistani nationals," Advani said.

Pakistan's government has denied India's allegations and said it is willing to take action if India provides proof.

Vajpayee also rejected a Pakistani offer to conduct a joint probe, saying "the crime has been committed on our soil, so we will probe it and we will punish the guilty."

India's BJP lawmakers are demanding strikes on guerrilla training camps in Pakistani side of Kashmir. Islamabad has vowed to retaliate against any military adventure by India.

Both nations have amassed troops along the border.

The United States says India has the right to self-defense but insisted caution must be exercised.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an NBC interview "Washington was encouraging both sides to share information with each other and to come together in this campaign against terrorism."

"Some people have been asking us to exercise restraint. We have been exercising restraint so far but what this will result in," Vajpayee said.

-------- spy agencies

Capitol Hill anthrax "not from CIA lab"

USA: December 18, 2001
Story by JoAnne Allen
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13748/story.htm

WASHINGTON - The CIA says its laboratories were not the source of the deadly anthrax bacteria mailed to Capitol Hill.

"The anthrax contained in the letters under investigation absolutely did not come from CIA labs," U.S. Central Intelligence Agency spokesman Mark Mansfield, said on the weekend in response to a report that investigators were focusing on whether spores used in the anthrax attacks may have come from a domestic bioweapons research program, including one conducted by the CIA.

The Washington Post reported on Sunday that genetic tests of the spores in the anthrax-laced letters mailed to Capitol Hill were identical to stocks maintained by a U.S. Army research program at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

The report said only five other laboratories have spores with genetic matches to the Ames strain of anthrax discovered in letters mailed to the Senate and that all of those labs can trace their samples to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) at Ft. Detrick.

Ft. Detrick spokesman Chuck Dasey told Reuters that USAMRIID uses Ames strain anthrax, obtained from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1980, in its medical research program and confirmed that samples were shared with up to five research laboratories.

He said that the institute was cooperating with the FBI in its probe of the anthrax letters sent to Capitol Hill, but added that it does not produce powered anthrax.

"USAMRIID does not have the technology and its personnel do not have the skills required to make a dry powered form of anthrax such as was included in the letters," Dasey said.

Anthrax-contaminated letters, postmarked from Trenton, New Jersey on Oct. 9 were mailed to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and to Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. Anthrax letters also were sent to three media outlets following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Five people have died and 13 have been infected with anthrax since the beginning of October.

FOCUS ON BIOWEAPONS RESEARCH

The Washington Post said the FBI investigation into the anthrax attacks was increasingly focusing on whether U.S. government bioweapons research programs may have been the source of the deadly bacteria. The report quoted one source as saying the FBI was focusing on a contractor that worked for the CIA.

While the agency has had small amounts of the Ames strain bacteria in the laboratory "to compare and contrast with other strains," CIA spokesman Mansfield said, "we did not grow, create, or produce the Ames strain of the anthrax virus."

"One of our missions is to learn about potential biological warfare threats and our work in this regard is entirely defensive in nature and consistent with U.S. treaty obligations," he said.

Meantime, the Environmental Protection Agency on Sunday evening began fumigating the Senate Hart Office Building, which has been closed since shortly after an anthrax-contaminated letter was opened in the Senate Majority Leader's office on Oct. 15.

The cleanup procedure at the office building, a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol, had been scheduled for Friday but was delayed by a technical glitch, officials said.

----

Russia Reports Spying by U.S. Foes

December 18, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Spies.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- Some of the countries Moscow has avidly courted, including Iran, Iraq and North Korea, have conducted spy operations in Russia or tried to start them up in the past year, the head of the KGB's main successor agency said Tuesday.

But Nikolai Patrushev, director of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, made no mention during a meeting with Russian media editors of U.S. spy activity -- a significant omission following recent fears that espionage tensions between Washington and Moscow were growing.

According to Russian news reports, Patrushev said counterintelligence officers caught 10 foreigners in the act of spying in Russia this year and interrupted intelligence operations by Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

He did not name the United States, and he said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks had boosted cooperation between Russian and American intelligence.

Patrushev said his agency was closely tracking 130 foreign agents, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. He said ``the espionage and other subversive work of more than 30 of them has been stopped.''

Patrushev said the security service was able to put a stop to illegal activities by nearly 50 foreign agents, including six Russian citizens, and to prevent state secrets from leaking abroad.

``Among others, the special services of Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia have been stripped of their valuable informers,'' he said. He also mentioned Iran, North Korea, China, Israel and Kuwait as ``initiators'' of attempts to spy in Russia, the Interfax news agency said.

During President Vladimir Putin's nearly two years in power, Russia has tried to cultivate stronger relations with Iran, Iraq and North Korea as part of a program of developing alliances to counteract what the Kremlin sees as U.S. dominance of world affairs.

However, following the Sept. 11 attacks, Russia has strongly supported the international anti-terror campaign, and its interest in working with nations suspected of supporting terrorism or developing weapons of mass destruction has appeared muted.

Patrushev said the attacks prompted increased cooperation of Russian intelligence ``first of all with the American CIA and FBI.''

After Putin came to power on Dec. 31, 1999, there were wide indications of heightened tensions with the United States over espionage. A U.S. businessman, Edmond Pope, in 2000 became the first American convicted of spying in Russia in 40 years.

This year, Russia ordered 50 U.S. diplomats to leave the country, mirroring the U.S. expulsion of Russian diplomats following the arrest of FBI agent Robert Hanssen on charges of spying for Russia.

Also this year, the arrest of U.S. Fulbright scholar John Tobin on marijuana charges attracted wide attention after security officials said they believed he was a spy in training.

Tobin was released from prison in August. Pope was pardoned by Putin shortly after his conviction.

On Tuesday, Patrushev named only one Western nation in connection with an alleged spy. He said a former Russian security service officer identified as Viktor Oyamyae had been convicted of spying for Britain and the former Soviet republic of Estonia and sentenced by a Moscow court to seven years in prison for treason.

Another spy was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but pardoned by Putin and deported, Patrushev said. He did not reveal the accused spy's name or nationality.

Moscow has not ceased prosecuting alleged spies for Western nations.

Arms control researcher Igor Sutyagin is on trial for allegedly providing sensitive military data to a U.S. intelligence contact. Sutyagin, who was arrested in 1999, has pleaded innocent, saying his research was based solely on open sources.

Patrushev said foreign intelligence services were most interested in uncovering Russia's basic scientific developments, modern military technology and information about economic sectors including natural resources, Interfax reported.


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS

Legal tools briefing

December 18, 2001
Washington Times
Daybook
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011218-444985.htm

- 10 a.m. - The U.S. Institute of Peace presents a current issues briefing, "Terrorism on Trial: Examining International Legal Tools in the War Against Terrorism." Location: Second Floor, 1200 17th St. NW. Contact: 202/429-3878....

Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act briefing

- 11 a.m. - The National Immigration Forum presents a briefing on the proposed Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2001, a bipartisan approach in the Senate to anti-terrorist measures without restricting immigration and transnational commerce. Location: 385 Russell Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/544-0004, Ext. 14 or 202/441-0680....

----

D.C. Area May Receive $245 Million For Security

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 18, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57132-2001Dec17?language=printer

House and Senate negotiators agreed yesterday to spend more than $245 million to help the District, Northern Virginia and the Metro transit system prepare for potential acts of terror, part of a $20 billion emergency aid bill set to pass Congress, city and congressional officials said.

Prompted by the Senate, the amounts roughly double what the White House proposed and the House passed this fall to help local governments with capital region security -- about $125 million -- acknowledging both Virginia's standing as a victim of September's terrorist attacks and Washington's status as a potential target.

Lawmakers are set to meet today to complete final details under the outlined agreement, and amounts could change, according to House and Senate sources. As talks continued last night, lawmakers pushed to include $56 million for police and fire agencies in suburban Maryland and $20 million for a unified capital area emergency communications system.

"This is an important recognition by the Congress that when you call 911, you're calling for local aid, whether it's in local health and transportation or whether it is in the area of public safety," said District Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), who lobbied several key lawmakers for the D.C. funds.

"A lot more congressional members are beginning to realize the importance of investing in the District," said a congressional aide, explaining the surge. "When they are giving hundreds of millions of dollars to the Capitol Police, Secret Service and folks who operate out of D.C., that the District government and law enforcement were not having the same kind of increase was noticeable."

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), a lead appropriator for the District with Rep. Joe Knollenberg (R-Mich.), said through a spokesman that she was "encouraged" by the progress of negotiators, who other sources said agreed yesterday to about $156 million for the District, $39 million for Metro and $5 million for regional security planning.

"[$200 million] is a number she's felt strongly about for a while," spokesman Rich Masters said. "It will be enough, hopefully, to prepare the city for the event of an emergency."

The legislation follows months of wrangling over aid for emergency response and recovery, during which the Washington region was overshadowed by New York's battle for tens of billions in help from the federal government, now $9.5 billion. Washington area lawmakers initially joined the bigger New York delegation's campaign but cut a separate deal when that drive faltered, said Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who serves on the Appropriations Committee.

The District and Virginia asked the Bush administration for $944 million and $3.2 billion in terrorism relief in October. The requests, however, included generous economic aid and funding for projects as diverse as school construction and a bridge in southeast Virginia.

As agreed to yesterday, the District would get $44 million to overhaul radio, telephone and computer systems used to communicate between city agencies and with federal and regional law enforcement agencies. Congress also would allocate $21 million for emergency traffic management in the city, installing closed-circuit television cameras along major evacuation routes and securing traffic signal boxes at intersections, which are now vulnerable to sabotage.

The Metro transit system would receive $39 million for security, including sensors to detect biological and chemical weapons. District police, fire, health, public works and rescue workers would receive $64 million for clothing and breathing equipment, drugs, vehicles, hazmat equipment and medical gear, among other things.

Arlington and Fairfax counties and Alexandria would split the lion's share of $45 million for police, fire and rescue assistance, with Arlington slated to receive the most as the home of the Pentagon. Prince William and Loudoun counties and smaller jurisdictions also would get aid, Moran said.

Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Paul S. Sarbanes, both Maryland Democrats, held a news conference at the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Fire and Rescue Squad station to highlight suburban Maryland needs, including $9 million for Montgomery County and $8 million for Prince George's County for hazmat response vehicles, portable packets of vaccines and drugs for emergency workers, specially equipped command vehicles and compensation for police and fire units that responded to the Pentagon attack.

Money also is sought for bomb squad units, search dogs at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, closed-circuit cameras on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and counterterrorism defenses at the port of Baltimore.

----

FBI report reveals overall decline in violent crimes

By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 18, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011218-25552681.htm

The number of violent crimes reported during the first six months of this year - including murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault - dropped by 1.3 percent compared with the like period in 2000, the FBI said yesterday.

The decline, outlined in a report by the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, came despite slight increases in the number of murders and robberies reported nationwide by more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies.

Property crimes - including burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft - fell 0.2 percent when compared with data reported for January through June 2000. Arson offenses, which are part of a modified crime index, increased 2.9 percent for the first six months of this year compared with the like period in 2000.

Overall, the reported incidents of violent and property crimes nationwide fell 0.3 percent during the first six months of 2001 compared with the like period in 2000. Crime rates have declined steadily over the past decade and the new numbers suggest that the trend is leveling off.

Despite increases in the number of murders, which rose by 0.3 percent, and robberies, which showed a 0.8 percent increase, the violent crime rate dropped as a result of large decreases in reported forcible rapes, which declined by 1.7 percent, and aggravated assaults, which dropped by 2.4 percent.

In the number of murders reported, only one of the five cities with the highest number of homicides showed an increase during the first six months of 2001 compared with the like period last year. Chicago reported 276 murders this year, compared with 266 in the first six months of 2000.

At the same time, New York dropped from 341 to 300; Los Angeles, 248 to 238; Detroit, 196 to 175; and Baltimore, 141 to 137. The more than 3,000 deaths in the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were not included in the report.

In Washington, the number of murders reported during the first six months of 2001 was 85, compared with 126 during the same period last year. The FBI said the number of reported forcible rapes and robberies increased in the District this year over the same six-month period in 2000, while the incidents of aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson declined.

Nationwide, the FBI said the volume of property crimes varied, with burglary declining 1.2 percent, larceny-theft decreasing 0.4 percent and motor vehicle theft increasing 2.6 percent.

According to the FBI report, by city population groupings, cities with populations of 50,000 to 99,999 inhabitants recorded the largest decline in the volume of violent and property crimes at 1.7 percent. The largest increase in the two categories occurred in cities of 250,000 to 499,999 population with a rise of 1.9 percent. Rural and suburban counties registered 1.9-percent and 0.6-percent decreases, respectively, the FBI said.

By region, the FBI said violent and property crimes fell 4.1 percent in the Northeast and 1.9 percent in the Midwest. The West recorded an increase of 1.6 percent and the South, an increase of 0.8 percent.

The FBI report is based on data from more than 17,000 local and state law enforcement agencies representing 94 percent of the U.S. population. Its objective, the FBI said, is to generate a reliable set of crime statistics for use in law enforcement administration, operation and management.

----

New towing laws on tap for District
[police scam illegally confiscated cars, towers charged exorbitant storage fees.]

By Matthew Cella
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 18, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20011218-8495236.htm

New laws to regulate the District's towing industry will be drafted by next month, city officials say, after months of delays and reports of corrupt tow-truck drivers working with Metropolitan Police officers.

The laws have been prompted by the D.C. Inspector General's Office, which uncovered a scheme in which police officers and towing companies collaborated to illegally confiscate cars and charge victims exorbitant storage fees. The Washington Times first reported the inspector general's findings in August.

The new laws would require tow-truck operators to be licensed and would cap towing fees, said Tony Bullock, spokesman for Mayor Anthony A. Williams.

Less than two weeks ago, D.C. Council members accused the Williams administration of dragging its feet on the problem.

"The council is doing what the council should do, which is demand some progress on this matter," Mr. Bullock said yesterday. "And we are working very hard to put a new law into place that will give the District the right to regulate this industry."

Mr. Bullock said a multiagency task force under the direction of the City Administrator's Office should have a set of regulations for the council's review by next month. He attributed long delays to complicated questions of jurisdiction and coordination among city agencies.

"It's not as simple as it sounds," Mr. Bullock said. "What caused most of the delay is the issue of underlying legislative authority."

He said lawyers in the city's Office of Corporation Counsel also are researching whether the mayor has the right to regulate the industry.

D.C. Council members said constituents have complained for at least a decade about stolen cars being recovered and towed to private impound lots without the owners of the vehicles being notified. The owners then accrued huge bills as the cars languished on lots for weeks and often months.

Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer said in August that an internal investigation into charges police were complicit in the towing scheme was under way. A police spokesman yesterday said he could not comment on the status of that investigation.

The inspector general's report criticized the police department on its procedures for tracking and documenting recovered stolen vehicles, as well as the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs for not regulating and inspecting towing companies adequately.

Investigators found that some police officers and civilian employees used their positions of authority to further towing companies in which they had a financial stake. One civilian employee towed cars to a police building during his shift and then used his private tow truck to impound the vehicles after work.

In another variation of the scheme, some officers at accident scenes or who recover stolen cars directly call tow trucks instead of waiting for dispatchers to send a contractor's tow truck, investigators found.

As a result, no record of the tow is kept and the company can keep the car to rack up storage fees. The report did not specify how many officers were involved, nor did it mention whether the officers receive kickbacks from the companies they help.

Council member Carol Schwartz, at-large Republican, said the problem has gone on long enough, adding that she hopes the administration follows through on its reforms.

"I think it's taken longer than it should have, but I'm hopeful that we will have better regulations so that we will have protection for our citizens," said Mrs. Schwartz, chairwoman of the public works committee, which oversees the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs.

Mrs. Schwartz said she praised the mayor's initiative when he assigned a work group to investigate the problem more than a year ago. But she said the administration has taken too long to make the needed changes.

"Here we are nearly 14 months later and still no resolution," she said.

Council member Kathy Patterson, Ward 3 Democrat, called the reforms "good news" but also said they are a long time coming.

"I think some slow progress is being made," said Mrs. Patterson, chairwoman of the judiciary committee, which oversees the police department. "Getting the regulations in place is the first step."

Mr. Bullock said he couldn't address specifics about the new regulations but said steps were taken to "make sure there's no improper conduct on the part of any employee, whether they work for the police department or any other department."

----

Secret Service Agents Plead Guilty

December 18, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-BRF-Secret-Service.html

MIAMI (AP) -- Three Secret Service agents have pleaded guilty to stealing $1,300 seized from ATM thieves, covering up the crimes and lying to prosecutors.

James Smith, Luis Flores and Manuel Flores, who is not related to Luis, pleaded guilty Monday. All three worked for the arm of the Secret Service that handles credit card fraud.

Smith and Luis Flores arrested two men suspected of stealing thousands of dollars from ATMs. Smith admitted pocketing $1,309 he seized from the thieves' car, while the other agent told prosecutors that a third suspect had evaded arrest, when in reality the man was an informant they helped escape.

Luis Flores was not involved in the October 2000 arrest, but knew about cover-up and told the informant to stick to the agents' version.

Smith faces 10 months in prison; the other two will likely get probation.

-------- terrorism

Man on Bin Laden Tape Now Said to Be Guerrilla

By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 18, 2001; Page A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A56986-2001Dec17?language=printer

CAIRO, Dec. 17 -- The Saudi man shown talking with Osama bin Laden about the attacks against the United States on a videotape released by the Bush administration last week is not a religious scholar, as originally thought, but a former anti-Soviet guerrilla in Afghanistan and a longtime acquaintance of bin Laden's, according to Saudi officials.

U.S. and Saudi officials initially identified the man, who is shown chatting amicably with bin Laden and comparing notes on the results of the Sept. 11 hijackings, as Suleiman al Ghamdi, the head of a small mosque who was once imprisoned by Saudi authorities for his radical views.

However, ranking Saudi authorities now say the man is actually Khaled al-Harbi, who met bin Laden during the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and later fought on behalf of Muslims in Bosnia and Chechnya. Encouraged by their government, an estimated 15,000 Saudis joined the Afghan war against the Soviets.

Many Saudis' continued support for bin Laden, and the apparent involvement of Saudi nationals in the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, are sensitive subjects in Saudi Arabia, whose ruling family has for decades balanced support for Islamic governance with gradual modernization and close ties with the United States.

In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine published this weekend, for example, the Saudi interior minister, Prince Nayef, maintained that the United States still has not produced conclusive evidence that Saudis participated in the hijackings. The U.S. government says 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

"So far, we've received no evidence or documents from the American authorities that justify the suspicion or accusations raised against Saudi Arabian citizens," said Nayef, one of the top four or five members of the ruling family.

Saudi officials say Harbi's presence on the bin Laden videotape, though an embarrassment, raises no substantial concerns about local ties to the accused terrorist, a native of Saudi Arabia who was stripped of his citizenship in 1994 because of his efforts to organize opposition to the monarchy.

Harbi, who lost both his legs in combat, left Saudi Arabia 10 days after the Sept. 11 attacks to travel to Afghanistan in what a Saudi official called a sign of his support for the jihad, or holy war. Harbi likely hoped to support bin Laden "psychologically," or perhaps anticipated the war with the United States and wanted to die taking part in it, the Saudi official said.

"He was just enthusiastic to go to the front," the official said.

He has not returned to Saudi Arabia, and officials there apparently assume he is still in Afghanistan.

That the man is one of the thousands of Saudis who are Afghan war veterans may ease concern that the radical wing of the Saudi religious establishment has maintained active contact with bin Laden -- a worry raised when Harbi describes on the tape the positive response the hijackings received in some mosques and among some Saudis.

However, it also reinforces what Saudi officials have only quietly acknowledged: Just as the alleged participation of Saudi nationals in the hijackings reflects local support for bin Laden, so too does the continued presence of Saudi fighters at bin Laden's side.

One source in the Saudi intelligence community estimated that between 200 and at least 1,000 Saudis have been involved in the current fighting in Afghanistan.

"The government is concerned about this, but they were looking before September 11," a Saudi official said.


-------- OTHER

-------- genetics

Stem Cell Glossary

December 18, 2001
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/18/health/genetics/18GLOS.html

The debate over whether the government should finance research on embryonic stem cells has forced politicians and the public to grapple with the arcane language of cell biology. Here are some terms, as gleaned from reports by the National Institutes of Health and other sources.

REGENERATIVE MEDICINE Repairing the body by harnessing its own repair mechanisms - stem cells and signaling proteins - to renew damaged tissues and organs.

STEM CELLS Master cells that can reproduce indefinitely to form the specialized cells of tissues and organs.

EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS Derived from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst, a 4- to 5-day- old embryo, these cells are thought to be pluripotent - meaning they can grow into any of the body's 260 or so cell types. Unlike the egg cell which is totipotent, able to form a complete embryo, the embryonic stem cells do not seem able to form a new blastocyst and cannot by themselves create a new individual.

EMBRYONIC GERM CELLS Embryonic cells that are set aside and protected from maturing. They migrate through the fetus to the ovary or testes, where they form the egg and sperm cells. If removed from the fetus and grown in culture, they behave much like embryonic stem cells.

ADULT STEM CELLS Stem cells that dwell in the adult body and are far less versatile than embryonic stem cells. Each type generates replacement cells for the particular tissue in which it is found. Scientists are trying to see if adult stem cells can be reprogrammed to produce cells beyond their normal range.

BLASTOCYST A hollow sphere of some 250 cells that develop four to five days after an egg is fertilized. Inside is a clump of about 30 cells, the inner cell mass, from which the embryo develops. When removed and grown in a laboratory dish, cells from the inner cell mass are called embryonic stem cells. They can be changed while being cultured.

DIFFERENTIATION The process in which a stem cell generates a cell with a specialized function. The process begins when certain genes are activated and others silenced, causing the bland, shapeless stem cell to change into some other type of cell.

CLONING Creating a genetically identical organism, through any of several techniques. Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned, was created by inserting DNA from the nucleus of a sheep mammary gland cell into an egg cell emptied of its own nuclear DNA.

THERAPEUTIC CLONING The new idea of repairing patients with their own cells, making a skin cell, say, turn into heart cells to repair the heart. This would be accomplished by inserting the nucleus of a patient's skin cell into a donated human egg cell without its own nucleus. The egg cell would reprogram the skin cell nucleus back into its totipotent state. After the egg had become a 5-day-old embryo, embryonic stem cells would be cultured and changed into heart cells for injection into the patient.

PARTHENOGENESIS Reproduction in which the egg develops into an embryo without fertilization. Parthenogenesis does not occur in mammals, but scientists can use chemicals or electricity to stimulate the eggs of certain animals into dividing as if they had been fertilized. One company has started experiments with human eggs.

-------- human rights

Monitors Censure St. Elizabeths
Federal Funding Threatened After Patients Found Tied, Prone

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 18, 2001; Page B04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57441-2001Dec17?language=printer

Regulators again have threatened to take away federal dollars from St. Elizabeths Hospital after finding two patients tied up in a face-down position during a site visit.

Operators of the District's psychiatric facility must prepare a plan for eradicating such dangerous restraints within the next 23 days, or face losing $80 million a year in federal funds that helps pay the hospital's bills.

A team of federal monitors found the two unsupervised patients restrained in the prone position during an impromptu visit to the hospital Dec. 5 and 6. The monitors said the practice puts patients in such "immediate jeopardy" that they wanted the District to correct the problem as soon as possible.

This kind of restraint can cause accidental smothering, and the chances of that rise if no staff member is present to notice a patient in distress. Advocates for people with mental illness said the prone restraint was one that had been banned at most hospitals because it was too dangerous.

The monitors -- with the federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services -- also told hospital leaders last week that violations and flaws in patient care persist 18 months after a review in which monitors warned the District about them.

In August, St. Elizabeths got a new director, Joy Holland, who just before Thanksgiving warned her staff that a team of federal regulators probably was coming soon. And in June, Martha B. Knisley, a former mental health commissioner in Pennsylvania and Ohio, was named director of the D.C. Department of Mental Health, which oversees St. Elizabeths.

"I am appalled that even with a new administration in place, we are still dealing with the same unacceptable practices at the hospital," said Nancy Lee Head, of the D.C. Mental Health Consumers League.

Knisley said she, too, was "disturbed" that patients were tied down in violation of federal safety standards and said her new hospital team is working to make staff aware that the practice is unacceptable. Knisley said previous hospital leaders did not fix the problems cited in June 2000, and it will take her team years, not weeks, to address them.

But Kelly Bagby, of the advocacy group University Legal Services, said she doesn't see why federal regulators have not taken action against St. Elizabeths.

"How many chances does the hospital get?" Bagby said.

The monitoring visit was prompted because of concerns about patient care and the deaths in October of two St. Elizabeths patients who choked on food. Health care experts say death from choking on food is highly preventable and very rarely happens in a hospital, where doctors and nurses are presumed to be steps away from a patient in distress.

In addition to the two prone patients, the federal team also found other unattended patients in ankle and wrist restraints, and the team determined that medical supervisors were not properly monitoring how staff restrained patients.

Doctors still are prescribing excessive drugs, monitors noted, which could lead to harmful reactions. Patients still are staring at televisions all day instead of getting the active treatments and therapies they need. For the third time in two years, monitors asked for assessments of active treatment and the hospital staff could not provide them.

LaJuan Martin represents the family of Tyrone Chavis, a mentally retarded patient who died on Halloween after choking on a hot dog. Martin said the monitors confirmed his suspicions: that overworked, undertrained staff members heavily sedate and restrain patients because it makes their jobs easier.

"This is a way of baby-sitting without actually having a babysitter," he said. "We have a department that's been put on notice but hasn't taken the proper steps."


-------- activists

Missile Defense: A Waste

Tuesday, December 18, 2001
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57406-2001Dec17?language=printer

I challenge George W. Bush, or any member of his administration, to name one example in which a static defense system prevented an enemy from accomplishing its objective [front page, Dec. 14].

Armies went through the Alps, over the Great Wall of China and around the Maginot Line and will do the same thing to his Star Wars plan. Wasting money on this instead of protecting our borders and citizens from real threats is a national disgrace.

BRUCE MARTIN
Mill Valley, Calif.

------

Rural Villagers' Quiet Resistance
Taliban Abuses Were Fought With Humor, Stubbornness

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 18, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57138-2001Dec17?language=printer

PUHL-I KANDHARI, Afghanistan, Dec. 17 -- Little boys were slapped for playing games. Elderly farmers were jailed for plowing their onion fields instead of volunteering to build a mosque. Girls hid in cow sheds when they heard men in turbans were coming.

Most of the time, the isolated mud-hut villages scattered across Logar province, a verdant plain stretching south of Kabul, were relatively sheltered from the relentless pressure to conform to strict religious rules that dominated life in the capital under Taliban rule during the last five years.

But occasionally, without warning, the long and punishing arm of the Taliban's religious enforcement squads would reach into their tranquil world. And over time, residents in three villages recounted during the last two days, the people living here endured the intrusions -- and found subtle ways to fight back.

"They told us to build a mosque instead of working in our fields, and we asked them how we would eat. They said the prophet Muhammad put a stone around his waist when he was hungry, and that we should do the same," said Gul Din, 65, a farmer in the village of Merzakhel. "The Taliban leaders ate well, but they did not care if we ate at all."

In the village of Jilga, a bright 14-year-old boy named Navid said the Taliban police had forbidden him and his friends to play a popular game called "four wall board," which involved knocking walnuts together. At school, the Taliban replaced Navid's favorite science teacher with a Muslim cleric who had studied only the Koran.

"When they were around, we didn't dare leave the house without a prayer cap on our head," Navid said. "I had really good teachers before, but the ones they brought didn't know anything. I used to love school, but after that I didn't want to go anymore."

In the midst of this, some villages found ways to resist Taliban encroachment, especially if they were relatively prosperous and had a tightly woven social and religious fabric. Jilga, for example, is a community of Sadats, Muslims who claim descent from Muhammad, and some of its sons have become successful businessmen or academics.

When the Taliban tried to impose a new mullah, or Islamic cleric, on the village of 300, the Sadats hired their own cleric, a young and liberal but highly educated man of 29 who was so well versed in Koranic studies that Taliban officials were unable to challenge him.

"I didn't argue aggressively with them, I just beat them with logic. They hated me because I was young, but when they gave me an exam, I passed it, so they couldn't replace me," said the mullah, a slight, soft-spoken man named Mohammed Ali.

Some villages were more successful than others at preventing the Taliban from closing private schools set up by international relief agencies after the militia banned girls from class and restricted boys' education.

In Jilga, CARE International was able to keep a school for boys and girls running for the past two years after the village elders put their weight behind it.

"It wasn't easy, and we were always under pressure," said Zubaida, 40, a project monitor for CARE who set up the school in her house. "The Taliban came in here, tearing up our family pictures, searching for TV sets and demanding to see our school attendance list. If I knew they were coming, I would cancel classes for that day."

But Puhl-i Kandhari, a poor village of about 100 people where cows and chickens feed in back yards, was less fortunate. The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, a nonprofit agency, set up one primary school for girls in a mosque, but the Taliban shut it down after six months.

"We couldn't reason with them. If we had protested or even raised the issue of girls' schools, they would have beaten us and called us communists," said Sulieman, 27, a former veterinary student who raises poultry in Puhl-i Kandhari.

A common defense mechanism against the Taliban's stern extremism was humor. Logar villagers told joke after joke about Taliban police and clerics and laughed at the absurdity of mindless indignities to which they had been subjected by uneducated Taliban militiamen.

Rahimullah, 40, a jovial truck driver in Jilga, regaled his friends Sunday with the story of how an illiterate Taliban tax collector once tried to register his cargo truck, but could not copy the license number and wrote his name down incorrectly as "Naqimullah."

Over tea and cakes in his modest mud house in Puhl-i Kandhari, Sulieman told a joke about a taxi passenger wearing a business suit who approached a Taliban checkpoint. The driver lent him his turban as a precaution, and the bewildered guard let the visitor pass after concluding he was "half a mullah and half an infidel."

But often, villagers said, the Taliban's treatment of them was cruel and humiliating. One boy in Jilga said his teenage cousin was beaten so badly after being caught playing cricket that his back was permanently damaged. And a 72-year-old man in Merzakhel recounted angrily how he had been bicycling along a road when a speeding Taliban police truck almost ran him over.

"I tried to pull over to the side, but one of them reached out and hit me on the back so hard that I fell down," said Rahamuddin, a white-bearded village elder, wrapped in a blanket beside his wood stove. "I am an old man," he said bitterly. "They should not have treated me that way."

Rahimullah, the good-humored driver, said he was once riding in a car with two boys who made the mistake of laughing at some passing Taliban militiamen. All the passengers were seized, put in a dark room, tied up and had their feet burned and beaten. "I have always been a laughing man, but they broke my heart," he said.

In each of the three Logar villages, several family men said they had been living and working in Kabul when the Taliban took power in 1996, but were fired from government jobs almost immediately and retreated to their rural family homesteads to take up time farming or shopkeeping.

Hussain Khel, a former cook at the Kabul airport restaurant, said he was fired by the Taliban and came home to Puhl-i Kandhari, where he tried to make money by peddling trinkets and jewelry in other villages. But he said the Taliban forced him to stop, saying it was un-Islamic for him to sell goods to women and girls.

"I didn't want to beg and have people think poorly of me," Khel said. "There was no real government and no work. Doctors and engineers became farmers or raised animals. Every person had to fend for himself, and we all just kept our heads above water."

In other cases, villagers said their adult sons or brothers had fled to Pakistan or Iran, working at menial jobs for several years, and were now contemplating whether to return in the wake of the Taliban's retreat from power last month. Rahamuddin's son, a former Afghan army officer, sells bananas in Peshawar, Pakistan.

But for the very young, there was no escape from Taliban rule. Even in the relative sanctuary of village life, far removed from urban temptations involving alcohol and sex that earned the harshest Taliban punishments, wholesome youthful activities, from sports to walnut shooting, became subversive acts to be engaged in furtively.

"I never understood why they hated the walnut game. It is our happiness, our custom," said Farid Ahmad, 17, an eighth-grader in Puhl-i Kandhari who once narrowly escaped arrest while playing in the road with some friends. "At least now they are gone, and we can do it freely."

Ahmad's pocket bulged with nuts, and he shot one across the parlor carpet at his 5-year-old nephew, Zaki, who giggled and picked it up with delight.

----

NATIONAL
Death Sentence of Abu-Jamal, Philadelphia Inmate, Is Thrown Out

December 18, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Mumia-Abu-Jamal.html

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A federal judge on Tuesday threw out the death sentence imposed nearly three decades ago on Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former journalist and Black Panther held up by as activists worldwide as a political prisoner of a racist justice system.

U.S. District Judge William Yohn cited problems with the jury charge and verdict form in the trial that ended with Abu-Jamal's first-degree murder conviction in the death of a Philadelphia police officer. The judge denied all of Abu-Jamal's other claims and refused his request for a new trial.

The judge said Abu-Jamas is entitled to a new sentencing hearing within 180 days.

``Should the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania not have conducted a new sentencing hearing ... the Commonwealth shall sentence petitioner to life imprisonment,'' the judge said in his 272-page ruling.

The ruling could be appealed to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Abu-Jamal is America's most famous death-row inmate -- revered by a worldwide ``Free Mumia'' movement as a crusader against racial injustice, and reviled by the officers' supporters as an unrepentant cop-killer who deserves to die.

Abu-Jamal was convicted of shooting officer Daniel Faulkner, 25, during the early-morning hours of Dec. 9, 1981, after the officer pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother in a downtown traffic stop.

Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe ruled Nov. 21 that she did not have jurisdiction over Abu-Jamal's petition for a new trial, scuttling his hopes for another round of state-court appeals.

Abu-Jamal exhausted the state appeals process two years ago, but a petition filed in September argued that the defense had new evidence to clear him, including a confession by a man named Arnold Beverly.

In a 1999 affidavit, Beverly claimed he was hired by the mob to kill Faulkner because the officer had interfered with mob payoffs to police.

Abu-Jamal's former lawyers, Leonard Weinglass and Daniel R. Williams, said they thought the confession was not credible and Yohn refused to order Beverly to testify on Abu-Jamal's behalf.


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