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NUCLEAR
U.N. inspections continue on Christmas
Inspectors Keep Looking for Iraqi Weapons
Iran Is Going Ahead With Nuclear Plant
Russia Says to Go Ahead with Iran Nuclear Reactor
Iran, Russia Consider Second Nuke Reactor
N. Korean Official Threatens 'Fight to the End' With U.S.
N. Korea warns of 'nuclear war'
U.S. Gets Warning From North Korea
North Korea Moving Fuel Rods Into Reactor
Nixon Ordered Nuke Alert to Signal USSR
Weapon of the Week
Security Doubts at Indian Point
MILITARY
Hong Kong Moves Ahead on Tightening Security Laws
Israeli planes to be shielded vs. missiles
Reports: Israel, U.S. Work on Air Defense
V-22 Osprey to Face 'Make or Break' Tests
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
Civil Liberties Groups Sue Over Calif. Arrests
FBI Issues Shoe-Bomb Threat Alert
ACTIVISTS
Leading activist released from jail
Beijing Releases Leading Dissident
1054 Refuseniks
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- inspections
U.N. inspections continue on Christmas
December 25, 2002
UPI
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20021225-122230-6599r.htm
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 25 -- U.N. weapons inspectors Wednesday pursued their search of Iraq's suspected sites of weapons of mass destruction over the Christmas holidays.
The international inspectors targeted five sites in central and southern Iraq, including the Ibn al Haitham installation and a paper factory, an Iraqi Information Ministry official said.
The official said a team of the International Atomic and Energy Agency headed to an undisclosed location south of Baghdad.
As the inspections continued amid mounting fears that the United States might attack Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein's government, Iraqi Christians celebrated Christmas by attending mass in churches.
In a Christmas Eve message, Saddam said the outcome of the ongoing inspections would be "a great shock" to the United States because if they were fair, they would expose Washington's "lies" and prove Iraq was free of weapons of mass destruction.
When Iraq affirms that "it is not in possession of any such weapons, it means what it says," he said.
He also vowed a fight to preserve Iraq's borders.
"As much as the Iraqi people love life," he said, "they are ready for martyrdom in the defense of their land and airspace."
Meanwhile, the Saudi al Watan newspaper said the Iraqi regime "will fight with all its strength to preserve itself, not out of love to Iraq, but out of loyalty to Saddam."
--------
Inspectors Keep Looking for Iraqi Weapons
December 25, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Saddam Hussein welcomed Christmas with an angry speech saying Iraqis were ready for ``martyrdom,'' while U.N. inspectors spent the holiday trying to determine whether the Iraqi president is hiding nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
Inspections Wednesday took U.N. teams to a gas laboratory and a grain storage area in al-Taji, a vast complex that has attracted U.N. attention in the past. The International Atomic Energy Agency has linked al-Taji to Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
In an address read by a state television announcer to mark Christmas Eve, Saddam again rejected U.S. and British claims that his regime possesses weapons of mass destruction. He also said he wanted to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors.
``We are confident that the outcome of the inspection operations will be a big shock to the United States and will expose all the American lies if things remain on a technical and professional course with no hidden agendas,'' he said.
Saddam said the world was entering a new year ``under unique circumstances ... which have been manufactured by the forces of evil and darkness in order to create a situation of instability, chaos and tension.''
Saddam said the United States and its Zionist ally -- meaning Israel -- were bent on waging war against Iraq in a first step to spread their ``hegemony ... across the world and control fortunes and future'' of other countries.
``As much as Iraq loves life, its people are ready for martyrdom in the defense of its land and air space, its sanctities and future,'' Saddam's statement said.
``The road to deter the injustice, aggression and wickedness of the evil-minded is the road of jihad (holy war) and struggle,'' the statement said.
While Saddam spoke of war, about 120 people, including Iraqi Christians and American peace activists, prayed for peace at St. Rafael's Catholic Church in downtown Baghdad on Christmas Eve.
With fears building that America will wage war on Iraq, members of the U.S. and British-based Iraq Peace Team have traveled to Baghdad to call for a peaceful solution to the crisis and the lifting of harsh economic sanctions imposed on Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War.
``Of course I'm afraid, but I'll pray for peace,'' 12-year-old Zeina Shamuel told The Associated Press at St. Rafael's as worshippers sang in Arabic: ``The people living in the night, will see the long awaited light.''
Christians represent about 5 percent of Iraq's 22 million population and live mainly in Baghdad and the north. Iraq is predominantly Muslim and officially secular.
At the Vatican, Pope John Paul II called for people from all religions to work in the Middle East ``to extinguish the ominous smoldering of a conflict which, with the joint efforts of all, can be avoided.''
Although he didn't specifically mention Iraq, his remarks echoed anti-war comments in recent days by top Roman Catholic officials. The Vatican fears a war on Iraq could unleash an anti-Christian crusade in the Muslim world.
The United States and Britain have threatened war to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's most comprehensive attempt to rebut claims it has nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, a declaration to the United Nations earlier this month, has been dismissed as pages of lies by London and Washington. The top U.N. inspector has said it is largely a rehash of old information.
An Iraqi scientist interviewed by U.N. inspectors Tuesday said Baghdad is not hiding any weapons of mass destruction.
Sabah Abdel-Nour, who worked in a nuclear program Iraq says is now closed down, refused to be quizzed in private, telling U.N. inspectors that he wanted Iraqi officials present during the interview.
Speaking to reporters later at Baghdad's University of Technology, where he is a professor, Abdel-Nour said the U.N. inspectors were objective and friendly and their ``questions were mainly about what has been done or any progress which has been achieved in Iraq since 1998.''
Wednesday, inspectors were back at al-Taji, which they have visited at least twice earlier this month. On Dec. 16, a team examining Iraq's ballistic missile capabilities went to the al-Taji fiberglass production plant, which has become part of the Thaat Al Sawary plant. On Dec. 19, inspectors went to al-Hareth in al-Taji, a site that Iraq maintains is a food warehouse but U.S. officials have claimed may be a biological weapons facility.
Abdel-Razaq Abdel-Sattar Ahmed, a director at the liquid gas factory inspectors visited Wednesday, told reporters biological experts checked a building to make sure it was ``not used for prohibited purposes.'' Ahmed said that the site was inspected three times before 1998.
In its report on inspections in Iraq in the 1990s, the International Atomic Energy Agency said al-Taji was the planned site of a gas centrifuge program used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.
The previous round of U.N. inspections in the 1990s led to destruction of tons of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons, and to dismantlement of Iraq's program to try to build atomic bombs. That monitoring regime broke down in 1998 amid U.N.-Iraqi disputes and the inspectors now in Iraq are the first to work here in four years.
Sites visited Wednesday also included the Ibn Al-Haitham Company, identified in a British dossier on Iraq as a chemical weapons site.
-------- iran
Iran Is Going Ahead With Nuclear Plant, Despite U.S. Concerns
December 25, 2002
New York Times
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/25/international/middleeast/25IRAN.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 24 - The president of Iran said today that his country would continue construction of a Russian-assisted nuclear power plant and that the plant's nuclear waste would be taken to Russia for safekeeping. But American officials said the United States was still concerned that the plant was part of a secret nuclear weapons program.
The comments about the plant, which were made by President Mohammad Khatami during a visit to Pakistan, added to American concerns about the nuclear weapons capabilities of Iran and North Korea, two of the three nations that President Bush has called an "axis of evil." The third country is Iraq.
Washington says the three countries possess nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and might use them to support terrorism. But only Iraq has been threatened with the use of force unless it dismantles its weapons programs.
Iranian officials have repeatedly denied that they are building nuclear weapons, a statement repeated by Mr. Khatami today in Islamabad, where he met with Pakistan's prime minister, Zafarullah Khan Jamali.
"We are very happy that we are going to have that nuclear power plant in Iran," Mr. Khatami said. "We are going to develop it for energy and peaceful purposes. I repeat, peaceful purposes."
The United States has long criticized plans for the Iranian plant, which is being constructed with Russian help at Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf.
Last week American officials said they were also concerned about newly disclosed plans for two other nuclear plants, at Arak and Natanz, in central Iran.
The two central Iranian plants showed up in new satellite photos that seemed to show that the plants were further advanced than American officials had thought.
Mr. Khatami said Iran's willingness to send spent fuel from Bushehr back to Russia showed that it did not want to use the fuel for weapons.
"We have no problem with sending the nuclear waste and uranium waste to other countries," Mr. Khatami said. "We are not insisting on keeping them in Iran, where they could also pose an environmental problem."
But in Washington, Philip Reeker, the State Department spokesman, said that although Iran's plans to return spent fuel to Russia would help reduce the proliferation risk, "it falls short of easing our concerns."
Mr. Reeker said the United States had asked Russia to refrain from doing business with Iran in the nuclear field. The concern with the Bushehr reactor was that by building it with Russia, Iran was gaining access to training, expertise and "other things that can help build the infrastructure for nuclear weapons," he said.
Last week Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that because of its large oil and gas reserves, Iran had no need to develop nuclear energy. Therefore, he said, the United States must assume that any plans to build a nuclear plant had to be suspected as being part of a weapons program.
Russia, however, has joined with Iran in denying that it has anything other than a peaceful intent.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has been trying to enter Iran to examine its facilities.
Last week the agency said its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, would visit Iran in February.
--------
Russia Says to Go Ahead with Iran Nuclear Reactor
December 25, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran-russia.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Russia brushed aside strong U.S. criticism on Wednesday and said it had agreed with Tehran to speed up building of a $800 million nuclear reactor in Iran and to consider constructing another.
The United States, which has branded Iran part of an ``axis of evil'' for allegedly developing weapons of mass destruction, fiercely opposes the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.
Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said Washington had failed to show that Iran had broken any international regulations over the nuclear program.
``We always tell our American colleagues that all Iran- Russia cooperation is in accordance with international regulations and the resolutions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),'' Rumyantsev told a news conference.
Moscow's continued participation in the project to build a nuclear reactor near the southwestern port of Bushehr had depended on Iranian assurances that all spent fuel would be returned to Russia -- a demand advanced by U.S. experts.
WASHINGTON QUESTIONS IRANIAN MOTIVES
Iran insists the Bushehr reactor is for purely civilian power production, but U.S. officials question why Iran, the second biggest oil producer in OPEC and with the second biggest gas reserves in the world, would need it.
Russia says it would be difficult for the civilian reactor to be adapted to produce nuclear weapons, a stance disputed by Washington.
U.S. officials earlier this month also charged that two other nuclear sites being built in central Iran were of a type that could be used for manufacturing nuclear warheads.
The Bushehr reactor, due to come on stream at the end of 2003, is under the supervision of the IAEA, while the other two plants are not due to be inspected by the agency until late February.
``We agreed to speed up the completion process of the Bushehr power plant,'' Gholamreza Aqazadeh, Iranian Vice-President and head of the country's Atomic Energy Organization, said after finalizing details with Rumyantsev.
``A second subject we have agreed upon is to carry out feasibility studies for a second power generation unit. We hope to start a joint study in the next few months,'' Aqazadeh said.
President Bush has named North Korea and Iraq as the other ``axis of evil'' countries.
North Korea set alarm bells ringing in the West last week by removing U.N. monitoring equipment at a nuclear reactor capable of yielding weapons-grade plutonium. It agreed to the surveillance in 1994.
Washington has cautioned North Korea against using the world's current focus on Iraq to indulge in nuclear brinkmanship, saying the United States could fight and win two wars at once.
--------
Iran, Russia Consider Second Nuke Reactor
December 25, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iran-Russia-Nuclear.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran and Russia signed an accord Wednesday to speed up the completion of the Bushehr nuclear power plant and to form a commission to study the possibility of building a second reactor, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Under a separate agreement also reached Wednesday, Russia would provide nuclear fuel for the Bushehr plant in southern Iran for the next 10 years, IRNA reported.
The Bush administration has strongly urged Russia to abandon the $800 million project, saying it could advance Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program.
Moscow has shrugged off U.S. concerns, saying the project would serve civilian purposes and remain under international control. Iran also says its nuclear programs are peaceful.
The accord Wednesday was signed by Russia's Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev and the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Gholamreza Aghazadeh.
The Bushehr plant was expected to go on line by the end of 2003. IRNA did not say what the new target date for the completion of the project was.
``The two sides reiterated the need for speeding up the completion of Bushehr plant and agreed on forming a joint commission to carry out feasibility studies for the construction of another energy plant in Iran,'' IRNA reported.
During his four-day stay, Rumyantsev said his country would complete the Bushehr plant despite strong opposition from the United States.
The Bushehr plant was begun by the West Germans but was interrupted during the 1979 Islamic revolution.
-------- korea
N. Korean Official Threatens 'Fight to the End' With U.S.
By Peter S. Goodman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 25, 2002; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35190-2002Dec24?language=printer
SHANGHAI, Dec. 24 -- As North Korea pressed forward with plans to resuscitate a nuclear reactor that the Bush administration has said could produce weapons of mass destruction, the leading military official in the isolated Communist country today threatened a "fight to the end" against the United States.
"If they, ignorant of their rival, dare provoke a nuclear war, the army and people of [North Korea] led by Kim Jong Il, the invincible commander, will rise up to mete out determined and merciless punishment to the U.S. imperialist aggressors with the might of single-hearted unity more powerful than an A-bomb," said Defense Minister Kim Il Chol, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
Kim's fiery words came a day after his U.S. counterpart, Donald H. Rumsfeld, pledged that the Bush administration would not be deterred from attacking North Korea by preoccupation with preparations for war in Iraq. The threats from Washington and Pyongyang raised tensions on the Korean Peninsula close to the level of 1994, when the Clinton administration considered bombing North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear reactor before a settlement was negotiated.
Under the terms of that deal, North Korea formally renounced its nuclear weapons program and shut down the reactor in exchange for shipments of fuel oil from the United States and its allies. But the Bush administration halted those shipments this month, following a disclosure that North Korea had been secretly pursuing its nuclear weapons program. North Korea, in response, threatened to reactivate the reactor.
Today there were reports that North Korea was taking preparatory steps at the reactor site. "North Korean technicians are believed to be doing repair work at the reactor," said an unnamed South Korean government official quoted by that country's Yonhap news agency. "This is interpreted as a preparation for reactivating the reactor."
Although North Korea has threatened to take that step, it has yet to declare that it has followed through. On Sunday, North Korea confirmed that it had cut seals that once enclosed the facilities and dismantled U.N. monitoring equipment, leaving the rest of the world guessing about what is being done with 8,000 nuclear fuel containers stored there -- enough plutonium to build a half-dozen nuclear weapons within several months, according to arms control experts.
Today, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. body that monitors the facility, said in a statement that it now has no way of knowing whether North Korea is "diverting nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices," adding that "this rapidly deteriorating situation . . . raises grave nonproliferation concerns."
Representatives of the U.N. agency remain at the scene, though handicapped by the lack of surveillance equipment. The U.N. monitors today watched North Korean workers removing the equipment from a plant that holds the fuel containers. In an interview broadcast on CNN television, the director general of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, said that step "would enable them, if they restart the program, to make plutonium in a pretty few months. And that's a pretty disturbing intent."
North Korea has maintained that it must reactivate the reactor to produce electricity. But ElBaradei said North Korea's removal of monitoring devices at the storage area for spent fuel rods undercuts that claim. "It does not really make any rational sense in terms of their need, so to speak, to produce electricity," he said.
Most analysts construe North Korea's confrontational course as a game of nuclear brinkmanship designed to force the United States to resume aid shipments and sign a nonaggression pact at a time when the Bush administration is focused on Iraq.
Some read the North Korean defense minister's sharp rhetoric as a continuation of this basic strategy.
"They are waging a war of words," said Toshimitsu Shigemura, an expert on North Korea at Takushoku University in Tokyo. "The North's ultimate goal is its own survival. They could not afford to trigger a war. This is an act of desperation. They are desperate to improve their relationship with the United States and bring the U.S. to the negotiating table."
The Bush administration has refused to consider negotiations without a verifiable promise from North Korea that it is observing the 1994 accord. Rumsfeld said on Monday that the administration views diplomacy as its best response, but he emphasized that it is prepared to wage war. "Let there be no doubt about it," he said.
Today, signs emerged that the Bush administration's hard line may be sowing concern among allies who fear that an American unwillingness to compromise will make North Korea more belligerent, intensifying the prospect of war.
South Korea's president-elect, Roh Moo Hyun, who advocates dialogue with the North, today met in Seoul with the ambassadors of Russia, China and Japan to seek cooperation, according to his spokesman. Roh was elected last week after campaigning to continue South Korea's "sunshine policy," which relies on engagement with the North instead of isolation. That puts him at odds with President Bush, who has labeled North Korea part of an "axis of evil," along with Iran and Iraq.
South Korea would likely be devastated by any eruption of hostilities with North Korea and is obviously eager to avoid such an outcome.
The United States has been counting on China to pressure North Korea to halt its nuclear program. China fought alongside North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War and remains its closest ally. China also played a key role in brokering the 1994 deal. Its disintegration has damaged China's prestige at a time when the government is trying to burnish its reputation as a responsible global citizen.
But today, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement that tacitly rebuked the Bush administration's unwillingness to engage in talks without conditions. "We hope that relevant sides can proceed in the overall interest of safeguarding peace and stability and reach a resolution to the issue through dialogue," the ministry said.
Shen Dingli, an arms control expert at Fudan University in Shanghai, criticized the Bush administration for what he said was an unreasonable policy toward North Korea. "The U.S. position that, unless you abandon your nuclear program we won't sit down and talk with you, cannot work," he said. "You have no leverage, you have no trade, no relations. You are asking North Korea to give something up without getting anything." Britain, the Bush administration's most dependable ally, also endorsed diplomacy as the best response. Bill Rammell, the British Foreign Office minister, said North Korea is less of a threat than its rhetoric makes it appear. "Our best analysis at the moment is that this is not a regime that is hellbent on international confrontation," Rammell said.
Special correspondents Akiko Kashiwagi in Tokyo and Wang Ting in Shanghai contributed to this report.
----
N. Korea warns of 'nuclear war'
From combined dispatches
December 25, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021225-86089760.htm
North Korea yesterday warned that the Korean peninsula was on "the brink of a nuclear war" because of Washington's hard-line policies, as U.S. officials demanded Pyongyang immediately end its atomic weapons program.
As North Korea ratcheted up the rhetoric against Washington, it also started reopening more mothballed nuclear energy plants, ignoring pleas from the United States and Asian neighbors to leave them closed.
U.S. officials and the International Atomic Energy Agency said they suspected North Korea was trying to goad Washington back to the negotiating table after President Bush cut off oil shipments to the energy-starved nation. State Department spokesman Phil Reeker dismissed any such strategy, saying "we will not give in to blackmail."
"Pyongyang needs to completely and verifiably dismantle its nuclear weapons program and abide by its existing commitments," the department said in a prepared statement. "We cannot move forward in our relationship with North Korea until its violations of its commitments are ended."
The administration has said the resumption of North Korea's nuclear weapons program poses a threat to world security, partly because Pyongyang has been developing long-range missiles that may be able to deliver nuclear warheads. Washington accuses Pyongyang of being the world's biggest seller of missiles and missile-production technology.
U.S. officials sought to project an air of calm, offering measured responses as the dispute worsened. North Korea issued its strongest warnings since it began last weekend to dismantle U.N. monitoring equipment from shuttered nuclear power plants. North Korean technicians removed U.N. seals and cameras from a fourth nuclear facility, a plant that makes fuel rods. Experts believe some of the nuclear facilities were used to make one or two weapons in the 1990s.
In a sign of the urgency the issue has taken on, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spent a fourth straight day asking Japan and other countries to increase pressure on North Korea, Mr. Reeker said.
"The secretary reiterated what we [have] said before - that we are not anxious to escalate this problem but we are not going to be blackmailed," he said. "If North Korea is looking for U.S. support, this is not the way to do it."
Neither Mr. Powell nor Mr. Bush yesterday made any public comment. Mr. Bush monitored events on North Korea and other issues from Camp David, a spokesman said.
The North's defense minister, Kim Il Chol, said "U.S. hawks" were escalating the situation to "an extremely dangerous phase," adding that they were "pushing the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war."
The reclusive communist state's defense minister said his country had "modern offensive and defensive means capable of defeating" any enemy. He spoke after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday U.S. armed forces could fight two wars at the same time and win.
North Korea said Washington's hostile policy toward it would backfire and result in "an uncontrollable catastrophe." The statement by the North's communist party organ, Rodong Sinmun, was carried by the foreign news outlet Korean Central News Agency.
White House spokesman Sean McCormack had no direct comment on the new warnings from North Korea.
"We've made very clear we want a peaceful resolution to the situation North Korea has created by pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program, and as the president has said before, we have no intention of invading North Korea," he said. North Korea has accused the Bush administration of plotting an attack, and says the nuclear issue could be settled if Washington were to sign a nonaggression treaty.
South Korea, which would be on the front lines of any conflict on the peninsula and favors dialogue to end the crisis, expressed frustration with its unpredictable neighbor.
"South Korea, the United States, Japan, China, Russia and the European Union are all strongly calling on North Korea to abandon the nuclear program. But the North is not listening now," outgoing South Korean President Kim Dae-jung told his Cabinet.
President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, who was elected on Thursday on a campaign criticizing the tough U.S. stance on North Korea, met the ambassadors of China, Russia and Japan yesterday and spoke with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi by telephone.
----
U.S. Gets Warning From North Korea
December 25, 2002
New York Times
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/25/international/asia/25KORE.html
SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 24 - North Korea warned today of an "uncontrollable catastrophe" unless the United States agrees to a negotiated solution to a tense standoff over its nuclear energy and weapons programs.
The statement, made amid mounting tensions with the United States, came as a stiff pre-emptive rebuff to a conciliation-minded newly elected president in South Korea, and a warning to other countries that their efforts to mediate the crisis will be futile.
"There is no need for any third party to meddle in the nuclear issue on the peninsula," said North Korea's ruling-party newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun. Referring to the North Korean government by its Korean initials, the paper said: "The issue should be settled between the DPRK and the U.S., the parties responsible for it. If the U.S. persistently tries to internationalize the pending issue between the DPRK and the U.S. in a bid to flee from its responsibility, it will push the situation to an uncontrollable catastrophe."
The North Korean defense minister, Kim Il Chol, went further, warning of "merciless punishment" to the United States if it pursued a confrontational approach to the emerging nuclear crisis.
"The U.S. hawks are arrogant enough to groundlessly claim that North Korea has pushed ahead with a `nuclear program,' bringing its hostile policy toward the DPRK to an extremely dangerous phase," the state-run Korean Central News Agency quoted Mr. Kim as saying.
Some analysts here saw the defense minister's statement as a defiant response to comments by his American counterpart, Donald H. Rumsfeld, who said on Monday that the United States had enough military power to prevail over North Korea even if such a conflict occurred during a war with Iraq.
The North's incendiary comments came as Pyongyang accelerated its takeover of nuclear fuel and reactors placed under international surveillance under a 1994 agreement with the United States. That pact, known as the Agreed Framework, was forged after a standoff remarkably similar to the current one.
Today, South Korean officials said North Korea had begun taking steps to reactivate a five-megawatt nuclear reactor that had been mothballed under the agreement. North Korea completed the removal of the last International Atomic Energy Agency seals and disabling surveillance cameras at a fuel fabrication plant in Yongbyon, South Korean officials said on Tuesday.
The facility is known technically as a "research reactor," but Western arms control experts say its true purpose is to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.
"There are varying estimates on how long it would take them to reprocess the spent fuel, but they probably have plans to do it a lot faster than outsiders imagine - and will do so if their equipment works," said an American official who has studied North Korea's nuclear programs for years.
"Here are a few of the ugly signposts we might whiz past: asking the inspectors to leave, starting up the reprocessing line, finalizing their withdrawal from the Nonproliferation Treaty and declaring themselves a nuclear power with a `Korean bomb' intended to protect the whole of the Korean people by keeping the Americans from starting a war."
Reflecting the sharp increase in distrust between the United States and South Korea amid a series of major demonstrations against the presence of 37,000 American troops in the country, the official added, "This will cause some secret shivers of pride amongst some in the South."
Both South Korea's outgoing president, Kim Dae Jung, and the man who will succeed him in February, Roh Moo Hyun, spent most of the day struggling to contain the crisis, which threatens to nullify the engagement policies they embrace.
"South Korea, the United States, Japan, China, Russia and the European Union are all strongly calling on North Korea to abandon the nuclear program, but the North is not listening now," Mr. Kim said during a cabinet meeting.
Amid concerns over tensions between Washington and Seoul, Mr. Kim appeared to draw closer to the American position on the North, saying there could be no major cooperation between the two countries unless Pyongyang agreed to international controls on its weapons of mass destruction. "We can never join hands in the development of nuclear weapons, missiles and other weapons," Mr. Kim said.
The new president, Mr. Roh, meanwhile, spent much of the day meeting with ambassadors of countries that have been involved in the region's crisis. "The president-elect requested cooperation from those concerned countries to help resolve the North's nuclear issue peacefully," said Mr. Roh's spokesman, Lee Nak Hyun.
Mr. Roh also spoke by telephone to the Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi. The two leaders "agreed to continue close cooperation among Japan, the United States and South Korea to bring about a peaceful solution to nuclear and other security issues regarding North Korea," a ministry statement said.
In Washington, the State Department said it was following developments closely. "Again, we urge North Korea not to restart any of its frozen nuclear facilities," said Tara Rigler, a department spokeswoman. Ms. Rigler said the State Department's stance was unchanged since Monday, when the department's spokesman, Philip Reeker, said that there could be no negotiations while North Korea is pursuing its nuclear program, and that the United States "will not give in to blackmail."
President Bush was said to be monitoring developments from the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md., where he is spending the Christmas holiday with his family.
Ms. Rigler reiterated the administration's position that the spent fuel rods are "of particular concern because they could be processed to recover plutonium for nuclear weapons."
"They have no relevance for the generation of electricity," she said.
Recently, China, which has been North Korea's closest ally since the two countries fought the United States during the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, also expressed concern over the reported pursuit of nuclear weapons. Today, Beijing urged Washington and Pyongyang to negotiate a solution of the crisis that would leave the Korean peninsula free from nuclear weapons.
"We hope relevant sides can proceed in the overall interest of safeguarding peace and stability on the peninsula and reach a resolution to the issue through dialogue," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
----
North Korea Moving Fuel Rods Into Reactor
Dec 25,
AP
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KOREAS_NUCLEAR_FUEL?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea has begun moving fresh fuel rods into a reactor, another step in reactivating nuclear facilities that could produce weapons, a South Korean news agency said Thursday.
The Yonhap news agency, quoting an unidentified South Korean government official, said the communist North began moving fuel rods into the five-megawatt reactor at its main nuclear center in Yongbyon, 50 miles north of its capital, Pyongyang.
In a confrontation with the United States, North Korea on Dec. 12 decided to restart its frozen nuclear facilities and then removed U.N. monitoring seals and cameras form the reactor and three other key nuclear facilities.
"We've confirmed through IAEA that North Korea began moving fuel rods into the reactor on Wednesday," Yonhap quoted its source as saying.
The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency has three inspectors staying in North Korea eye-checking the activities of North Koreans. The number of inspectors was increased from two to three this week.
In the Yonhap report, the South Korean official did not say whether North Korea has actually begun loading the fuel inside the Soviet-designed reactor core, which can produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The official said it was unknown how many fuel rods have been moved so far, adding that the move was expected to continue for a while.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Nixon Ordered Nuke Alert to Signal USSR
December 25, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nixon-Nuclear-Alert.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Nixon ordered a worldwide secret nuclear alert in October 1969, calling his wartime tactic a ``madman strategy'' aimed at scaring the Soviets into forcing concessions from North Vietnam, declassified documents show.
It didn't work, as Moscow displayed no concern. The reason is unclear. The Soviets may not have cared, may not have been as influential as Nixon believed -- or, like the rest of the world, might not have noticed the alert.
The aim of the alert was kept secret from even the generals who put it into place.
The bluff was part of what Nixon described as a ``madman'' strategy to his new administration at the outset of 1969: ratcheting up military pressure on the North Vietnamese at unpredictable intervals to pressure them into concessions at peace talks in Paris.
Nixon believed this would accelerate accommodation by the North Vietnamese, forcing them into an agreement that would leave U.S. ally South Vietnam in place.
Among declassified documents published this week by the independent National Security Archive is a memo to National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger from his assistant, Gen. Alexander Haig. It described plans to signal ``U.S. intent to escalate military operations in Vietnam in the face of continued enemy intransigence in Paris.''
Among the ``signals'' in Haig's March 2 outline: bombing enemy positions in Cambodia. On March 17, Nixon launched a massive secret bombing campaign against communist bases in that country.
Despite such pressures, the Paris talks remained deadlocked, and Nixon began to contemplate the nuclear alert in the summer of 1969.
A memo telegraphed Oct. 19 from Gen. Earle Wheeler, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, to all his commanders in chief ordered a ``series of actions during the period 13 October - 25 October to test our military readiness in selected areas worldwide to respond to possible confrontation by the Soviet Union. These actions should be discernible to the Soviets, but not threatening in themselves.''
He recommended grounding combat aircraft in selected areas for readiness checks, periods of radio silence and increased surveillance of Soviet ships -- all actions that suggested posturing for a nuclear conflict, and which the Americans believed the Soviets were sure to notice. A later ``talking points'' document showed Wheeler also ordered heightened combat readiness for ground troops.
The alert spread far beyond the Southeast Asian theater, and included U.S. forces in the Mideast and Europe.
The commanders carrying out the orders did not know the purpose of the exercise. Wheeler told them only that ``we have been directed by a higher authority,'' an apparent reference to Nixon's immediate policy circle.
In an Oct. 17 diary entry, Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman wrote: ``(Kissinger) has all sorts of signal-type activity going on around the world to try to jar the Soviets and NVN (North Vietnam).''
Keeping the secret to a small circle of advisers prevented leaks as well as widespread panic and protest, anathema to Nixon's plans to tightly control the war maneuvering. But it may have backfired.
According to a report on the nuclear alert in the January 2003 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin betrayed no knowledge -- or concern -- of the nuclear alert in a meeting with a U.S. official a few days after the alert.
The Soviets resented attempts to use means unrelated to the Vietnam conflict to pressure them to rein in the North Vietnamese. Nixon brought Vietnam into arms reduction and Mideast talks as well. Although the Soviets were a major arms supplier to North Vietnam, Hanoi adeptly played the USSR against the Chinese, threatening a move to the other sphere of influence at the first sign of pressure
On the Net:
National Security Archive: http://www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: http://www.thebulletin.org/
--------
Weapon of the Week
by George Smith
The Burrowing Nuke
December 25-31, 2002
Village Voice (12/31/02 NucNews)
B-61: a supplement for the nuclear family (photo: Department of Energy) http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0252/weapon.jpg
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0252/smith.php
Six out of 10 Americans think it would be OK to nuke Iraq. And the president wants the option to use H-bombs preemptively in the war on terror. So what would be the Armageddon punch of choice for the Butcher of Baghdad and a million or so people standing too close to him?
Since The Washington Post spoke for the people on deployment of nukes, it would be good for some people to know that the go-to bomb would be the B-61-one of the nightmare weapons of the thermonuclear armory.
Also affectionately known as the "burrowing bomb," the newest edition of the B-61, called the Mk-11, was developed just for use against non-nuclear third-world patsy-tyrants who have heard the call of "Dig we must," and buried themselves and their alleged caches of biological and chemical weapons deep underground.
Built ram tough with a heavy metal casing for smashing through earth and concrete, the B-61 explodes with the force of an estimated 340,000 tons of TNT. It is lots of bang for the buck, literally two apocalypse bombs in one-a boosted plutonium firecracker called the primary, and a heavy hydrogen secondary for that good old-fashioned H-bomb fireball. The B-61 also features a detonation option called the Dial-a-Yield for those times when 340 kilotons is just a little too much.
To get a handle on the full power of the B-61, consider that the WW II A-bombs produced fireballs about 800 yards across. Seventeen times more powerful, a B-61 over the tip of Manhattan would probably provide decent annihilation, engulfing most of the borough while extending the same courtesy to Brooklyn, Queens, and a good chunk of Staten Island.
Saddam has dug but he won't be able to hide. One B-61 will bring on a calamity of biblical proportions between Tigris and Euphrates. The sky will turn the color of sackcloth, the Arab world will supernova, our European allies will try our leaders in absentia as war criminals in the Hague-but, hey, anyone who contemplates using the thing plans on America's hair getting a little mussed.
Strangeloves in the administration and the weapons labs believe future B-61 blasts will be contained below ground, making this a great war-fighter, not a doomsday device. But the only people who believe that get paid by the government to do so.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new york
Security Doubts at Indian Point
December 25, 2002
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/25/opinion/25WED3.html
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission needs to subject New York's Indian Point nuclear plant to a stringent test of its ability to cope with a terrorist attack as soon as possible. There is no other way to determine whether the plant's security forces are blessed with Rambo-like powers, as the industry claims, or are more like the Keystone Kops, as an assessment from some of the guards themselves suggests.
The ads on nuclear plant security that the industry ran earlier this year depicted tough-looking men with big guns protecting unidentified nuclear plants. "Meet Steve Yancey, formerly of the 82nd Airborne and the U.S. Marine Corps," one ad said. It described Steve and his colleagues as highly committed, exactingly trained and physically fit and as expert marksmen with an array of weaponry.
Too bad the guards at Indian Point, some 35 miles north of Times Square, do not quite fit that image. According to a leaked report submitted to the plant's owners early this year, only 19 percent of the guards, who are supplied by the Wackenhut Corporation, felt that they could adequately defend the plant. Some guards estimated that half the force might not be physically able to meet the demands. As for marksmanship, some guards require multiple tries to pass their annual tests.
These revelations were contained in a report prepared by a former N.R.C. investigator who interviewed more than 50 guards at the plant. In follow-up interviews, Richard Pérez-Peña of The Times reported, guards told of minimal training, of some guards' reporting to duty drunk and having to be sent home, and of fatigue from working 70 to 80 hours a week or more.
Entergy, the company that owns and operates Indian Point, says that most of the guards' concerns have been addressed. A new fence, barriers and security cameras have been installed, for example, and 30 new guards will report in January to help protect both Unit 2, where the survey was done, and the adjacent Unit 3. National Guardsmen and state police provide additional protection. Entergy remains convinced that Indian Point's defenses are robust and that they could pass any test.
Security at Indian Point has passed muster with both the N.R.C., which considers the site well protected against terrorists, and Gov. George Pataki's own Office of Public Security. But the guards' assessment is so jarringly at odds with those judgments, and with the industry's tough-guy reassurances, that a closer look is needed.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has urged both Entergy and the N.R.C. to schedule a mock terrorist attack at Indian Point early next year to see whether the security force can handle it. Entergy says it is willing. The drill should use realistic assumptions about the size of an attacking force and the likelihood that it would strike without warning. If the regulators cannot ensure that the private guards are competent and ready, it may be time to federalize the security force at nuclear plants.
-------- MILITARY
-------- china
Hong Kong Moves Ahead on Tightening Security Laws
December 25, 2002
New York Times
By KEITH BRADSHER
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/25/international/asia/25HONG.html
HONG KONG, Dec. 24 - The government here ended a public comment period today on plans for tough internal security laws, including a ban on the mere possession of "seditious" publications, brushing aside objections from businesses, human rights groups and foreign governments.
The government said it would introduce legislation as soon as practicable, with the goal of winning final passage by July. However, the government indicated that adjustments would be made to its plans based on the public comments that have been received.
Timothy Tong, Hong Kong's acting secretary of security, said tonight that while officials were aware of polls showing that up to 70 percent of the residents here had a negative view of the plans, they would still start the legislative process by February.
"Hong Kong, being an inalienable part of the People's Republic of China, has both moral and constitutional obligations to protect national security," he said at a news conference.
Yet after receiving more than 90,000 comments on the proposal, government officials are likely to revise some provisions, Mr. Tong said.
"We will consider how best we can improve on our proposals and allay as far as possible worries raised by different sectors, such as those over the possession of seditious publications, increased police powers and unauthorized access to protected information." he said. "We believe there will be some adjustments to our proposals in the light of the views received."
Britain handed over this territory to China in 1997 after receiving a promise, enshrined in the territory's Basic Law, that China would respect Hong Kong's separate legal and economic systems for at least 50 years under the principle of "One Country, Two Systems."
But the Basic Law also contains a provision, Article 23, that requires new internal security laws after the handover.
A wide range of critics, from the American Chamber of Commerce to Amnesty International to the European Parliament, as well as democracy advocates here, had urged the government to issue a draft text of the legislation for public comment before asking the Legislative Council to take up the issue. The critics complained of ambiguities in the so-called consultation document in which the government outlined its plans.
"The government spent four years to draft that consultation document but has only given us two months to look at it," said Bella Luk, the director of the Hong Kong section of Amnesty International, which also petitioned unsuccessfully today for an extension of the comment period.
An additional period of public comment for a draft text of the legislation would give opponents another chance to oppose provisions like one that would allow even fairly junior police commanders to order searches and seizures without a warrant in security cases, and another that lengthens prison sentences and increases fines for sedition.
Banks and other businesses have been particularly alarmed by proposals for stringent penalties for the unauthorized release of government information, fearing that, as on the mainland, such a provision could be used to inhibit free speech about economic indicators or even the financial health of Chinese state-owned enterprises. Mr. Tong said that this concern would receive attention and might prompt revisions.
The government here has repeatedly pointed out that its proposal would actually narrow the grounds on which residents and foreigners could be tried for some offenses. Hong Kong already has fairly stringent security laws on its books.
Mr. Tong said tonight that the executive branch here would proceed with its original plan to send the new internal security laws directly to the Legislative Council in February as a so-called blue bill, which discourages filibusters and amendments.
The bill would go through numerous hearings, but under the rules, the Legislative Council would be compelled to vote on the bill before adjourning in July. The measure is expected to pass.
Some Chinese nationalists here have embraced the government's proposal, contending that the laws will help make sure that Chinese rule over Hong Kong is never threatened.
They also contend that recent American antiterrorism efforts show that Hong Kong's efforts are part of an international trend toward balancing respect for civil rights with security worries.
"You need a lock for your door to prevent a thief from breaking in," said Ma Lik, the secretary general of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, a pro-Beijing political party.
-------- israel / palestine
Israeli planes to be shielded vs. missiles
By Joshua Brilliant
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
December 25, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20021225-022321-1309r.htm
TEL AVIV, Israel, Dec. 25 (UPI) -- Israel Wednesday decided to equip its civilian passenger planes with systems that would deflect shoulder launched anti-aircraft missiles, a well placed source told United Press International on condition he not be identified.
The decision, taken at a meeting among Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and security experts, seems to have been spurred by last month's attack on an Arkia Boeing 757 as it took off from Mombassa International airport in Kenya. Two shoulder-launched missiles were fired at it, but miraculously missed.
The source said the system chosen Wednesday, the time it would take to equip the aircraft and the costs are secret.
Israel Radio said the plan calls for "a joint project with the U.S. to produce an advanced system."
Channel 2 TV reported that the cooperation is sought to speed up the project and reduce its costs. The present systems are "not perfect," Channel 2 TV's defense reporter said.
A source who spoke to UPI on condition of anonymity said the government Wednesday approached an Israel Aircraft Industries subsidiary, Elta, for talks on the project.
Elta's system, Flight Guard, is supposed to detect a missile launching and release small hot air balloons that would burn for a short while and attract the missiles thereby saving the plane itself. These oblong balloons are much smaller than the balloons fighter planes release, UPI was told.
Israel needs U.S. Federal Aviation Administration approval for this move, UPI was told. The FAA would check the proposed changes to the planes' frames and systems before allowing them to land in the U.S.
Such systems have already been installed in the plane of an African president and of a leader of one of the countries in the former Soviet Union. The IAI would not identify its clients.
One source said the IAI is negotiating with a U.S. company, Netjet, to equip its planes with Flight Guard.
The Israeli airlines that fly abroad -- El Al, Arkia and Israir -- have a total of some 30 aircraft, UPI was told.
Arkia's President Israel Borovich welcomed the decision. "I am very happy the prime minister put the issue of aviation safety in its right place," he told UPI.
--------
Reports: Israel, U.S. Work on Air Defense
December 25, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-US-Air-Defense.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel and the United States will develop a system to protect civilian airplanes from missile attacks, Israeli radio stations reported Wednesday.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided on the joint project in a meeting Wednesday with Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, the reports said. They did not describe the U.S. position on the issue.
Sharon's office and the Defense Ministry refused to comment.
The reported cooperation came after an attack on Nov. 28 in which two shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles just missed an Israeli airplane carrying 271 passengers as it took off from Mombasa, Kenya. Around the same time, at least two suicide bombers blew up a hotel nearby, killing 11 Kenyans, three Israelis and themselves. Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The Israeli military research company Rafael has developed a system to protect airplanes by installing devices that would emit a hot beam of light to divert heat-seeking missiles. However, the system would reportedly cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per plane.
Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that cooperation among countries to develop such a system could bring down the cost.
Military jets have long been equipped with missile deflection systems, but those planes are much smaller and more maneuverable than commercial airliners.
-------- us
V-22 Osprey to Face 'Make or Break' Tests
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 25, 2002; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35187-2002Dec24?language=printer
The future of the V-22 Osprey, one of the most controversial aircraft in U.S. military history, likely will be decided over the next year or so in a series of unusually rigorous tests at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station.
"This is really the 'make or break' time for the V-22," Gen. James L. Jones, the Marine commandant, said in a recent interview.
The Marine Corps is deeply committed to the novel hybrid aircraft, which can take off and land vertically like a helicopter but, when in flight, can tilt forward its two big rotors and fly like a regular airplane. Compared with the workhorse CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter, said Marine Col. Dan Schultz, the V-22 program manager, it can fly twice as fast, at more than twice the altitude, with three times the payload and four times the range. What's more, it boasts aircraft-like acceleration, going from zero to 220 knots in 18 seconds, handy for getting out of a hot landing zone. To the Marine Corps, the plane is absolutely essential to operating in the 21st century.
The problem is that the Osprey, after nearly two decades in development, suffered two high-profile crashes in 2000, killing 23 Marines and casting grave doubt over the future of the program. A subsequent scandal involving doctored maintenance records resulted in three Marine officers' being found guilty of misconduct.
In addition, the program has been financially costly. Current plans call for the Marines, Special Operations Command and Navy to buy a total of about 450 Ospreys at cost of about $40 billion, for a cost per plane of about $80 million, according to GlobalSecurity.org, a defense consulting group.
To prove that the aircraft isn't a misbegotten and expensive experiment, the Marines, Navy and Air Force are working together at Patuxent River to conduct flight tests.
Some are designed to ensure that problems such as troubled flight-control software have been fixed. Other tests, such as flying in formation, are aimed at proving to critics that perceived problems -- such as the concern that the planes cannot descend closely together in safety -- actually don't exist. The program is also testing changes that resulted from studies of the crashes, which found, among other things, that parts of the engines were difficult for maintenance crews to reach and that chafing rendered some hydraulic lines dangerously thin.
"We have spent a lot of time trying to fix what's wrong with this airplane," Schultz said in a recent interview. "We have front-loaded the test program. We have all of the really hard stuff up front."
Probably the most important series of tests will be the "high rate of descent" program -- that is, coming in toward the ground fast. "This has had more press than just about anything," Schultz noted.
An excessive rate of descent also was found to be a major cause of the April 2000 crash in Arizona that killed 19 Marines. The V-22 that crashed was descending at about 2,500 feet per minute when one of its rotors was caught in a phenomenon called "vortex ring state," when it wasn't getting any lift, Schultz said. When the other rotor continued to gain lift, he said, "the aircraft rolled over and inverted."
Next year the Osprey will be put through months of testing of fast descents. Eventually some will be flown downward at 1,500 feet per minute while maneuvering. Then, to answer the concern of critics that the dangerous vortex ring state can be caused by the wake turbulence of one V-22 flying in front of another -- a view Schultz rejects -- there also will be multiaircraft tests of fast descents. "No one has ever done a year of high rate of descent testing on helicopters," he said.
A review of the December 2000 crash that killed four Marines in part blamed an error in the flight control software. Marine Lt. Col. Kevin Gross, the chief government test pilot, said that all the software has been reviewed, and some has been redesigned or modified.
Some skeptics have expressed concern that the V-22 would only be deemed airworthy by placing new constraints on its operations that would reduce its usefulness. But Gross said they are not finding new limits on how it is flown. "I believe we will take the already large flight envelope and expand it further," he said.
Addressing another concern, they also are finding ways to make the aircraft less of a target for the enemy. Schultz said the V-22's engines have heat suppressors. He also disclosed that newer versions of the aircraft are being painted with a new kind of paint that disperses heat and reduces the ability of heat-seeking missiles to acquire them as targets.
At the end of the testing, the Marines are confident they and their partners will have convinced skeptics that the aircraft is safe and capable of conducting combat operations.
The most important of the doubters is Pentagon acquisition czar Edward "Pete" Aldridge, an aerodynamicist by training who is said still to have grave doubts about the feasibility of the aircraft. Aldridge said at a Pentagon briefing last month that the V-22 now has "a good flight test program," but he quickly added, "I am still as concerned about the program as I have always been."
The next year's intense series of tests raises the question why it wasn't all done before, in 1997 through 1999, when the Osprey supposedly was tested and certified ready to go -- and then had two high-profile crashes. Schultz said he does not try to answer that question. "My job is: What is wrong, and how do you fix it?"
Jones, the Marine commandant, said that "there are several things that in hindsight we wish we had been done better." Among other things, he said, "we weren't quite as rigid as we should have been, in hindsight, in demanding that the quality be there."
This time, Schultz said, they are aware that the program is on the razor's edge. "There's no margin of error for us," he said. "We've used up all our chances."
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
-------- immigration
Civil Liberties Groups Sue Over Calif. Arrests
December 25, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-attack-immigration.html
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The U.S. Attorney General and the nation's immigration service were hit by a class action civil liberties lawsuit on Tuesday over the mass detentions of immigrants from Muslim countries who came forward to register under new anti-terrorism rules.
A coalition of Arab and Muslim groups sought an immediate injunction against further arrests and alleged that large numbers of men who came forward to register in southern California last week had been unlawfully detained.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, followed outrage over the detentions of hundreds of immigrants -- most of them Iranians -- who presented themselves at immigration offices under the anti-terrorism program and who were taken away in handcuffs and locked up, sometimes for days, for overstaying their visas.
The Department of Justice did not return calls seeking comment on the lawsuit which named Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Immigration and Naturalization Service as defendants.
Local immigration lawyers estimated last week that about 1,000 men and boys were detained in standing room only centers, and forced to sleep on concrete floors, under a system designed to track potential ``terrorists'' but which instead locked up many caught in the lengthy process for obtaining permanent residence.
Official figures from the Department of Justice and the INS put the number of detentions in California at less than 250. By Tuesday, officials said that about 20 were still detained in the Los Angeles area, five in San Diego and a handful in San Francisco.
PROGRAM CALLED 'IRRATIONAL'
The men were detained under a post-Sept. 11 program which requires males over 16, without permanent residence, from 20 Arab or Muslim countries to register with authorities.
Peter Schey, president of the Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law and the lead attorney for the six, unnamed plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said mass registration was irrational because ``no undocumented terrorist will come forward.''
Schey said the lawsuit was not about resisting registration but about the way it was being implemented.
``The program is being used as a scam to lure people into INS offices supposedly to register, when what they really face is arrest, detention and even deportation despite their pending petitions to legalize their status which the INS refuses to process,'' he said.
The registration deadline for the first group, which included Iranians from the 600,000-strong Iranian exile community in the Los Angeles area, fell on Dec. 16. Deadlines are approaching in January and February for citizens of Afghanistan, Algeria, Yemen, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The lawsuit asked for an injunction ordering the government not to arrest any other people without a warrant and to prevent the deportation or holding without bail of detainees with avenues available to legalize their status.
It said the detentions of otherwise law-abiding immigrants ``seriously undermines prospects for future compliance and constitutes an absurd waste of resources.''
CONFIDENCE IN INS ERODED
``The mass arrests have further eroded confidence in the fairness of the INS and the immigration system among Arab and Muslim communities,'' said the lawsuit. It was filed by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Alliance of Iranian Americans, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the National Council of Pakistani Americans.
Local media have highlighted cases of professionals, like San Francisco-area engineer Ramsin Ziazadeh, who works at National Semiconductor and Faramarz Farahani, a database manager at a Silicon Valley company. Both men were born in Iran and were detained for failing to report to the INS on time.
``We got word he might be released soon, but I can't believe he went through this incredible four-day ordeal,'' Farahani's wife Judy Shum told the San Francisco Chronicle.
``One day he's an (information technology) professional with a briefcase, the next he's in shackles at the INS office.''
Khurrum Wahid of the Council on American Islamic Relations said the groups bringing the lawsuit wanted to prevent such situations happening again.
``We feel the INS really didn't take into account the situation of the people they were detaining and the disruption to their lives, and they were not prepared to execute the procedure that they themselves had set up,'' Wahid told Reuters.
-------- terrorism
FBI Issues Shoe-Bomb Threat Alert
Associated Press
Wednesday, December 25, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35241-2002Dec24?language=printer
Although it has no evidence of a specific plot, the FBI has warned that it possesses intelligence that terrorists are interested in using shoe bombs to down airliners -- like the attack foiled a year ago.
In its latest intelligence bulletin, the FBI urged law enforcement nationwide to stay vigilant to the possibility that terrorists might try to hide bombs in bulky winter coats, shoes or other garments.
"The U.S. intelligence community continues to receive credible information that terrorist operatives remain interested in utilizing shoe bombs during the conduct of hijackings or other attacks against commercial airliners," said the bulletin sent Monday night.
Meanwhile, the State Department alerted Americans in East Africa yesterday that terrorists might strike and said Kenya's capital, Nairobi, was under threat of missile attack.
Similar attacks may occur in the East African nation Djibouti, the department said, citing unconfirmed information.
In Nairobi, there is an increased threat against Westerners. The department advised U.S. citizens there and those planning to travel to Kenya to be wary.
A car bomb at an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombasa, Kenya, last month killed 12 people.
That attack, along with an attempt to shoot down an Israeli charter plane, highlight the continuing threat posed by terrorism in the region, the department said.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Leading activist released from jail
By Joe McDonald
ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 25, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20021225-17121284.htm
BEIJING - A leading Chinese pro-democracy activist was released from prison yesterday and was on his way to the United States, according to his family and an American activist.
Xu Wenli, jailed since 1998 on charges of endangering state security, was granted early release from his 13-year sentence and flown out of China yesterday, said John Kamm, who has played a role in the release of several Chinese prisoners.
In New York, Mr. Xu's daughter, Xu Jin, was waiting at LaGuardia Airport to fly to Chicago to welcome her father. She hasn't seen him in five years.
"It's a very merry Christmas," said Miss Xu, who teaches at a private high school in Providence, R.I. "I am very happy and anxious to see my parents."
Mr. Xu was arrested in 1998 after trying to set up the opposition China Democracy Party with other activists. The communist government quickly crushed the party and sent dozens of its members to prison.
The release came a week after Lorne Craner, U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, said that he had appealed to Chinese officials during talks in Beijing on human rights to free Mr. Xu.
Mr. Xu, who has hepatitis B, was granted medical parole, Mr. Kamm said. He said that Chinese officials had authorized him to announce Mr. Xu's release.
"This was directly related to the Chinese government's desire to improve relations with the United States," Mr. Kamm said. "The decision was made at a very high level."
Mr. Kamm, a former chemical company executive, runs the Dui Hua Foundation in San Francisco and specializes in collecting information on Chinese prisons.
Mr. Xu's wife, He Xintong, and a U.S. diplomat were traveling with him, Mr. Kamm said by telephone from San Francisco. He wouldn't say to which city they were traveling.
Mr. Xu is the first Chinese convicted of endangering state security to be released early from prison, Mr. Kamm said. Beijing often uses this charge against leading dissidents.
The CNN signal that serves diplomatic compounds and hotels for foreigners in Beijing was interrupted shortly after the start of a report on Mr. Xu's release. The screen went blank for about a minute, and when the signal returned, another report had begun.
--------
Beijing Releases Leading Dissident
December 25, 2002
New York Times
By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/25/international/asia/25CHIN.html
BEIJING, Dec. 24 - China released its most prominent pro-democracy prisoner today, sending him to exile and medical treatment in the United States.
The Christmas-eve release of Xu Wenli, 59, who spent more than 16 of the last 21 years in prison for his irrepressible advocacy of civil liberties, came one week after a visiting American diplomat made pleas on his behalf. The release signaled China's strong desire for good relations with the United States.
Since late 1998, when Mr. Xu received a 13-year prison sentence on charges of subversion after he helped organize an independent political party, American officials and human rights groups abroad have repeatedly sought his release. The appeals grew more urgent after 1999, when doctors discovered that Mr. Xu suffers from chronic and progressive infection with hepatitis B.
While other prominent dissidents have been released over the years on what often appeared to be trumped-up medical grounds, Mr. Xu's liver disease is serious and worsening, family members said. Officially, he was granted medical parole today so he can seek advanced treatments for the viral disease in the United States, said John Kamm, the leader of an American human-rights foundation who said he was authorized by the Chinese to announce the release.
"This was directly related to the Chinese government's desire to improve relations with the United States," said Mr. Kamm, executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation in San Francisco, which monitors Chinese political and religious prisoners. In Washington, the State Department spokesman, Philip Reeker, said the United States was "pleased that China has released Xu Wenli on medical parole." Mr. Reeker said the case of Mr. Xu had been pressed by the United States, other countries, various private groups and members of Congress.
This evening, with no publicity here, Mr. Xu and his wife, He Xintong, boarded a plane for Chicago, where their daughter, who teaches at a high school in Rhode Island, planned to meet them and accompany them to New York City.
[The couple arrived Tuesday evening at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, where Mr. Xu was reunited with his daughter, Xu Jin. He declined interviews and just offered "a big thank you," said Mickey Spiegel, a friend of the daughter, The Associated Press reported.]
Last week, during a meeting here, Lorne Craner, the assistant secretary of state for human rights, had placed Mr. Xu at the top of a list of political prisoners whose release the United States considered a priority. Afterward, Mr. Craner said in Beijing that the Chinese had promised to issue unconditional invitations to United Nations rights monitors exploring issues related to torture and religious freedom.
While welcoming Mr. Xu's freedom, rights advocates abroad noted that dozens of others who pushed for a new political party in 1998 remain imprisoned and that overall, thousands of people are in jail for peaceful expressions of dissent or efforts to organize. Among them are Qin Yongmin, 49, who was a close associate of Mr. Xu and who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in December 1998, and Wang Youcai, 36, who was the main founder that year of the ill-fated China Democracy Party. He was sentenced to 11 years.
American officials have also sought the release of Rebiya Kadeer, a prominent Uighur Muslim businesswoman who is imprisoned on weakly substantiated charges of fomenting an independence movement in Xinjiang province.
Mr. Xu, who was born in 1943, described himself as an idealistic Marxist during the 1960's. In the revolutionary spirit of that era, he decided to get his education in society rather than at a university.
He spent time in the Chinese Navy, then was an electrician with the Beijing railroads. But in the late 1970's he emerged as a leader of the "democracy wall" movement, a brief outpouring of calls for political rights that was soon dealt with harshly.
Mr. Xu spent 12 years in prison, with long stretches in solitary confinement, before his release in 1993.
Mr. Xu could be a prickly figure and he publicly feuded with another democracy wall activist, Wei Jingsheng, who was sent into exile in the United States in 1997 after spending much of his adult life in prison.
But Mr. Xu's single-minded devotion to democratic principles never flagged, and he was known for his steely analyses of what he saw as the Communist government's half-measures and frequent flouting of its own Constitution.
In 1998, during what appeared to be a political softening around the time of a friendly visit to China by President Bill Clinton, Mr. Xu and Mr. Qin together made open calls for free labor unions and independent political parties. In the face of intense surveillance and repeated brief detentions, they tried to set up a domestic human-rights monitoring network using e-mail and faxes.
Then, as the fledgling China Democracy Party attracted followers and attention, the two joined forces with Mr. Wang - a younger rights advocate who had cut his teeth in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Late in 1998, the party was formally banned and the police rounded up scores of its followers around the country. The quick, harsh sentences dealt to Mr. Xu, Mr. Qin and Mr. Wang brought angry words from the United States and other Western governments.
When he received his 13-year sentence after a three-and-a-half hour secret trial in December 1998, Mr. Xu was allowed a half hour with his wife.
"He told me he'd be able to handle the pain," Ms. He said in an interview at the time. "He said that this would give him time to think things over and calmly reflect on what has happened."
Earlier, Mr. Xu had rejected proposals to go into exile. But his worsening medical condition as well as his lengthy new sentence apparently led him to change his mind.
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1054 Refuseniks
New Refusenik Watch autoupdate banners reflect the number of signers on all three Israeli CO pledges, as well as the number of those jailed who are not on a public list
oznik-news
25 Dec. 2002
http://oznik.com/news/021225.html
A new comprehensive list of refuseniks shows the actual number of refuseniks to be more than twice the number of signers on the Courage to Refuse - Combatants' Letter. 175 Conscientious objectors have been imprisoned for obeying their conscience, totaling 5206 days in military jails. 54 of the jailed refuseniks do not appear on a public list by one of the groups.
Refusenik Watch autoupdate banners this site has been serving to hundreds of other web sites were lacking in the number they showed, and only linked to one refusenik group. New Refusenik Watch banners reflect the number of signers on all three refusenik pledges, as well as refuseniks who were imprisoned for obeying their conscience and are not signed on one of the lists. The NUMBERS are based on a comprehensive refusenik list I compiled from the lists published online by Courage To Refuse, Yesh-Gvul (temporarily down), and the Shministim, as well as information supplied by Yesh Gvul on refuseniks jailed by the army who are not signed on any list. Since the latter two do not translate their list of signers into English, the list is currently available in Hebrew only.
The new autoupdate banners link to all three organizations and is offered in 3 flavors, each with HTML code ready-to-paste into your site/ blog/ forum or email signature.
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