From the World-Wide Resourses of the Western Australia
Reserch Senter(*)
OIL THE NEWS THAT FITS MY VIEWS #152
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In the Run-Up to World War III, Reliably Reporting the News Relevant
to Extreme Right-Wing Democratic Socialists Everywhere
(validated for RiteThink(tm) by the Office of Our Man in Can-berra).
Our Home Page:
The Undeniable Evidence:
Even More Uneniable Evidence:
US Centcom News Releases:
Iraqi Body Count: [7,968+ as at 13 Jan 2004].
UN Mailing List:
Some Of The News, Some Of The Time:
This Stuff Blogged:
Also Kindly Archived:
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Selecting latest news stories and other data for you...
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What matters is what they can do, not how they're delivered.
-- Brit govt MP, 05 Feb 2004.
45 minutes. While the Tories are calling for Blair's head after he
revealed he didn't know the 45-mins claim referred to battlefield
weapons, govt reps claim the distinction is "petty" [!!].
The issue of the delivery system was not an issue at the time.
-- Brit Def Sec Geoff Hoon, 04 Feb 2004.
Not an issue. Hoon is trying to explain why he let Tony Blair talk
about WMD being ready in 45 mins, when he also says he knew at the time
it referred only to small arms, not WMD. Blair had made the claim in
a speech to prove an "imminent threat", just before a vote on war.
The remit is not one that we think will answer the fundamental question...
-- Brit Lib Dems leader Charles Kennedy, 03 Feb 2004.
Butler doing it. Tony Blair has announced the panel of 5 snr
figures that will lay the blame for the WMD embarrassment on Brit
intel services.
Yes... in many cases it was... something not accounted for is not the
same as saying it exists.
-- Dr Hans Blix, SBS "Dateline", 04 Feb 2004.
Mis-use. Was info mis-used by the Brit and US? Blix says Brit
seemed to try to avoid a war, but the us didn't. It was almost as
though his reports were being used to justify a policy that had
been decided ys before.
... It has no antidote {smiling} or specific treatment.
-- US Senate Maj Leader Frist, 03 Feb 2004.
Ricin attack. The panic level in DC was upped today when the
Whitehouse revealed it was targeted by a ricin letter last y.
Our war is not a war against any religion... our war is a war against
[non-American] terrorists.
-- US A-G Ashcroft, Bali, 04 Feb 2004.
War on terror. No, not-a-war-on-Islam.
It's... ah... {looking to right} basically funded within the
budget.... {looking to right} we're not cutting [anything] to fund that.
-- AUS Def Min Robert Hill, 04 Feb 2004.
Global Hawks. The AUS govt has detailed a $50 bn defence budget.
What today's announcement means... is Australian taxpayers are going to
pay more, for plans announced 3 years ago.
-- AUS Opp'n Defence rep, 04 Feb 2004
Defence bill. The AUS govt announced today a range of projects are
to cost up to 2 times their original estimates.
So this is all about our sons and daughters [...] We must give them
modern equipment, based on the prediction of an uncertain future.
-- Aussie CiC Gen Cosgrove, 04 Feb 2004
Century of war. Cosgrove predicts C21 will be more of the same.
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Wed, 04 Feb 2004.
Ricin scare pushes down USD
Markets focus on ricin scare.
Sydney. The USD has fallen victim to the ricin poison scare in the US.
3 US Senate buildings were closed after the ricin powder was found in a
mail facility.
As a result, a Senate finance committee meeting where Treasury Sec
John Snow was due to testify was postponed.
With no significant economic data released overnight, markets have
focused on the ricin emergency and the possible link to terrorism.
The greenback slumped against the euro in response.
There have also been rumours out of London that the US might give
explicit approval for a softer dollar at the Group of 7 meeting
starting in Florida on Fri night.
As the USD weakened, the AUS currency got as high as 76.75 US c.
But it has since settled back.
About 7.30 am AEST, it was being quoted at 76.48 US c.
That is still up 4/10 of a c on yesterday's local close.
Traders are now waiting to see whether yesterday's board meeting at
the Reserve Bank will result in a change in interest rates today.
On equity markets, share prices on Wall Street have recovered after an
early dip on the ricin scare.
The renewed slide of the dollar and weakness in the semiconductor
sector have also weighed on sentiment.
But the DJIA has managed to close 6 pts lower at 10,505.
High-tech shares on the Nasdaq exchange have also clawed back ground.
The Nasdaq composite index has added 3 pts to 2,066.
The Brit share market has recovered a little territory in the latest session.
London's FT-100 index has gained 9 pts to finish at 4,391.
In AUS yesterday, the market fell back.
There was evidence of profit-taking ahead of this morning's interest
rate announcement.
The All Ords fell 9 pts to 3,278.
The gold price is this morning sitting at $US399.65/oz.
West Texas crude oil is at $US34.20/bbl.
Budget avoids tough steps to deflate bloated deficit
Op/Ed (USA Today). When the Bush Admin released its $2.4 trillion
budget plan for 2005 Mon, it admitted that the ballooning fed deficit
for this y would be even larger than previously feared: a record $521
bn. That means the govt would have to borrow 22 c of every
dollar it spends.
In spite of the flood of red ink, the Admin's plan for tackling the
problem is breathtakingly underwhelming. Though it promises to cut the
deficit in 1/2 in 5 y, the Admin avoids credible proposals for
spending cuts or revenue increases to achieve that goal.
No mystery surrounds how to actually put the budget back on track.
The last 2 presidents, Bill Clinton and George H W Bush, embraced
tough spending curbs and tax increases that eliminated deficits. Those
actions led to the 1st surpluses in more than a generation and
contributed to a decade-long economic boom in the 1990s.
Yet, while identifying a successful formula for shrinking deficits is
easy, implementing it is hard. Today's leaders well recall the price
their predecessors paid for showing fiscal leadership: The Democrats
lost Congress in 1994, and Bush lost re-election in 1992.
Avoiding strategies proven to restore fiscal health doesn't relieve
the pain. Instead, it leaves it for future generations to suffer in
the form of a crushing nat'l debt.
The Admin's plan to reduce the deficit falls short on 3 counts:
Unrealistic cuts. It exempts most of the budget from spending
restraint, including defence, homeland security, interest on the debt
and benefits programs such as Social Security. That leaves just 18% of
the budget -- from agriculture to transportation -- subject to a
virtual spending freeze. But Congress ignored less-severe spending
curbs proposed by the Admin in the past 3 y, and Bush refused to veto
any bloated spending bills.
Underestimated costs. The budget omits several costly items for 2005:
up to $50 bn needed for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and $20 bn
in promised aid to states. Another $8 bn sought for NASA over 5 y
is not nearly enough to finance Bush's plan to send a man to Mars.
Delayed expenses. The budget shows the deficit cut in 1/2 in 2009 by
pushing spending increases and tax cuts beyond that y. For example,
2/3 of a $534 bn Medicare prescription-drug benefit is projected to
kick in after 2009. And the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities,
which advocates more spending on the needy, says 75% of the $2 trillion
in tax cuts Bush wants to make permanent take effect after 2009.
The Admin says the tax cuts are needed to sustain a strong economy --
and the added revenue it produces will curb the deficit.
To slow govt growth, Bush is calling for a new spending-limit law;
program increases that exceed the limit would have to be offset by
cuts elsewhere.
Yet, the Admin's budget avoids that very remedy. While increases
sought for the Pentagon, Homeland Security and the FBI can be
justified by the war on terrorism, the Admin is not offering to pay
for them with offsetting domestic cuts. Nor has it shown a willingness
to cancel or postpone any of its income-tax cuts to pay for the
burgeoning prescription-drug benefit.
The fiscal recipe for what works is well known. But as long as the
Admin remains unwilling to follow it, the hard answers will be left to
future generations.
New auto sales in Canada down 11.5% in worst Jan since 1998
Toronto (CP). New-vehicle sales in Canada fell 11.5% in Jan, from the
same m a y ago, making it the worst start for car dealers since 1998
as Ford led the downturn with a 33% decline.
Last m, 82,728 vehicles were sold in Canada -- down from 93,514 in
Jan 2002, according to statistics compiled by DesRosiers Automotive
Consultants Inc. While perennial market leader General Motors eked out a
small gain over last y, as did Mazda, Toyota, Suzuki and Subaru,
virtually every other automaker saw its sales tumble -- and many
posted double-digit percentage declines.
"Canadians significantly overbought during the last few years," auto
analyst Dennis DesRosiers said in describing the lull in market demand
last m.
DesRosiers added that "the economic environment may not be able to
give the market much of a lift" as vehicle owners hang on to their
current models.
He expects the overall market will fall 3 to 5% this y. Sales in
2003 fell to 1.593 mn vehicles -- down 6.4% from the record 1.7 mn
sold in 2002.
"My main concern is that any hiccup in the economic situation could
result in a free-fall in the market," DesRosiers said. "We're not
predicting that yet, but will be keeping a very close eye on the
situation all year."
DesRosiers also said various factors that raise the cost of vehicle
ownership -- such as insurance, gas, parking and registration fees --
have left Canadians "sitting on the sidelines as far as vehicle sales
are concerned."
Last m, GM Canada had sales of 26,118 vehicles -- a 2.3% rise from
Jan 2002. GM's numbers were more than double those of its closest
competitor, DaimlerChrysler, whose sales tumbled 12% to 12,224.
Ford ranked 3rd at 10,482, down 33.2%.
And while Toyota ranked 4th with 8,416 vehicles sold -- managing a
3.5% lift over last y -- its oft-compared competitor, Honda, saw sales
plummet 27% to 5,754 vehicles.
Ranking sixth, Mazda enjoyed a 30.7% sales increase to 4,463 vehicles,
but Hyundai, in 7th place, saw its sales decrease 20.7% to 3,142 vehicles.
In 8th place was Nissan, which saw its sales decrease 17.7% to 2,747 units.
Among the few other automakers with at least 400 vehicles sold whose
sales increased were Acura (up 1.5%), Lexus (33%), Subaru (0.2%),
Suzuki (47.6%) and Volvo (3.1%).
Other decliners included Audi (down 25.8%), BMW (4.7%), Infiniti
(1.7%), Kia (36.8%), Mercedes-Benz (37%), Mitsubishi (40%) and
Volkswagen (44.2%).
In the US, sales of new cars and trucks in the world's largest auto
market fell more than expected in Jan at the country's 2 largest
automakers.
Market leader GM posted a 1.8% sales decline and rival Ford Motor
Co reported a 9.8% drop. By contrast, Toyota reported a 15.8% boost
in US sales, and DaimlerChrysler posted sales that were 9.4% higher.
GM said Tue that it was disappointed with the results but maintained
its outlook for the y. Ford, the 2nd biggest automaker in the US,
said it remained optimistic a lineup of new cars would change its fortunes.
Analysts had expected that Jan sales results in the US would be
tempered by frigid weather in parts of the country, despite brisk
business at the beginning of the m.
Paul Ballew, GM's executive director for market and industry analysis,
said he was not overly concerned about the Jan dip, calling it the
"least representative" m, coming after the usual y-end acceleration in sales.
FTA reaches critical point
Canberra. Fri is looming as the make or break day for an AUS-US FTA
deal, with talks in Washington slowing almost to a stop. Trade Min
Mark Vaile and his US counterpart Robert Zoellick have spent 6 hrs in
talks, but officials from both sides are unable to say negotiations
have progressed far. It comes as US manufacturers urge the Bush Admin
to wrap up the trade deal, with or without concessions on agriculture.
15 dead in Turkey apartment collapses
Istanbul (AFP). Top state officials condemned the notorious and
widespread lack of respect for Turkey's construction laws yesterday,
after at least 15 people were killed in a housing block collapse.
PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted by Anatolia news agency as saying
"the citizen pays with his life because there is no heavy legal
penalty for violations" of the kind which allegedly brought down an
11-storey building in the central town of Konya late on Mon.
CNN-Turk television channel reported that 2 nearby buildings had been
evacuated for fear that they too might come down while 200 rescue
workers sifted the wreckage in search for up to 100 people believed to
be missing.
Pres Ahmet Necdet Sezer sent a message of condolence to the families
of those who died, saying that "human life is so important, it must
not be sacrificed to irresponsibility and contempt for the rules."
Many commentators noted that the building, reduced to a pile of rubble
5 m high, was completed barely 6 y ago, in 1997.
"The building clearly did not comply with safety regulations," Ramazan
Bayraktar, a firefighter taking part in the rescue effort, told NTV
television. "It's as if there wasn't even any concrete, as though the
building was simply made of earth."
Nesibe Tosun, a woman resident who survived, told Anatolia news agency
it had been "full of cracks".
A 30-yo woman was found alive yesterday, some 16 hr after the building
collapsed, but 2 more corpses were unearthed soon afterwards, taking
the confirmed death toll to 15, CNN-Turk TV reported.
About 2 hr later, 4 people were rescued, alive and well, from an elevator.
Earlier, Konya city governor Ahmet Kayhan told NTV television that
"there are voices coming from the back of the building. There are
obviously people alive. We are trying to reach them."
Kayhan said the building had contained 36 flats and 144 people were
registered as living in it.
But at the time it collapsed, residents would have been celebrating
the Muslim festival of Eid Al Adha and may have had relatives and
friends visiting them.
Early reports suggested an explosion in the building's heating system
had caused the accident but officials could not confirm this.
"None of the people living around the collapsed building confirms an
explosion. That brings to mind the possibility of an engineering
fault," the govt official overseeing the search and rescue effort,
Sami Guclu, told CNN-Turk.
Shortly after the building fell, deputy Prime Min Mehmet Ali Sahin
said: "We should always look into the cause when a building collapses
in circumstances other than a natural disaster."
Although Turkey is frequently hit by earthquakes, few buildings are
built to withstand tremors and builders are rarely punished.
The trial is still going on of Veli Gocer, who was charged with
involvement in the death of 190 people in a building that collapsed
during the massive quake which killed 20,000 people on Aug.
3 people die in new Kashmir violence
Kashmir. Police say new violence has flared in revolt-racked Indian
Kashmir with suspected Islamic militants shooting dead 3 people, incl a
Muslim couple. Police say gunmen broke into the house of Abdul
Khaliq Bhat and killed him and his wife, Raja Begum, in the village of
Chewdara in the C Kashmir district of Bugdam. The murders come after
the Indian army killed a suspected member of the region's dominant
rebel group, Hizbul Mujahedin, in the couple's house last Dec.
Kerry wins 5 out of 7
Washington. US Dem presid'l front-runner John Kerry has rolled up big
victories and a pile of delegates in 5 states. And rivals John
Edwards and Wesley Clark have kept their candidacies alive with
singular triumphs in the dramatic cross-counter contest. Edwards has
easily won his native S Carolina and Clark, the former NATO cmdr and
retired General from Arkansas, tasted victory in neighbouring
Oklahoma. An analysis shows Kerry with a lead of more than 20 pts
over his nearest rival.
Kerry wins big; Edwards, Clark stay alive
Washington (Reuters). US Sen John Kerry has taken a huge stride
towards the Democratic presidential nomination with wins in 5
states, but victories to Sen John Edwards and General Wesley Clark
have kept the race alive.
Sen Kerry, the front-runner riding a huge wave of momentum since
back-to-back wins in the 1st 2 contests last m, won in Missouri,
Arizona, Delaware, N Dakota and and New Mexico as 7 states voted on
the biggest day so far in the race to find a challenger to Pres Bush Jr.
But N Carolina Sen Edwards and General Clark scored wins in S Carolina
and Oklahoma respectively to keep the race alive and put a temporary
dent in Sen Kerry's momentum.
Connecticut Sen Joseph Lieberman, the Democratic nominee for
vice-president in 2000, was shut out and quit the race in what he
called a "difficult but realistic decision".
Massachusetts Sen Kerry, who faced questions about whether he could
compete nationwide, says he had shown broad appeal with strong
showings in all 7 states.
"Now we will carry this campaign and the cause of a stronger, fairer,
more prosperous America to every part of America," he said at his
victory rally.
"We will take nothing for granted, we will compete everywhere."
Gen Clark scored a narrow win over Sen Edwards in Oklahoma, with Sen
Kerry 3rd.
Sen Edwards's result in S Carolina, which he labelled a must-win state,
positioned him to become Sen Kerry's prime challenger and boosted his
argument he would provide the strongest opponent to Mr Bush in rural
areas and in the South.
"Tonight we said that the politics of lifting people up beats the
politics of tearing people down," Sen Edwards, who emphasised a
positive message focused on the economy, told roaring supporters in
downtown Columbia, S Carolina.
* Bowing out
Sen Lieberman had been hoping for a win in Delaware, but dropped out
after meeting with staff members and conferring with his family.
"I have decided tonight to end my quest for the presidency of the
United States of America," he said at a rally nr his campaign HQ in
Arlington, Virginia.
Tue's votes offered the 1st nationwide test for the candidates, who
spent almost all of Jan battling in Iowa and New Hampshire, largely
white and rural states that hosted the 1st 2 nominating tests.
South Carolina was the 1st contest in the S and the 1st in a state
with a large black population, while Arizona and New Mexico are the
1st contests in states with large Hispanic populations.
The race moves next to Michigan and Washington on Sat, Maine on Sun
and Virginia and Tennessee next Tue.
Mr Dean, struggling to halt his downward slide after dismal finishes
in Iowa and New Hampshire, has continued his string of poor showings.
Mr Dean, who spent election night in Washington, put a brave face on
the results and looked ahead to Michigan, Washington and to a Feb 17
showdown in Wisconsin.
He promised to push ahead into Mar.
"We are going to have a tough night tonight," Mr Dean told supporters
in Tacoma, Washington, but he vowed to keep "going and going and going".
"We're going to pick up some delegates tonight and this is all about
who gets the most delegates in Boston in Jul and it's going to be
us," he said.
Kerry wins 5 states; Clark wins Oklahoma
Washington (AP). Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry
rolled up big victories and a pile of delegates in 5 states Tue
night, while rivals John Edwards and Wesley Clark kept their candidacies
alive with singular triumphs in a dramatic cross-country contest.
Edwards easily won his native S Carolina and Clark, a retired Army
general from Arkansas, eked out victory in neighbouring Oklahoma.
Howard Dean earned no wins and perhaps no delegates, his candidacy in
peril. Joe Lieberman was shut out, too, and dropped out of the race.
"It's a huge night," Kerry told The Associated Press, even as rivals
denied him a coveted sweep.
Racking up victories in Missouri, Arizona, N Dakota, New Mexico and
Delaware, Kerry suggested that his rivals were regional candidates.
"I compliment John Edwards, but I think you have to run a nat'l
campaign, and I think that's what we've shown tonight," the four-term
Massachusetts senator said. "You can't cherry-pick the presidency."
With Iowa and NH already in his pocket, Kerry boasts a record of 7-2
in primary season contests, the undisputed front-runner who had a
chance to put 2 major rivals away but barely failed.
An AP analysis showed Kerry winning 65 pledged delegates, Edwards 43,
Clark 5 and Al Sharpton one, with 155 yet to be allocated. Kerry's
wins in Missouri and Arizona were the night's biggest prizes, with 129
delegates -- nearly 1/2 of the 269 at stake.
Tue's results pushed Kerry close to 200 delegates out of 2,162 needed
for the nomination, including the super-delegates of lawmakers and
party traditionalists. Dean trailed by nearly 70, Edwards by nearly 100.
Democrats award delegates based on a candidates' showing in
congressional districts, giving Kerry's rivals a chance to grab a few
delegates even in contests they lost.
In nearly every region of the nation, the most diverse group of
Democrats yet to cast votes this primary season said they had a
singular priority: Defeat Pres Bush this fall.
"I don't care who wins" the Democratic primary, said Judy Donovan of
Tucson, Ariz. "I'd get my dog to run. I'm not kidding. I would get
Mickey Mouse in there. Anybody but Bush."
In state after state, exit polls showed Kerry dominated among voters
who want a candidate with experience or who could beat Bush.
Edwards had said he must win S Carolina, and he did by dominating
among voters who said they most value a candidate who cares about
people like them.
"It's very easy to lay out the map to get us to the nomination,"
Edwards told the AP, drawing a line from Michigan on Sat to Virginia
and Tennessee next Tue.
To the roar of his supporters, Edwards declared, "The politics of
lifting people up beats the politics of tearing people down."
As the votes were being counted in Oklahoma, Clark mused about the
future of his candidacy. "This could be over," he told reporters.
Hrs later, he had won Oklahoma and finished 2nd in Arizona and New
Mexico -- enough to fight another day.
Edwards narrowly lost to Clark in Oklahoma, missing a chance to show
his presidential mettle outside the S and emerge as Kerry's chief rival.
Dean saved his money for a last stand in Wisconsin on Feb 17, a
long-shot strategy that some of his own advisers questioned.
"We're going to have a tough night," Dean told supporters as he
promised to keep "going and going and going and going -- just like the
Energiser bunny."
Said Steve Murphy, who ran Rep Dick Gephardt's campaign: "Howard Dean
is done." The list of ex-candidates grows: Florida Sen Bob Graham
dropped out first, then Carol Moseley Braun, Gephardt and Lieberman.
"Today the voters have rendered their verdict and I accept it,"
Lieberman said.
Kerry, who just 6 wk ago was written off as a candidate, reshaped the
race with victories in Iowa and New Hampshire while Dean's candidacy
cratered. "I'll keep working and fighting until I win the nomination,
and then I'll keep working and fighting until I beat George Bush," he
told the AP.
In a speech prepared for delivery to supporters, Kerry said, "George
Bush, who speak of strength, has made America weaker -- weaker
economically, weaker in education and weaker in health care."
Kerry is racking up endorsements as he tries to unite the party behind
his front-running candidacy. To that end, the 1.2 mn-member
American Federation of Teachers, the country's 2nd largest teachers'
union, planned to back Kerry on Wed, a snr union official said on
condition of anonymity.
Even Democrats who didn't vote for Kerry appear fairly comfortable
with him. Large majorities of voters -- ranging from about 70% in
Oklahoma to more than 80% in Delaware -- said they would be somewhat
or very satisfied if Kerry wins the nomination, exit polls showed.
Nearly 1/2 the voters in S Carolina were black and nearly one in 6 in
Arizona were Hispanic, the 1st contests with sizable minority populations
in the primary campaign. In Missouri and Delaware, about 15% of the
voters were black.
Looking beyond Tue, Kerry planned visits to Washington state and
Michigan, where polls show him leading Sat's caucuses. Edwards and
Clark focused on Tennessee and Virginia. All 3 candidates planned to
air ads in the 2 S states.
Kerry plans to buy ad time in Washington, DC, to reach Demo-heavy N
Virginia, aides said. It's an expensive market, and it was unclear
whether Edwards would have the money to match Kerry ad-for-ad as he
did in Tue's states.
Dean, a former Vermont governor, ran out of cash and momentum after
finishing 3rd in Iowa and a distant 2nd in New Hampshire. He ran no TV
ads in the 7 states and intended to stay off the air for a spate of
other contests until Feb 17, when Wisconsin votes.
On a deeply divided staff, some Dean aides were focused on raising
money to cover campaign debts, an emphasis that gave a backseat to
costly political tactics such as television commercials.
Exit polls also showed that nearly 1/2 of voters in 5 states said
they made up their minds within the last wk. One in 5 waited until
Tue to pick a candidate.
Edwards scored well among whites, older people, the less-educated and
voters who called themselves moderate or conservative, according to
exit polls in S Carolina.
Kerry and Clark, both Vietnam veterans, had plenty of company. 7 in 10
Oklahoma voters, and nearly that many in S Carolina, said they had
served in the military or have somebody in their households who did,
according to exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and the
television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky Internat'l.
=== ASKED: ===
How did we get it so wrong?
Credibility of war on terror has been damaged.
[Kenneth Pollack is a former CIA analyst].
With inquiries under way on both sides of the Atlantic, the failure of
western intel over Iraq is coming under intense scrutiny. Yes, the
spies got it wrong but the politicians also moulded the evidence to
fit the case for war.
Op/Ed (Guardian). Let's start with one truth: last Mar, when the US
and its coalition partners invaded Iraq, the American public and much
of the rest of the world believed that after Saddam's regime sank, a
vast flotsam of weapons of mass destruction would bob to the
surface. That, of course, has not been the case. Many people are now
asking very reasonable questions about why they were misled.
Democrats have typically accused the Bush Admin of exaggerating the
threat posed by Iraq in order to justify an unnecessary war.
Republicans have typically claimed that the fault lay with the CIA and
the rest of the US intel community, which they say overestimated the
threat from Iraq. Both sides appear to be at least partly right. The
intel community did overestimate the scope and progress of Iraq's WMD
programmes, although not to the extent that many people believe. The
Admin stretched those estimates to make a case not only for going to
war but for doing so at once, rather than taking the time to build
support for military action.
This issue has some personal relevance for me. I began my career as a
Persian Gulf military analyst at the CIA, where I saw an earlier
generation of technical analysts mistakenly conclude that Saddam was
much further away from having a nuclear weapon than the post-Gulf war
inspections revealed. I later moved on to the Nat'l Sec Council, where
the intel community convinced me and the rest of the Clinton Admin
that Saddam had reconstituted his WMD programmes following the
withdrawal of the UN inspectors in 1998, and was only a matter of
ys away from having a nuclear weapon. In 2002 I wrote a book called
Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, in which I argued that
because all our other options had failed, the US would ultimately have
to go to war to remove Saddam before he acquired a functioning nuclear
weapon. Thus it was with more than a little interest that I pondered
the question of why we didn't find in Iraq what we were so certain we would.
The US intel community's belief that Saddam was aggressively pursuing
WMD was 1st advanced at the end of the 90s, at a time when Clinton was
trying to facilitate a peace agreement between Israel and the
Palestinians and was hardly seeking assessments that the threat from
Iraq was growing. In congressional testimony in Mar of 2002 Robert
Einhorn, Clinton's assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation,
summed up the intel community's conclusions at the time: "Today, or at
most within a few ms, Iraq could launch missile attacks with
chemical or biological weapons against its neighbours ... Within 4 or
5 y it could have the capability to threaten most of the Middle E
and parts of Europe with missiles armed with nuclear weapons
containing fissile material produced indigenously -- and to threaten
US territory with such weapons ... If it managed to get its hands on
sufficient quantities of already produced fissile material, these
threats could arrive much sooner."
In Oct of 2002 the Nat'l Intel Council, the highest analytical body in
the US intel community, issued a classified Nat'l Intel Estimate on
Iraq's WMD. A de-classified version was released to the public in Jul
of last y. Its principal conclusions:
* "Iraq has continued its WMD programmes in defiance of UN resolutions
and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as
well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left
unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade."
(The classified version of the NIE gave an estimate of 5 to 7 y.)
* "Since inspections ended in 1998, Iraq has maintained its chemical
weapons effort, energised its missile programme, and invested more
heavily in biological weapons; most analysts assess [that] Iraq is
reconstituting its nuclear weapons programme."
* "If Baghdad acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material from
abroad, it could make a nuclear weapon within a y ... Without such
material from abroad, Iraq probably would not be able to make a
weapon until the last 1/2 of the decade."
* "Baghdad has begun renewed production of chemical warfare agents,
probably including mustard, sarin, cyclosarin, and VX."
* "All key aspects ... of Iraq's offensive BW [biological warfare]
programme are active and most elements are larger and more advanced
than they were before the Gulf war"
US analysts were not alone in these views. In the late spring of 2002
I participated in a Washington meeting about Iraqi WMD. Those present
included nearly 20 former inspectors from the UN Special Commission
(Unscom), established in 1991 to oversee the elimination of WMD in Iraq.
One of the snr people put a question to the group: did anyone in the
room doubt that Iraq was currently operating a secret centrifuge
plant? No one did.
Other nations' intel services were similarly aligned with US views.
Somewhat remarkably, given how adamantly Germany would oppose the war,
the German Fed Intel Service held the bleakest view of all, arguing
that Iraq might be able to build a nuclear weapon within 3 y.
Israel, Russia, Brit, China, and even France held positions similar to
that of the US; Jacques Chirac told Time magazine last Feb: "There is a
problem -- the probable possession of WMD by an uncontrollable
country, Iraq." No one doubted that Iraq had WMD.
But it appears that Iraq may not have had any WMD. Caveats are in order:
we do not yet have a complete picture of Iraq's WMD programmes, and
initial US efforts to seek out WMD caches were badly lacking. Documents
relating to the programmes are known to have been destroyed. Much of
Iraq is yet to be explored. Now that Saddam is in custody, new info
may be forthcoming.
Nevertheless, the preliminary findings of the Iraq Survey Group will
probably not change dramatically. The then head of the ISG, David Kay,
summarised those findings in testimony to Congress last Oct:
* Iraq had preserved some of its technological nuclear capability from
before the Gulf war. However, no evidence suggested that Saddam had
undertaken any significant steps after 1998 towards reconstituting
the programme to build nuclear weapons or to produce fissile material.
* Little evidence surfaced that Iraq had continued to produce chemical
weapons; only a minimal amount of clandestine research had been done
on them. Nevertheless, Iraqi officials seemed to believe that they
could convert existing civilian pharmaceutical plants to
chemical-weapons production.
* Iraq made determined efforts to retain some BW capabilities. It
maintained an undeclared network of laboratories and other
facilities "suitable for preserving BW expertise ... and continuing R&D."
* Iraq seemed to have been most aggressive in pursuing proscribed
missiles. In Kay's words, "detainees and cooperative sources
indicate that beginning in 2000 Saddam ordered the development of
ballistic missiles with ranges of at least [390 km] and up to [1,000 km]
and that measures to conceal these projects from [UN inspectors] were
initiated in late 2002, ahead of the arrival of inspectors." The Iraqis
were also working on rocket engines in order to produce a longer-range
missile. Most troubling of all, the ISG uncovered evidence that from 1999
to 2002 Iraq had negotiated with N Korea to buy technology for No Dong
missiles, which have a range of 1,300 km.
Overall, these findings suggest that Iraq did retain prohibited WMD
programmes, but that they were not so extensive, advanced, or threatening
as the NIE maintained.
More cautious analysts had argued that the NIE's assessment that Iraq
had large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons was unlikely,
because such munitions deteriorate rapidly and can be quickly produced
in bulk, making stockpiles unnecessary. These analysts instead believed
that Iraq had a "just-in-time" capability, but not even this more
conservative scenario was borne out by the ISG. Sources told the group
that Saddam and his son Uday had each, on separate occasions in 2001
and 2002, asked Iraqi officials how long it would take to produce
chemical agents and weapons.
One reportedly told Saddam that it would take 6 m to produce mustard
gas; another told Uday that it would take 2 m to produce mustard gas
and 2 y to produce sarin [a simple nerve agent]. The questions do not
suggest the presence of large stockpiles. The answers do not support a
just-in-time capability.
The belief that Iraq was close to acquiring nuclear weapons led me and
other Admin officials to support the idea of a full-scale invasion,
albeit not right away. The NIE's judgement to the same effect was the
linchpin of the Bush Admin's case for invasion.
What we have found in Iraq since the invasion belies that judgement.
Saddam did retain basic elements for a nuclear-weapons program and the
desire to acquire such weapons at some point, but the programme itself
was dormant.
Saddam had not ordered its resumption. In all probability Iraq was
considerably further from having a nuclear weapon than the 5 to 7 y
estimated in the NIE.
Figuring out why we overestimated Iraq's WMD capabilities involves
figuring out what the Iraqis were thinking and doing throughout the 1990s.
The story starts right after the Gulf war. An Iraqi document that fell
into the inspectors' hands revealed that in Apr 1991 a high-level
Iraqi committee had ordered many of the country's WMD activities to be
hidden from inspectors. According to Unscom's final report, one
facility "was instructed to remove evidence of the true activities at
the facility, evacuate documents to hide sites, make physical
alterations to the site to hide its true purpose [and] develop cover
stories". A great deal of other info substantiates the idea that
Saddam at 1st decided to try to keep a considerable portion of his WMD
programmes intact and hidden.
However, it became increasingly clear how difficult this would be. In
the summer of 1991 inspectors tracked down and destroyed Saddam's calutrons.
Their discoveries may have convinced him that he would have to put his
WMD programmes on hold until after the sanctions were lifted --
something he reportedly thought would happen within ms.
But the inspectors proved more tenacious and the internat'l community
more steadfast than the Iraqis expected. Accordingly, from Jun of
1991 to May of 1992 Iraq unilaterally destroyed parts of its WMD
programmes. This helped Baghdad conceal more-important elements of the
programmes, because the regime could point to the destructions as
evidence of cooperation.
In 1995 matters changed. That Aug, Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law
and the head of Iraq's WMD programmes, defected to Jordan, prompting a
panicked Baghdad to turn over 100s of 1000s of pages of new documentation
to the UN. According to the former chief UN weapons inspector Rolf
Ekeus, Kamel's statements and the Iraqi documents squared with what
Unscom had been finding: although all actual weapons had been
eliminated, either by the UN or in the earlier destructions, Iraq had
preserved production and R&D programmes. Although the Iraqis tried to
withhold any highly incriminating documents from the UN, they
overlooked several containing crucial info about previously concealed
aspects of the nuclear and biological programmes.
Other secrets were laid bare that same y. A US-UN sting operation
caught the Iraqis trying to smuggle 115 missile gyroscopes through Jordan.
Iraq was forced to admit to the existence of a facility to build
Scud-missile engines, and to destroy a hidden plant for manufacturing
modified Scuds. It was forced to admit to having made much greater
progress on its nuclear programme before the Gulf war. Most important,
it was forced to admit that a very large biological-weapons plant at
al-Hakim, whose existence had been concealed from UN inspectors, had
produced 500,000 litres of biological agents in 1989 and 1990, and
that it was still functional in 1995.
Either late in 1995 or in 1996, Saddam probably recognised that trying
to retain his just-in-time capability had become counterproductive.
The inspectors kept finding pieces of the programmes, and each
discovery pushed the lifting of the sanctions further into the future.
It's important to keep in mind that Saddam's internal position in this
period was very shaky and he probably decided to scale back his WMD
programmes, keeping only the bare minimum needed to rebuild them at
some point. So, having decided to give up so much of his WMD
capability, why didn't Saddam change his behaviour toward the UN
inspectors and demonstrate a spirit of cooperation? Even after 1996
the Iraqis took a confrontational posture toward Unscom. The world
inferred from this defiance that Saddam was still not complying with
the UN resolutions, and the sanctions therefore stayed in place.
The 1st and most obvious answer is that Saddam still had some things
to hide. Undoubtedly he did, but this answer is not entirely satisfying.
Iraq was able to conceal the minimised remnants of its WMD programmes
so well that Unscom found little incriminating evidence in 1997 and
1998. This early success should have given Saddam the confidence to
begin to cooperate more fully.
An alternative explanation, offered by Iraq's former UN ambassador,
Tariq Aziz, is that Saddam was pretending to have WMD to enhance his
prestige among Arab nations. This explanation doesn't ring completely
true either.
If prestige had been more important to him than lifting sanctions, it
would have been more logical to simply retain his WMD capabilities.
Saddam's behaviour may have been driven by completely different
considerations. He has always evinced much greater concern for his
internal position than for his external status. He has made any number
of highly foolish foreign-policy decisions in response to domestic
problems that he feared threatened his grip on power. Ever since the
Iran-Iraq war, WMD had been an important element of Saddam's strength
within Iraq. He used them against the Kurds in the late 1980s and
during revolts after the Gulf war, he sent signals that he might use
them against both the Kurds and the Shi'ites. Openly giving up his WMD
could also have jeopardised his position with crucial supporters.
Furthermore, Saddam may have felt trapped by his initial reckoning that
he could fool the UN inspectors and that the sanctions would be short-lived.
Because of this mistaken calculation he had subjected Iraq to terrible
hardships. Suddenly cooperating with the inspectors would have meant
admitting that his course of action had been a mistake.
In some respects Saddam's fortunes began to rise in 1996. Although the
CIA-backed coup attempt may have signified internal weakness, the fact
that Saddam snuffed it out signified strength. Also, to avenge the
Iraqi army's 1995 defeat at Irbil, Saddam manipulated infighting among
the Kurds to allow his Republican Guards to drive into the city, smash
the Kurd defenders, and arrest several hundred CIA-backed rebels. As
the historian Amatzia Baram has persuasively argued, these successes made
Saddam feel secure enough to swallow his pride and accept UN Resolution
986, the oil-for-food programme, which he had previously rejected.
Oil-for-food turned out to be an enormous boon for the Iraqi economy.
The oil-for-food programme itself gave Saddam clout to apply toward
lifting sanctions. Under Resolution 986 Iraq could choose to whom it
would sell its oil and from whom it would buy its food and medicine.
Baghdad could therefore reward cooperative states with contracts. Not
surprisingly, France and Russia regularly topped the list. Iraq could
set the prices -- and since Saddam did not really care whether he was
importing enough food and medicine for his people's needs, he could
sell oil on the cheap and buy food and medicine at inflated prices as
additional payoff to friendly govts.
By 1997 the internat'l environment had changed markedly, in ways that
probably convinced Saddam that he didn't need to cooperate with the
inspectors. The same internat'l outcry that prompted the oil-for-food
deal was creating momentum for lifting sanctions completely. At that
point it was reasonable for Saddam to believe that in the not-too-distant
future the sanctions either would be lifted or totally undermined, and
he would never have to reveal the remaining elements of his WMD
programmes. Only in 2002, when the Bush Admin suddenly focused its
attention on Iraq, would Saddam have had any reason to change this
view. And then, according to a variety of Iraqi sources, he simply
refused to believe that the Americans were serious.
Another explanation should be posited. This is the notion that Saddam
did not order the programme scaled down, but Iraqi scientists ensured
that it did not progress and deceived Saddam into believing that it
was much further along than it was. Numerous Iraqi scientists have
claimed this.
But many such accounts are undoubtedly self-serving, concocted in the
aftermath of his defeat.
Everyone outside Iraq missed the 1995-1996 shift in Saddam's strategy
-- that is, to scale back his WMD programmes to minimise the odds of further
discoveries -- and assumed that Iraq's earlier behaviour was continuing.
Context is crucial to understanding any intel assessment. Prior to
1991 the intel communities in the US and elsewhere believed that Iraq
was at least 5, and probably closer to 10, y away from acquiring a
nuclear weapon. After the war we learned that in 1991 Iraq had been
only 6 to 24 m away.
This revelation stunned the analysts. The lessons they took from it
were that Iraq was determined to acquire nuclear weapons and would go
to any lengths to do so; that the Iraqis were superb at concealment;
and that inspections were inherently flawed.
These lessons were strongly reinforced by the revelation of Iraq's
attempts in the 1st 4 y after the war to preserve significant parts of
its WMD programmes. By about 1994 Unscom believed, incorrectly, that
it had largely disarmed Iraq. Many intel analysts disagreed, but they
were hard-pressed to substantiate their suspicions -- until Kamel's
defection, in 1995, and subsequent Iraqi admissions. These developments
came as a profound shock to the UN inspectors, who resolved that Iraq
could never again be trusted. Thus, just when Iraq was in all likelihood
giving up efforts to maintain its just-in-time production capability,
the rest of the world became hardened in its conviction that Saddam
would never abandon or even reduce his efforts to acquire WMD.
In Dec of 1998 the inspectors withdrew from the country. Their
decision to do so came after Iraq announced, in Aug of that y, that
it would no longer cooperate with them at all, and after repeated
crises demonstrated that Baghdad's announcement was not just bluster.
The end of the UN inspections appears in retrospect to have been a
much greater problem than anyone recognised. The inspectors had been
the best source of info on Iraq and its WMD programmes. Many W intel
agencies, faced with other issues that demanded their resources,
increasingly relied on Unscom. And Unscom had something that American
intel did not -- physical access to Iraq.
When the inspectors suddenly left, intel agencies were caught off
balance. Desperate for info, they began to trust sources that they
would previously have had Unscom vet. With so little to go on, they
believed many reports that now seem deeply suspect. After 1998 many
analysts increasingly entertained worst-case scenarios -- scenarios
that gradually became mainstream estimates.
Another element that contributed to faulty assessments was Iraqi rhetoric.
Imagine that you were a CIA analyst in Jun 2000 and heard Saddam make
the following statement: "If the world tells us to abandon all our
weapons and keep only swords, we will do that ... if they destroy
their weapons. But if they keep a rifle and then tell me that I have
the right to possess only a sword, then we would say no. As long as
the rifle has become a means to defend our country against anybody who
may have designs against it, then we will try our best to acquire the
rifle." It would be very difficult not to interpret Saddam's remarks
as an announcement that he intended to reconstitute his WMD programmes.
The final element in the context for our pre-invasion analysis
involved discrepancies between how much WMD material went into Iraq
and how much Iraq could prove it had destroyed. The UN inspectors
obtained virtually all the import figures. They then asked the Iraqis
to either produce the materials or account for their destruction. In
many cases the Iraqis could not. These are the numbers that the world
regularly heard Bush Admin officials intone during the run-up to the
war. In hindsight there are legitimate reasons to question these numbers.
Saddam's Iraq was not exactly an efficient state, and many of his chief
lieutenants were semi-literate thugs with little regard for how things
should be done -- their only concern was that Saddam's demands be met.
The intel community's overestimation of Iraq's WMD capability is only
part of the story of why we went to war last y. The other part
involves how the Bush Admin handled the intel. Throughout the spring
and fall of 2002 and well into 2003 I received numerous complaints
from friends and colleagues in the intel community, and from people in
the policy community, about precisely that.
According to them, many Admin officials reacted strongly, negatively,
and aggressively when presented with info that contradicted what they
already believed about Iraq. Many of these officials believed that
Saddam was the source of virtually all the problems in the Middle E
and was an imminent danger to the US because of his perceived possession
of WMD and support of terrorism. Many also believed that CIA analysts
tended to be left-leaning cultural relativists who consistently
downplayed threats to the US. They believed that the agency, not the
Admin, was biased, and that they were acting simply to correct that bias.
Intel officers who presented analyses that were at odds with the
pre-existing views of snr Admin officials were subjected to barrages
of questions and requests for additional info, and were asked to
justify their work sentence by sentence. Reportedly, the worst fights
were over sources. The Admin gave greatest credence to accounts that
presented the most lurid picture of Iraqi activities. In many cases
intel analysts were distrustful of those sources, or knew unequivocally
that they were wrong. But when they said so, they were not heeded.
On many occasions Admin officials' requests for additional info struck
the analysts as being made merely to distract them.
Some asked for extensive historical analyses and requests were
constantly made for detailed analyses of newspaper articles that
conformed to the views of Admin officials -- pieces by conservative
newspaper columnists, who had no claim to superior insight into the
workings of Iraq.
Of course, no policymaker should accept intel estimates unquestioningly.
Any official who does less is derelict in his or her duty. However, at a
certain point curiosity and diligence become a form of pressure.
As Seymour Hersh, among others, has reported, Bush Admin officials
also took some actions that arguably crossed the line between rigorous
oversight of the intel community and an attempt to manipulate intel.
They set up their own shop in the Pentagon, called the Office of
Special Plans, to sift through the info themselves. To a great extent
OSP personnel "cherry-picked" the intel they passed on, selecting
reports that supported the Admin's pre-existing position and ignoring
all the rest.
Most problematic of all, the OSP often chose to believe reports that
trained intel officers considered unreliable or downright false. In
particular it gave great credence to reports from the Iraqi Nat'l
Congress, whose leader was the Admin-backed Ahmed Chalabi. It is true
that the intel community believed some of the material that came from
the INC -- but not most of it. One of the reasons the OSP generally
believed the INC was that they were telling it what it wanted to hear
-- giving the OSP further incentive to trust these sources over
differing, and ultimately more reliable, ones. Thus intel analysts
spent huge amounts of time fighting bad info and trying to persuade
officials not to make policy decisions based on it.
The Bush officials who created the OSP gave its reports directly to
those in the highest levels of govt, often passing raw, unverified
intel straight to the cabinet level as gospel. Snr officials made
public statements based on reports that the larger intel community
knew to be erroneous (for instance, that there was hard evidence
linking Iraq to al-Qaeda). The machinations of the OSP meant that
whenever the principals of the Nat'l Sec Council met with the president
and his staff, 2 different versions of reality were on the table.
The CIA, the state dept, and the uniformed military services would
present one version, and the Office of the Secretary of Defence and
the Office of the VP would present another. These views were too far
apart to allow for compromise. As a result, the Admin found it
difficult, if not impossible, to make important decisions. And it made
some that were fatally flawed, including many relating to postwar
planning, when the OSP's view -- that Saddam's regime simultaneously
was very threatening and could easily be replaced by a new govt -- prevailed.
The problems discussed so far have more to do with the methods of
officials than with their motives, which were often misguided and
dangerous, but were essentially well-intentioned. The one action for
which I cannot hold officials blameless is their distortion of intel
estimates when making the public case for war.
As best I can tell, these officials were guilty not of lying but of
creative omission. They discussed only those elements of intel estimates
that served their cause. This was particularly apparent in regard to
the time frame for Iraq's acquisition of a nuclear weapon -- the issue
that most alarmed the American public and the rest of the world.
Remember that the NIE said that Iraq was likely to have a nuclear
weapon in 5 to 7 y if it had to produce the fissile material
indigenously, and that it might have one in less than a y if it could
obtain the material from a foreign source. The intel community
considered it highly unlikely that Iraq would be able to obtain
weapons-grade material from a foreign source; it had been trying to do
so for 25 y with no luck. However, time after time snr Admin officials
discussed only the worst-case, and least likely, scenario, and failed
to mention the intel community's most likely scenario. Some examples:
* In a radio address on Sep 14, 2002, Pres Bush warned, "Today Saddam
Hussein has the scientists and infrastructure for a nuclear-weapons
programme, and has illicitly sought to purchase the equipment needed
to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should his regime acquire fissile
material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year."
* On Oct 7, 2002, the president told a group in Cincinnati, "If the
Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly
enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could
have a nuclear weapon in less than a year."
* VP Cheney said on NBC's Meet the Press on Sep 14 2003:"The judgement
in the NIE was that if Saddam could acquire fissile material,
weapons-grade material, that he would have a nuclear weapon within a
few m to a year."
None of these statements in itself was untrue. However, each told only a
part of the story -- the most sensational part. These statements all
implied that the US intel community believed that Saddam would have a
nuclear weapon within a y unless the US acted at once. Some defenders
of the Admin have reportedly countered that all it did was make the
best possible case for war, playing a role similar to that of a
defence attorney who is charged with presenting the best possible case
for a client. But a defence attorney is responsible for presenting
only one side of a dispute. The president is responsible for serving
the entire nation. For the Admin to withhold or downplay some of the
info for its own purposes is a betrayal of that responsibility.
What we have learned about Iraq's WMD programmes since the fall of
Baghdad leads me to conclude that the case for war with Iraq was
considerably weaker than I believed. I had been convinced that Iraq
was only y away from having a nuclear weapon -- probably only 4 or
5 y. That estimate was clearly off, possibly by quite a bit. My
reluctant conviction that war was our only option (although not at the
time or in the manner in which the Bush Admin pursued it) was not
entirely based on the nuclear threat, but that threat was the most
important factor.
The war was not all bad. But at the very least we should recognise
that the Admin's rush to war was reckless even on the basis of what we
thought we knew in Mar 2003. It appears even more reckless in light
of what we know today.
=== AND ANSWERED AGAIN: ===
Intel chief's bombshell: "We were overruled on dossier"
London (Independent). The intel official whose revelations stunned
the Hutton inquiry has suggested that not a single defence intel
expert backed Tony Blair's most contentious claims on Iraqi WMD.
As Mr Blair set up an inquiry yesterday into intel failures before the
war, Brian Jones, the former leading expert on WMD in the Ministry of
Defence, declared that Downing Street's dossier, a key plank in
convincing the public of the case for war, was "misleading" on Saddam
Hussein's chemical and biological capability. Writing in today's
Independent, Dr Jones, who was head of the nuclear, chemical and
biological branch of the Defence Intel Staff (DIS) until he retired
last y, reveals that the experts failed in their efforts to have their
views reflected.
Dr Jones, who is expected to be a key witness at the new inquiry, says:
"In my view, the expert intel analysts of the DIS were overruled in
the preparation of the dossier in Sep 2002, resulting in a presentation
that was misleading about Iraq's capabilities."
He calls on the PM to publish the intel behind the Govt's claims that
Iraq was actively producing chemical weapons and could launch an
attack within 45 min of an order to do so. He is "extremely
doubtful" that anyone with chemical and biological weapons expertise
had seen the raw intel reports and that they would prove just how
right he and his colleagues were to be concerned about the claims.
Downing Street was triumphant last wk when Lord Hutton ruled that
Andrew Gilligan's claims that the dossier was "sexed up" were
unfounded, but Dr Jones's comments are bound to boost the case of the
BBC and others that the dossier failed to take into account the
worries of intel officials. Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State,
said yesterday that he might not have supported military action
against Baghdad if he had known that Iraq lacked WMD.
Acutely aware of the American inquiry into the war, Mr Blair said that a
committee of inquiry would investigate "intel-gathering, evaluation
and use" in the UK before the conflict in Iraq. Lord Butler of Brockwell,
the former cabinet secretary, will chair the 5-strong committee,
which will meet in private. The Liberal Democrats refused to support
the inquiry because they said that its remit was not wide enough.
Dr Jones was the man whose decision to give evidence electrified the
Hutton inquiry as he disclosed that he had formally complained about
the dossier. The Govt attempted to dismiss his complaints as part of
the normal process of "debate" within the DIS and claimed that other
sections of the intel community were better qualified to assess the
45-min and chemical production claims.
[Geoff Hoon has already admitted to the Hutton Inquiry he knew the
45-mins claim did not refer to WMD, but to ordinary battlefield
weapons. He says he didn't bother to tell the PM about the fine
distinction before Blair had used it in propaganda].
But today Dr Jones makes clear that he was not alone and declares that
the whole of the Defence Intel Staff, Brit's best qualified analysts
on WMD, agreed that the claims should have been "carefully caveated".
Furthermore, the Joint Intel Committee (JIC), which allowed the
contentious claims to go into the dossier, lacked the expertise to
make a competent judgement on them.
Dr Jones makes clear that it was John Scarlett, the chairman of the
JIC, who was responsible for including the controversial claims in the
executive summary of the dossier that was used to justify war. It was
Mr Scarlett's strong assessment that allowed Alastair Campbell to
"translate a probability into a certainty" in Mr Blair's foreword to
the document, Dr Jones adds.
He says he foresaw at the time of the Govt's dossier in Sep 2002 that
no major WMD stockpiles would be found. He made a formal complaint
about the dossier to avoid himself and his fellow experts being cast
as "scapegoats" for any such failure.
In his article, Dr Jones warns that intel analysts should not be
blamed for the lack of any significant finds in Iraq and pts out
that it was the "intel community leadership" the heads of MI6 and
MI5 and Mr Scarlett who were responsible for the dossier. It would
be a "travesty" if the DIS was criticised over the affair, he says.
Dr Jones complains that he and others were not allowed to see vital
intel supporting the 45-min and chemical production claims.
He reveals, however, that he has discovered from a colleague that the
reports from the ground did not meet his and others' concerns about
the wording of the JIC's assessments. Also, he says, the Deputy Chief
of Defence Intel, Tony Cragg, did not see the supposedly clinching
intel and took on trust assurances from MI6 that it was credible.
The Govt yesterday finally slipped out its response to the Intel and
Security Committee's report last autumn on the intel case in the
approach to war.
For the 1st time ministers conceded that they "understand the
reasoning" for the committee's criticism that the presentation of the
45-min claim in the dossier "allowed speculation as to its exact
meaning", including the firing of WMD on long-range missiles. But the
Govt said it had not linked the claim to ballistic missiles.
It also rejected the MPs' call for complaints such as that of Dr Jones
to be sent direct to the JIC chairman. "It is important to preserve
the line management authority of JIC members," it said.
"New equation" leaves Powell unsure on Iraq
Washington (ABC, John Shovelan). US Secretary of State Colin Powell
says he does not know if he would have recommended an invasion of Iraq
if he had known Saddam Hussein possessed no stockpiles of banned weapons.
But Mr Powell has defended the Bush Admin's decision to go to war.
Mr Powell says the stockpile believed to exist was the final little
piece that made Iraq more of a real and present danger.
In an interview with the Washington Post, he said: "Absence of a
stockpile changes the political calculus, it changes the answer you get."
Asked if he would have recommended an invasion if he had known Iraq
did not possess banned weapons, he said he did not know.
But he defended the decision to go to war.
"The bottom line is this -- the Pres made the right decision," Mr
Powell said.
"He made the right decision based on the history of this regime."
"We have done the right thing and history will certainly be the test
of that," he added.
Pres George W Bush has announced a commission to investigate why US
intel on Iraq's WMD was wrong.
Blair calls for UK intel probe
Blair to follow US lead, call Iraq WMD inquiry.
London (Reuters). Brit's Tony Blair will bow to growing pressure on
Tue and call an inquiry into apparent intel failings over Iraqi
weapons after Washington agreed to its own probe into the
justification given for war.
A rep for Blair's office told Reuters the PM would make a statement on
the issue when he testifies before parliament's Liaison Committee at 4
am EST.
"He will say something then," the rep said.
Until now, Blair has firmly resisted calls for an inquiry although no
banned weapons have been found m after Saddam Hussein was toppled.
But pressure has been mounting to explain apparent flaws in intel that
led Blair to state, prior to the war, that Iraq was a "serious and
current" threat and that it had continued to produce chemical and
biological weapons.
A move by Pres Bush to appoint an independent commission on US intel
-- confirmed on Mon -- turned up the heat on Blair to do the same.
"It's humiliating that we are just being an echo of the US again,"
former Cabinet minister Clare Short said.
The official govt line that evidence of weapons could yet be found has
been increasingly hard to sustain since chief US weapons hunter David
Kay quit his post last m and blew a hole in the Anglo-American argument
on Iraq.
Kay said he believed Iraq had no stockpiles of illicit weapons and
said "we were almost all wrong" in assuming it did.
John Reid, a minister in Blair's cabinet, admitted on Tue there were
issues to be addressed.
"There is another legitimate area of questioning, which is....was
there a discrepancy between not the existence of a threat...but the
level and nature of that threat at a given point in time and the intel
that was received," he told BBC TV.
The Butler Inquiry
Remit focuses on intel and excludes politicians from scrutiny over
decision to go to war in Iraq.
London (Guardian). Tony Blair risked a further loss of trust on Iraq
yesterday when he ordered a wide ranging inquiry into intel on weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq but debarred the inquiry from examining
the political and diplomatic decision to wage war, and the legal basis
for doing so.
His tortuously worded terms of reference, the product of 24 hr of
backstage Westminster wrangling, split the opp'n parties last night.
Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, said his party would not
sit on the inquiry because the narrow terms of reference prevented an
examination of "the judgements which were made by the politicians about
the intel assessments".
He added: "An inquiry which excludes politicians from scrutiny is
unlikely to command public confidence. Politicians should always be
willing to answer for their judgement and their competence to the public".
But the Conservative leader, Michael Howard, said he had negotiated
changes to the terms of reference which specifically allowed the
inquiry to look into the use the govt had made of intel.
Mr Blair confirmed this interpretation, saying: "There is no doubt
that the inquiry will be able to look into how the intel is gathered
and used by govt: I think that's entirely sensible."
In essence, the terms of reference permit the inquiry to examine the
accuracy of the intel but not whether the threat was sufficiently big
or imminent to justify war.
Mr Kennedy is risking an accusation of political irresponsibility if
the inquiry makes substantial findings, but after his recent drop in
the polls he may benefit by the re-emphasis of his anti-war stance.
Mr Blair defended the inquiry's remit by arguing that he could not
allow a political decision to go to war -- the property of parliament,
govt and country -- to be sub-contracted to an independent inquiry.
The inquiry panel of 5, which is due to report before the summer
recess, will be chaired by Lord Butler, a sometime cabinet secretary
to 3 PMs.
He will be joined by the former permanent secretary at the N Ireland
Office Sir John Chilcott, the former chief of the defence staff Field
Marshal Lord Inge, and the 2 snr Labour and Tory members of the intel
and security committee, Ann Taylor and Michael Mates, who will represent
parliament, even though the ISC has already largely endorsed the intel case.
Alan Beith, the snr Liberal Democrat on the ISC, will not sit on the
inquiry because of Mr Kennedy's decision.
Mr Kennedy said Mr Beith had accepted the decision once it was
explained to him.
The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said the inquiry, in part modelled
on the Franks inquiry into the Falklands war, would meet in private,
but some of the evidence might be published.
Sources close to the intel agencies put a brave face on Mr Blair's decision.
In respect of MI6, the main agency involved, the key issue is what
caveats its raw intel contained before it was hardened up as a result
of pressure from Downing Street.
Lord Butler is said to take the view that snr intel officials, notably
John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intel committee, became too close
to political officials at No 10.
Another key issue is how strongly Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of
MI6, who is due to retire in the summer, will express concern about
the way in which the raw intel was handled.
MI6 is extremely vulnerable on one central claim: that Iraqi forces
could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 min.
This came from a single secondary source and was described in the
dossier as "recent intel".
The claim was sharply criticised last y by the parliamentary intel and
security committee, 2 of whose members are on the Butler committee.
Military chiefs are voicing concern about the quality of the intel
they were given, something Lord Inge is likely to sympathise with.
"Someone was misled somewhere", a snr defence source said yesterday.
The timetable is shorter than the parallel US congressional inquiry,
which is not due to report until next y, but Mr Blair is eager to draw a
line on Iraq before a general election next spring.
3 Brit official inquiries into the war have so far failed to quell the
political controversy and Mr Blair was pessimistic yesterday that this
latest effort would change minds.
He justified his volte-face on the need for an inquiry by pointing to
the startling admissions last wk by Dr David Kay, the former head of
the Iraq Survey Group.
Speaking to select committee chairmen at Westminster, he said: "I
think it is right, as a result of what David Kay has said, and the ISG
now probably won't report in the very nr term, that we have a look at
the intel we received and whether it was correct or not."
In contrast to some of the more ambiguous remarks by the US secretary
of state, Colin Powell, Mr Blair said he would have recommended the
invasion even if he had known that Saddam had no stockpiles of weapons
of mass destruction.
He insisted that the war was legally justified, since Dr Kay had
confirmed that Saddam had not cooperated with the UN inspectors.
Snr anti-war MPs ridiculed the inquiry.
The former cabinet minister Robin Cook said it was not feasible to
"separate out the intel judgements on the threat and the political
judgement to go to war on the basis of that threat".
Aussie PM rules out WMD inquiry
Perth (AAP). PM John Howard denied he was embarrassed by new doubts
over the accuracy of intel used to justify the Iraq war.
Mr Howard said he made the decision to join military action against
Iraq based on intel from AUS agencies and from his own direct talks
with Brit and US intel agencies.
"I did have a number of direct discussions with the head of Brit intel
and also with snr people in the CIA, all of which confirmed the advice
we had been receiving from our own agencies," Mr Howard told ABC radio
in Perth.
"We went to war primarily because of the WMD issue and because of the
continued non-compliance by Iraq with resolutions of the Sec Council."
Asked if he was embarrassed in the light of former chief US weapons
hunter David Kay's finding that there were no stockpiles of chemical
or biological weapons in Iraq, Mr Howard said he was not.
"I'm not embarrassed because intel is an imprecise science," he said.
"You have to make judgements on the material that you have at the time
and the material that we had available at the time very strongly
suggested the possession of WMD.
"There are differences of view and there are different conclusions
about the immediacy and the quantity but the jury is still out.
"If we had our time over again, I would not have taken a different
decision."
Mr Howard ruled out following Brit and the US in calling an inquiry
into the intel, saying Aussies should wait for the report of a
parliamentary committee inquiry into the issue.
"We actually have had a parliamentary inquiry and the 1st term of
reference ... is the nature, the accuracy, the independence of the
intel that was relied on," Mr Howard said.
"So on the merits of it, it could be said that we've already had the
inquiry and maybe the sensible thing to do is to let the public see
what is in that report.
"I have actually seen the report but I am not allowed to talk about it
because it's not my report, it's a parliamentary committee report."
Howard stands by Iraq decision
Perth. The PM says he is not embarrassed about his decision to send
troops to Iraq, even though he concedes the intel used to justify the
attack may have been wrong.
John Howard is yet to be convinced another inquiry into that intel is
warranted.
Mr Howard says before the war there was strong intel suggesting Iraq
had banned weapons.
While there are now growing doubts about that intel, he says he does
not resile from his decision to go to war.
"I am not embarrassed ... because intel is an imprecise science," he said.
Mr Howard says a parliamentary committee will soon report on the
accuracy of that pre-war intel.
He has guaranteed that report, which he says he has seen, will not be
vetted in any way.
Labor leader Mark Latham thinks a 2nd investigation may well be needed.
"If there's any doubt about the matter, if the truth hasn't been established,
if we need further inquiries then in the nat'l interest we should."
He says lessons need to be learnt from this experience, so mistakes
are not repeated.
Wilkie demands independent Iraq probe
Canberra. A former AUS intel officer has called for an independent
inquiry into the accuracy of pre-war info about Iraq's banned weapons
programs.
Andrew Wilkie quit the Office of Nat'l Assessments in Mar last y,
saying the AUS Govt had exaggerated the case for war against Iraq.
Mr Wilkie says a fed parliamentary inquiry which has examined the
issue in AUS is a whitewash.
He says there needs to be an independent investigation.
"It needs to be a genuinely independent inquiry," Mr Wilkie said.
"It needs to be an inquiry that not only looks at the intel but looks
very carefully at what the Govt did with that intel.
"I don't think the current parliamentary inquiry headed by David Jull
is the answer."
The US and the UK have announced they will hold separate independent
inquiries into intel-gathering about Iraq's supposed WMD.
PM John Howard says AUS will make its own decision on whether to hold a
similar probe.
"In the fullness of time it might be demonstrated that the [intel]
advice [on Iraq] was inaccurate but to say it was bogus is an unfair
observation," Mr Howard said.
Opp'n leader Mark Latham says AUS should have an independent inquiry
into the pre-war intel on Iraq's banned weapons, if that is needed to
get to the truth.
Mr Latham says he will know whether another investigation is needed,
after he sees the report of a parliamentary inquiry on the matter,
which is due to be released next m.
But he has accused the Govt of closing its mind to the prospect of a
2nd investigation.
"Sen Hill, the Defence Min, has said he doesn't see the need for
further inquiries," he said.
"We've got to be open-minded in ensuring that we always get it right
for AUS and mistakes that have been made in the past aren't repeated
in the future, particularly when it comes to the primary
responsibility of govt -- keeping the nation safe and secure."
Political infighting delays Italy media bill
Milan (Reuters). Italy's controversial media bill has suffered a
setback when the Govt, hit by coalition infighting, decided to delay
final voting rather than risk a parliamentary defeat.
The legislation, which critics say is tailor-made for PM Silvio
Berlusconi's business interests, is going through Parliament for a
second time after Pres Carlo Azeglio Ciampi vetoed the original
version and demanded amendments.
When the revised text went before the Lower House of Parliament on
Tue, coalition leaders swiftly decided to send it back into a
cross-party commission for further review after they struggled to win
votes on various amendments.
"The problem doesn't regard the merit of the law, but the political
picture," Communications Min Maurizio Gasparri, who has lent his name
to the law, said.
The bill, which raises limits on media ownership, was approved by
Parliament last y, but Mr Ciampi refused to approve it, saying it did
not guarantee the plurality of Italian media.
Tue's parliamentary retreat comes as Mr Berlusconi tries to resolve
rows within his four-party coalition that have raised tensions over
all areas of policy making.
In a sign of the growing friction, amendments to the media bill passed
by just a handful of votes on Tue, despite the fact that Mr Berlusconi
commands a huge parliamentary majority.
Shares in Berlusconi-controlled TV network Mediaset, which stands to
benefit from the media law, closed down 1.4% at 9.44 euros on the
Milan bourse.
The Govt says the law is necessary to allow Italian media firms to
cope with foreign competition.
Mr Berlusconi's critics say it is designed to allow Mediaset to expand
out of TV and into publishing and radio.
Gasparri made 7 amendments to the law originally rejected by Mr Ciampi
and the revised package had been expected to pass into law fairly
smoothly, with the Pres unable to veto the same bill twice.
It was not immediately clear when Parliament might approve the
new-look bill.
Ex-Bosnian Serb policy maker faces war crimes trial
The Hague (BBC/Reuters/AFP). One of the highest ranking members of
the Bosnian Serb leadership during the Bosnian civil war in the 1990s
has gone on trial in The Netherlands on war crimes charges. He was
the right-hand man of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who is
still at large. Momcilo Krajisnik is accused of genocide for
allegedly masterminding an ethnic cleansing campaign against Bosnian
Muslims and Croats in the early 1990s. He took notes during the
opening remarks by the prosecutor, who described him as "a shrewd and
calculating man, an unrelenting nat'list" and the chief policy maker
of the Bosnian Serbs. The prosecutor said Krajisnik held the levers
of power with Radovan Karadzic, and as part of a joint criminal
enterprise, they planned to create a unified Serbian state.
DC ricin scare leaves Senate unscathed
Washington (AP). A jittery Senate faced its 2nd attack with a deadly
toxin in 28 m on Tue, this time in the form of ricin powder sent to
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Another letter containing ricin and
bound for the Whitehouse had been intercepted in Nov, a law
enforcement official disclosed.
No illnesses were reported in either case, but dozens of Senate
workers were being monitored and work in the Senate slowed to a crawl.
Health experts expressed optimism that casualties would be averted in
the new attack. None of the dozens of congressional employees who were
nr the Tennessee Republican's office on Mon when the white powder was
discovered was believed to be sick.
"As each minute ticks by, we are less and less concerned about the
health effects," said Dr Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
The ricin-laced letter addressed to the Whitehouse had been detected
at an off-site mail processing facility, the law enforcement official
said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The investigation into that letter continues, and there have been no
arrests, the official said. Authorities determined the letter posed no
threat to health because of the ricin's low potency and granular form.
In Oct, officials intercepted a package containing ricin at a
Greenville, SC, postal facility.
The S Carolina package, which included a letter signed by "Fallen
Angel," and the one addressed to the Whitehouse were similar, a snr
law enforcement official said on condition of anonymity Tue. Both
contained ricin, and both complained about new regulations requiring
certain amounts of rest for truck drivers, the official said.
But it was unclear if those were connected to the substance found in
Frist's mail room, the official said.
On Capitol Hill, all 3 Senate office buildings were shut Tue and were
to be closed Wed, too. They could be closed the rest of the wk.
That included the Dirksen Senate Office Building, where the substance
was found Mon afternoon by a young worker in Frist's fourth-floor
mailroom. A sign stating "Closed" hung from one of Dirksen's main
doors. Yellow sheets cordoned off areas inside.
The Capitol building -- where heavy security and a persistent case of
nerves have reigned since the terrorist attacks of Sep 11, 2001 --
was closed to tourists.
Frist and others said tests overnight showed the substance was ricin, a
natural and potent poison made by refining castor beans.
Frist said the ricin was active, or capable of causing illness, but
tests measuring its potency were incomplete.
Health officials urged Senate staff to watch for swiftly developing
fever, coughs or fluid in the lungs over the next 2 or 3 days.
When inhaled in sufficient quantities or injected, ricin can be fatal
-- and there is no known vaccine or cure.
Frist's offices in Tennessee were also closed as investigators checked
mail there, said Frist rep Nick Smith.
In Washington, senators gave many aides the day off and brought others
to work in small Capitol offices the lawmakers normally use as private
hideaways.
The FBI and other agencies were conducting other tests. At Fort
Detrick, Md, Army scientists were using electron microscopes to
determine the size of the ricin's particles -- crucial to determining
whether any of it may have been inhaled.
Senate leaders made a show of calm and control. They said they had
refined their ability to respond to emergencies since the anthrax
attacks of late 2001 with better communications and coordination.
"Things are going very well, not perfectly, but very, well," said
Frist, a medical doctor who has advised Capitol colleagues about
potential terror attacks through the mail ever since the anthrax
letters of late 2001.
Frist said 16 potentially exposed staff workers had been quarantined
Mon night and decontaminated with showers. Rep Bob Stevenson later
raised that figure to 24, plus an uncertain number of Capitol police
officers who took precautionary showers after their shifts.
But other Senate aides, including at least one who was quarantined,
said the figure was 40 to 50, including about 10 Capitol police
officers and aides to Frist, Sen James Jeffords, I-Vt, and the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee.
At a briefing for reporters, Frist said there was not yet info on how
dangerous this sample of ricin powder was.
Democratic leader Tom Daschle of S Dakota said tests of air filters
showed the chemical had not been circulated through the buildings'
ventilation systems.
But Sen Lindsey Graham, R-S.C, emerging from a lunch where Frist,
Capitol police chief Terrance Gainer and Capitol physician John Eisold
briefed Republican senators, said the 3 had expressed concern.
"There was something specific about this that made them worry," Graham
said. "Somebody knew what they were doing. ... Frist said the type,
the way it was presented indicated that people understood it goes into
the air and gets into lungs."
There were also questions raised about how effectively senators and
aides were told about the attack and the potential jeopardy they faced.
"We weren't notified promptly enough yesterday," said Sen Tom Harkin,
D-Iowa, who said one of his aides worked well into the evening in the
Dirksen building. "But that's OK, people make mistakes."
One aide who was quarantined -- which did not occur until 6.30 Mon
evening -- said many co-workers had already gone home. This aide said
those quarantined were asked to telephone colleagues who had left and
tell them to shower and put their clothes in a bag.
Frist and police chief Gainer said investigators were still uncertain
which, if any, piece of mail the ricin had come from.
Gainer said officials had not yet found any "visible threat," such as a
menacing letter. The ricin was found on a device that opens mail,
authorities said.
Workers began retrieving mail from all Senate and House offices as
authorities worried that contaminated mail may have been sent to other
lawmakers. In Oct 2001, anthrax-tainted letters were mailed to
then-Senate Majority Leader Daschle and to Sen Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
Officials said there was no evidence of ricin elsewhere in the Capitol
complex, though as a precaution the postal facility that processes
Congress' mail was shut. In 2001, 2 postal workers in Washington were
among 5 people who died from anthrax exposure.
Across the Capitol, the House conducted business as usual. Senate
leaders decided to hold no votes and cancelled all committee hearings,
though senators trooped to the chamber floor to debate a highway bill.
"Terrorist attacks and criminal acts of this kind won't stop the work
of the Senate or the Congress as we have important work to be done,"
said Daschle.
Ricin letter sent to Whitehouse
Washington (AFP). US authorities intercepted a letter to the White
House 3 ma containing the toxic ricin poison, a law enforcement source said.
"In Nov, a letter addressed to the Whitehouse containing a fine,
powdery substance was intercepted at an off-site mail handling
facility," the source said on condition of anonymity.
"The substance tested positive for ricin. However, it was also
determined that there was no public health risk because of the low
potency and the granular form of the substance."
News of the letter was released in the hrs after ricin poison was also
sent to the US Senate in Washington, sparking a new bio-terrorism scare.
US Secret Service rep Tom Mazur said the Whitehouse letter "is part
of an ongoing investigation, we can't comment on the details."
The mail office where the letter was found has handled all mail for
the Whitehouse since a wave of letters containing anthrax were sent
to govt offices and media in late 2001.
Since then all correspondence addressed to the Whitehouse has been
taken to a military centre nr Washington to be checked before delivery.
Authorities closed 3 US Senate office buildings Tue after toxic ricin
powder was found in what a congressional leader called a terrorist attack.
The powder was found in the mailroom of the head of the Republican
majority in the Senate, Bill Frist, and a series of tests had confirmed
it was ricin, said Terry Gainer, the police chief for the district
which takes in the US Congress buildings.
16 people who were nr the room went through decontamination procedures
but none were believed to be harmed by the powder, officials said.
There is no known antidote to ricin poison, which normally kills
within 72 hr.
Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said: "I believe
that it is an act of terrorism."
Wife of terror suspect Brigitte makes jail visit
[Contrary to prev reports...].
Paris. The AUS wife of deported terrorism suspect Willie Brigitte has
visited him in a French prison. Soon after arriving in Paris, Melanie
Brown was detained and questioned for several days by France's
domestic intel agency, before being granted permission to see Mr
Brigitte. The couple's AUS lawyer, Stephen Hopper, says Ms Brown is
in good spirits and has vowed to stand by her husband. "She's now of
the opinion that he's innocent, she's had a talk to him about what's
happened and that's what she believes at the moment," he said.
"Certainly it's been an emotional experience for her and ... she
really just wants to be left alone to sort her private life out. "She
feels it's nobody's business but hers."
China battles more bird flu cases
Beijing. (ABC, John Taylor). China's battle with bird flu is
intensifying, with several new outbreaks of the deadly virus reported
across the country. There are now 17 cases of suspected bird flu
across 12 provinces, or one-third of China's regions. 4 other
outbreaks have been confirmed as the deadly H5N1 virus. Tests are
being conducted to confirm the other areas. China reported its 1st
case of bird flu just a wk ago and has moved swiftly to slaughter
affected animals and quarantine surrounding areas. The World Health
Organisation says it has requested info on the surveillance and
vaccination efforts but nothing has been forthcoming. No human cases
of the virus have been reported in China.
Experts meet over bird flu crisis
Rome (BBC/AFP). Internat'l food, health and animal experts are
holding emergency talks in Rome on strategies to contain and deal with
the bird flu outbreak in South-East Asia. Tens of mn of chickens have
been killed and a deadly strain of the virus has transferred to humans
in Thailand and Vietnam. 13 people have died from the disease in
Asia. At least 25 internat'l experts from 14 countries are attending
the 2-day closed meeting, including officials from affected nations.
They hope to achieve a consensus on options for tackling the outbreak
and develop action plans for individual countries. Health officials
say that culls of poultry, if carried out safely, are the best way to
contain the disease. But animal vaccination, used alongside culling,
is another option being discussed. Experts are divided over the
benefits of giving birds flu jabs -- they are not proven to provide
protection against the virulent H5N1 strain.
[Something for Izzy and other cancer-phobes in denial].
Cancer survival improves despite more cases
London (Guardian). The cancer death rate has fallen by 18% for men
and 6% for women in a generation, the charity Cancer Research revealed
yesterday.
The overall 12% reduction in mortality between 1972 and 2002 contrasts
with recent figures showing a steady rise in new cancer cases, many of
them related to lifestyle factors, including smoking, drinking and obesity.
But better screening, treatments and quality of life care have helped
to improve the 5-y survival rate [sometimes called "cure" rates by
right-wing sociologists] for many cancers.
The lung cancer death rate in men has fallen by nearly 1/2 in 30 y,
but remains higher than for women, in whom the rate has risen by more
than 1/2 in the same period.
The number of deaths from breast cancer in every 100,000 of the
population has fallen by a fifth, and there have been significant
falls in bowel and stomach cancer mortality.
But there have been huge increases in death from liver cancers, cancer
of the oesophagus, malignant melanomas from increased exposure to the
sun, and multiple myeloma [cancer of the plasma cells in bone marrow].
There has also been a big increases in prostate cancer deaths.
Cancer Research UK is looking on the bright side as it begins a new
fundraising campaign to increase its spending on research, which
amounted to #191 mn last y. Its TV press, radio and billboard
advertising is aimed at persuading people to give #2 a m towards
further research, providing up to #16 mn for new projects.
The adverts stress that more patients are hearing the words "all
clear", both after initial treatment and later check-ups.
Prof Peter Selby, head of Cancer Research UK's unit at St James's
hospital, Leeds, said 40% of cancer patients overall now survived at
least 5 y and a 50% rate was "within reach". Between 350 and 400
new drug treatments were in the pipeline.
Iraqi Kurds vow unity as blast toll reaches 67
5 arrested in connection with attacks on US soldiers.
Arbil (AFP). Leaders of Iraqs 2 main Kurdish parties said yesterday
that recent suicide attacks would only help forge closer ties between
their once-rival groups, as the death toll from the blasts reached 67.
US military officials said the number killed in Suns coordinated
attacks had risen to 67 from an earlier estimate of 56 and those
wounded numbered 247.
Doctors in Arbil said many of the wounded were in critical condition
and feared the toll could climb further.
The attacks, the worst since a suicide car bomb killed more than 80
outside a mosque in the holy city of Najaf last Aug, killed several
snr members of the main Kurdish parties the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
The PUK and the KDP, whose militias fought a civil war in the 1990s,
have become more tightly aligned in recent y and are both closely allied
to the US, having staunchly backed the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Kurdish leaders said the attacks, rather than dividing the parties,
were likely to bring them closer as they push for greater autonomy for
an enlarged fed Kurdish region.
This has had a devastating effect on the Kurdish leadership because we
have lost so many valuable people, Hoshiyar Zebari, Iraqs foreign
minister and a Kurd, said in Arbil. But I also definitely believe that
this incident has brought Kurds together and strengthened their unity.
Yet that greater bond could influence US plans for the transfer of
sovereignty to an Iraqi govt ahead of a Jul 1 deadline, as tensions
between various ethnic and religious groups become increasingly visible.
Gareth Stansfield, an Iraq expert at Brits Exeter University, noted
the bombings came at a time when Kurdish demands for autonomy within a
fed system had become a sensitive issue with other Iraqis and the US.
This could be the trigger that galvanises the KDP and PUK into making a
vociferous demand for heightened autonomy, Stansfield said in London.
There could be an immediate reaction by Barzani and Talabani to
toughen their position.
The leaders of the KDP and PUK, Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani
respectively, issued statements after the blasts saying the attack
only made them more determined to remain united.
Stansfield said Kurds would see this as a defence against endemic
instability threatening to spill into the N from the rest of Iraq,
adding the KDP and PUK would take the opportunity to clamp down on
Ansar Al Islam and even moderate Islamist groups.
In Arbil, in the far N of Iraq, mourners wearing black armbands and
dressed in their smartest clothes in recognition of the Eid Al Adha
Muslim feast paid their respects to the dead at the site of the
bombings and outside the city's main mosque.
Snr figures from both the PUK and the KDP attended prayers, where
peshmerga fighters the militia for the Kurdish parties frisked
visitors as they entered.
Residents of Arbil, which many considered one of the safest cities in
Iraq, said they were worried about the city becoming a target for
insurgents and anti-American fighters.
Once it was safe here, at least safe compared to Iraq, said Saadi
Adnan, a man waiting outside the mosque.
Now its al-Qaeda, Palestinians, Arabs they have their cells here and
you can tell it was them who carried out the attack by the way they
tracked the officials.
No one had claimed responsibility for the bombings, but Kurdish
officials have said they believe it could have been the work of Ansar
Al Islam, a militant organisation with links to the al-Qaeda network
and which used to operate in N Iraq.
Zebari said that as much as being an attack on Kurds, the bombings
were also a scar on Iraqs nascent democracy.
This is an attack on democratic principles. The parties that were
targeted are the nucleus of any democratic life in Iraq. They have
legitimacy, they have won elections.
The US army yesterday arrested 5 men, including 3 suspected of
killing American servicemen in a weekend bombing in N Iraq, Iraqi
police said.
The Iraqi police chief in the N oil city of Kirkuk, Col Turhan Yusef,
said that troops from the US 4ID (ID) arrested 3 Iraqis in connection
with a bombing on Sat that killed 3 soldiers.
The 3 men Abdullah Zoba, Khodr Ali and Abdul Jabbar Riyashi were
arrested in a dawn raid on a village nr the town of Rashad, 40 km S
of Kirkuk, he said. They are suspected of planting a roadside homemade
bomb that killed 3 US soldiers, 45 km SW of Kirkuk.
A US rep could not immediately confirm the arrests of the three, but
said 2 other Iraqis had been detained yesterday for trying to detonate a
roadside bomb.
The explosive device was planted on a road as a US convoy returned
from a memorial service to its base in Kirkuk.
According to Iraqi police major Abdul Kareem Ali Al Juburi, the device
weighed 50 kgs and was hidden in a rice bag at 1.5 km from the US base.
Death toll from Iraq suicide bombs hits 101
Arbil (Reuters). US officials say the death toll from twin suicide
attacks on the offices of the main political parties in the N Iraqi
town of Arbil at the weekend has risen to 101.
Both the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK), the main parties in Iraqi Kurdistan, lost several snr
politicians when bombers attacked on Sun.
The attacks were timed to coincide with celebrations for the Muslim
Eid Al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice, holiday.
A rep for the US-led authority in Iraq says the number killed had
risen to 101 from a previous estimate of 67.
He says 133 people were wounded, fewer than previous accounts of more
than 200, attributing the drop to confusion at the time of the attacks.
Kurdish television showed pictures of a man it said was responsible
for the bombing at the KDP offices and offered a reward for anyone
able to ID him.
Military officials in Iraq have said the bombings in Arbil have a
different hallmark to the hit-and-run tactics used by Saddam Hussein
loyalists fighting the US occupation across the country.
US officers said it was too early to exclude any insurgent groups from
the investigation, but said early indications suggested foreign groups
were probably involved.
"As I said 2 nights ago, no group has claimed responsibility. We
suspect that it could be any of a number of terrorist cells. It could
be Ansar Al-Islam, al-Qaeda -- we are conducting an investigation
right now," US Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt said.
"Our 1st assumptions are based on the tactics used. When you start
seeing people strap on suicide bombs and carrying out suicide bombings
your 1st inclination is to sort of look foreign rather than look here,
within Iraq."
Ansar Al-Islam, whose leadership is believed to be Kurdish, is an
Islamist group the PUK accuses of links to al-Qaeda and attacked with
US Special Forces during the US-led war on Iraq.
The bombings in the N region of Kurdistan, which split from Iraq
following an uprising after the 1991 Gulf War, were a big shock to a
community which had been relatively calm since the fall of Saddam.
US casualty numbers continue to climb in Iraq
Baghdad (KRT). Jan was the 2nd deadliest m for US soldiers in Iraq
since Pres Bush declared the end of major combat operations in May,
according to a review of military and news reports.
A roadside bomb nr the city of Kirkuk on Sat killed 3 US soldiers,
bringing the total combat deaths for Jan to 40.
The high death toll came in spite of a decline in the frequency of
attacks on US troops, suggesting that insurgents have improved their
targeting abilities.
The continuing high casualty count brings into question Bush Admin
assertions that conditions in Iraq are improving, and could provide
ammunition to Democratic presidential candidates who are critical of
the war effort.
In addition to the US death toll, 100s of Iraqis were killed or
wounded in a spate of bombings in Jan, including one on Sat in the N
city of Mosul that killed at least 9 and wounded more than 40.
US Army and civilian officials in Iraq recently have begun citing a
reduction in the number of attacks against soldiers as a sign of
progress in the war. During Nov, the high watermark for soldier deaths
when 69 were killed, there were 40 to 50 attacks a day, a figure that
has plummeted to about 20, according to military officials.
The attacks, however, are growing more deadly. Roadside bombs in Oct,
Nov and Dec, for instance, tended to kill one soldier at a time. In
Jan, there were 4 instances in which one explosive device killed 3
soldiers, the highest such totals for any m since May, according to
military reports.
The top Army rep in Iraq, Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, acknowledged that
trend in a briefing on Tue, saying, "The overall number of attacks is
going down. That is not, sadly, stopping the number of casualties."
But when asked about the subject again on Fri, Kimmitt seemed to
reverse course. "As we've had a corresponding reduction in attacks,
there has been a corresponding reduction in killed in action as well,"
he said.
Told that the numbers in Jan suggest otherwise, Kimmitt disputed that
finding, saying: "I'm not going to get into a debate about the numbers."
In fact, an analysis of combat-related deaths showed that 40 US
soldiers were killed in Jan, second only to Nov's total of 69. The Nov
numbers were inflated by the downing of three helicopters with heavy
casualties, which added 39 deaths. If not for the catastrophic nature
of those crashes, Jan would be the deadliest m since May.
The Knight Ridder analysis of the soldier deaths began with casualty
reports from the US Central Command, and was compared to a database
that records releases from both Central Command and the US Dept of
Defence. When there were discrepancies between the 2, the names of
the soldiers in question were cross-referenced with Press reports of
deaths and funeral services.
There were also some instances where a soldier was seriously wounded
in action, and later died of those injuries. When it was not possible
to determine the date of the actual incident, the date of death was recorded.
Because the military has not made a definitive report of the deaths
public, there is some uncertainty about the numbers, which vary among
media agencies and other organisations.
For example, the total number of deaths recorded in Knight Ridder's
report was 255, 6 more than that of the Associated Press. The
discrepancies, however, are not large enough to alter the trend toward
increasing combat deaths.
Another US military rep in Baghdad, Col Bill Darley, said earlier this
wk that the smaller number of attacks has not correlated to fewer body bags.
"Here's the bottom line. There's a decrease in attacks, but I think
it's fair to say that the effective potency of the attacks that are
going on has been maintained," he said. "We have observed the same
number of coalition casualties as before."
Military cmdrs have given no explanation for the rising death toll,
but have said in the past few wk that they think the terrorist
organisation al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters are trying to make
serious inroads.
"They bring a different degree of expertise. And like anything else,
it's a different enemy tactic," Kimmitt said. "We just have to learn
what those tactics, techniques and procedures are, so that we can
fight them and beat them."
While US officials have continued to say publicly that the country is
headed for success, the concrete walls and concertina wire have been
rising higher and higher, especially in the capital. The entrance of
the HQ of the US-led coalition, which was recently bombed, now has 2
new guard towers and an even more complex set of barriers.
UN seeks to break impasse in Iraq
NY (Still The BBC). Pres Bush said the the UN had a "vital role" UN
Sec-Gen Kofi Annan has confirmed he will send a team of experts to
Baghdad to advise on the hand-over of political power in Iraq.
After meeting US Pres George W Bush, Mr Annan said he was sending a
team to Iraq to "break the impasse" over the American handover plan.
The Bush Admin wants to hand over to a transitional Iraqi govt
selected by regional meetings.
But Iraq's Shia majority wants direct elections to take place this y.
Mr Annan said the US-led coalition and the interim Iraqi Admin had
agreed to accept the UN team's findings.
After the meeting Pres Bush said that "the UN does have a vital role"
in Iraq.
Mr Annan acknowledged "some disagreement" over how to establish a
provisional govt in Baghdad.
He said his team would aim to overcome that problem.
"Everyone agrees that sovereignty should be handed over to Iraq as
soon as possible," Mr Annan told reporters.
"The date of 30 Jun has been suggested, but there is some disagreement
as to the mechanism for establishing the provisional govt.
"We've discussed ways to make sure that, by working together, the
Iraqi people can be free and the country stable and prosperous and an
example of democracy in the Middle East. And the UN does have a vital
role there."
* Sidelined
The US is hoping the UN can persuade the Shias that there is simply
not enough time to organise elections by Jun.
But Mr Annan has already made it clear that the UN wants assurances
that any team it sends to Iraq will be fully protected.
It pulled out its internat'l staff last y after a huge bomb attack on
the UN HQ in Baghdad killed more than 20 people.
It was also sidelined over the reconstruction of Iraq by the Bush Admin.
Water and life slowly return to the vast wetlands of Iraq
Hawr-al-Hawizah Marsh, Iraq (KRT/Seattle Times). Hanum Ghayyad spends
his days hacking down papyrus reeds. It takes nearly a day of hard
labour to fill his narrow boat with the fresh green stalks favoured as
feed for water buffalo. The load will fetch about $2, scant income for
this father of 8.
Ghayyad is not complaining. After 2 decades of relocation in distant
camps, he savours his time on the water. "This is the best my life has
been in years. Before, I was suffocating."
Ghayyad is a Marsh Arab, tribal people who for 5,000 y lived in the
inland waterways of SE Iraq that lap along the border with Iran.
The area ranks as the Middle East's greatest wetland and in past
centuries stretched across 11,000 km, an area far larger than the
original Florida Everglades. It is a refuge of internat'l significance
for migratory birds, and once was home to as many as 500,000 people,
some of whom built their homes on small floating islands formed of
woven reeds.
Over the past half-century, most of the Marsh Arabs were uprooted as
the Iraqi govt drained and dyked nearly 90% of the marshland in what
internat'l observers rank as a human tragedy and environmental
disaster of global importance.
Saddam Hussein's regime did much of the damage, forcibly relocating
10s of 1000s, killing others and prompting 1000s more to flee to Iran.
Today, the Marsh Arabs are a people scattered. Some live in exile in
Iran, others in camps or in the cities of S Iraq.
As many as 70,000 stayed in or nr the marshes. And others are
beginning to return as recently breached dikes and dams begin to
expand the remnant waterways.
The Iraqi Army helped a little. As soldiers retreated last y from
Basra, they blew up a road that had held back marsh water, according
to a UN memorandum. More recently, Iraqi engineers have rerouted river
flows into the marshes. The Marsh Arabs themselves have taken picks
and shovels to open additional waterways into the marsh.
In the channel that runs along Ghayyad's village, the water is rising.
The village is in a stark setting on drained land, devoid of trees,
grass or a functioning school. It's a mudhole in winter, and as the
weather warms, mosquitoes savage anything that moves. The land is
littered with un-exploded ordnance.
Yet several thousand people of the Ma'dan tribe live there. A single
hut, built of mud and woven reeds, will support a dozen people or
more. Outside, chickens, sheep, donkeys and goats freely forage.
Saddam's regime dumped the villagers at this site in 2002 after ys
of shuffling the tribe through relocation camps. Their camp life was
part of a broader assault against the Marsh Arabs. In 1980, when Iraq
began a brutal eight-y war with Iran, it viewed the waterways as a
haven for the enemy.
Saddam flushed the marsh of people and water, opening the cleared land
up to agriculture and drilling, which tapped into rich underground oil
pools. The assault intensified post-1991, when the tribe joined in an
uprising against Saddam, resulting in mass executions, as well as
forced relocations.
Even when Saddam allowed the return of the Ma'dan tribe to the marsh,
the people were not free to resume their old ways. The govt restricted
their movements and demanded they stay out of prime fishing grounds
reserved for a high-ranking member of the govt's Baath Party who lived
in an inland villa. Those who violated the ban risked death.
"They shot my son, and he was just trying to get food for his family,"
said one villager. "He was 16 y old."
* * *
Today, the villagers are eager to see more and more water flushed into
the marshes.
But the question of how far to take the marsh restoration is a matter
of internat'l debate. Much of the drained land is now encrusted with
salt, concentrated through evaporation under the fierce summer
heat. So, some of the land would need to be flushed with huge volumes
of water to support freshwater life.
UN officials last y estimated that as much as 25 to 30% of the
original marshes could eventually be restored.
Last y, the US Congress cut a proposed $100 mn aid package for
marsh restoration. Aid groups -- largely funded by the United States
Agency for Internat'l Development, which has budgeted $4 mn for
marsh restoration and management -- also have stepped in to assist the
people. They include Pacific Northwest-based Mercy Corps, which has opened
an office in Al Amarah, a city of 300,000 that's 50 km to the W.
The office is led by Gordon Kindlon, a NYer who helped to organise war
protests in Manhattan. After the US invasion in Mar, he decided to
join in the reconstruction effort.
Kindlon is teamed up with Mike Nahhal, a Lebanese Christian who was
one of the few internat'l aid workers to work in Iraq under Saddam.
Between 1991 and 2001, Nahhal shuttled back to Beirut once a m to
visit his wife and 4 daughters. While working in Baghdad, he tried to
monitor the plight of Marsh Arabs but was never allowed to visit their
waterways.
Earlier this m, he got a 1st glimpse as he joined Ghayyad for a brief
marsh cruise. They travelled in a traditional boat known as a belem.
These craft used to be made of wood, but Ghayyad had found a cheaper
alternative -- thin but tough panels of fraying asbestos.
Ghayyad sat in the stern, paddling. They passed through a thicket of
slender reeds dotted with egrets, emerging into a surprisingly vast
lake stretching E toward the border zone with Iran. In biblical times,
this area was thought to be somewhere nr the original Garden of Eden,
and naturalists today would delight in its array of birds, fish and
mammals, including wild boar.
Nahhal, tucked into the bow, was content just to glimpse the watery
horizon. "Wow! Wow! Look at this," he exclaimed. "It is an ocean of
water. You don't see the end."
* * *
That same day, at a community meeting, the Marsh Arabs made it clear
that the marsh alone can no longer sustain them. Their children, for
ys, had been denied an education. They demanded books, a blackboard
and a teacher for a primary school built by Saddam but never opened.
They wanted electricity for fans to push away the bugs. And they
figured they'd better raise the dike along the channel so that the
rising waters wouldn't eventually flood their village.
The meeting was convened in a kind of tribal lodge. It was a spacious
hut, with a high ceiling supported by thick arching pillars made of
woven reeds. More than 40 men and boys crowded onto carpets spread
across the floor. Soon, they were all talking so loudly it was
difficult for anyone to be heard.
Few women dared to attend, let alone speak up. So the women were
invited to a 2nd meeting, which was organised by Cassandra Nelson, a
former Merrill Lynch VP who now works for Mercy Corps.
Nelson shooed away the men who wanted to monitor the meeting, and she
found that the women had plenty to say. They talked about the
difficulties of childbirth, pointing out that village midwives use
reeds to cut umbilical cords. They spoke of husbands who sometimes
beat them when they complain too much. But they did agree with the men
that education and electricity ranked as the village's top priorities.
* * *
Mercy Corps already has launched aid projects for Marsh Arabs who live
in a complex of run-down three-story apartments in nearby Al Amarah.
Even amid the urban landscape, you can see the influence of the old
ways. Woven reed walls create courtyards around bottom-floor
apartments. Ducks, donkeys and sheep roam outside. And these Marsh
Arabs have a tribal chief -- Sheik Adan Amer -- who leads his people
from within the cramped confines of a 3-room unit.
But the Al Amarah complex is a mess. Last fall, when Mercy Corps
workers 1st visited, the buildings were surrounded by moats of sewage
that reached up to the knees of barefoot children. "Never, even in
Pakistan and Afghanistan, did I see anything like that," Nelson said.
Mercy Corps is committing about $600,000 to help improve the situation.
Local contractors already have cleared away a lot of the sewage ponds
and are going to re-plumb the complex to connect to a central city system.
Inside the building, they tackled another big complaint: The stairs
were built without railings, and proved treacherous in frequent
blackouts. Over the ys, dozens of children had fallen off the
stairs and been seriously injured or killed. So within a few ms,
Mercy Corps had thick concrete sidewalls added to the 58 stairwells.
Now contractors will shore up the stairs, which might otherwise collapse.
If the marshes keep expanding, some of the older men in the apartment
complex may opt to leave the city and return home. Others no longer
dream of the vast water.
"The young men, they now have jobs, and are settled. They cannot
leave," said the Sheik Amer. "They cannot."
EU opposes case against Israel barrier
Brussels (AP). The European Union has written to the world court to
express its opp'n to the opening of legal action against the W Bank
security barrier that Israel is building, diplomats said Mon.
Although the EU repeated its criticism of the barrier, the 15-nation
bloc believes the problem needs a political, rather than legal,
solution and fears the court case could further harm peace efforts.
The EU message was delivered Fri to the Internat'l Court of Justice in
The Hague, Netherlands, by the Irish govt, which holds the EU's
rotating presidency, ahead of a court deadline for such submissions,
officials said on condition of anonymity.
The court is to begin hearings on the barrier project Feb 23. In
accordance with court rules, the EU's letter was not made public,
diplomats said.
Despite the move, EU officials repeated their criticism of the barrier
itself.
"You very well know our position on the wall -- it does not contribute
to peace," Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy representative, told
reporters.
EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten said, "There is, I
think, no doubt between the (EU) member states about the damage which
the security fence is doing to the prospects for a solution."
Israel says the 700 km of fences, walls and trenches are needed to
protect against suicide bombers. The Palestinians say the structure
amounts to seizure of their land because parts of it cut into the W Bank.
With Palestinian backing, the UN General Assembly has sent the case to
the court for an advisory opinion. Israel argues that the world court
is not the proper forum for the issue. The US also opposes the court action.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat criticised nations supporting
Israel's position.
"They don't respect internat'l law ... but rather follow in this
mentality, the mentality of racist actions," Arafat said after a
meeting of Christian leaders from Jerusalem.
Although the court's decision would be non-binding, Israel and the
Palestinians see the case as an important battleground for determining
the project's fate.
Solana met Mon with the Israeli and Palestinian authors of an informal
Middle E peace plan. He voiced EU support for the so-called "Geneva
Accord" drawn up in Dec by former Israeli Justice Min Yossi Beilin and
Yasser Abed Rabbo, his Palestinian negotiating partner.
"The initiative ... is timely, is important, and we would like to help
them as much as possible," Solana said.
Sharon's motives for Gaza pullout
Jerusalem (BBC). Settlers describe the pullout as a "betrayal" by
Ariel Sharon When Israel's PM Ariel Sharon announced a plan to
evacuate virtually all of some 7,500 Jewish settlers from Gaza, a
casual observer may have found grounds for optimism.
But it is not that simple.
The loudest voices of protest have come, naturally, from the settlers
themselves.
For many y Ariel Sharon has been known as the champion of the settlers.
He encouraged them, memorably, to populate every hilltop.
The settler representatives took to the airwaves in the wake of his
announcement to denounce the plan as madness, a betrayal, a
capitulation in the face of terrorism.
Others said the evacuation would never happen, that Mr Sharon was
simply doing a bit of political manoeuvring for the benefit of the
internat'l community.
And they have a point. Ariel Sharon agreed to freeze settlements and
remove smaller outposts as part of the US-backed peace road map.
He has only dismantled a handful of outposts.
* Cool reception
But the Palestinians should be delighted, shouldn't they?
For them the settlements are hated symbols of Israeli occupation and
those in Gaza in particular have come under frequent attack.
Some say Sharon is trying to divert attention from corruption claims.
Ariel Sharon has said he is working on the assumption that there will
be no Jews in Gaza in the future.
Palestinian officials say they will believe it when they see it. And
they distrust his motives.
An opinion poll published in an Israeli newspaper suggested that 59%
of Israelis support Ariel Sharon's plan.
But members of his own right-wing coalition govt do not.
He would have to get the approval of his own cabinet and the Israeli
parliament, the Knesset, before it could go ahead.
On Mon he survived a no-confidence motion by just a single vote.
The Israeli left, meanwhile, says the plan has been announced to
distract attention from a number of corruption investigations into
Ariel Sharon.
And the Whitehouse has not given the plan a warm reception.
Officials were quoted as saying they will see how compatible it is
with the peace road map backed by the internat'l community.
* Unilateral moves
So what is his motive?
In Dec Ariel Sharon announced that unless the Palestinians clamped
down on violence, he would abandon the road map and instead begin the
unilateral disengagement of Israel from Palestinian territory.
In other words, Israel would impose its own borders with the
Palestinians, without negotiation.
And that would involve withdrawing from Gaza and the W Bank those
settlements which Israel can least afford to protect.
Later this m he is widely expected to brief Pres Bush in Washington on
his plans. And Israel's deputy PM has said the evacuation of some
settlements could begin this summer.
The Palestinians say they will not allow Israel to dictate which land
they can keep.
They see the construction of Israel's new barrier as an attempt to
impose a border that in many places goes far into Palestinian
territory, diminishing the size of any future Palestinian state.
What Ariel Sharon sees as a possible solution, they see as a reason to
continue the intifada.
Arafat gets a thrashing
[Danny Rubinstein, Haaretz snr correspondent on Palestinian affairs,
is the author of "The Mystery of Arafat].
"Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography" by Barry Rubin and Judith Colp
Rubin, Continuum, 354 pages, $11.
Book Review (Haaretz). In this well-documented but factually sloppy
biography of the Palestinian leader, everything he does is linked in
some way to Israel. Hence it is impossible to write about him while
ignoring Israeli policy -- but the authors often do.
In the last paragraph of their biography of Palestinian Authority
Chairman Arafat, Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin sum up their
protagonist as follows: "This was the ultimate irony of his life:
Arafat, the man who did more than anyone else to champion and advance
the Palestinian cause, also inflicted y of unnecessary suffering on
his people, delaying any beneficial redress of their grievances or
solutions to their problems."
While they begin by praising Arafat, as it were, for devoting his life
to his people's struggle, they end by damning him for his actions,
which have done nothing but harm. Indeed, harsh criticism of Arafat's
political path and a negative portrait of his personality are the crux
of this book.
Arafat has been the subject of over 10 biographies and the leading man
in dozens, if not 100s, of books on the Middle E and the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nearly everyone who has written about
Arafat has taken a stand. Some have portrayed him sympathetically and
others have been fiercely critical.
Perhaps the best and most objective of these to date is Andrew Gower
and Tony Walker's "Behind the Myth: Arafat and the Palestinian
Revolution," published in 1990. Of the books that condemn Arafat, the
Rubin study is the most detailed indictment (if one discounts the 1st
Arafat biography, written in 1976 by Thomas Kiernan with the help of
the Israeli Foreign Ministry, where the obvious objective was to
blacken his name and there are more errors than truth).
Despite an abundance of footnotes and an impressive bibliography, this
book is also marred by mistakes. The authors write, for example, that
Arafat's mother was a member of the Husseini family, which is not
true. She was from another Jerusalem family: the Abu Sauds. They write
that Abd al-Qader al-Husseini, the admired cmdr of the Palestinians in
the War of Independence, was a nephew of the mufti, Haj Amin, which is
also untrue. They are from different branches of this large clan.
* Unforgivable mistakes
The book is laden with sloppy factual errors: The Sinai Campaign began
on Oct 26, 1956 -- not in Sep. The terrorist attack in Kiryat Shmona
did not take place in Dec 1974, but in Apr of that y, and the
number of dead was not 52, but 18 -- and the list goes on.
On top of that, there are certain mistakes that are unforgivable in
the work of such respected researchers. They claim, for example, that
Arafat's "frequent insistence that a Palestinian state already existed
and that he was its president showed either a failure to understand
the peace process's terms of refusal to abide by them."
By way of explanation, they offer this footnote: "The Oslo agreement
defined Arafat's title as 'chairman,' not president."
The reason for making an issue over this particular matter, which is
perhaps not that important, is that anyone who has studied the Oslo
agreement, however briefly, knows that the ongoing point of contention
between the parties was over Arafat's title as head of the Palestinian
Authority. The official document is in English, and the Palestinians
insisted that Arafat be called "president." The Israeli delegates,
however, were adamant that "chairman" was enough.
A clever compromise was to leave Arafat's title in Arabic --
transliterated in the document as "ra'ees." Appendix 2 reads:
"Elections will be held for the Council, and simultaneously for the
ra'ees of the Executive Authority."
Why did they choose to leave the title in Arabic? For the simple
reason that "ra'ees" means both president and chairman. Many people
may recall how Bill Clinton, then US president, was careful to address
Arafat as "Mr Ra'ees" when he visited Gaza in Dec 1998. To all those
present at the convention hall in Gaza, it was clear that he was
sticking to the wording which had been agreed upon at Oslo. Therefore,
when the authors of this biography state that according to the Oslo
agreement, Arafat was the chairman and not the president, and then
proceed to accuse him of duplicity, they are simply wrong.
I think pointing this out is important because finding subjects in
which Arafat deserves to be castigated is no problem at all,
especially the political acrobatics, conniving tricks and wise-guy
tactics that are deliberately meant to deceive. So why invent falsehoods?
Arafat does get a thrashing in this book. The authors portray his
lengthy political career as a series of blunders, poor judgement and
lack of understanding. Arafat emerges from their analysis as a
treacherous and moody man, a terrorist who has never repudiated
violence and is responsible for the appalling bloodshed of the past
ys. They see him as a tyrant who encourages vice and corruption,
and insinuate that his brand of terrorism served as a model for bin Laden.
The question that arises from such a description of Arafat is how he
has managed to survive and win the hearts of the Palestinians. If he
is such a despicable creature and has made every mistake in the book,
why do his people continue to trust him? Are the Palestinians so
helpless and blind that they can't see what a terrible leader he is?
The Rubins are endlessly critical of Arafat, but their criticism is
often misguided. They harp on what a grievous mistake it was to
support Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War and the m leading up to it
(1990-1991), but they do not mention that King Hussein of Jordan
adopted that same policy. This ought to have been mentioned because
both the PLO and Jordan paid a heavy price for their backing of the
Iraqi leader when the war was over. But the truth is, they probably
didn't have much choice. The Palestinians on both sides of the Jordan
enthusiastically supported Saddam and the annexation of Kuwait, and if
Arafat or King Hussein had taken a different line, who knows if they
would still be in power.
* Temper tantrum
The authors continue to lash out at Arafat elsewhere in the book,
again letting King Hussein off the hook. This time, the issue is the
release of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin from an Israeli jail.
The Rubins write that Arafat demanded Yassin's release, which is
correct, and that Yassin was welcomed in Gaza with hugs and kisses,
which is also correct. Then they go on to say that liberating Yassin
led to an increase in Hamas terror, which is hard to disagree with.
The problem with this account lies in what it doesn't say, which is
that the release of Yassin was orchestrated not by Arafat but by King
Hussein, who insisted that Israel let Yassin go in return for the
Mossad agents captured in Amman during the botched attempt to
assassinate Khaled Meshal.
At the time, the papers were full of reports about Arafat having a
temper tantrum and screaming at the cabinet meeting in Ramallah upon
being told that Yassin was being freed as a gesture to the king of
Jordan. So if Arafat was so upset about the circumstances of Yassin's
release, how can he be accused of ingratitude to Israel and of
ordering a new wave of terrorism in response?
The authors' negative attitude toward Arafat is more or less
explained, but there is never a bad word about Israeli policy. Their
account of the Sabra and Chatila affair (during the Lebanon War) is as
follows: "On Sep 16, 1982, receiving word of the presence of armed
Palestine Liberation Organisation units in Sabra and Chatila, the
Israel army permitted 300 Christian militiamen to enter the camps."
Later on they write that the consequences were horrifying, but that
"Arafat's response was to inflate the number of victims." The Rubins'
account of the incident would seem to imply that the Israel Defence
Forces made a mistake based on mis-info, but Arafat is blamed for
exaggerating the casualty reports.
Likewise, the book makes no mention of settlement activities in Gaza
and the W Bank. Not a word is said about the Baruch Goldstein massacre
in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, which many believe was a
turning point in the fate of the Oslo Accords. True, this is a
biography of Arafat, but everything he does is linked in some way to
Israel. Hence it is impossible to write about him while ignoring
Israeli policy.
According to this biography, Arafat's men may have helped carry out
the Shi'ite suicide bombing of the Marine HQ in Beirut that killed 241
American soldiers, and one of the most wanted Al-Qaeda terrorists,
Lebanese-born Imad Mughniyah, sprang from Arafat's midst, after
serving in his personal security unit, Force 17. Thus the Rubins drop
some heavy-handed hints that Arafat is responsible, not only for
Israel's troubles, but much more.
No one knows how long Arafat will continue to lead the Palestinian
people. In view of the political path he has chosen, he is obviously a
bitter enemy of Israel, and he has made his share of mistakes, but
those who go overboard and blame him for all our troubles today would
do well to watch what they say. Arafat's heirs could be a lot worse.
EU foreign policy chief lauds Geneva sponsors
Brussels (Haaretz). The European Union's foreign and security policy
chief Javier Solana yesterday commended the initiators of the Geneva
Accord, saying the document is in keeping with the road map and could
help to push it forward.
Solana spoke after meeting former Israeli justice minister Yossi
Beilin and former Palestinian Authority minister Yasser Abed Rabbo in
Brussels. Also present at the meeting were European Commission Pres
Romano Prodi and EU Commissioner for External Affairs Chris Patten.
"I think the Geneva initiative is perfectly compatible with the road
map and in fact I think it may help not only to implement it but to
resolve its last phases. I do not think it is fair to say there is a
contradiction," Solana said.
Beilin and Abed Rabbo then proceeded to London, where they met Prime
Min Tony Blair, For Sec Jack Straw and snr officials in Blair's
bureau. Blair later issued a statement praising the Geneva
initiative. 3 m ago, Blair said it could serve as a basis for a final
settlement between the sides.
Beilin and Abed Rabbo also appeared at a special session of the
Internat'l Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
Diplomatic sources said they believed Blair's envoy to the Middle
East, Lord Michael Levy, whose son Daniel is Beilin's assistant, was
involved in setting up the meetings in 10 Downing Street.
Outbreak of violence in the W Bank
Bethlehem (Sapa-AFP). 5 Palestinians, 2 of them militant leaders,
were shot dead in clashes with the Israeli army nr the W Bank town of
Bethlehem. 5 soldiers were wounded in the incident, sources on both
sides said.
A local leader of the Islamist Hamas movement was shot dead and 4
Israeli soldiers injured during a military operation in Aida refugee
camp near the W Bank town of Bethlehem, Palestinian and Israeli
security sources said.
Palestinian security sources said 28-yo Mohamed Mahmud Abu Awda, a
local leader of Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades,
had been killed in a shootout with Israeli troops in the camp.
The army charged in a statement that he had planned the suicide bombing
on a Jerusalem bus last Thu that killed 11 passengers, apart from the
bomber, and had in the past recruited several candidates for such attacks.
Israeli medical and security sources said 4 soldiers had also been
wounded in the arrest operation, 2 of them seriously. A 3rd was in
stable condition, while the 4th was only lightly injured.
Palestinian sources said a 20-yo man was also lightly injured by
Israeli gunfire during the operation, which ended after Israeli troops
demolished Awda's house.
Earlier, more than 2 000 Palestinians, among them armed militants,
took to the streets of Rafah in the S Gaza Strip to attend the
funerals of 4 Palestinians killed during a dawn raid by Israeli troops.
Yasser Abuleish, 26, a local leader of the radical Islamic Jihad
movement, and his 38-yo brother Hussein were killed when troops raided
their house in Rafah's Hay al-Sultan neighbourhood, Palestinian
security and hospital sources said.
Dr Ali Mussa, head of Rafah hospital, said 2 other men were also
killed by heavy machine gun fire from a tank.
One was named as Majdi al-Khatib, a 32-yo civilian, while the other
casualty was Baha Judah, 36, a gunman whose affiliation was not
immediately clear.
The latest deaths bring to 3 737 the number of people killed since the
outbreak of the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in Sep 2000,
including 2 794 Palestinians and 875 Israelis.
An army spokesperson confirmed an operation had been launched to
arrest wanted members of Islamic Jihad.
"When the soldiers approached the house where one of the wanted men
was located, Palestinians threw a grenade and opened fire," he said.
One soldier was lightly wounded during the operation, he added.
At the funeral, an angry crowd gathered at the Abu Yussef hospital
mortuary where they picked up the 4 bodies and carried them on
stretchers to the Al-Awda mosque and finally to Al-Shuhada cemetery.
Chanting: "Vengeance, resistance," the marchers vowed to avenge their deaths.
Addressing the crowd via loudspeaker, one of the militants claimed
al-Khatib was a cmdr of the Al-Aqsa Martrys' Brigades, a radical
offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fatah movement.
But there was no official confirmation from the group, which is
largely based in the W Bank.
Sharon stands firm on plan to pull out of Gaza
Jerusalem (Reuters/Taipei Times). Buoyed by opinion polls, Israeli PM
Ariel Sharon vowed yesterday to forge a new govt if pro-settler
coalition partners try to block his plan to evacuate Jewish
settlements in the Gaza Strip.
Once considered the godfather of the settlement movement, Sharon won a
confidence vote in parliament by a single vote late on Mon after
saying he had ordered that plans be drawn up to remove 17 of the 20
Gaza enclaves.
The announcement, which stunned friends and foes alike, marked the
first time Sharon had revealed details for such an extensive pullout
from land Israel captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
While Sharon's ruling coalition is in turmoil, an opinion poll
published yesterday in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper showed 59
percent of Israelis supported uprooting Gaza settlements and 34%
opposed such a move.
In remarks published yesterday elaborating on the initiative, Sharon
said the process would take one to 2 y and would include evacuation of
3 of the more than 120 settlements in the W Bank.
"I am working on the assumption that in the future there will be no
Jews in Gaza," he said in an interview with the daily Haaretz.
He said he would seek US approval and financial aid to "relocate"
about 7,500 settlers from the strip.
Polls show Israelis largely willing to part with Gaza. Its enclaves
require a heavy military presence to protect and have little of the
biblical significance that draws Jews to the W Bank, where more than
200,000 settlers live.
Sharon's plans, laid out to his right-wing Likud party in a tense
meeting on Mon, enraged members of the Jewish settler movement he
championed for decades.
A Cabinet minister from the far-right Nat'l Religious Party, one of
Sharon's coalition partners, responded with a threat to resign after
storming out of parliament and abstaining from the confidence vote.
"We won't participate in this," Housing Min Effi Eitam told Israel
Radio of Sharon's plans to evict settlers.
If Sharon presents such a plan to the US, "the timing of our departure
would be merely tactical," he said.
The Nat'l Religious Party, headed by Eitam, has 6 seats in parliament,
and if it left the coalition Sharon would command a shaky 62-58
majority in the 120-member legislature, including another 7-seat
pro-settler party.
"I will not hesitate to set up another govt," Sharon told Yedioth
Ahronoth. "Not that I am rushing to take such a step, but I have no
intention of being at the mercy of factions ... that won't permit me
to handle matters of state."
Palestinians and Israel's left-wing opp'n met Sharon's plan with
skepticism, and some critics suggested he was trying to distract
public attention from a widening corruption probe focusing on him and
his family. Sharon denies any wrongdoing.
Peres pledges safety net for Sharon over Gaza plan
Jerusalem (Reuters). Israeli opp'n leader Shimon Peres promised to
spread a political safety net under PM Ariel Sharon to help him
survive any revolt by coalition allies opposed to his Gaza settlement
evacuation plan.
"We are prepared to support the govt even without being in it, as long
as it is on the path to peace," Peres, 80, said on Tue after his
centre-left Labour Party voted to keep the veteran dove as chairman
through 2005.
Under that scenario, Labour would back Sharon, leader of the
right-wing Likud, in parliament should pro-settler parties in his
cabinet try to topple him over his dramatic plan to uproot 17 of the
21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian PM Ahmed Qurie described Sharon's proposal as "good news"
and called for Israel to quit all of the W Bank and Gaza Strip, areas
Palestinians want for a state.
Sharon stunned friends and foes alike when he revealed on Mon details
for an extensive pullout from Gaza, where 7,500 settlers occupy 21% of
the land and tie up army regiments guarding enclaves scattered among
about a mn Palestinians.
"I said what I said. And what I said I intend to implement because I
believe this is what is necessary today for Israel in the coming
ys. I know it is difficult, but I have made this decision," Sharon
told reporters.
For Min Silvan Shalom said Sharon's moves could tear apart the
coalition and lead to elections before the govt's term ends in 2007.
* OLD FRIEND AND FOE
Deputy PM Ehud Olmert said implementation could begin this summer
under a disengagement that Sharon has threatened if a stalled
US-backed peace "road map" with the Palestinians collapses.
Sharon has said such moves would leave Palestinians with less land
than they seek for a state. The PM, planning a visit to Washington
later this m, said he would seek US approval and financial aid to
"relocate" the settlers.
Peres, an architect of interim peace accords with the Palestinians,
last joined forces with Sharon -- an old personal friend -- in the
Likud leader's 1st govt in 2001.
Crushed by Sharon in last y's election, Labour has 19 legislators in
the 120-member parliament and could counter-balance moves by Sharon's
ultranat'list and religious allies to unseat him in no-confidence votes.
Sharon's coalition controls 68 seats.
Despite the brewing political crisis, a poll in the Yedioth Ahronoth
daily showed 59% of Israelis supported uprooting Gaza settlements.
34% opposed the idea.
Sharon said an evacuation would take one to 2 y and include removal of
3 of the more than 120 settlements in the W Bank.
Some of Sharon's critics suggested he was trying to distract attention
from a widening corruption probe focusing on him and his family. Sharon,
expected to be questioned again by police on Thu, denies any wrongdoing.
Sharon reveals plans to remove settlers from Gaza
Israelis to start Gaza Strip evacuation "by end of year".
Jerusalem (Independent). Ariel Sharon, Israel's PM, intends to
complete detailed plans by Jul for the evacuation of all 17 Jewish
settlements in the Gaza Strip.
The Deputy PM, Ehud Olmert, said yesterday that he hoped the first
settlers and soldiers would pull out by the end of the y.
Despite right-wing threats to bring down his govt, Mr Sharon reiterated
his determination to evacuate the settlements. "It pains me a lot," he
said during a visit to the coastal town of Ashkelon. "But I've reached a
decision and I'm going to carry it out."
Mr Olmert insisted that it was a matter of when, not if. "Israel will
have to change the status quo," he added. "How long can we wait? How
much more can we suffer and pay the price? We're not putting an end to
any chance of future negotiations, but we are not prepared to accept
the timetable of the Palestinians for when the process will start."
An opinion poll published yesterday in Yediot Aharonot, Israel's
biggest-selling daily newspaper, found 59% of voters supporting the
Gaza evacuation with 34% opposed. A majority, 57% to 24%, were
convinced the PM was acting for political reasons, not because he
wanted to distract attention from a police investigation of bribery
charges against himself and his 2 sons.
Right-wing skeptics suggested that "the depth of the withdrawal would
equal the depth of the investigation," but Mr Sharon maintained in an
interview with Ma'ariv newspaper that he had taken Mon's initiative
"despite the investigations, not because of them". He told the same
newspaper that the choice was not between good and very good, but
between bad and very bad. He acknowledged his own historic role as
"godfather of the settlements" but argued that he had to worry about
the future. "It would be better for Israel if there were no settlements
in the Gaza Strip.
That isn't bad for us. It is good for us. I need to reduce the number
of people hurt, to rehabilitate the economy, to promote immigration,
to create conditions for living and creativity. And I will do that."
Mr Sharon's aides confirmed that he might offer to cede some Israeli
Arab towns and villages to Palestinian rule under a final agreement in
exchange for W Bank settlement blocks nr the pre-1967 border.
Despite their devotion to the Palestinian cause, many among Israel's
Arab minority have already rejected such ideas. They prefer Israeli
democracy, even though they accuse it of discriminating against them,
and they value their relatively high standard of living.
Shimon Peres, the Labour opp'n leader, has promised a parliamentary
safety net for the evacuation plan, but discounted speculation that
Labour might join the ruling coalition if Mr Sharon's hard-line
partners pulled out, although Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a former party
chairman, conceded that it would be difficult for Labour to stay out
if Mr Sharon implemented the disengagement.
The settlers are planning an advertising campaign with the slogan:
"Uprooting settlements is a victory for terrorism."
Effie Eitam, the Min of Housing and leader of the pro-settler Nat'l
Religious Party, said it was only a matter of time before his party
went into opp'n. If Mr Sharon took his plan to Washington later this m,
he predicted, it would be "the beginning of the end of the govt".
Inside Lebanon's 2-state solution
Beirut (AP) Here's another lesson on how to throw a party, from Hassan
Nasrallah. Bodies are no reason for celebrations; dead fighters can't
excite a crowd like a live prisoner can -- they are a symbol of
bravery, but not of political triumph.
This is why, when the bodies of the Lebanese fighters were returned on
Fri, the newspapers featured sad descriptions of how no leaders were
available to receive them. There were no speeches, no dignitaries on a
stage. They were brought to a large, sprawling field in central
Beirut, where the children continued to play their soccer.
Instead of cabinet ministers, their deputies, ministry directors
general, and members of parliament officiated, as if the dead fighters
played no part in the victory. "Our dead were not invited to a ceremony,"
wrote the newspaper An-Nahar. "They returned as numbers, not as human
beings. No flags were waved in their honour and no one stopped working."
Hezbollah had already collected its share of glory and Lebanese Pres
Emile Lahoud made an effort the next day to grab some for the
state. "The release was fully coordinated with the state," he told a
cabinet meeting last weekend -- with the state, that is with the
govt. "We showed that a small country with few, but effective,
resources can also achieve these sorts of successes." The state might
also issue a special stamp to celebrate the day of release, but
whether the day would become a nat'l holiday has not been decided.
"Hezbollah is a double-edged sword," says one Lebanese commentator.
"It may have brought great honour to Lebanon, liberated the S and
brought the prisoners home, but in a flash it could also cause Israel
to re-enter Lebanon, its planes to bomb Beirut, and have us go back
several decades. The greater Hezbollah's triumph, the more noticeable
is Lebanon's wretchedness."
* Renovated resorts
Lebanon quickly slipped back to its daily routine. A special cabinet
meeting that ended well after midnight reached several important
decisions -- all irrelevant to prisoners. There were subsidies for
sugar beet crops raised by small farmers in the Bekaa Valley,
cancellation of a tender to maintain electricity projects in Zahrani,
new pension laws, the situation in the universities, environmental
problems caused by stone quarries, and an acrid dispute over cell phones.
This latter dispute has already caused a big row between Prime Min
Rafiq al-Hariri, and Pres Lahoud. The 2 men barely exchanged a word at
the prisoner reception ceremony. Hariri sat off to the side, while
Lahoud was seated in the middle; Lahoud gave a speech; Hariri said
nothing. There was a cellular tension in the air.
The story has to do with Hariri's wish to privatise the cellular
companies in order to sell them and use the proceeds to cover part of
the govt debt of around $32 bn. To privatise them, he is seeking to
transfer management of the companies to 2 private companies that would
develop the system over the next 3 y, after which the cell phone
companies would be sold.
However, the president and the communications minister want to set up
2 govt corporations, which would manage the cellular phone business in
Lebanon. The problem is that the 2 private companies that are already
managing the cellular networks, at the cost of $7 mn a m and under the
govt's close supervision, are owned by close associates of the PM.
One company, LibanCell, is owned by Nizar Dalloul, a relative of
Hariri. The other, Cellis, is 1/3 owned by the Mikati Group, whose
chairman is the brother of the minister of public works and transport
Najib Mikati, a friend of Hariri.
The president and his aides feel that Hariri's objection to setting up
govt corporations in this affair stem from his desire to protect his
associates. In the meantime, no decisions have been made in the
matter; nor are there any buyers for the cellular companies.
With or without any sequel to the prisoner exchange, the annual
shopping festival opens this m in Beirut, in which stalls and trade
shows will be held to encourage trade in Lebanon. It is a good time
for business in Lebanon. This wk Id al-Adha [the Feast of Sacrifice]
has already lured 1000s of tourists from Arab countries to local
hotels, most of which are reporting full occupancy.
* Within a state
The Sep 11 attacks in the US and the war against Iraq have limited
opportunities for Arab tourists to visit Europe or the US, and they
now prefer destinations in the Middle East. Egypt, for instance, has
reported a significant increase in tourism, and govt spokesmen in Lebanon
say that reservations of hotel rooms are up 12% relative to last y.
Income from tourism this y might grow by 30% over last y's figures.
Lebanon is starting to feel some profit from the war against Iraq,
from an unexpected direction. The port of Tripoli is becoming the
preferred port of call for importers of cars to Iraq. At stake is a
market of 7,000 cars a m, about 100 times the pre-war volume, and
there are predictions that 1/2 mn cars might be imported to Iraq
over the next 2 y.
Iraqi auto importers also use the ports of Aqaba in Jordan and Tartus
in Syria, but they are already full goods that are causing a delay of
nearly 20 days in releasing the automobiles. In addition, there is the
problem of safety on the road from Jordan to Baghdad, which is becoming a
target for looting.
On the other hand, the cost of releasing cars in Jordan and Syria are
much lower than in Lebanon -- approximately $50 in port fees and another
$90 for handling fees. In Tripoli, importers pay $200 for the whole
process, but it has a communications infrastructure that Aqaba and Tartus
lack, and release of the automobiles is completed within 2 or 3 days.
As an expression of confidence in Lebanon's economy, the state will
host an economic conference in Mar that will engage in the issue of
rehabilitation of Iraq, which will be attended by 100s of businessmen
from Arab and W states. Another reflection of the improving situation
may be found in a survey of the US-based Institute for Monetary Affairs,
which is looking at the condition of developing markets. On the basis
of the 63 criteria examined by the institute, Lebanon ranked 27th among
the developing countries, a jump of 13 places over last y's figures.
Compared to other Middle E countries, Lebanon lags only behind Israel.
Nevertheless, not every region of Lebanon enjoys the fruits of economic
prosperity. The Bekaa Valley and the S are the backward regions, in which
agriculture is the major source of livelihood, and scant govt aid is allocated.
The grand programs and promises made by the govt after the IDF's
withdrawal from Lebanon were soon forgotten, and the govt's role in S
Lebanon is now being filled by Hezbollah, which operates most of civil
infrastructure institutions.
Hospitals, schools, youth groups, repair of buildings and other aid
are part of Hezbollah's administrative system, which has transformed
the region into a state within a state.
"We've always had 2 states," says a Lebanese journalist, "but all the
while that the Israeli army occupied the country, there was a sense of
nat'l unity, and the economic gap between the S and the Beirut area
was not especially perceptible. There was barely any development, even
in Beirut, and foreign investors did not come as long as the war continued.
After the Israeli army's withdrawal, massive economic momentum
developed in N Lebanon, and the south has remained as it was. The
lifestyle in Beirut has changed, after the citizens threw off their
fears of bombings.
Innumerable small businesses have opened, and 1000s of immigrants have
returned to the city with money and with lifestyles brought with them
from the West, particularly the US It is not surprising that now there
are concerns about the independent actions of Hezbollah and its
sloganeering, which are liable to again lead to an economic crash.
In the south, they still see Israeli planes, hear shooting, and see
Hezbollah military HQ and their fighters. In the south, there is still a
feeling of being at war, which has become a theoretical hypothesis
in the north."
One last subject remains. Nasrallah leading the effort to release the
Palestinian prisoners nearly made people forget the situation of
Palestinians in Lebanon. They are still prohibited from engaging in
nearly 70 professions, owning land or houses, or even rebuilding their homes.
In all of the ceremonies held last weekend, and all through the ys,
Nasrallah has never once been heard calling for an improvement of the
situation of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
Nasrallah understands what he cannot say in public in his homeland.
Helping the Palestinians to fight or to be released from prison --
yes, but on condition that Lebanon does not pay the price. Last wk,
the war momentarily returned to the streets of Beirut, with the grand
celebration that Hezbollah arranged in honour of the release of the
Lebanese prisoners.
"It really was an exciting day," says the Lebanese journalist. "At
that moment, you don't think about who it was that released the
prisoners, but about the fact that people like me were in the enemy's
prison, fought a war of liberation, and managed to come back to
life. But we are Lebanese. A day or 2 later, we were already cursing
the traffic jams and going out to the pub to drink beer.
This is Lebanon, after all, and you have to live every day to the
fullest. Who knows if there isn't going to be a war tomorrow, or if I
won't be arrested because I sent you this email."
Pres Emile Lahoud greets the freed Sheikh Obeid at Beirut airport last wk.
Downer says attacks "inevitable"
Bali. For Min Alex The Downer says additional terrorist attacks are
inevitable in the Asia-Pac region while terrorists are actively
training and recruiting. He's made the comments at the opening of an
anti-terrorism conf in Bali. Combating the al-Qaeda-linked SE Asian
terror group Jemaah Islamiyah has topped the agenda at the 2-day
regional conf. Attending are mins and snr officials from 33
countries, incl US A-G John Ashcroft.
[With Australia and Indonesia meeting to discuss regional terrorism strategy:]
AUS bugging embassy: Jakarta
Bail (AAP). Indonesian MPs have accused AUS of bugging Indonesia's
embassy in CBR.
The claim that AUS had installed microphones in the embassy threatens
to strain relations with Jakarta as ministers from the 2 countries meet
in Bali for a counter-terrorism summit meant to showcase improving ties.
Indonesian MPs made the accusation at a closed-door meeting with State
Code Institute (LSN) chairman Maj-Gen Nachrowi Ramli in Jakarta.
Parliamentary foreign affairs committee member Djoko Susilo said a
delegation of MPs who recently visited CBR found microphones attached
to alarm systems at the embassy and at the ambassador's official residence.
He said Indonesia believed the bugs were installed by AUS Fed Police
as part of CBR's decision to boost security measures at the embassy
following the Bali bombings.
"There was a microphone inside the alarm in the meeting room of the
embassy. That is an act of bugging," Djoko said.
Another MP, Paulus Widiyanto, of the governing Indonesian Democratic
Party of Struggle, said a similar device was installed at the official
residence of the Indonesian ambassador.
"I checked it last m and asked the LSN to neutralise the device," he
told the Jakarta Post newspaper, referring to the govt body which
handles military and secure communications.
Nachrowi said his officials had found bugging devices installed by the
AUS govt at the Indonesian embassy.
"I have enough data to prove AUS has conducted an act of bugging," he said.
"Some diplomats have wondered why every time they held a meeting, the
AUS foreign ministry knew it immediately.
"The devices are there."
Nachrowi said he had asked foreign affairs officials to raise security
awareness in their respective offices to avoid being tapped.
An AUS embassy rep in Bali said he would not comment on security
matters affecting the 2 countries.
And a rep for the Indonesian foreign ministry, Marty Natalegawa,
dismissed the possibility of bugging.
"Security in our communications system is a paramount issue but in
both cases there has been a thorough probe and the results were
acceptable," he said.
He said embassy communications had been intercepted, but it was due to a
technical problem whereby a frequency used by the embassy had
overlapped with a signal from a local private television station.
"We have dealt with the problem and fixed it," he said.
Europe faces up to Islam and the veil
Muslims claim discrimination in legal battles over religious symbol.
Paris (Guardian). Spilling out of their school in Saint-Ouen, N of
Paris, they are so keen to get a word in that on a bitter afternoon,
they are queueing up on the pavement. Many went on the march. Most are
against the law. A few are in favour, and happy to say so.
"For y we've been warning about the fundamentalists, the radical
imams, the huge step backwards that they represent for women and Muslims
in general in France," says Lydia, 16. "This law is really necessary.
You've got no idea what pressures some girls come under."
Ratiba, 17, interrupts. "Nobody has ordered me to wear one. If I do
it's because I want to. Our religion tells us to, it's part of our ID.
France calls itself the cradle of human rights. Here of all places we
should be able to show who and what we are." Lillia, 16, agrees. "The
veil should be for us to choose. This law discriminates against us."
After wk of heated and at times harmful debate on the street and in
the nat'l media France's nat'l assembly yesterday began debating a
bill to ban religious symbols, including Muslim head scarves, Jewish
skullcaps and large Christian crosses, from schools.
France is not the only W state to face the demands of an increasingly
radical Islam, although its unique attachment to the principles of its
secular republic means it is the only one so far to have proposed a
legal ban on overt signs of religious faith.
Criticism But despite fierce criticism of the bill in the Arab world
there appears to be a growing feeling among several of France's
continental European neighbours that similar measures may, eventually,
become necessary. A bill modelled on the planned French legislation
has been tabled in Belgium's senate.
"In all Muslim countries women are fighting to free themselves from
the veil and affirm their identity," says Anne-Marie Lizin, a socialist
backing a ban. "It's not normal that in certain parts of Brussels
there are more women in veils than in the streets of Algiers."
Belgian politicians are divided on the initiative, which has won the
backing of the foreign and interior ministers. Generally the appetite
for a ban seems greater in the French-speaking S of the country than
the Dutch-speaking north, where relations between the authorities and
the Muslim population are already strained. Race riots flared briefly
in Antwerp in Dec 2002 after a mentally ill white Belgian shot his
Islamic neighbour.
The port city remains a powder keg: 1/3 voters supports the
anti-immigration Vlaams Blok party, while many young Muslims appear
attracted to a radical organisation called the Arab European League,
whose leader has demanded that Arabic be recognised as the country's
4th official language.
Public distrust of the Muslim community has also been fuelled by the
arrest, detention and conviction of a number of Islamist extremists on
terror-related charges. In the traditionally tolerant Netherlands
attitudes towards the 1 mn-strong Muslim community remain
influenced by Pim Fortuyn, the maverick politician shot dead in 2002
by an animal rights activist after calling Islam "backwards" and
demanding that Muslim conservatism must not be allowed to dilute Dutch
liberalism. Many Dutch politicians seem to be quietly edging towards
some of Fortuyn's views.
New imams are being given compulsory lessons on freedom of speech and
religion, euthanasia and non-discrimination and a debate about banning
veils is also under way. Some schools already ban them.
As in France, an official report declared recently that the Dutch
policy of integration had been a 30-y failure. Alarmed by rising
Islamist fundamentalism, the Dutch lower house of parliament last y
demanded an investigation into the activities of the Muslim
population, particularly radical mosques.
In Germany the headscarf debate blew up last Sep when a Muslim
teacher, Fereshta Ludin, won the right to wear a headscarf in class
from Germany's highest court.
In 1998 Ms Ludin, originally from Afghanistan, was refused a teaching
job in the conservative state of Baden-Wurttemberg. Germany's
constitutional court ruled by 5 votes to 3 that she could wear a
headscarf -- although it also said German states had the right to pass
laws banning heads carves.
A balance had to be found between religious freedoms -- to include
Germany's 3.5 mn mainly Turkish Muslims -- on the one hand, and
neutrality in schools on the other, the judges added. Ms Ludin's
victory turned out to be largely Pyrrhic: Baden-Wurttemberg and Bavaria
rushed to introduce legislation that made wearing heads carves in
schools illegal.
Bavaria's right-wing education minister, Monika Hohlmeier, claimed the
head scarf was increasingly used as a political symbol. Wearing
Christian crosses or Jewish symbols was acceptable, she added -- an
assertion that invited accusations of double standards.
While most teachers' unions and human rights groups are strongly
opposed to a headscarf ban it has found favour with many on the right
and the left of Germany's political spectrum.
Spain has only just begun to address how it should behave towards its
growing Muslim population as it becomes, proportionally, Europe's
biggest receiver of immigrants. It is unlikely to follow France's path
-- the conservative People's party govt recently introduced obligatory
teaching of religion in secular state schools. The country had its own
veil debate last y when 13-yo Fatima Elidrisi, the daughter of a
Moroccan immigrant, was told by the Catholic nuns running a state-funded
private school nr Madrid that she was not allowed to wear a hijab.
* Solved
The problem was solved by sending her to a state school, which said it
saw no reason to prevent her wearing the veil, and she was welcomed by a
clapping crowd of teachers and students. The conservative social
affairs minister, Juan Carlos Aparicio, said the garment was "not a
religious sign but a form of discrimination against women" and
compared it to genital mutilation.
Italy has a Muslim minority numbering some 800,000, but many are
immigrants and the country is just beginning to come to terms with the
implications of becoming a multi-ethnic society.
If France's nat'l identity is inseparably tied to secularism, then
Italy's is linked to religion. That seemed at least the message to
emerge from a heated row over whether crucifixes should hang in the
classrooms of Italy's nominally non-confessional state schools.
It began in Oct when an Italian-Egyptian convert to Islam, Adel Smith,
won a court judgement ordering the removal of crosses from his children's
village school in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. In a country
where the use of Muslim heads carves has never been an issue the
decision prompted an outcry.
Crucifixes are ubiquitous in Italy. The decision ordering the
withdrawal of crucifixes from the school was revoked and the case sent
to be re-heard by a special tribunal.
Qatar: wealthiest Persian Gulf nation
Doha (UPI). Qatar is now the wealthiest nation among the oil-rich
countries of the Persian Gulf, according to Arab League statistics.
With a pc income of $29,948, Qatar had one of the highest
income levels in the world. The nation of 400,000 is a small
peninsula-shaped emirate that is HQ for the US Central Command. Among
Gulf nations, the UAE was 2nd ($US20,509), followed by Kuwait ($US14,597),
Bahrain ($US11,374) and Saudi Arabia ($US8,053). The Saudi kingdom's per
capita income has dropped precipitously during the past 20 y from a
high of $US23,000. Lifetime social security coverage and a rapidly
expanding population -- now estimated at 20 mn -- are straining the
country's nat'l resources.
Accused China crime boss loses Canada court round
Vancouver, BC (Reuters). Lai Changxing, one of China's most wanted
fugitives, lost a key round in court on Tue in his battle to gain
political asylum in Canada.
A fed judge in Vancouver said there was enough evidence to support a
previous ruling by an immigration panel that Lai, accused of being a
smuggling kingpin, did not qualify for protection as refugee.
Lai, once one of China's wealthiest businessmen, says he was a victim
of political persecution when he fled to Canada with his family in
1999, and would be subject to torture or death if he was sent back.
"I am not persuaded that the panel erred in its determination not to
accept [Lai's] submissions that the crimes alleged in this case were
political," Fed Judge Andrew MacKay wrote in his 30-page decision.
China has accused Lai of running a smuggling ring that brought
$bns of goods -- as diverse as cigarettes and oil --
into the country in the mid-1990s and of bribing dozens of officials
to avoid duties and taxes.
The Canadian govt supports China's bid to have him returned to faces charges.
Lai had asked Canada's Fed Court to order a new refugee hearing on the
grounds that the 1st panel acted on insufficient evidence when it
ruled the accusations against him were criminal in nature and not political.
Lai's attorney, David Matas, said the decision would be appealed to a
higher court. Judge MacKay's ruling also refused to overturn the
immigration panel's refusal to grant asylum to Lai's wife, Tsang Mingna.
Lai said he was disappointed by the decision, which he blamed on
continued pressure from the Chinese govt, but said that he still
trusted the Canadian judicial system.
"I am going to take this litigation all the way to the very end," he
said through a translator.
The case has placed the Canadian govt in a tough spot. The govt's
opp'n to his asylum bid was based on evidence from the Chinese judicial
system, a system that Ottawa has accused of being politically oppressive.
Canada has traditionally refused to return accused criminals to
countries where they face the death penalty, but Beijing has formally
pledged to Ottawa that Lai will not be executed if he is found guilty.
Lai denies criminal wrongdoing and says he is a victim of political
officials envious of his business success and of in-fighting within
China's state security system.
He also argues that China would ignore its pledge not to execute him,
noting that 18 govt officials convicted in connection with the case
have been given death sentences, and 8 have been executed.
US Navy arrives in Darwin
Darwin. 3 US Navy vessels have sailed into Darwin harbour for an R&R
visit. In their first port visit of 2004, US warships USS Peleliu,
Decatur and Germantown have arrived in Darwin following active
deployment to the war on terrorism. The US navy says the 3 ships have
been involved in maritime interception operations yielding more than
$A28 mn worth of drug seizures and the detection of individuals with
possible links to terrorism.
Ghan on track for return trip
Darwin. The Ghan passenger service will begin its inaugural return
trip from Darwin to Adel this morning. The departure will not herald
the fanfare of the arrival of the 1st passenger train in Darwin
yesterday. But the same amount of excitement is expected among the
300 passengers. Train enthusiasts and internat'l media will again be
on board to travel the world's longest north-south line. Great S
Railway's Anthony Kirchner says it is not considering expanding the
service from Alice Springs to Darwin beyond once a wk. "It's
unlikely that we'd ever operate a 2nd service -- our strategy is
longer trains rather than more frequent services," he said. "We
operate a tourist train at the end of the day. "It's not necessarily a
means of getting point to point travel, so it's unlikely we'd
operate a 2nd service to Darwin."
Properties burnt in WA bushfires
Perth (AAP). Properties have been burnt in 2 bushfires E of Perth.
The fires began in the rural areas of Chittering Valley and Wooroloo
Tue afternoon, police said. Both had been brought under control but
were still burning. Neither the number of properties, nor the extent
of damage to them, was immediately available.
Future of live export discussed at forum
[This is a transcript from the ABC Nat'l Rural News].
Adelaide. Around 60 representatives of the live sheep export trade
are at an industry forum in Adel today to help the sector weigh up its
future. With shipments of live sheep to Saudi Arabia banned, and a
proposal to stop the trade from S ports at certain times of the y,
it's felt there's a lack of quality info to base business decisions on
and build opinion. Cathy Parker reports. "Primary Industries and
Resources SA is hosting the forum to discuss the rapid changes
occurring in the live sheep export sector, and the need for info for
producers and exporters to plan their future involvement in the
industry. Given the turmoil following the 'Cormo Express' incident,
the invitation-only forum recognises the need for scientific and
ethical debate on the industry's future, separated from emotional and
financial issues. Speakers will discuss the live sheep export trade
from AUS to the Middle East, what happens on the ships to the Middle
East, the economics of the trade, and ethical issues -- what does the
community expect in terms of animal welfare."
Safe work practices lead to productivity
[This is a transcript from the ABC Nat'l Rural News].
Sydney. The AUS Centre for Agricultural Health and Safety is issuing a
timely reminder about the need to provide proper safety equipment
for farm workers. The issue of safe work practices in relation to
horses has hit the headlines in a case currently before the NSW
Industrial Relations Commission. The Centre recommends farmers and
their employees wear helmets when working with horses, rather than the
traditional felt hat. The Centre's Justin Crosby says aside from
legal obligations, providing a safe environment for workers makes good
business sense. "One of the things that we really have found is that
safer workplaces are more productive workplaces, and there's been some
studies that have been undertaken by the Nat'l Occupational Health and
Safety Commission which back that up with evidence. By putting in
place safer systems of work, we can avoid those costs associated with
accidents and injuries."
States propose $20 minimum wage rise
States make offer ahead of minimum wage case.
Melbourne. State and territory govts are supporting a $20 a wk
increase in the minimum wage for award workers. The ACTU is seeking
an increase of just under $27 a wk and the AUS Industrial Relations
Commission is due to begin hearing the wage case late next m. State
and territory govts have made a joint submission. NSW Industrial
Relations Min John Della Bosca says a $20 a wk increase is fair.
"People in the minimum wage rate have really been struggling and it's
important that they receive reasonable increases so they can look
after their families and look after their social obligations," he
said. Vic Industrial Relations Min Rob Hulls says the extra money is
vital. "Our $20 a wk increase submission comes on top of a report
showing that low-paid workers are earning on average just $10.42 an
hour," Mr Hulls said. "It's virtually impossible to make ends meet on
that sort of wage."
RBA keeps rates steady
Canberra. Financial markets believe there is still a risk of higher
interest rates in the m ahead, despite the Reserve Bank's decision to
leave the cash rate unchanged at 5.25%.
The wait-and-see decision had been expected by a majority of market
economists, who had suggested that authorities might want to gauge the
impact of increases of 1/4 pt in Nov and Dec.
The Reserve Bank board met yesterday against a background of evidence
that the interest rates rises in Nov and Dec may have already cooled
the economy.
Building approvals were down in Dec, the 3rd consecutive monthly drop,
indicating that the housing bubble has lost some air.
The Nat'l AUS Bank's business confidence survey also predicted a
slowdown in the construction sector this y.
The rising dollar and subdued inflation are also thought to have given
the Reserve Bank breathing space.
The majority of economists had been in favour of a hold on rates but
others -- including the big 4 banks -- argued that a decision not to
increase rates would send the wrong message to the economy on the
dangers of out-of-control credit.
Speculation will now be heightened that the bank will tighten monetary
policy next m, amid continuing credit growth in AUS and global
economic recovery.
Macquarie Bank snr economist, Brian Redican, says the predominant view
on markets is that there is one more rate increase to come.
"Probably in Mar or Apr we'd expect to see another 25-basis points
increase in interest rates," he said.
"But I think the mood is probably swinging to some chance interest
rates may already have peaked."
* Relief
Industry has expressed relief at the RBA's decision.
The RBA does not spell out its reasons for the decision but Macquarie
Bank snr economist Brian Redican says there are a number of
possible influences.
"There are some signs, I suppose, that the housing market is coming off.
There's also an argument that the Reserve Bank should wait and see
what impact its previous tightening decisions have had on the
economy," he said.
"Also, there's some uncertainty about the potential impact of the
higher Aussie dollar."
AUS Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Peter Hendy has
applauded the RBA decision.
"It's a sensible thing to see what the pass-through effects of those
decisions are before you start looking at changing the interest rates
again," he said.
The Nat'l Farmers Federation (NFF) is also relieved. The NFF's
economics committee chairman, Charles Burke, says with farmers still
struggling to recover from drought, the decision to hold rates could
also help stabilise the AUD.
"If the interest rate was to go up it then puts further pressure on
the currency," he said.
"At the moment it seems to have slowed somewhat which is giving a little
bit of surety to people selling their products on an internat'l market.
"So we're hopeful that this will now give some stability to our
currency and at least stop it from its upward trend."
The services sector is breathing a sigh of relief with the news
interest rates are on hold.
The latest "Performance of Services Index" compiled by the AUS
Industry Group and Commonwealth Bank, indicates activity in the sector
is easing slightly.
The bank's chief economist, Michael Blythe, says the effect of the
last 2 rate rises will strengthen in the short-term.
"The services sector, the dominant part of the AUS economy, remains
comfortably in expansion territory at the moment," he said.
"That said, there are some signs in our index that some of the steam
is starting to come out of the domestic economy...it looks like those
interest rate rises late last y are starting to have some impact and
will continue to have some impact as we move through this y."
Retail sales drop 0.6%
Canberra (AAP). Retail sales dipped for the 1st time in a y in Dec,
following 2 back-to-back interest rate rises, new figures showed. The
AUS Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said retail trade fell 0.6% in
the lead-up to Christmas, following a revised increase of 1.1% in Nov.
It was the 1st negative result since Dec 2002 and was driven by a 2.1%
drop-off in dept store sales, allowing for seasonal influences. But
the ABS said retail turnover in the last 3 m of the y rose 2.6%.
The only categories to rise in Dec were food sales -- up 0.2 per cent
-- and sales of recreational goods, up 0.7%. Sales of household goods
fell 1.7%, clothing and soft goods were down 1.2%, and hospitality and
services fell 0.3% after a boom during the Rugby World Cup.
Power restored to Wollongong homes after fierce storm
Sydney. Integral Energy crews have restored power to a number of
suburbs in the Wollongong area, S of SYD, after a fierce storm
yesterday afternoon. The storm brought with it large hailstones the
size of golf balls to the Shellharbour, Albion Park and Kiama areas on
NSW' S coast. The State Emergency Service received about 50 calls for
assistance, mostly in the Shellharbour area for water flooding and
minor structural damage. The Shellharbour Workers Club had to be
evacuated after the storm had passed due to water damage and the Kiama
council's Admin building was also closed. The storm caused major
delays for S coast train services between Wollongong and Nowra. Power
crews reconnected electricity to homes at Bellambi, Corrimal and
Russell Vale last night.
Telstra offers mobile relief to storm victims
Brisbane. Telstra has announced a relief package for customers on
Qld's Gold Coast affected by last wk's storms. An estimated 1,500
customers still have no service. Telstra's Darren Clark says the
company will divert calls from disconnected land lines to a mobile
phone for free and only charge normal local and STD rates. He says
while most of the Gold Coast escaped the full fury of the storms that
lashed other parts of SE Qld, Telstra's network was affected.
"Lightning melts cables and causes a whole host of problems within our
network," he said. "Most of our cables are underground and it's not
as visible as when you see power lines being knocked down but they
certainly are impacted by lightning and while it's not as visible we
certainly have had a number of customers with problems."
Call centre workers treated for dizzy spells
Brisbane. About 70 people at a Telstra call centre in Bris have been
treated by medical teams after complaining of nausea and dizziness
following a suspected electrical surge. 3 were taken to hospital and
the others were allowed home after medical checks. Qld Ambulance
Service rep Peter Wood says the workers heard loud static and
popping noises in their headsets and then became very nauseated and
dizzy. He says they've had some sort of electrical surge or feedback
through their headsets.
Power workers vote for ind'l action
Melbourne. Workers responsible for Vic's power supply have voted on a
campaign of ind'l action in support of claims of a chronic shortage of
skills in the ind'y. The workers, employed by the state's private
electricity companies, are angry over what they see as a dire shortage
of skilled and qualified workers that's threatening safety and
rights. Electrical Trade Union state sec Dean Mighell says about
3,000 line workers have agreed to a campaign of ind'l action,
possibly incl state-wide stoppages, starting next wk.
Weather bureau says no El-Nino yet
Melbourne. North-west Vic farmers have been reassured the dry start
to the y does not signal a return to El Nino-type drought conditions.
Mildura and Swan Hill recorded only 3 millimetres of rain in Jan and
Horsham 11 millimetres. But Bureau of Meteorology climatologist Neil
Moody says past data shows there is still a 50-50 chance of average
rainfall in the next 3 m. "Later on, in about Apr or May is when
the conditions in the oceans start to swing and when we could see an
El Nino develop, but at this stage it's unlikely," he said.
Govt details $50 bn defence plan
Eye in the sky...Global Hawk is top of the shopping list.
Canberra. The Min for Defence, Robert Hill, has released details of
the $50 bn Defence Capability Plan in SYD.
The plan follows a review of AUS's defence capability last y, ordered
in response to the new security challenges thrown up by the Sep 11 and
Bali terrorist attacks.
It describes 64 major military equipment projects to meet AUS's
defence needs during the next 10 y.
The plan emphasises the importance of air defences and includes a
squadron of pilotless aerial vehicles to enhance land and sea
surveillance at a cost of up to $1 bn.
Sen Hill says one such aircraft, the Global Hawk, continues to impress.
"2 Global Hawks will cover the area of 5 P3-Orions which we have at
the moment," he said.
"There is at least one other alternative to Global Hawk, but probably
looking at the high level surveillance achievements of Global Hawk in
Iraq and in Afghanistan, it would be the lead contender at this time."
The Chief of the Defence Force, General Peter Cosgrove, has given the
Govt's plan his seal of approval.
"I'm very happy with this one. I think the Govt's renewed commitment,
increased commitment to defence and security bodes well for people who
will exercise these capabilities, God forbid, but they may have to in
the future," he said.
"But we must give them modern equipment based on a prediction of an
uncertain future."
Govt doubles spending on unmanned spy planes
Canberra (ABC, Richard Davis). The Fed Govt plans to spend 100s of
$mns on unmanned military planes to help patrol AUS's borders.
The planes could also be used for intel-gathering.
Defence Min Robert Hill will today announce AUS will more than double
its investment in the unmanned aircraft.
AUS has already committed $150 mn to the US Global Hawk program:
pilotless reconnaissance aircraft capable of taking detailed
photographs from high altitudes.
The aircraft will be used for maritime and land surveillance for
border-control operations.
But their role could be expanded to include intel-gathering in AUS
airspace and beyond.
In addition, they could be used for civil purposes such as monitoring
bushfires.
Sen Hill will release the Defence Capability Plan today in SYD, detailing
Govt plans to spend $50 bn on the military during the next decade.
Sen Hill told Network 9 that the Defence Capability Plan will include a
boost in funding for intel.
"Intel is critically important ... we have a $50 bn procurement
program to ensure that ... [our] forces are best equipped not only for
the present but for the future to meet threats in a very uncertain
world," he said.
Committee to study hospital's future
Melbourne. A group of community members and hospital officials has
been appointed to form a working party to advise on the future of the
Manangatang Hospital in the Mallee region of Vic. The working party
was appointed after community anger at a decision by the board last y
to close the hospital's bed-based nursing home and acute care
services. Acting chief executive Ian Fisher says the board will
consider recommendations made by the new working party. "It is an
open discussion and it will be an open process and at the end we would
hope that it had also arrived at a health solution that all parties
are in agreement with," he said.
Industry subsidy saves taxpayers money, says industry
Canberra. Research commissioned by Australia's biggest health fund,
Medibank Private, says taxpayers would have to pay more for the public
health system if the private insurance rebate is abolished. It claims
the federal govt is saving $2 on health for every $1 it spend on the
rebate. The Howard govt is committed to the 30% industry subsidy,
which it intro'd in 1999 in an unsuccessful attempt to stem the
declining levels of private health insurance.
[I.e. the amt of subsidy is declining anyway. Too bad -- the market
ends a distortion in the market].
MP wants administrator appointed to health service
Sydney. A NSW S coast MP claims ACT hospitals will come under
increasing pressure if the State Govt does not act to fix up the
Southern Area Health Service.
Andrew Constance has called for an administrator to be appointed. The
Member for Bega says the health service, administered out of Queanbeyan,
is in a financial crisis.
The service owes suppliers more than $7 mn and Mr Constance says basic
medical supplies such as bandages are having to be rationed.
He claims a series of cost cutting measures are being put in train,
including a plan to sack all general managers.
"They're trying to identify savings to the tune of $2.5
mn. They've already identified apparently $1.3 mn in savings in
the area office in Queanbeyan alone," he said.
The chairman of the area health service board, Gratton Wilson, admits
there are problems but does not believe an administrator is the answer.
"I have every confidence in the people who are working in the area and
we'll [make] our way through the difficulty," he said.
Mr Wilson says a shortage of qualified nurses and doctors, and not
mismanagement, is to blame for the budget blowout.
Rivkin appeal to be heard Fri
Sydney. The NSW Parole Board will hear Rene Rivkin's appeal at 1 pm
Fri -- just 6 hrs before the disgraced stockbroker is due to attend
prison for his periodic detention. The parole board hearing is
Rivkin's latest move in a series of attempts to prevent him from
having to turn up to Silverwater jail every weekend for 9 ms.
NSW Opp'n demands Rivkin do his time
Sydney. The NSW Opp'n says convicted insider trader Rene Rivkin should
not have the right to appeal against an order that he serve his sentence.
Rivkin has served just one day of a nine-m sentence of weekend
detention after being excused on medical grounds.
But after independent medical advice, the NSW corrective services
commissioner, Ron Woodham, ordered he serve the rest of his sentence.
Rivkin has lodged an appeal against Mr Woodham's decision to the
Parole Board, which is expected to deal with the matter on Fri.
The Opp'n's justice rep, Andrew Humpherson, says Rivkin should serve
his time.
"The Opp'n doesn't in fact believe that any offender has the right to
appeal to the parole board under these circumstances and they have to
turn up on Fri as Mr Rivkin should and do their time," he said.
The NSW Govt says "a chaotic cocktail of laws" makes it unclear if the
State Parole Board has the power to hear Rivkin's appeal against an
order that he serve his sentence for insider trading.
NSW Justice Min John Hatzistergos says Rivkin was prosecuted under fed
laws and it is unclear if this avenue of appeal exists for him.
"We've got a situation where we've got a chaotic cocktail of laws
which are unclear and in some respects conflicting and we're trying to
make sense of them to achieve an appropriate outcome in this case," he said.
Elder calls for charges against police, wildlife officers
Brisbane. Fraser Island's traditional owners have called for police
and Qld Parks and Wildlife Service officers to be charged for
allegedly removing some of their property at Rainbow Beach, on Qld's
Sunshine Coast. Dalungbara elder John Dalungdalee Jones says 2
detectives from Maryborough and the wildlife officers should be
charged for removing a shop and signs advertising the group's
Indigepass. The group introduced the Indigepass as a cheaper
alternative to Parks and Wildlife permits for Fraser Island. Mr Jones
says he has written to Tin Can Bay police and the Police Commissioner
about the issue. "We're actually directing him now to lay charges
against the 2 detectives from Maryborough who claim they are using it
as evidence," he said. "They could have quite easily have taken
photographs of it without actually removing our property and, of
course, they removed our shop too."
Hanson issues plea to jurors
Brisbane. Pauline Hanson has called for jurors involved in her
electoral fraud trial to come forward if they have evidence of
impropriety in the jury room. The former One Nation leader has joined
party co-founder David Ettridge to address a rally protesting against
Qld's justice system in Bris. Miss Hanson and Mr Ettridge were
released from prison after Qld's Court of Appeal quashed their
convictions for electoral fraud. Today Miss Hanson told a crowd of
about 70 people gathered outside Parliament House that she had been
wronged by the system. She made a plea to the jurors involved in the
original trial. "Was there any formalities that were unjust or were
they directed to find us guilty?" she said. Soliciting info about
jury deliberations is an offence in Qld. Miss Hanson maintains she
will seek an ex-gratia payment from the State Govt after the election
and says if she is successful, she will pay back the people who
supported her.
Latham wants campaign to become reading contest
Sydney. The Fed Opp'n hopes the election campaign turns into a
reading contest as both sides try to sell their education policy.
This wk both sides have tried to sell their education credentials with
staged managed visits to primary schools.
Mark Latham told a community forum this morning he hopes the next
election will turn into a reading contest and he has urged John Howard
and all political leaders to read books to children.
"So if the PM can join me in that, John Anderson, Andrew Bartlett,
other political leaders, then I think that's a very good thing for us
to promote as vigorously as possible," he said.
* Superannuation
Mr Latham is also promising to wind back a superannuation scheme for
politicians which he says is far too generous.
Mr Latham says the details of the new scheme will be announced soon,
along with changes to Labor's superannuation policy for all Aussies.
He says the existing super arrangements for politicians are no longer
acceptable.
"It's way out of line with a decent community standard and it's also
out of date," he said.
"This is a scheme devised at a time when it was said that if politicians
left Parliament they'd struggle to get a decent job in the future.
"Now most parliamentarians that go out, get a job in the private
sector ... often it's higher pay than what they had as a parliamentarians."
* Tim Tams
And the Labor leader joined anti-drug campaigners condemning Arnotts
over the company's Kahlua flavoured Tim Tams.
"I'm not too sure that children having alcohol flavoured bikkies is
all that desirable.
"I would have thought it sounds like a really silly thing to do."
Hanson calls for revenge against Beattie govt
Brisbane. One Nation figurehead Pauline Hanson is urging voters to
punish Qld Prem Peter Beattie for taking victory for granted in Sat's
election. Ms Hanson says Qld-ers have the power to take control of
the election and give it to her, by ignoring Labor's call for voters
to just vote one and use the power of the preference at the polling
booth. Ms Hanson, who says she is definitely finished in politics,
has spoken at a rally outside the Qld Parliament House, demanding
reform of the justice system. She's also called for $1 mn in
compensation for herself and David Ettridge after the pair were held
in jail for 12 wks on charges of a $1/4 bn electoral fraud.
[Later reports say Beattie has down-played the call, indicating he
won't be apologising for the Qld court system].
Hail devastates sea birds nr Wollongong
Sydney. A NSW hail storm has had a devastating impact on an
endangered bird species nesting at Windang's Perkins Beach, nr
Wollongong. About a dozen adult terns and all nesting chicks have
been killed by the hail. Seagulls and other migratory birds have been
killed or injured as well. Dept of Environment and Conservation
officer Mike Jarman says the deaths are very disappointing. "We've
had all sorts of things happen this y. "We had the case ... where
people took all the birds away, then we've had problems with dogs
... and then at the end of the season we get a blooming hail storm,"
Mr Jarman said.
Chinese astronauts begin space flight training
Beijing (AFP). China's team of 14 astronauts are about to start
training for the country's 2nd manned space flight, state media
reported on Mon. The 14 have had a relatively easy period since China
sent its 1st man into orbit on-board the Shenzhou V spacecraft in Oct,
but beginning next m they will return to a tough training regimen, the
Beijing Youth Daily said. The physical and theoretical drills will be
much the same as before, with the important difference that the
candidates will work in pairs, as the Shenzhou VI is expected to carry
2 people. State media have previously reported China's next manned
space flight is expected to take place some time in 2005. Chances are
that the 12 astronauts who lose out in the competition for a seat on
the Shenzhou VI will never make it into space. All astronauts in the
14 member team have passed the age of 30, and the search is on for a
new generation that can man China's spacecraft from Shenzhou VII
onwards, the paper said.
Email giants consider charging
Sydney. The Internet Industry Association has reacted cautiously to
news that the owners of the 2 largest email systems in the world are
considering charging people for sending emails.
Yahoo and Microsoft are looking at ways of imposing a postage fee for
emails as a way of reducing the ever increasing number of junk emails
or spam.
Chief executive of the Internet Industry Association in AUS Peter
Coronieos says while he would support moves to stop junk email, there
would be no benefits to imposing a charge on the average home user.
"It's an interesting proposal that's certainly worth looking at but
until people have understood and considered what the effects of this
are, I think think it's way to early to be endorsing any particular
approach," he said.
Yahoo says while charging for emails is one option being considered,
any fee would be focused on spammers or mass email senders, not the
average home users.
9 MSN says it has no plans to make hotmail users pay for sending emails.
Microsoft withstands MyDoom attack
Seattle (Reuters). Microsoft appears to have survived the worst the
MyDoom worm could throw at it.
Experts say the virus, a variant of the MyDoom virus that attacked
another company's website this wk, was programmed to fire continuous
volleys of debilitating data at Microsoft's site.
But there was no visible impact on the software giant's website, which
held firm as the MyDoom.B Internet worm's trigger time passed.
Microsoft had said it was taking a series of technical precautions to
ward off any attack.
MyDoom.B is a low-grade variant of the original MyDoom.A worm, the
fastest-spreading email contagion ever to hit the Internet according
to security experts.
MyDoom.A infected 100s of 1000s, and possibly more than 1 mn, PCs.
The infected machines have generated a torrent of spam emails and crippled
corporate email servers, as well as slowing traffic for some ISPs providers.
The biggest victim of MyDoom.A was Utah-based computer software firm
SCO Group.
The SCO site was offline this wk, as the worm, also dubbed Novarg or
Shimgapi, launched a torrent of traffic its way, in what is known as a
denial of service attack.
MyDoom.B, which was programmed to target both SCO and Microsoft with a
similar attack, spread more slowly than its sibling and was never
considered much of a threat, security experts say.
"As far as MyDoom.B is concerned, you're more likely to see it in the
headlines than in your email inbox," Graham Cluley, a snr technology
consultant at Sophos, said.
Security officials have warned MyDoom.A is still spreading rapidly,
despite the fact more computer users are fortifying their machines
with a variety of free patches available from anti-virus vendors.
"It's now become less of a virus infection problem and more of an
email glut problem," Mr Cluley said.
MyDoom worm on the wane
LA (AFP). The internet's most voracious worm ever appeared to wane
Mon after bringing down a website operated by US software maker SCO
Group and forcing the company to set up a new domain name.
Analysts said the worm had infected over one mn computers worldwide
and highlighted the vulnerability of the internet to infections that
allow affected computers to be controlled for hacker attacks.
"The question that must be asked at this stage is how easy would it be
for a potential extremist to hold our computer dependent society to
ransom using MyDoom type sophisticated threats," the Internet security
firm mi2g said in a statement.
"The more we study MyDoom the more clear it becomes that the
perpetrator is a clever strategist combined with being a sophisticated
programmer," said DK Matai, executive chairman of mi2g.
"Especially because SCO had 5 days advance notice to prepare."
SCO, the US-based software firm that owns the Unix operating system
for large server computers, was shut down Sun though a so-called
denial-of-service attack, with infected computers bombarding its
www.sco.com site with info requests over 60 times a min.
SCO said Mon it was setting up a new domain www.thescogroup.com as the
company's website through Feb 12.
"The company is putting this alternative Web address in place because
the recently announced MyDoom or Novarg virus creates an attack that
is designed to prevent access to www.sco.com," it said in a statement.
"Increased traffic has already begun hitting www.sco.com
'http://www.sco.com/' in the last couple of days," said Jeff Carlon,
director of SCO's worldwide IT infrastructure.
"We expect 100s of 1000s of attacks on www.sco.com
'http://www.sco.com/' because of these viruses ... SCO has developed
layers of contingency plans."
F-Secure Corporation in Finland estimated at least one mn computers
had been infected by MyDoom and thus programmed to participate.
"As the attack started by MyDoom is a simple overload-the-website
attack, it should have very little effects to the rest of the net,"
F-Secure said.
"This simply is an extreme case of "slashdotting", where a site gets
suddenly its traffic increased massively, overloading the server.
And it will continue until 12th of Feb, as the worm has been
programmed to stop its operations then."
A variant of the bug dubbed mydoom.b was set to launch a similar attack
on Microsoft's main website, but experts said this bug may not be as
rampant and that Microsoft may be prepared to deal with the incident.
But Steve Trebbe at F-Secure said another potential problem is that
the bugs open up computers to hacker control for other purposes by
installing a so-called "backdoor Trojan" program.
"We're more concerned about the potential backdoor and we think this
[denial-of-service effort] is just a ruse for the true intent of the
virus," he said.
"Our speculation is that it's possibly spammers," who would bombard
the Web with e-mail ads in the hopes of generating money.
The "MyDoom" e-mail worm, considered by Internet security experts to
be the "fastest spreading e-mail worm in history."
Experts fear the super bug could receive a boost Mon morning as 1000s
of computer users, particularly in the US, switch on their office
computers following the weekend break.
The MyDoom worm has left 100s of 1000s of computers vulnerable to
hackers, spammers and other cyberspace outlaws and its economic
fallout has been estimated at $US38.5 bn so far, according to mi2g.
The hunt for the creators of the virus has so far proved fruitless
although suspicion is centreing on Russia, where MyDoom 1st appeared.
Microsoft and SCO have offered a $US500,000 reward for info leading to
the arrest and prosecution of MyDoom's authors.
Europe joins the race to put a man on Mars
London (Reuters). A European could step out onto the surface of Mars within
3 decades, under European Space Agency (ESA) plans spelled out on Tue.
The plans are more precise than the broad US goals of sending a man back
to the moon by 2020 and to Mars by 2030, revealed last m by Pres Bush.
"We think it is technically feasible to have a manned mission to the
moon between 2020 and 2025 and then to Mars between 2030 and 2035,"
said Franco Ongaro, project manager of the ESA's fledgling Aurora
space exploration program.
"We need to go back to the moon before we can go to Mars," he told an
audience of space scientists, academics and industrialists.
"None of the people who worked on the Apollo program are around now.
We need to learn how to walk before we can run," he added.
Ongaro denied there was open competition with the US space agency
NASA, and said he expected the Americans,
Europeans and Russians -- all of whom have Martian goals -- to be in
contact with each other.
Under ESA plans, there will be a mission in 2007 to test a vehicle
that can withstand far higher re-entry speeds than currently
experienced by those returning from the moon.
This will be followed 2 y later by ExoMars, a robot mission to Mars in
search of life -- past and present -- and in 2014 by a mission to bring
Martian material back to earth.
Colin Pillinger, the chief scientist behind the missing Beagle 2 Mars
probe that was supposed to land on the planet on Christmas day but was
never heard from, said it was crucial to find out if there was life
there before a human arrives.
"You can sterilise a robot. But you cannot do the same to an
astronaut. Inevitably a human will introduce microbes to the
planet...and contaminate it," he told the meeting.
Having established whether there is or was life on Mars and proved the
landing, take-off and re-entry technology, ESA then plans within a decade
to send a manned mission to the moon to test new life-support systems.
It will also look closely at the physiological and psychological
aspects of long duration space missions -- a worthwhile round trip to
Mars would take nearly 4 y.
By 2026 the manned mission to the Red Planet will be nearly ready --
with a final robot mission to replicate the trip and test all the
technologies -- followed in 2030 by a cargo mission carrying supplies
ahead of the manned shot.
Then, if everything goes according to plan, in 2033 the ESA's manned
Mars shot will take off.
"This is a road map, a plan and plans change. But this is the most
exciting space adventure," Ongaro said.
Collision with comet may have hastened 1st plague epidemic
London (Independent). A collision between Earth and a passing comet
in the 6th century AD may have caused the collapse of agriculture,
mass famine and indirectly led to the bubonic plague in Europe, a
study has suggested.
Scientists have calculated that a relatively small comet, or fragment
of a comet, could have caused huge amounts of dust and debris to be
ejected into the atmosphere, blocking the sun for m at a time.
The resulting crop failures and famine would have allowed bubonic
plague to spread easily among a physically weakened population.
Studies of tree rings -- from preserved oaks retrieved from Irish bogs
to ancient American pine trees -- have shown that plant growth around
the world almost stopped between about 536AD to 545AD. Chinese records
from this time refer to a "dust veil" obscuring the
skies. Mediterranean historians record a "dry fog" that blocked out
much of the sun's heat for more than a y.
Scientists have suggested 2 causes, both involving the ejection of
dust or debris into the atmosphere to block the sun and so prevent
photosynthesis.
One idea is that a super-volcano erupted, but neither the volcano nor
its acidic deposits have been identified, Derek Ward-Thompson, who
carried out the latest study at Cardiff University, said. The other
proposal involved a collision with a big asteroid or comet, but there
was no direct evidence such as a crater.
However, Dr Ward-Thompson and his colleagues Mel Symonds and Emma
Rigby believe a much smaller comet which exploded in the atmosphere
could easily have generated the dust and debris in the 6th century
catastrophe. "The surprising result of these calculations is just how
small a comet fragment we have estimated was needed to cause the
observed effects," Dr Ward-Thompson said.
"A comet less than 1km in diameter has not been previously considered
to represent a global hazard -- as opposed to a local hazard -- let
alone one 0.5km across," he said.
Using info gathered from the impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy with
Jupiter in 1994, the scientists have produced a model of how comet
fragments would behave if they collided with Earth. "The comet plunges
into the upper atmosphere leaving an effectively hollow tube behind it,
where it has been, and into which the surrounding air has not yet had
time to diffuse," the scientists write in the journal Astronomy and Physics.
"This tube then acts rather like a gun barrel, focusing much of the
energy of the airburst explosion along the tube and carrying with it
much of the comet debris," they write.
As a result, the plume would have spread around the world in a massive
fountain of debris. "This period coincides with a mass population
decrease in Europe. This is commonly known as the Justinian plague,
and is believed to be the 1st appearance of the Black Death in
Europe," the scientists say.
They said that if such an event happened today, a large percentage of
the population could face starvation.
Markets
Sydney (close). The ASX finished marginally higher today, with gains
in the finance section offsetting a lack-lustre performance by retail
and resources markets. The All Ords firmed 2 pts to 3,280 after the
RBA maintained int rates at 5.25%, following back-to-back hikes in Nov
and Dec last y. The NAB was higher at $A31.01 [woo-hoo!]. Qantas was
up more than 2% on news bird flu has not significantly affected
bookings. Its share price has fallen around 6% in the last wk. The
AUD has fallen to 76.24 US c. Gold is also lower, at $US399.40/oz.
In Japan, the Nikkei lost 195 pts to close at 10,447. The Hang Seng
lost 3 pts to 13,087.
{{
8 am
US Pres George W Bush has confirmed he will appoint an "independent
bipartisan" panel to investigate the intel failures which occurred
prior to the war in Iraq.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell says he does not know if he would
have recommended an invasion of Iraq if he had known Saddam Hussein
possessed no stockpiles of banned weapons.
Brit PM Tony Blair has called an inquiry into apparently flawed intel
about Iraq's alleged WMD.
Brit For Sec Jack Straw on Tue confirmed to parliament that a probe
would to be held into flawed intel about Iraq's alleged WMD that was
used to justify the war on Saddam Hussein.
The PM has acknowledged growing doubts over the intel used to justify
the war in Iraq.
Defence Min Robert Hill says there is no need for an independent
inquiry into the intel available in AUS on Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction, before the war.
A former AUS intel officer has called for an independent inquiry into
the accuracy of pre-war info about Iraq's banned weapons programs.
A young boy has died in Thailand from suspected bird flu, raising the
country's death toll from the virus to four.
Indonesia has announced the bird flu virus that has killed mn of
poultry in the country is of the most dangerous type.
Internat'l health, food and veterinary experts are to hold talks in
Rome on the bird flu crisis.
AUS authorities have stepped up efforts to guard against the
transmission of the bird flu in AUS.
AUS retail sales have topped $20 bn in a m for the 1st time on record.
SA Liberal MP Chris Gallus has told PM John Howard she will not be
re-contesting her marginal seat of Hindmarsh at the fed election.
The Fed Opp'n leader has been heckled at one of his community forums
in regional NSW.
10 pm
First the Hutton report. Now the Butler report. Tony Blair has
announced an inquiry to investigate the failure of the intel agencies
in the lead-up to GWII. It'll report in the middle of 2005. It's
remit is limited to problems with intel gathering, and will not
investigate how the intel was put together by the govt justify any
political decisions. There were howls of dismay from the Opp'n in
parliament as the inquiry was announced.
In the US, the appearance of ricin-laced letters is reportedly related
to domestic terrorism. The letters included in the envelopes
complained of new federal trucking laws. It's reported a disgruntled
trucker -- known as "The Fallen Angel" -- previously tried to ship
ricin though the mail, but was stopped.
Under its new defence plans, Australia will reportedly prepare to land
troops in other countries to fight terrorism. Govt officials were
today playing up the message that threat number 1 to Australia comes
from terrorism. The same message was being underscored by US A-G
Ashcroft at a regional terror conf in Bali. At the conf, AUS For Min
Alex Downer told reporters a terrorist attack in our region is
"inevitable". His comments seeming contradicting earlier Govt
claims Aussies were safer after the US-led operations in Afghanistan
and Iraq, and the threat from a terrorist attack had been "reduced"
and was now "negligible".
SBS "Dateline". The furore over pre-GWII intel continues.
Former US Amb Joe Wilson told Dateline the failure to find WMD in Iraq
has greatly embarrassed the Bush Admin and Pentagon. He said the
Admin had always planned to invade Iraq, and the selective use of
intel had only been used to justify the long-held policy. He said
claims by PM Howard and other snr govt officials that Australia had
just followed US intel without an independent assessment of their own
sounded a cautionary note. But if the Australian people chose a govt
that simply followed the intel assessments of another country, that
was their business.
Dr Hans Blix was then quizzed about his group's operation in Iraq
before GWII. He denied his reports had been obscure or evasive, and
said his team was simply being cautious and exacting. He criticised
the quality of US intel he'd seen. It was one thing to say a photo
showed roofs, he said, but it was quite another to claim under the
roofs WMD were being manufactured or stored. He accused the US and
Brit govts of twisting the findings of his organisation.
}}
----------------------------------------
Thu, 05 Feb 2004.
Markets
NY. The Dow lost 34 pts to close at 10,471. Markets were driven lower
by negative comments from Cisco and a fall of 20% in communication
equipment orders. Gold added only 7 c to $US399.70/oz. Oil was
trading around $US33.44/bbl. In London, the FTSE added 8 pts to
4,399. The German Dax lost 29 pts to 4,028. The AUD has declined to
76.19 US c.
Vaile still confident of US/AUS FTA
Sydney. As negotiations appear to grind to a halt in Washington, the
Fed Govt is still confident it will achieve a FTA deal with the US by
the middle of the y. Trade Min Mark Vaile has been in talks with his
US counterpart Robert Zoellick for more than 1 wk to thrash out the
deal. Fed Min for Aging, Julie Bishop, says the agreement to open up
US and Aussie markets to greater competition will be finalised before
Jul. Mr Vaile has warned American negotiators he won't stay in
Washington forever working on the deal.
[Despite repeated AUS Govt denials the PBS is not up for negotiation,
"Inside US Trade" has reported on the secret text of an agreement over
the PBS, incl a list of proposed prices for specific US-sourced drugs.
The publication says "bracketed language" indicates the Fed Govt is
prepared to change the price of the PBS. AUS govt reps have disputed
the analysis, and say the language is non-binding.
In other news, groups representing US pork, corn and other produce have
written to Pres Bush, criticising the Whitehouse's policy of insulating
US sugar from the Aussie negotiations. Some of the groups see AUS as
competition for local markets. They've demanded "one in, all in"].
30 people feared drowned in Bangladesh ferry collision
Barisal. 2 riverboat ferries have collided in S Bangladesh and at
least 30 people are feared drowned. Survivors say about 150 people
are missing after the accident in Meghna R in Barisal district, 120 km
S of the nat'l capital, Dhaka. A police official has confirmed the
accident but couldn't provide details about casualties. Survivors say
the 2 ferries -- MV Sattar Khan and MV Asha Jawa -- collided about 2am
local time.
11 killed in Guatemala bus crash
Guatemala City. At least 11 people have been killed and 35 injured
when a buys skidded off the road and into a valley in rural E
Guatemala. The crash happened on a highway between the towns of
Chiquimulilla and Santa Rosa, 95 km E of the capital, Guatemala City.
A rep for the local volunteer fire dept says the driver sped around a
sharp turn and lost control of the bus, which toppled into a roadside
valley. The injured, incl the driver, were taken to local hospitals.
New cases of bird flu found -- Cambodia
Phnom Penh. Cambodian officials have reported 2 more outbreaks of
bird flu at a zoo and a small family farm, 2 wks after the original
case was announced at a major chicken farm. Dept of Animal Health and
Production dir Kao Phal says the new cases are in a stork which died
at a zoo S of PP, and among swans and other birds in a village N of
the capital. Until now, the deadly new strain of bird flu had only
been seen in farm chickens just W of PP where 3,300 birds had been
culled to contain the spread of the virus.
Black market in WMD bigger then prev suspected
Khan's confession spark worries about proliferation
Vienna. The UN says the black market used by Pakistan's top scientist
to sell his country's nuclear secrets may be far bigger than initially
feared. The father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has
confessed to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya, and N Korea. Now
the UN Internat'l Atomic Energy Agency and W diplomats say Khan may
have peddled the info to even more countries. The diplomats -- who've
asked not be be named -- say evidence suggests Khan's role is just the
tip of the iceberg.
Serbs return to Kosovo
Pristina. The organised return of Serbs driven out of the Kosovo
capital in 1999 has begun, with the arrival of 4 people. The family
of 3 returned to their Pristina home with the assistance of the UN
and the Danish Refugee Council. It's estimated some 220,000 Serbs
fled the prov after a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia forced
Belgrade to withdraw its security forces which had been pursuing a
brutal crack-down in the region.
US sticking to Jun Iraq timetable
Washington. The US is sticking to its election-based timetable for a
hand-over to Iraqi self-rule, even if the UN team being dispatched by
Sec-Gen Kofi Annan fails to break the impasse in that country over
creating a transitional govt. US officials say their planning is all
designed to make the transfer of power work on Jun 30. In NY, Annan
says the US Administrators and the Iraqi Governing Council both
considered the Jun date "essential".
Tony Blair defends decision, but admits key mistake
London. Brit PM Tory Blair has admitted he did not understand a key
part of an intel dossier on Iraq which he used to support case for the
US-led invasion. Blair told The Commons he'd not been made aware the
"45 minutes" claim only referred to battlefield weapons, not WMD and
long-range missiles. In a debate interrupted by hecklers, the PM said
he did not know which weapons were being referring to in the dossier
when Brit narrowly voted to back the war. Previously, Def Sec Hoon
had told the Hutton Inquiry he did understand the claim did not refer
to WMD, but had not bothered to pass that on to Mr Blair. Mr Blair
also said a snr WMD specialist who said Downing St had over-ridden
intel assessments had not had access to secret info.
Howard defends war decision
[Backing down now would send the wrong message!]
Canberra. PM John Howard is continuing to stand by his decision to go
to war against Iraq as more doubts emerge over the intel used to
justify the decision. With inquiries into American and Brit intel set
to get underway, Mr Howard says he would still have gone to war based
on the bad info he had a y ago. Fresh doubts have been thrown on to
the intel used by the US, Brit and AUS by the UK's top WMD expert,
Brian Jones. He said the assessments and cautions about the intel
were over-ridden by the govt.
Angry trucker suspect for ricin attacks
Washington. US officials say ricin powder found in the US Senate may
have been sent by an angry tucker, who last y sent letters to the
Whitehouse and the Dept of Transportation. The deadly poison, which
has no known antidote or cure, was found the the mail room of the head
of the Rep majority in the Senate, Bill Frist, on Mon. Ricin is a
toxin which occurs naturally in castor beans and is 6,000 times more
powerful than cyanide. The Fed Bureau of Investigation and police are
vying to find the source.
Brown denies Brigitte media reports
Sydney. The Aussie wife of suspected terrorist Willie Brigitte has
denied newspaper reports that her husband had quizzed her about secret
military installations in AUS. Melanie Brown's lawyer Stephen Hopper
has also denied the claims, which appeared in some media. Ms Brown, a
former Aussie soldier, reportedly told French authorities Brigitte had
questioned her at length about the joint US-AUS elint stn of Pine Gap,
nr Alice Springs. Bur Hopper says she never discussed Pine Gap with
Brigitte and also denies he's a terrorist.
Joke bomber headed back to UK
NY. Brit student Samantha Narson is heading back to Brit after
agreeing to a plea bargain over charges of making a false bomb threat
in the US. She was arrested in the US last m after joking she was
taking a bomb onto an aircraft. Marson's lawyer, Oscar Sanchez, says
the 21 yo had met the conditions of the deal, which were to donate
about $A1,300 to a fund for Sep 11 victims and to write an apology.
Sanchez says an order that she must return to court on Fri to prove
she had met the terms was waived and she's caught a flight to Brit.
Downer to lay wreath to Bali victims
Bali. For Min Alex Downer will today lay a wreath to victims of the
Bali bombing before a regional counter-terrorism summit resumes in
Bali. Mr Downer will travel into the hills above Kuta to lay a wreath
in the stone canyon where a memorial to the 202 Bali bomb victims,
incl 88 Aussies, was established last y. Both countries yesterday
agreed to set up a counter-terrorism centre to help battle extremists
in the region. It is to be based in Indonesia and initially funded by CBR.
Buick packed with refugees picked up off Fla coast
Miami. 11 Cuban refugees using a converted Buick to sail to Florida
have come within 18 mins of US soil before being picked up by the
Coast Guard. The Miami Herald quotes Cuban exile activist Arturo Cobo
as saying the US Coast Guard has already sunk the converted car, and
its occupants are being returned. A Coast Guard rep has confirmed
the sinking, but has not commented on the fate of the Cubans. It's
the 2nd attempt to reach the US by the group who set sail last y in a
converted 1950 Chevrolet truck.
Police to question Sharon
Jerusalem. Israeli police are set to re-question PM Ariel Sharon
about corruption allegations tied the the financing of his 1999
campaign for the Likud party leadership. Sharon, who is to be
questioned at his Jerusalem home, was last interrogated in Oct. The
latest session comes after the indictment last m of property developer
David Appel on charges of trying to bribe Sharon. If Sharon were to
be charged himself, political commentators say he would have no choice
but to resign from office.
Latham says Howard's ideas old & stale
Canberra. Opp'n leader Mark Latham says PM John Howard has been in
politics so long his ideas are stale. Mr Howard, who turns 65 this y,
has said his age won't be a factor when voters decide between him and
42 yo Mr Latham at the fed election later this y. Mr Latham agrees,
saying age isn't a problem but a lack of new ideas is. But he's told
the Nine Network he still expects Mr Howard to put up a tough fight at
the next election.
Infant to have head removed
Santo Domingo. A Dominican infant born with a 2nd head will undergo a
risky operation as surgeons try to sever the appendage and prevent
hemorrhaging from shared arteries. Led by a LA-based neurosurgeon
who separated Guatemalan twins, a medical team will spend about 13 hrs
removing Rebecca Martinez's 2nd head, which has a partially formed
brain, ears, eyes and lips. Rebecca was born on Dec 17 with the
undeveloped head of her twin. She is the 8th documented case of
craniopagus parasiticus.
Howard says he's concentrating on the job
Deflects questions of early retirement after election
Kalgoorlie. PM John Howard says he's focused on remaining in the
role of prime minister. Last night he refused to rule out a mid-term
retirement if he wins the next election. But during a brief radio
interview in the outback mining town, 65 yo Howard says his enthusiasm
for the job of PM continues to grow the older and older he gets. He
told Radio West he can't remember thinking about leaving the job. The
PM says it's ability, not his retirement, that will decide the federal
election, due sometime later this y.
70% of Aussie tyres old and worn
Adelaide. A new survey has found almost 70% of tyres on Aussie cars
are too old, too old, too... old. Tyre retailer Beaurepaires tested
tyres on 250 cars chosen at random from their factory car park and
found 68% were either unsafe or technically un-roadworthy because of
damage, excessive wear, or under- or over-inflated. The company says
the results suggested Aussies have adopted a complacent attitude
toward their aging tyres and their role in road safety.
Qantas plane makes forced landing in SYD
Sydney. A Qantas plane carrying 11 people has made a forced landing at
SYD Airport after a suspected fire in the plane's engine. The Qantas
Link flight QF-2042 from SYD NW of Dubbo returned to SYD soon after
take-off at 11.30 am. Police say no one was injured and the plane
landed safely. A Qantas rep says the pilot of the Dash 8 Turbo was
told by air traffic control to return to SYD after smoke was seen
coming from its [right] engine.
Gas leak clears SYD city rail
Sydney. A gas leak on SYD's city circle rail line has closed all
central SYD railway stns, incl the city's main transport hub at
Central Stn, causing massive commuter chaos. NSW Fire Brigades rep
Supt Ian Krimmer says fire crews are searching for the origin of the
leak which was detected somewhere on the city circle line about 1.45
pm. Supt Krimmer says the gas leak forced the closure and evacuation
of Town Hall, Wynyard, Circular Quay and St James Rlwy stns.
Boston court gives gay couples the green light
Boston. Gay couples in Massachusetts have won a major victory, with
the state's top court advising the govt to allow full-fledged marriage
rights for same-sex couples. The court in Boston said anything less
would make them 2nd-class citizens. However, the ruling has drawn
immediate criticism from US Pres Bush, who says Constit'l change may
be required to protect the sanctity of marriage as he defines it.
Court rejects Rivkin appeal
Sydney. The Court of Criminal Appeal has rejected Rene Rivkin's case
against his conviction for insider trading on Qantas shares. The
court has also dismissed Rivkin's appeal against his sentence of 9 m
periodic detention and the $30,000 fine. The former stockbroker was
found guilty on one charge by a NSW Supreme Court jury, in Apr last y.
His appeal was based on 27 grounds, incl his ill health over the past y.
Police hunting for attacker
Brisbane. Police are continuing their hunt for the teen who squirted
flammable liquid on a 12 yo boy and set him alight. The boy was
walking to shops at Bundamba, W of Bris, after school on Mon a youth
approached him, demanding his wallet containing $5, and a house key.
Police say when he refused to hand over the wallet he was kicked to
the ground, squirted with liquid from a blue sports bottle, and set
alight. The attacker has been described as aged 12 to 17, between 160
and 180 cm tall, and thin.
Reform Commission calls for secret terror trials
Canberra. The Australian Law Reform Commission says new laws may be
needed to protect sensitive info during spy and terrorism trials. In a
draft paper released for public comment, the commission says more
needs to be done to ensure nat'l security info can be used in court
without being publicly released. Law Reform Commission Pres David
Weisbrot says under current laws the govt could be forced to reduce or
drop charges against a person in order to avoid having to reveal
sensitive info.
70,000 students miss out on 1st round uni offers
Canberra. Academics say looming higher ed fees and a govt crackdown on
over-enrolments are to blame for almost 70,000 students missing out
on uni places. Unis estimate more than 67,000 students have so far
failed out on securing a uni place this y. A handful of unis are
about to begin their final round of offers, but only a few 100s more
places are expected to be made available. Govt Mins say more should
be done to lower the expectations of high school students. While more
education is associated with higher earning power and a more
comfortable lifestyle, govt reps say high school students should be
told they should give up and settle for a low-paid position as a
mechanic or something, rather than failing to get into uni or having
to drop out in 1st y because of money problems or bad grades.
Beer -- the melancholic Aussie's best friend
Canberra. A new survey has found 1/4 men think the best way to help a
depressed mate is to take them to the pub for a beer. 1/4 of those
surveyed think that most young people with depression or anxiety will
simply grow out of it, while 1/3 think severe mood swings and
irritability are a normal part of being young. The depression survey,
carried out by the Mental Health Council of AUS and published in the
Pfizer Australia Health Report, shows some serious misconceptions
about mental health are prevalent in AUS. Fortunately, a range of
convenient and inexpensive mood-altering products has been developed
for every long-term need.
Diamond gets shooting license back
May be too late for Olympics
Sydney. NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney says he's lifted the
suspension of Oly shooter Michael Diamond's gun license. Last wk, 31
yo Diamond was cleared by QB Local Court of kicking and pulling his
girlfriend's hair in a car park. No conviction has been recorded
against Diamond on another charge of not securing a firearm. Despite
his aquittal on all charges, Diamond's participation in the Athens
Games was under a cloud today because the Police Commissioner hasn't
formally returned the license.
Markets
Sydney (close). The All Ords closed down 5 pts. The NAB was down 41
c to $A30.60. The new CEO says he's prepared to take lower profits to
institute better risk management. He labelled the rouge trading as
"not just bad trades, but fraud". Investors are concerned about plans
for restructuring the bank after Cicutto's resignation and a $350 mn
loss from phoney FX trades. News Corp was also down. In Japan, the
Nikkei closed up 17 pts at 10,465. The Hang Seng lost 56 pts to end
at 13,031. Gold is trading around $US400.13/oz. The AUD is also
lower, at 76-and-1/3 US c.
{{
1 am
London. Hecklers have interrupted the reading of the report into David
Kelly's death in Parliament as the Blair govt faced increasing
pressure over its decision to go to war in Iraq based on flawed intel.
Islamabad. Top nuclear scientist A Q Khan has appeared on nat'l TV in
Pakistan, to take full responsibility for all proliferation activities
of the labs he headed for the past 25 y. He said he'd acted in good
faith, but asked the Pres for forgiveness. He said Pres Musharraf
would decide what to do next.
Previously, critics had doubted Khan had made the confession govt
officials had reported.
Khan said he'd been confronted with the evidence and admits much of it
is true. He apologised to the nation.
What's emerging is a black market network with far-flung agents,
even in Europe.
The network spreads not just the means to enrich uranium, but even
blueprints for warheads.
Khan said he'd worked with the knowledge of 3 Pakistani generals, incl
Musharraf, but he didn't have their permission.
He said he'd worked with countries designated in the US as "Axil of
Evil" to deflect world attention from Pakistan's own nuke program.
2 am
London. Parliament has begun debating the Hutton report. PM Blair
started by pointing out he'd been cleared from all allegations of
mis-representation. And the BBC had been proved 100% wrong. He took
issue with fresh concerns about intel. Blair says a former MoD snr
analyst was wrong that key aspects of Iraqi intel had been held back.
But he then went on to indicate some info was too secret to be seen by
the MoD analyst. He was not ashamed to take Brit to war, despite the
intel mistakes. It was the right decision, he said.
Israeli PM Sharon says he's considering a referendum on the question of
moving Jewish settlements out of the Gaza Strip. Other officials say
Sharon's considering other options as well, incl fresh elections and a
unity govt. The comments come after several members of Sharon's ruling
Likud signalled their "discontent" with his apparent change in direction.
Another Thai boy has died from bird flu. He was 5 yo. No part of
Asia is safe from the flu, says the WHO. 50 mn chickens in 10
countries have been killed so far, but the virus continues to spread.
China's asked for help from the FAO. That's because in just 1 wk 1/3
of China's provs have apparently been affected by the disease. Some
observers say China has been covering up the spread for ms.
In Italy, PM Silvio Berlusconi is moving to prevent children from going
to political rallies. The law will carry a $2,500 fine for parents.
The proposal comes after 100s of children, many waving banners and
balloons, took part in a recent demo against a reform of the education system.
3 am
About 1,000 Syrian intellectuals have written an open letter to Pres
Assad, demanding reforms. Prev letters have been ignored without comment.
4 am
A 1/2-time breast bearing stunt at the Superbowl threatens to cost CBS
$mns. The FCC is threatening to fine the network about $US25,000 for
each stn that broadcast the incident. The chair of the FCC says he
was shocked as he watched the event with his young children.
6 am
The Dow is down after negative comments from Cisco. Oil is around
$US33.44/bbl. Gold is relatively stable at $US400.25/oz. The AUD is
travelling around 76.19 US c.
There is new evidence of intel bungles in Brit. Brit PM Tony Blair
has admitted he didn't understand key parts of the Iraqi WMD intel.
The same intel he tried to use to convince Brit to follow the US into
war in Iraq. Blair says he didn't understand that the "45 mins" claim
only referred to short-range, conventional weapons. In Parliament,
Blair had last y said Iraq was an imminent threat because its bio- and
chem- stockpiles could be readied for war within as little as 45 mins.
Meanwhile, protesters dressed as judges and saying Blair lied threw
white paint at Downing St to demonstrate the Hutton inquiry was a whitewash.
Protesters also shouted criticism from the gallery in Parliament
during the Hutton debate.
Blair says he's not ashamed to have taken Brit to war. The world is a
now safer place, he says. And we're better able to combat WMD as a
result of the example of Iraq, he added.
Meanwhile, US Def Sec Rumsfeld was under pressure at a Senate hearing.
Ted Kennedy was making Rummy sweat.
Rumsfeld is still asking for more time to find WMD stockpiles in Iraq.
He said the hole Saddam was found in could have contained enough bio
weapons to kill 1000s of human beings.
Elsewhere, the CIA has also weighed in on the WMD debate, indicating
it's reports were cherry-picked by political leaders.
Yet elsewhere, Aussie PM Howard is digging in his heals in over the
WMD problem. He also says he's not ashamed to be another politician who
followed US advice into GWII. It was the best thing to do, says Howard.
Midday.
PM Howard says he has experience. Mark Latham says the PM's got
experience all right -- bad experience. Experiences that've seen
household debt increase and older people put on long waiting lists to
have their teeth fixed.
At an internat'l conf in Bali, US A-G John Ashcroft says internat'l
investigators would be given access to accused terrorist Hambali. No
time has been set for the contact. Hambali is presently in US custody,
undergoing interrogation. Indonesia has been upset because it's been
unable to access the suspect in connection with other terrorist cases.
Bali. Alex Downer says 200 JI members had been captured, but the
terror organisation had not been disabled.
SYD. The Supreme Court is hearing an appeal by Rivkin's appeal
against his conviction. It's almost 1 y since the conviction. He was
sentenced to 9 m periodic detention and fined $A30,000. He served
only 1 night in prison and collapsed. It was subsequently found he
had brain tumours. 3 ops later, his medical condition has so far
prevented his return to prison. Today, Rivkin was in hospital,
allegedly being examined in preparation for DVT treatments. Rivkin
and hus lawyers have said the tumours might have explained his
irritable personality. One judge had complained of Rivkin's "display
of contemptuous arrogance" during his trial. At the appeal, the
conviction could be quashed. If that tactic falls through , Rivkin's
lawyers will try to prevent his return to prison this weekend.
N Wales has seen the worst floods in 20 y in the past 24 hrs. Some
locations have seen 160 mm over the period. The town of Trefiw has
been cut off by floodwaters for the 2nd time in as many days.
Torrents are running off the nearby mtns. Water is at chest height.
The main rlwy line is washed out. Home-owners are preparing for a 2nd
night of flooding.
Following national broadcasts featuring a suspected kidnapper leading a
young girl away from an ATM, police say a suspect has been taken
into custody. The child abduction was caught on a bank video camera.
But there's no sign of the young girl. She's been missing for 3 days.
6.30 pm
Australia has announced $30 mn in funding for a joint AUS/Indon
anti-terrorism centre to be located in Jakarta. AFP chief Keelty says
security concerns are a major consideration. The centre could become a
target for terrorist attacks. Alex Downer has indicated the facility
will be used as a regional resource. Already, the US is funding the
training of anti-terrorism police in Indonesia. Pix showed armoured
soldiers throwing stun grenades into mock-up rooms and then gunning
down every target in the area.
Before a Senate Armed Services Committee Don Rumsfeld has refused to
concede intel agencies made a mistake in their WMD assessment of
Iraq. He's asked for more time to find them. He says even Saddam's
spider hole could have been used to hide WMD.
Elsewhere, Kofi Annan has said he's always cautious when given US
intel, and seeks to verify claims with other sources.
A prev little-known group in N Iraq has claimed responsibility for a
double bombing attack that killed more than 100 people.
Doubts have been raised over whether Sen John Kerry can carry on with
his campaign. Looking tired and drawn, Kerry's withdrawn to his home.
Elsewhere John Edwards and Wes Clark jabbed at the other leading
candidates. John Kerry doesn't have the Jul convention locked up yet.
So far he has 265 of the 2,161 delegates needed to clinch the
nomination. The biggest challenge may come from within. This wk
Kerry's reportedly been dead tired and suffering from a cold. He's
retired to his Boston home for rest.
The US Chamber of Commerce has called on the Bush Admin not to listen
to the narrow views of special interest groups in the US/AUS FTA.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered a 2nd review of the barring of 100s
of election candidates, incl 80 standing deputies.
Sharon says he'd welcome a referendum on the Gaza pull-out.
Critics say he's announced the plan to draw attention away from a
growing bribery scandal.
But on the advice of the A-G, police will interview the PM today.
Police must determine whether, in accepting the money, Sharon knew it
to be a bribe.
Sharon adviser Ranaan Gissin says the PM is only too happy to put the
withdrawal idea to a referendum.
But he already has the numbers to get it through the Knesset.
Elsewhere, an Israeli diplomat stationed in the US that's spoken out
against the settlement removal has, himself, been removed.
In a sign the US-backed road map is not ready for the dustbin yet,
Saeb Erekat has said Sharon and Arafat will meet for talks, focusing
on the barrier in and around the W bank.
7 pm
Oly shooter Michael Diamond has his shooter's licence back. It was
returned on condition the firearm is locked up when not in use.
Diamond had prev admitted guilt to the charge the weapon was not secured.
Communications orders in the US are down 18% in Jan, depressing tech
stocks around the world. Communications equipment incl Internet
routers and related equipment.
ABC TV. New data out today shows the Aussie economy is dramatically
vulnerable to int rates, and the markets know it. The data shows over
the past 10 y avg household income has climbed 250% in real terms.
But a mirror graph shows disposable household earnings have been taken
out of paying off the mortgage and spent.
The AUD is presently trading around 76.12 US c.
9.30 pm
SBS TV. The Pakistan Cabinet has recommended a pardon for A Q Khan.
Tonight Pak police formally arrested 5 colleagues of the father of the
bomb, who have all been held incommunicado for 3 m.
Observes say the events have been carefully choreographed by
Washington, which is not keen to destabilise the Musharraf govt.
Critics say the televised confession of A Q Khan was made under duress.
The top Pak scientist has claimed responsibility for all internat'l
transfers of nuke technology and info to other countries.
Khan also claimed he acted alone.
The IAEA is now concerned that others have benefitted from the leaks,
and wants to know exactly who they are.
Observers say Khan's claim he acted alone is also "not believable".
With the Pak military intent on developing the bomb, it's inconceivable
the they were not involved in escorting and transferring equipment to
Iran and Libya.
There was also tremendous support by the Pak military for the Afghan
Taliban at the time. The support was only ended by Musharraf.
If there have been meetings between nuke specialists and terrorists,
it will prove a big worry for the Pak govt and the world as a whole.
9.45 pm
Bird flu. The official toll this y now stands at 17 following the
death of 1 person in Vietnam today. The WHO has called on Asian
nations to immediately stop the cull of birds, calling on them to
start vaccination of healthy birds instead.
Already under investigation for over-charging US taxpayers for
imported petrol into oil-rich Iraq, Halliburton is now under the
microscope for a Nigerian oil deal. Headed by US VP Dick Cheney at
the time, the company is accused of taking $A236 mn in kick-backs in
the Nigerian project.
We are one team, but we have 2 brands, said the head of Myers, Dawn
Robinson, today. But we need one brand, she added. After ys of
marketing 2 names, the American CEO says the company will move to drop
the name "Grace Bros". Despite some expected consumer resistance,
analysts expect consumers to forget the change within a matter of wks.
Oil is down around $US1 to $US33.06/oz. Traders are waiting a G7
meeting over the weekend that will decide the direction for the USD.
10 pm
Aviation history has been made, yet again. The longest non-stop
flight has been made by one of the new Airbuses. It left LA and arrived
in Singapore 18 hrs and 7 mins today. Despite the increased risk of
DVT, most passengers were delighted with the reduced journey time.
11.30 pm
A new poll of talk-back radio finds that Fed Opp'n leader Mark Latham
is engaging with the majority of callers. It finds 51% of callers
agree with or support Mark Latham. Only 35% of callers support PM John
Howard. Meanwhile, Latham -- who topped his y at an ag college -- was
touring rural NSW today, apparently showing a Labor leader can be
credible in the bush. Latham told reporters he learned that before
examining a cow it was SOP to put on the gloves.
}}
----------------------------------------
Fri, 06 Feb 2004.
Markets
NY. The Dow has closed up 25 pts at 10,496. Gold closed down $1.95 to
$US397.75. Light sweet crude for Mar delivery barely moved ahead of
an OPEC meeting. It was trading around $US33.03/bbl. A report out
today showed US reserves have surged. In London, the FTSE closed down
14 pts at 4,384. The Bank of London has increased rates to 4%. In
Germany, the Dax also closed down 14 pts to 4,015. The ECB left rates
there on hold, at 2%. The AUD is higher at 76.46 US c.
Guerrillas massacre 52 refugees in N Uganda
Kampala. A Catholic missionary says guerrillas have massacred 52
people and injured scores of others during an attack on a camp for the
war-displaced in N Uganda. Comboni missionary Farther Sebath Ayele
says the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) rebels entered the camp and
burned down 200 huts and started killing people. Some 44 people were
killed in the raid. Another 8 died later from wounds in Lira hospital.
Building toll climbs to 43
Ankara. Turkish TV has reported the death toll from the collapse of a
10-storey building in a C district has risen to 43. Officials say
faulty construction of the 36-apartment building to buckle in an
affluent district of Konya. The city is 250 km S of Ankara. The
Konya building collapsed during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha
when some families were entertaining guests, making it difficult to
estimate the actual number of people trapped inside.
37 killed in Chinese bridge collapse
Beijing. Chinese govt officials have expressed deep concern after at
least 27 people were killed and 15 others injured when a crowd
stampeded during a holiday gathering outside Beijing. The incident
occurred on the final day of the country's Lunar New Year celebrations.
Officials from Pres Hu Jiantao's office have immediately expressed
"deep concern" and ordered an investigating into the accident, and the
mayor of Beijing was on the scene -- about 70 km from the Chinese
capital -- supervising.
20 killed in Kashmir violence
Srinagar. 20 people have been killed in attacks across Indian Kashmir
on the deadliest day there since Pakistan and India agreed to resume
talks 1 m ago. 9 Islamic rebels and an Indian army officer were
killed in a gun-battle in the N Kupwara district. Police say 3 of the
guerrillas' bodies were so charred they could not be recovered.
Earlier, 4 troops from the army's counter-insurgency wing were
killed when their bus ran over a land mine in the forests of the C
Anantnag district.
Musharraf pardons nuclear leaks
Islamabad. Pakistan's Pres Pervez Musharraf has pardoned the father
of the country's atomic bomb after A Q Khan confessed to selling
nuclear secrets to at least 3 other countries, incl N Korea.
Musharraf accepted Abdul Qadeer Khan's plea for mercy after he took
sole responsibility for the technology transfers. Earlier today, the
Cabinet sent a recommendation to Musharraf that Khan be pardoned. Any
other decision would have been extremely unpopular. In a televised
apology, Khan said the leaks were made without govt permission. But he
indicated 3 Generals, incl the Pres, had known about his activities.
In the US, CIA dir George Tenet said US intel had broken Khan's
smuggling ring after "daring raids" over a number of ys.
CIA dir defends agency WMD assessments
Tenet denies political pressure.
Washington. In his first public defence of pre-war intel, CIA dir
George Tenet has said US analysts had given a considered and objective
assessment of Iraq's WMD capabilities and intentions, and had never
claimed before the war it posed an "imminent" threat. Tenet says
analysts had varying opinions on several major points, but those
differences were spelled out in the Oct 2002 Nat'l Intel Estimate
given to the Bush Whitehouse. He says analysts painted an objective
assessment for the policy makers. Tenet disagreed with weapons inspector
David Kay, arguing the search is not 85% complete, and there's plenty
more to do. He said he still expects WMD stockpiles to be found in Iraq.
Iran election dispute stalls
Tehran. Iran's Deputy Speaker says hard-liners have scuppered a
compromise deal to resolve the country's election dispute and allow
free polls to take place on Feb 20. Mohammad Reza Khatami says the
party he leads, the Islamic Iran Participation Front -- the country's
largest reform group -- will maintain its boycott of the
parliamentary elections. He says the elections will not be legal and
free so his party will not participate.
Latham wins talk-back radio
Canberra. Opp'n leader Mark Latham appears to have won the start of
the phoney election campaign. A breakdown of talk-back radio callers
by media monitors Rehame has found Mr Latham winning the majority of
support, and Mr Howard going backwards. Rehame found 51% of callers
who mentioned Mr Latham expressed support for him. But only 35% of
callers expressed support for Mr Howard.
[Of course, talk-back radio callers arte not a statistically random
sample. Despite govt poll-icies being apparently driven by such things,
it guarantees little about popular opinion].
Aussie POWs to be honoured at permanent memorial
Melbourne. Nearly 35,000 Aussie former POW's will be honoured at a
giant permanent memorial to be launched in C Vic today. ADF Chief Gen
Peter Cosgrove will lead the dedication of the 130-m-long Australian
Ex-Prisoner of War Memorial in Ballarat Botanical Gardens from 11 am.
More than 6,000 people -- incl some 500 former POWs -- are expected the
attend the launch. The monument honours Aussies held prisoner during
WWI and WWII, and the Boer and Korean wars.
Melbourne ranked top world city
London. Melbourne has again been ranked the best city in the world,
retaining the title from last y. It topped a survey of 130 cities
around the world, beating out 4 other competing Aussie capitals --
because its 4-seasons-in-a-day weather rated the best. The Economist
Intelligence Unit survey ranked MEL, Vancouver and Vienna the best
cities in the world to call home, with Perth 4th, Adelaide 5th, and
due to some mental defect on the part of judges -- Bris and SYD equal 6th.
3 injured in Qld bush crash
Brisbane. 3 people are severely injured and 2 remain trapped in
wreckage after a commercial coach was involved in an accident on the
Qld coast. Qld police say the coach carrying 23 passengers crashed on
the Bruce Hgwy between Bloomsbury and Prosperpine. 3 people are
severely injured, 2 people -- incl the bus driver -- remain trapped in
the wreckage and up to 7 other people are injured. Ambulance and
police are still at the scene.
Sydney rail back to work
Sydney. With newspaper headlines blaring "It Stinks!", the SYD rail
network is back to normal today after a gas leak brought the city to a
halt yesterday, forcing the evacuation of some stns and stranding 1000s
of rail commuters. Stns on the City Circle were closed for nearly 4
hrs as emergency workers tried to pinpoint the source of a leak,
detected at Town Hall stn about 1.45 pm. SYD's main transport hub at
Central was also closed as growing crowds and a lack of trains to take
them away threatened public safety.
Qld leaders to debate before Sat poll
Brisbane. Qld's political leaders will face off in US-style televised
debate in the last chance to score cheap points and impress voters
ahead of the state's poll tomorrow. Prem Beattie and Opp'n leader
Springborg will meet at the Bris Convention Centre for the debate which
will be staged at a business luncheon. One of the items high on the
agenda will be how each of the major players can afford to fund their
election promises. Mr Beattie says he believes the election will be close.
[Springborg says Beattie has taken Qld farmers for granted, and has
claimed the Coal'n could win back 8 to 11 seats at tomorrow's poll].
{{
12.30 am
IAEA chief Mohamad ElBaradei has described the confession of A Q Khan as
"the tip of the iceberg" in the world-wide trafficking of nuclear technology.
Pres Musharraf has just announced A Q Khan has been pardoned.
A Morrocan student has been cleared by a German court of involvement
with 9/11 plotters. But he may still be deported to Morocco, or
handed to the US for trial. The prosecution says it's considering an
appeal. The judge told the defendant the result was not a cause for
celebration. He had not been found innocent, said the judge, but the
case was dismissed because there was insufficient evidence to the
contrary [!!?].
UN health experts warn the bird flu is not under control. It could
spread to other regions, says the WHO. It's called on the internat'l
community to help.
The Zimbabwe Supreme Court has throw out a legal challenge to the
country's controversial media laws. A journalist group challenged the
laws that made it an offence to work as a journalist without a govt
license. The group has argued the law violated the right of free expression.
Tory leader Michael Howard says claims from Tony Blair he didn't
understand the details of the WMD evidence raise serious questions
about his premiership.
If I was PM, and didn't understand the evidence, and committed the
county to war, I would be very seriously considering my position now,
Howard told the BBC.
Def Sec Hoon says he'd believed Iraqi WMD could be deployed only on
the battlefield.
Mr Hoon has been giving evidence to a parliamentary committee this
morning. He says the 45-min claim only became an issue after
Gilligan's unfounded "Today" program.
Hoon says he had asked the MoD what the 45-min claim meant. He said
he had not mentioned it to the PM, because it was not related to
taking the country to war.
Apparently the PM had not bothered to clarify its meaning.
However, then For Sec Robin Cook has said he talked to Blair about the
meaning of the claim at the time. Cook says he'd eventually asked
the MoD what the claim meant, and is surprised the PM did not ask.
Parliamentarians say they may have voted differently on the decision
to go to war if they'd know what the claim meant.
Downing St says the media is re-writing history, and the meaning of
the claim wasn't an issue at the time.
A legal review is underway into child abuse cases in Brit from
the 60s to 80s.
The Court of Appeal has been joined by the Historical Abuse Appeal
Panel in a legal review of selected cases where most of the evidence
came from the victim.
The case cover about 100 teachers and carers that may have been
wrongly convicted of child abuse.
The Panel is a joint inquiry by jurists and lawyers.
Reps say many of the convictions under review come from former pupils
and residential care patients that may have been motivated by money.
This morning the Court quashed the conviction of a care worker
convicted of abusing a boy more than 10 y ago.
A residential care teacher told the BBC threats from students were common.
He says his home had been invaded by a man using a mountain bike as a
battering ram, all the same time demanding money.
He made it plain, says the teacher, that a claim might be made against
him if he failed to pay up.
2 of the teacher's colleagues had already been dismissed following
claims of sex abuse.
Brit PM Tony Blair says the 10 countries joining the EU in May could
pose a risk to Brit. He proposes cutting back welfare benefits to
immigrants.
But the EC says such a restriction would be discriminatory and
therefore illegal under EU rules.
Brit had prev said it will keep its borders open after E Europe joins
the bloc later this y.
Germany had gone on the record saying it will keep refugees from the
new entrants out.
Brit has now shifted position.
Of all EU15 nations, only Ireland bas given a legally binding promise
to keep its borders open after the expansion.
London. Researchers have found pigeons use roads to navigate. While
they initially use the sun to get bearings, they quickly learn the
layout of the roads. They also use railway lines. While pigeon
fanciers admit pigeons these days do seem to follow motorways, it
could be coincidence because the roads have been built across their
routes. The researchers say they've tracked the pigeons' routes,
down to an accuracy of several m, and have even seen pigeons turn off
at particular motorway junctions.
2 am
BBC World News. CIA dir G Tenet is giving a speech in the US. He
denies there was any political pressure put on intel agencies to
deliver a pre-defined result. He has also defended the record of his
agency. Saddam was a danger to the world, and was trying to get
long-range missiles. But analysts had never claimed before the war
that Iraq posed an imminent threat. Analysts had different opinions.
But they provided a balanced and objective assessment to their
political bosses. They agreed Saddam was a brutal dictator who posed
a danger to US interests. Saddam may have had the intention to
develop bio or chem weapons at some time in the future, but Tenet
conceded that no evidence of such weapons or programs have yet been found.
The chairman of Royal Dutch Shell has apologised to shareholders for
the over-estimate of the company's proven reserves. But he says he
will not resign over the mistake. Last m the company down-graded their
proven reserves by 20%. Shell has announced it had only 11 y worth of
oil reserves. It also announced profits were down around 30%.
Overnight, $US15 bn was wiped off the value of the company. The CEO
exacerbated the sit'n by failing to turn up to an investor briefing
after the announcement.
4 am
37 people have been killed at a fireworks display about 70 km from
Beijing. At least a dozen other people have been injured. Crowds
were celebrating a lantern festival at the end of the first wk of the
Chinese New Year. The dozens of victims were suffocated as the crowd
surged on a bridge. Witnesses say at least 20 ambulances were sent to
the scene. They say some people fell over the edge of the bridge.
Dozens of parents are searching in freezing conditions for their
children at the scene of the accident. [Later reports are calling
this a "bridge collapse"].
5 am
The Bank of England has raised int rates by 1/4 pt to 4%. In Europe,
the ECB has left rates on hold at 2%.
Najaff. 4 masked gunmen have attempted to assassinate leading Shi'ite
cleric Ali al-Sistani. Following the attack, the ayatollah has been
taken into protective custody at a "location he normally does not
reside at". Al-Sistani had been calling for direct elections before
the hand-over of power to the US-appointed govt in Baghdad. A UN team
is on the way to Iraq to check the possibility of a direct election
before the hand-over.
7.30 am
The West Australian newspaper reports US business people are rorting a
business migration scheme. US businessmen are reportedly settling
their wives and children in WA under a plan to fast-track residency
for entrepreneurs who start businesses. The paper says while the plan
requires the immigrants to work or start businesses that employ
Aussies, most of those settling in WA have done neither.
The Dow is up 27 pts. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 9 pts. Gold is
down almost $2 at $US397.75/oz. The FTSE closed down 14 pts. The AUD
is travelling around 76.46 US c.
MEL's dam levels have increased slightly, following wks of water
restrictions and rain last wk that led to flash flooding.
Rene Rivkin's family says the convicted inside trader will not be
turning up to Silverwater jail this evening to continue his 8 m
sentence of weekend detention. Previously, the courts have warned
Rivkin it will be a serious matter if he flouts the law and ignores
the order to resume his sentence. Rivkin is reportedly undergoing
treatment for DVT. He was reportedly taken to hospital last night. His
lawyers lost an appeal against the conviction and sentence yesterday.
They are due to make a last-ditch appeal later today.
[A later report -- roughly -- said the story of Rivkin's shuttle
between medical and legal authorities took a familiar turn, with
Rikvin reportedly being transferred from hospital to a psychiatric
clinic on the eve of his scheduled return to jail].
Latest opinion polls show Peter Beattie will be re-elected tomorrow
with a healthy margin, winning at least 60 of the 80 seats on
offer. But a promised bypass on the C Qld coast has some residents up
in arms, with notice that more than a dozen homes will be compulsorily
purchased and demolished for the freeway nr the NSW border.
Australia independent prescribing service has advised Aussie doctors
women can use HRT for up to 2 y without side-effects. About 1/3 of
women had dropped the treatment after news of increased risks of
cancer and other problems from O/S research.
8 am
Reporters are making light of an incident during one of Pres Bush's
speeches, defending his decision to go to war despite the failure to
find WMD or recent WMD programs in Iraq. While Mr Bush is gradually
coming around to the position of admitting problems with pre-war
intel, he follows such indications with a passionate defence of his
defence of US strategic interests in the region. In a speech today Mr
Bush's speech was interrupted by what sounded like automatic gunfire.
The Pres didn't even flinch, and just continued his speech. Engineers
later said it was a problem with the sound system. Cynics claim the
Pres didn't react to the 4 seconds of loud noise because "Duck!"
wasn't written on his speech.
8.30 am
Melbourne has topped a new poll for "best city in the world".
[Ho, hum...].
The Dean campaign has send an email to supporters saying Wisconsin is
Dean's last chance to gain momentum in the Dem primary race. The
campaign has called on supporters to donate $US50 so it can blanket
Wisconsin before the primary. They say polling there indicates Dean
is neck and neck with front-running John Kerry.
9 am
NY state is facing a revolt from city lawmakers over funding for
primary and pre-schools. The courts have now ruled that NY must
inject more money into improving schools around the state. Today, the
govt has announced the bill will be $US7 bn over the next 4 y. The
state already spends $US14 bn on primary and pre-school education.
The case came after NYC legally challenged the state's funding formula
for schools. More than 1/2 the new money will go into inner-city NY
schools. Poorer schools in other cities will also be boosted. The
money will go into into class-size reductions and expanding pre-schools.
But observers say a state budget shortfall of $US4 to 5 bn will mean
the boosted spending can't proceed this y.
9.30 am
The number of cases of suspected or confirmed bird flu in China has climbed
to 28. It's only been 1 wk since China was "officially" free of the virus.
}}
========================================
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