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(10/22/02 6:58am)
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea said Monday that it was willing to negotiate over its nuclear weapons program if the United States withdraws its "hostile policy" toward the communist country.\nThe comments by Kim Yong Nam, the North's ceremonial head of state, were unlikely to mollify the United States, which has said North Korea's nuclear program is a nonnegotiable issue and must be dismantled immediately.\nKim made the remarks in a meeting with South Korean delegates in Pyongyang, the North's capital, according to South Korean pool reports.\nThe comments were the North's first official response to a U.S. announcement last week that the communist country had admitted to having a nuclear weapons program in violation of international agreements.\n"We consider the recent situation seriously," pool reports quoted Kim as telling the chief South Korean delegate, Jeong Se-hyun. "If the United States is willing to withdraw its hostile policy toward the North, the North also is ready to resolve security concerns through dialogue."\nNorth Korea has repeatedly accused the United States of plotting to overthrow its government, and has long called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.\nIn Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush was "concerned" by the North's admission to having the weapons program.\n"The president is concerned about this revelation and the fact that North Korea is pursuing a program in violation of their given word and in violation of an agreed framework that North Korea committed itself to," Fleischer said Monday. "And it is a source of concern, and we continue the talk with our allies in the region about it."\nSouth Korean President Kim Dae-jung, whose policy of engaging North Korea is under severe pressure because of the revelation about the nuclear program, said the South's national security was at stake.\n"The danger of North Korea's nuclear weapons development and other weapons of mass destruction should be eliminated completely," Kim said in Seoul.\nThe meeting with Kim Yong Nam took place before the two sides reconvened another round of talks. After receiving five South Korean delegates as a group, the leader met the chief South Korean delegate privately for 50 minutes, according to reports by South Korean journalists.\n"Both sides were in agreement that the issues raised recently should be resolved expeditiously through dialogue," the reports quoted Rhee Bong-jo, a South Korean spokesman, as saying.
(10/22/02 6:58am)
WASHINGTON -- A bitterly divided Supreme Court refused Monday to consider ending the execution of killers who were under 18 when they committed their crimes.\nFour justices said the court should continue a reexamination of the death penalty begun in earnest last year. The court recently abolished executions for the mentally retarded.\nThe court passed up a chance to reopen the question of whether executing very young killers violates the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment." Currently, states that allow the death penalty may impose it on killers who were 16 or 17 at the time of their crimes.\n"The practice of executing such offenders is a relic of the past and is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency in a civilized society," wrote Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. "We should put an end to this shameful practice."\nBreyer also wrote separately to say the court should consider a second death penalty case that asks whether it was unconstitutional to leave inmates for decades on death row. He said Florida inmate Charles Foster has spent more than 27 years in prison and "if executed, Foster, now 55, will have been punished both by death and also by more than a generation spent in death row's twilight. It is fairly asked whether such punishment is both unusual and cruel."\nJustice Clarence Thomas disagreed, writing his own opinion to say that Foster "could long ago have ended his anxieties and uncertainties by submitting to what the people of Florida have deemed him to deserve: execution."\nJustices refused without comment to consider Foster's case, as well as the case of a Kentucky man sentenced to death for abducting, sodomizing and killing a gas station attendant when he was 17. The body of the 20-year-old victim was left sprawled over the rear seat of her mother's car, with her jeans and underwear pulled to her ankles. She had been shot in the face.\nProsecutors said Kevin Nigel Stanford bragged about what he and two other teenagers had done.\nStanford, now 39, has been on death row since 1982. In 1989, the high court used Stanford's case to uphold juvenile executions.\nOnly the United States and a handful of other countries allow execution of juvenile killers, and Stanford's lawyers argued that such executions violate not only the Constitution but an international treaty signed by the United States.\nNeither this case nor last term's landmark ruling on the mentally retarded address the constitutionality or morality of the death penalty as a whole.\nLike the retardation question, the issue of juvenile killers turns on the individuals' capacity to understand their situation, and their level of culpability. Also like the retardation question, this one questions whether the country has changed its mind about what kind of punishment is appropriate.\nThe court relied heavily on the actions of state legislatures in deciding to ban executions of the retarded. On that issue, the court said the large number of states that had acted on their own to ban such executions showed that the nation no longer supported the practice.\n"In the last 13 years, a national consensus has developed that juvenile offenders should not be executed," Stevens wrote in the dissent.\nThe court's refusal to hear the case was expected. A delay seemed likely because it would give more state legislatures a chance to do their own reexamination of the practice, much as they did with the retardation issue.\nCurrently, 16 of the 38 states that allow the death penalty prohibit it for those under 18. The federal government also prohibits the practice for juveniles prosecuted in federal court. Two states, Montana and Indiana, have enacted their prohibition laws since the court last considered the Stanford case in 1989.\n"The evolving norms of decency have come to the point where we as a country have decided it's no longer appropriate to execute the mentally retarded. I think the time has also come to reassess whether it is no longer appropriate to execute our children," said Margaret O'Donnell, a lawyer for Stanford.
(10/22/02 6:58am)
WASHINGTON -- President Bush signed a get-tough-on-Sudan resolution Monday meant to prod the government of Africa's largest nation toward ending a 20-year-old war that has killed some 2 million people.\nThe measure formally condemns human rights violations, alleges the Sudanese government uses food as a weapon and directs the president to impose sanctions against Sudan if he determines its government isn't negotiating in good faith.\nThe government of Sudan signed an agreement with rebels last Tuesday to suspend fighting during talks to end their 20-year-old war. The cease-fire paved the way for the government to lift a ban on relief flights to the southern Equatoria region Sunday.\nKnown as the Sudan Peace Act, the resolution carries a variety of possible penalties against Sudan if it negotiates in bad faith. The sanctions could include a downgrade of diplomatic relations, a United Nations arms embargo and attempts to deny the government use of its oil revenues. Bush signed it in the Roosevelt Room, with former Republican Sen. John Danforth of Missouri, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Sudanese religious and community leaders.\nIt would authorize $300 million over the next three years for peace efforts--money Congress would have to provide in separate legislation.\nSince 1983 some 2 million people have died in Sudan's civil war between the Muslim-dominated government and rebels seeking greater autonomy for the south. From the outside the conflict is often viewed as a religious war, but competition for oil, land and other resources also fuel it. Terrorist leader Osama bin Laden lived in Sudan for years.\n"The signing of the Sudan Peace Act into law represents an important step forward on the road to peace for Africa's longest civil war," said Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.\n"The Sudan Peace Act maintains the pressure on the warring parties to resolve their conflict, demonstrates the continued interest of the United States in finding a lasting peace in this troubled nation and provides desperately needed assistance for the people of southern Sudan," Johnson said.
(10/22/02 6:29am)
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration said Monday it has revised a proposal to the U.N. Security Council to force Iraq to disarm and said officials were circulating the text for approval.\nThe resolution carries the clear message that Iraq would be disarmed by force if it did not agree to surrender its weapons of mass destruction, said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.\n"We're also making clear it is time to wrap this up," Boucher said.\nThe revised text, developed jointly with Britain, was being circulated first among the other permanent members of the Security Council--France, Russia and China--and then was to be distributed among the 10 other members of the Security Council.\nFrance, Russia and China have all opposed threatening Iraq with force, and could kill any resolution with a veto.\nAmerican diplomats have negotiated the proposal for five weeks and the views of other nations have been taken into account, Boucher said, without providing any details.\nAt the same time, the White House and State Department said it was unrealistic to think that President Saddam Hussein will yield to international demands that he disarm.\nThe aim of the parallel statements appeared to be to dampen suggestions by Secretary of State Colin Powell that Saddam could remain in power provided the nature of his regime changed through disarmament.\nU.S. policy remains to seek a change of leadership in Baghdad, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.\n"Clearly, if Iraq did all the things the president called on them to do, which they seem to have no inclination to do, then the very nature of the regime would have changed," he said. "But I don't think it's realistic for anybody to think that Saddam Hussein has any intention of leading his regime to change."\nOn Sunday, Powell said, "All we are interested in is getting rid of those weapons of mass destruction."\nFleischer said discussion of letting Saddam stay is pointless until the Iraqi leader demonstrates he is willing to change.\n"Let the change of ways take place and ask me about it after it takes place, and we'll discuss it," Fleischer said. "This is one of the greatest stretches of the hypotheticals, of the possibles, of the unlikelies, that we could possibly, hypothetically discuss."\n"We think the Iraqi people would be a lot better off with a different leader, a different regime," Powell said on NBC's "Meet the Press." on Sunday. "But the principal offense here is weapons of mass destruction," he said, "and that's what this resolution is working on. The major issue before us is disarmament."\n"The issue right now is not even how tough an inspection regime is or isn't," Powell said. "The question is, will Saddam and the Iraqi regime cooperate--really,really cooperate--and let the inspectors do their job.
(10/22/02 6:27am)
KARKUR JUNCTION, Israel -- A car pulled alongside a commuter bus and exploded Monday, trapping passengers in the flaming vehicle. Sixteen people were killed and 30 wounded in what police said was a suicide attack.\nTwo bombers were among the 16 dead, police said. The militant Islamic Jihad movement claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place in the afternoon rush hour in northern Israel.\nIn a letter faxed to The Associated Press in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, Islamic Jihad said the bombing was in "retaliation for the series of massacres committed by the criminal enemy against our people." It cited recent Israeli military operations that have resulted in Palestinian civilian deaths in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.\nIsrael's army launched military strikes in an effort to prevent suicide attacks, which have now claimed the lives of 292 people--not including the bombers--in the past two years of violence. There have been 79 suicide attacks over that period.\nThe powerful blast Monday happened several miles inland from the coastal town of Hadera, at Karkur Junction. The intense flames sent plumes of smoke into the sky and initially prevented police and rescue workers from approaching the bus.\n"The explosion was so strong that I fell to the floor," Michael Ithaki, a passenger who was sitting behind the bus driver, told Army Radio. "I looked back and quickly got off the bus, then it burst into flames."\nThere were several soldiers aboard the bus, at least one of whom was killed.\n"We succeeded in getting one soldier off the bus," he added. "Two minutes after that more explosions started ... and we couldn't get on the bus because it was on fire. Some of the soldiers climbed out the windows and survived."\nThe Hadera area has been a frequent target of Palestinian militants who have carried out dozens of bomb attacks in the Mideast in the past two years of violence. Although Hadera is on Israel's Mediterranean coast, it is only a few miles from the northern West Bank, where many of the suicide bombers have come from.\nWhite House spokesman Ari Fleischer said of the bombing: "The president condemns the most recent attack in Israel. It's another reminder of how it's so important for peace to be pursued and for terror to be stopped."\nMark Sofer, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said the attack was intended to undermine the visit of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns, who was scheduled to arrive in Israel on Wednesday.\n"Palestinian groups seized the opportunity to carry out yet another murderous attack inside of Israel aimed at innocent civilians, and one can only wonder and wonder again what do they want to achieve except for death, death and more death of innocent people."\nPalestinian leader Yasser Arafat, speaking at his compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah, said: "You know that the Palestinian leadership position is against such attacks that target civilians, Israelis or Palestinians."\nIsrael has said it holds Arafat ultimately responsible, arguing that his security forces have not made a serious attempt to prevent attacks. The Palestinians say Israel's devastating military strikes have rendered their security forces impotent against the militants.\nIsrael responded to the last major bomb attack in September with a 10-day siege of Arafat in which its tanks destroyed much of what was left of his Ramallah compound and such attacks always revive talk among hardline Cabinet ministers of expelling the Palestinian leader.\nThe explosions-laden car apparently came from the Jenin area, in the northern West Bank, police commander Yaakov Borofsky told Israeli Radio.
(10/16/02 10:30pm)
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesian officials interrogated a security guard and another man Tuesday about the deadly nightclub bombing in Bali and said traces of C-4 plastic explosives were found at the scene of the blast.\nWith Indonesia under increasing international pressure to combat terrorism, a violent Muslim group with ties to Indonesia's military disbanded -- the first apparent sign the government was getting serious about moving against Islamic extremism.\nThe announcement by the group, Laskar Jihad, came as the accused spiritual leader of another extremist network linked to the al Qaeda terror network said he would submit to police questioning.\nMost of the nearly 200 victims of Saturday's blast were foreign tourists, and the grim toll prompted calls for Indonesia to crack down on al Qaeda terrorists and local allies blamed for the bombing. President Bush said Monday he planned to talk to Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri about the need to stop terrorism.\n"You cannot pretend it (terrorism) doesn't exist in your country," Secretary of State Colin Powell said, adding he hoped the attack "reinforces Indonesia's determination to deal with this kind of threat."\nPolice spokesman Maj. Gen. Saleh Saaf said police have questioned at least 47 people about the blast -- and that a security guard and another man were being "intensively interrogated." He denied reports the two had been arrested.\nThe second man was the brother of a man whose identification card was found at the blast scene, intelligence officers said on condition of anonymity.\nTraces of the military explosive C-4 -- a puttylike plastic explosive used in the attack two years ago on the USS Cole in Yemen -- were found at the scene, National Police Chief Da'i Bachtiar said. Richard C. Reid, the alleged al Qaeda-trained shoe bomber thwarted on an American Airlines flight, packed explosive that appeared to be C-4 into his shoes.\nIn past cases in Indonesia, whenever C-4 has been found in any bombing it has been traced to the military, raising speculation the explosive was bought or stolen from military stocks.\nDays after the explosion ripped through the jammed Sari Club, Bali was still struggling to cope with the corpses.\nAt the island's main hospital -- now largely used as a morgue -- dozens of volunteers cared for the bodies, icing them down or loading them into refrigerated containers to slow decomposition in the tropical heat. Australia, which lost dozens in the attack, was arranging for the bodies of its citizens to be repatriated.\nDozens of shoulder-high flower wreaths were left at the edge of the morgue, where hundreds of people waited, watched over by armed Indonesian soldiers.\nIndonesia's intelligence chief, Mohamad Abdul Hendropriyono, told reporters his organization was cooperating with foreign agencies in the investigation.\n"This attack has been well planned and it required expertise in handling high-tech (bombs)," he said. "It is a very complicated task and is outside the ability of local hands."\nMegawati's government is in a delicate position -- looking for ways to prevent terrorism without sparking further attacks or unrest in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.\nLaskar Jihad's dissolution is a relatively easy way for Jakarta to show its willingness to fight terrorism, and perhaps gain ground in its efforts to restart American military aid. The group is not suspected in the Bali bombings, but putting it out of operation gives the government much-needed public relations points amid accusations it has turned a blind eye to extremist violence.
(10/16/02 5:41am)
NEW YORK -- Powered by a batch of surprisingly good earnings reports, stocks barreled higher Tuesday, lifting the Dow Jones industrials more than 290 points and back above 8,000.\nThe Dow, which soared as much as 327 points, owed some of its lift to upbeat earnings from three of its components -- Citigroup, General Motors and Johnson & Johnson.\nAll three of the market's major indexes were heading for a four-session winning streak. That's a feat the Dow and Standard & Poor's 500 index last accomplished 10 weeks ago in the period ending Aug. 9. The Nasdaq hasn't had a four-day rally in three months, or since May 17.\nAnalysts said investors were feeling enthusiastic about the earnings reports, having been shaken up in the past few weeks as companies lowered their profit outlooks.\n"We are either manically depressed about (stock) prices or irrationally exuberant. That is what we have today, swinging the other way," said Arthur Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co.\nIn midafternoon trading, the Dow was up 297.62, or 3.8 percent, at 8,175.02, building on a three-day gain of 591.13. The Dow last closed above 8,000 on September 18 when it stood at 8,172.45.
(10/16/02 4:50am)
TOKYO -- Five Japanese kidnapped a quarter-century ago by North Korean spies returned to Japan on Tuesday in the nation's most emotional homecoming since troops returned from World War II.\nThe abductees' chartered jet touched down at Tokyo's Haneda airport after picking them up earlier in the day from the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.\nStepping off the plane in crisp suits and dresses, the returnees clung to each other and erupted into tears and then broad smiles as they hugged family members waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Waving Japanese flags, family members showered them with large bouquets of red and pink roses.\nDuring the two-hour flight, they were treated to a Japanese style lunch of tuna sashimi, grilled beef and soba noodles, as well as welcome-home notes and digital photos of what their relatives look like after decades of lost contact.\nFamily and friends awaited them with a mix of excitement and unease.\n"Today I'm going to be very cheerful to welcome her and forget the past just for now," said Yuko Hamamoto, brother of returnee Fukie Hamamoto.\nShe and her then-fiancee Yasushi Chimura were grabbed from behind, wrapped in bags and whisked away in North Korean boats as they strolled along a secluded Japanese beach in 1978, when both were just 23 years old.\nNow married, they are among the five returnees who are the only known survivors of at least 13 people abducted by the North in the 1970s and early 80s to train its spies in the Japanese language and culture.\nTempering the jubilation about their return, however, was renewed anxiety about the fate of eight other abductees whom North Korea says died in the interim, under what many Japanese deem mysterious circumstances.\n"I'm very happy about the development. But this does not close the abduction issues," chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said.\nSuspicion also runs high because the abductees, now all in their 40s, are only allowed to stay a week or two and forbidden to bring their children. Calling the children hostages, family members and government officials have said the abductees won't be able to speak openly about North Korea for fear of retribution.\nPrime Minister Junichiro Koizumi helped broker the homecoming through his unprecedented Sept. 17 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. But he has since faced widespread Japanese anger over the North's explanation of the others' fate.\nStumping Monday for parliamentary elections, Koizumi echoed the concerns, saying, "Certainly North Korea is an outrageous country--kidnapping and killing our people."\nThe returnees' families have requested the reunions be low-key, private affairs, and Koizumi has no plans to greet or meet the visitors while they stay in Tokyo for two days before returning to their hometowns.\nHe welcomed the abductees home in a statement that urged an engrossed nation to give the reunited families time alone together.\n"My heart aches when I think about all the sorrow and pain," Koizumi said. "I wish the returnees quiet time to relax and I hope from the bottom of my heart this reunion will help heal the pains they have suffered until now."\nAt last month's summit, Kim reversed years of angry denials and confessed that his country had indeed kidnapped the 13. The news shocked Japan, and has been the top story in newspapers and on TV almost every day since.\nBut the visit is seen by many as just a first step in closing a bizarre story that has long been one of many irritants in the two countries' stormy relations.\n"I feel very confused. I don't know what to think. But their homecoming is not the end of the issue," said Hatsui Hasuike, mother of returnee Kaoru Hasuike. Kaoru was a 20-year-old college junior in 1978 when he was abducted on his way to a date with fellow abductee Yukiko Okudo. They married nearly two years later in the North.\nThe fifth returnee is Hitomi Soga, abducted the same year from an island in the Sea of Japan. While in North Korea, the former nurse married a former American soldier, Charles Robert Jenkins, who was stationed in South Korea and listed as a deserter by the U.S. military. They have two daughters.\nNorth Korea has said the eight other abductees are dead--but has denied any were killed. According to the North, one death was a suicide, two died of asphyxiation from a gas leak and others passed away from poor health or in car accidents.\nKoizumi's meeting with Kim opened the way for normalization talks to resume between the two countries, which have never had diplomatic ties. The two sides are scheduled to meet Oct. 29-30 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.\nBut many Japanese remain outraged that eight abductees died, and are opposed to normalization talks until Pyongyang is more forthcoming about why. Support groups, meanwhile, say there are many more abductees--with the real number as high as 60.
(10/16/02 4:48am)
BOUAFLE, Ivory Coast -- After hours of gunfire and heavy explosions, government forces reclaimed a major city in the Ivory Coast cocoa belt--even as West African mediators pushed authorities and rebels to agree on a truce.\nResidents reached by telephone Tuesday said loyalist forces were circulating in Daloa, a city of 160,000 people whose capture Sunday was an important victory for rebels who have seized half the country.\nRebels appeared to have vacated the city, leaving vehicles--and bodies--scattered behind them.\n"I saw four bodies in the street," said one resident.\nIn the commercial center, Abidjan, mediators waited for word from the insurgents on whether they were ready to sign a truce to end their nearly monthlong rebellion.\nThe rebels "are sending us very positive signals," Senegalese Foreign Minister Tidiane Gadio said after several telephone conversations Monday with the insurgents. He said he hoped to meet with them in the central, rebel-held city of Bouake on Tuesday.\n"I do not consider that the negotiations are over," he said.\nEarlier, Gadio had said the insurgents agreed "in principle" to the peace plan--but that they also warned mediators they would respond to any attack with a counterattack.\nThe insurgents told mediators they had captured Daloa in response to a government offensive north of the city. The victory was symbolically important because the city is in the heartland of Gbagbo's Bete tribe.\nGbagbo in turn instructed his forces to push on as far as Vavoua, about 35 miles north of Daloa.\n"This is an infernal kind of logic that just leads to an impasse," Gadio said.\nHe said he had appealed to the rebels to withdraw from Daloa as a sign of good faith. Sporadic firing continued overnight, but by Tuesday morning the city was calm.\nGbagbo said his government accepted the mediator's proposals, under which rebels would confine themselves to barracks, with their weapons, so peace talks could begin. Only practical details remained to be worked out, he said in an interview Monday on state radio and television.\n"This week we will finish this, either by signing or by making war. But we can't wait any longer than the end of this week," Gbagbo said.\nThe rebels are centered around 750-800 former soldiers, many of them dismissed from the army for suspected disloyalty. Their uprising has gathered support from Ivorians in the north, who complain that Ivory Coast's southern-based government treats them poorly.\nHundreds have died in the fighting. The war--and ethnic violence it is unleashing--has caused tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, creating a tide of refugees that aid workers fear could spill over Ivorian borders, destabilizing other West African countries.\nInternational markets are worried about the effect the uprising will have on cocoa supplies, used to make chocolate. Daloa residents said the fighting was preventing farmers from harvesting cocoa plantations and that cocoa businesses were closed.\nIvory Coast produces more than 1 million tons of cocoa annually, or about 40 percent of the world's supply.
(10/16/02 4:47am)
BALI, Indonesia -- Indonesia's most violent Muslim extremist group announced Tuesday that it was disbanding, in what appeared to be the first sign that the government is cracking down on Islamic extremism following the deadly bombing of a Bali nightclub.\nThe announcement came as Indonesian officials interrogated a security guard and another man about the nightclub bombing, which killed nearly 200 people, and said traces of C-4 plastic explosive were found at the scene. Also, the accused ringleader of a separate extremist network, Jemaah Islamiyah, said he would submit to police questioning.\nIn Washington, U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday they have no conclusive evidence of who committed the bombing. However, the sophistication of Saturday night's attack, notably the detonation of more than one explosion simultaneously, points to a strike by Jemaah Islamiyah, possibly with the aid of al Qaeda, officials said.\nAmerican officials describe Jemaah Islamiyah as a surrogate of al Qaeda in Southeast Asia.\nThe group that is disbanding, Laskar Jihad, has deep ties to Indonesia's military and has waged sectarian warfare against Christians on the outlying island of Ambon. But in recent months, as pressure grew on Indonesia from the West to take action against militants, the organization's activities have become an increasing embarrassment for the authorities in Jakarta.\nAlthough Laskar Jihad has not been linked to the nightclub attack, its dissolution may be the first sign Indonesia is responding to the demand for action from the United States, Australia and other countries.\nDisbanding the organization is one of the more politically simple tasks the government could take against extremism, given its military's implicit approval. It was unclear whether some die-hard members might go underground and continue to wage violence.\nArbi Sanit, a political commentator, said the militants remained a potential threat.\n"If they really return home, then it is good because at least one of the armed groups will be gone," he said. "But if they leave Ambon just to move to other trouble spots, that would be very dangerous."\nAchmad Michdan, legal adviser to Laskar Jihad, told reporters in Jakarta, the capital, that the group was disbanding.\nHe insisted the move was unconnected to the bombing and was rooted in theological issues.\n"It has nothing to do with the bombs. There was no pressure on us from the military," he said.\nEfforts to contact Jafar Umar Thalib, the group's leader in Ambon, about 1,600 miles east of Jakarta, were unsuccessful. Laskar Jihad is blamed for the slaughter of thousands of Christians in a sectarian conflict in the Maluku islands.\nPolice in Ambon confirmed that about 500 members of the paramilitary group boarded a ship for Indonesia's main island of Java on Tuesday, after driving through Ambon in a huge convoy. They were accompanied by about 200 members of their families.\n"They left on their own initiative. The government did not interfere," said Maluku Police Chief, Brig. Gen. Sunarko Danu Ardianto.\nAnother 1,500 fighters will depart by the end of the week, said Jamal, a Laskar Jihad official in Ambon who like many Indonesians uses only one name.\nLaskar Jihad, or Holy War Soldiers, was founded in early 2000. At the time, a top reformist general accused hardline army commanders loyal to former dictator Suharto of creating it to disrupt democratic reforms and prevent civilian control over the military.\nArmy leadership denied that, but refused an order by the then-president to act against the group, whose members were allowed to proceed to Maluku where a small-scale religious conflict had erupted in 1999 between Muslims and Christians.\nEventually, about 3,000 Laskar Jihad militiamen were brought into the archipelago. They are accused of mounting attacks on unprotected Christian villages, and were seen cooperating with the army units in attacks on Christian neighborhoods in Ambon.\nAs many as 9,000 people died in the conflict. A cease-fire has been in place in the province since February.
(10/16/02 4:31am)
WASHINGTON -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is set to meet with President Bush hoping to hear about U.S. plans to block a possible Iraqi missile attack on Israel and to answer U.S. charges that his government is not doing enough to ease restrictions on the Palestinians.\nSharon was to confer President Bush at the White House on Wednesday, his seventh visit since taking office in March last year. He arrived from Jerusalem at dawn Tuesday.\nA few hours before leaving, Sharon called on the Palestinians to replace their current leadership, a reference to Yasser Arafat.\n"Your terrible suffering is needless," Sharon told the Palestinians during a speech to Israel's parliament. "Blood is being spilled for nothing. Change the despotic regime that is leading you from failure to failure, from tragedy to tragedy."\nHowever, he added: "I assess that there is a real possibility that the coming year will be a turning point. I believe that our Palestinian neighbors will themselves reach a moment of change in their attitude toward Israel."\nSharon said his government would be "alert to any sign of change ... to make peace."\nBush, in a June speech, also called on the Palestinians to change leaders. The Palestinians have tentatively scheduled general elections in January.\nThe Israeli daily Haaretz on Monday said Bush and other administration officials would show Sharon a detailed presentation of how the United States plans to neutralize any Iraqi attempt to attack Israel in the event of a U.S. offensive against Saddam Hussein.\nThe object, the paper said, was to persuade Israel to show restraint if it believed the Iraqis were planning an assault.\nA diplomatic source described the report as broadly correct.\nThe source, speaking on condition of anonymity, also confirmed that Sharon got a sharp message from Washington last week, complaining that Israel has not honored promises to ease its blockade of Palestinian towns and villages and to turn over withheld taxes that Israel collected on behalf of the Palestinians.\nIsraeli Cabinet Secretary Gideon Saar said that at Sunday's Cabinet meeting security officials warned that widespread lifting of restrictions on the Palestinians, as long as they fail to clamp down on militants, was an invitation to grave terror attacks.\nSaar also said Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein opposed transferring money to Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority unless it carried out promised financial reforms to ensure the money was not used to fund terror groups.\nSaar said Sharon would put those arguments to Bush.\n"All those questions, among them the humanitarian issues, will be discussed," he said. "We will present what we are doing, and what we cannot do, with the present situation."\nPalestinian Cabinet Minister Ghassan Khatib said he hoped Bush would try to convince Sharon to resume Israel-Palestinian negotiations.\n"They think that they should achieve by force whatever objectives they have and the Americans have to convince them that this is not working at the moment," Khatib said. "So far we didn't notice at all any American seriousness," he added.\nIn the run-up to a possible military campaign in Iraq, the United States wants Israel to refrain from high profile operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, liable to inflame Arab and world anger at Israel and its chief ally, the United States, diplomats have said.\nSharon spokesman Raanan Gissin denied media reports that while in the White House Sharon would notify Bush of plans for a major Gaza offensive.\n"That's total nonsense," he said.\nAn Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel had no intention of launching a broad-scale Gaza incursion and would not give the Americans advance warning even if it had such plans.\nSaar said Sharon and Bush would also discuss a water dispute causing new tension between Israel and its neighbor to the north, Lebanon.
(10/16/02 4:29am)
FAIRFAX, Va. -- An FBI analyst who studied terror threats is the latest victim of the Washington-area sniper, and investigators said Tuesday they were confident that detailed witness accounts from the scene will lead them to the person who has now killed nine people.\nA senior law enforcement source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were no indications the sniper targeted Linda Franklin because of her job. Sources said she worked for the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center which assesses threats against major structures and cyber networks.\nFranklin, 47, of Arlington was shot in the head Monday night as she and her husband loaded packages into their car outside a Home Depot at the Seven Corners Shopping Center.\nFairfax County Police Chief Tom Manger suggested that witnesses gave investigators more details than on any of the other shootings. For the first time, witnesses were able to give information about license plates on vehicles seen leaving the scene, he said.\n"There was some additional information that we were able to get from last night's case, and I am confident that that information is going to lead us to an arrest in the case," Manger said at a morning briefing.\nManger declined to discuss which state the license plates were from or answer questions about whether police had a description of the shooter. He said only that several people contacted police after the shooting and investigators were still interviewing them.\n"We have been receiving quite a bit of information from witnesses," Manger said. "Information is always the key in solving cases like this."\nPolice closed highways around Falls Church, about 10 miles west of the nation's capital, after the shooting and Manger said police were on the lookout for a light-colored Chevrolet Astro van with a burned-out left rear tail light and a chrome ladder on its roof. The highways were reopened in time for morning rush hour and no arrests were reported.\n"There are a fair number of ways to leave the area," Manger said. "We made a number of traffic stops. I am unaware of any pursuits."\nFranklin was felled by a single shot to the head about 9:15 p.m. as she stood in the parking lot of the blocks-long shopping center. All the other deaths in the sniper spree were also caused by one shot.\nOutside the Home Depot on Tuesday, a line of officers on their hands and knees scoured the covered parking deck for evidence, and a tow truck hauled away the victim's car--a small red convertible with a black cloth top.\nThe Washington Post, quoting an FBI chaplain at Franklin's home, reported on its Web site that Franklin and her husband were planning to move Friday to another home in the area and were at Home Depot to buy supplies.\nThe center where Franklin worked, established in 1998, is the only FBI organization scheduled to transfer to the Department of Homeland Security under the Bush administration's proposal.\nThe shooting spree that has terrorized residents in the Washington area began Oct. 2 in Montgomery County, Md. With Monday's shooting, the toll has grown to nine people killed and two seriously wounded in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.\n"Ballistic evidence has conclusively linked this case to the other murders in the area," Manger said.\nMontgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, who is leading the task force investing the shootings, was on the scene of the latest shooting.\nMonday's killing happened near one of northern Virginia's busiest intersections, where major arteries come together to form seven corners. Virginia State Police said the van was last seen traveling east on Route 50 from Falls Church. Interstates 66 and 495 are nearby.\nClint Van Zandt, a former FBI profiler who lives in Fredericksburg, Va., said the location sets the slaying apart from the others. "This is not bold, this is brazen," he said. "It's a much more highly congested area, even under the cover of darkness." \nMany schools in the region remained under lockdown Tuesday, meaning outdoor recess and physical education classes were canceled and students were kept indoors all day.
(10/10/02 10:57pm)
BALTIMORE -- A man was shot and killed while pumping gas at a suburban Virginia gas station Wednesday night, and police were investigating to determine whether the sniper that has terrorized the Washington area had struck again.\nVirginia State Police said two males were seen driving away in a white vehicle after the shooting at the station in Prince William County, near Manassas, 25 miles west of the nation's capital.\nPrince William County police spokeswoman Sgt. Kim Chinn said one man was killed. Chinn said she had few details to release. She said police did not know where the shots came from, or how many shots were fired.\nPolice had blocked off several streets around the gas station, and they were interviewing people at the scene.\n"We are still very preliminarily beginning this investigation," Chinn said. "We have been in contact with the officials from Maryland and the task force there, so we are sharing any information we have."\nMeanwhile, a tarot card with the words "Dear policeman, I am God" emerged as a potential clue.\nThe card was found near a shell casing outside a middle school in Bowie, where a 13-year-old boy was critically wounded by the gunman Monday, a source familiar with the investigation said on condition of anonymity.\nAuthorities said the shell was .223-caliber, the same kind of bullet used to kill six people and wound another in Washington and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs in the last week. The casing is believed to be the first one recovered since the slayings began.\nMichael Bouchard, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, would not say whether authorities had linked the casing to the attacks.\nMontgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose also wouldn't comment when asked about the tarot card, and angrily suggested unapproved information had been leaked.\n"I need to make sure I don't do anything to hinder our ability to bring this person or these people into custody," Moose said.\nThe message left on the tarot card called the Death card was first reported by WUSA-TV and then by The Washington Post. Police sources told the newspaper the items were found 150 yards from the school in a wooded area on matted grass, suggesting the gunman had lain in wait.\nTarot cards, used mainly for fortunetelling, are believed to have been introduced into western Europe by Gypsies in the 15th century. Many tarot enthusiasts say the Death card usually does not connote physical death, but instead portrays a symbolic change or transformation.\nCrime experts, while noting that the link between the card and the sniper remained unconfirmed, recalled other serial killers who left "calling cards."\nOne of the most notorious was David Berkowitz, who killed six people in New York in 1976-77. He wrote a letter to newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin and left a note addressed to a police detective that said: "I am a monster. I am the 'Son of Sam.'"\nRobert K. Ressler, a former FBI profiler, interviewed Berkowitz after his arrest.\n"He said this was a stimulating thing for him to see the letters in the paper," Ressler said. "Even though he's the only one who knows, notoriety becomes very satisfying to an inadequate loser. It's a way of imposing power and control over society."\nRessler recalled one previous case, in 1970, where a multiple murderer left a tarot card -- the slayings of a wealthy ophthalmologist and his family near Santa Cruz, Calif. The killer was captured and sentenced to life in prison.\nThe motive for the seemingly random attacks remains unknown. Nearly 200 investigators are working their way through some 8,000 tips. One tip sent them on a fruitless search of woods behind a school in Prince George's County, but nothing was found.\nAll the victims have been felled by a single bullet. Investigators say the sniper, or snipers, fired from a distance with a high-powered hunting or military-style rifle.\nThe wounded boy, whom police have not identified, remained in critical but stable condition Wednesday. Ballistics tests found that the bullet that struck him was of the same caliber as those that killed some of the others and wounded a woman in Virginia. That woman was released from the hospital Tuesday.
(10/10/02 4:57am)
LONDON - A voice recording of Ayman al-Zawahri, al Qaeda's fugitive second in command, appears to be genuine and to have been recorded in the last few weeks, a U.S. official said Wednesday. In the statement, he threatens new attacks on the United States and its economy.\nAl-Zawahri probably recorded the statement in the last few weeks, but it could have been made as early as August, the official said, adding that the recording was still being analyzed.\nAl-Zawahri refers to a July 1 U.S. bombing in Afghanistan and speaks about the United States' campaign against Iraq, accusing Washington of seeking to subjugate the Arab world on behalf of Israel.\nThe recording was obtained by APTN in the form of a video compact disc. On the disc, an interview with al-Zawahri is played against a video backdrop with English subtitles of the conversation, along with scenes from the Sept. 11 attacks and other news footage.\nA title in the video identifies the speaker as al-Zawahri and says the video is a production of the As-Sahaab Foundation for Islamic Media. The production company is credited with earlier al Qaeda statements that appeared on Web sites and with the so-called farewell video of Ahmed Ibrahim A. Alhaznawi, a Sept. 11 hijacker.\nAl-Zawahri, 51, is believed to be bin Laden's doctor and spiritual adviser, providing the ideology that drove al Qaeda. He was the head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad until he forged an alliance with bin Laden in 1998.\nAl-Zawahri is on the U.S. most wanted list and the government is offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading to his capture. Egypt sentenced him to death in absentia in 1999 for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan and for attempting to kill officials in Egypt. He has been indicted in the United States for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
(10/10/02 4:56am)
ROCKVILLE, Md. -- A tarot card with the words, "Dear policeman, I am God" was found near a bullet casing outside the school where a 13-year-old boy was critically wounded, a person familiar with the investigation said Wednesday.\nThe shell casing was .223-caliber, the same caliber investigators believe was used to kill six people in the Washington area and wound another, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent Michael Bouchard said Wednesday.\nHe would not discuss whether authorities had linked the casing to the shooting Monday at the school or to the other apparently random attacks.\nMontgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, who has been leading the investigation, wouldn't comment when asked about the tarot card Wednesday but he said he was angry that unapproved information was being leaked.\n"I need to make sure I don't do anything to hinder our ability to bring this person or these people into custody," Moose said.\nThe taunting message left on a tarot card known as the Death card, first reported Tuesday night on WUSA-TV and then by The Washington Post, was confirmed by a source Wednesday to The Associated Press.\nPolice sources told the newspaper that the tarot card was found next to the spent shell casing in a wooded area about 150 yards from the school entrance in an area of matted grass, suggesting the gunman had lain in wait.\nThe motive for the seemingly random crimes still eluded police Wednesday, one week after the first of six slayings. Nearly 200 investigators were working their way through 1,600 leads culled from 8,000 tips.\n"We need just a shred of evidence," Prince George's County Police Chief Gerald Wilson said.\nWednesday morning, police responding to a 911 call spent several hours searching woods behind another school in Prince George's County after a witness reported seeing a man with a long black bag. They called off the search after finding nothing in the woods, about 20 miles from where the boy was shot.\n"We feel confident that nobody is in there," Prince George's County Police Cpl. Diane Richardson said.\nA woman who was questioned in the area was expected to be released, Richardson said.\nA Prince George's County school spokeswoman said students were being kept inside as county schools remained locked down.\nPolice believe the sniper has shot eight people. One death occurred on a Washington street, the others came within five miles of each other in Montgomery County, and a woman was wounded in Virginia.\nInvestigators say the sniper apparently picked victims at random and fired from a distance with a high-powered hunting or military-style rifle. All the victims were felled by a single bullet.\nEven as they discarded one lead--a man was released after police questioned him about at least one rifle in his home--investigators wondered whether the sniper might have struck weeks earlier, on Sept. 14, when a liquor store employee in Montgomery County was wounded by an unknown assailant.\nBullet fragments recovered from the clerk who was wounded at a shopping center in Silver Spring have been examined, but the analysis has proved inconclusive.\n"We are not linking it, we are not ruling it out," Bouchard said of the shooting in the Hillandale Shopping Center.\nIn Montgomery County, where five of the deaths occurred, Moose urged people to keep calling in tips. The reward swelled to more than $237,000.\n"We feel like someone has information that will help us bring this situation to closure," Moose said.\nThe Sept. 14 shooting occurred outside the Hillandale Beer and Wine store. Owner Arnie Zelkovitz said police interviewed him about the incident, in which his 22-year-old employee was shot in the back.\nZelkovitz said he believes the man was another sniper victim: "It just seems too coincidental."\nGov. Parris Glendening took a confrontational tone, repeatedly calling the shooter "a coward" during a news conference.\nThe wounded 13-year-old boy, who police have not identified, was in critical but stable condition Wednesday. He was shot in the torso early Monday after his aunt dropped him off at Benjamin Tasker Middle School.\nBallistics tests found that the bullet that struck him was of the same caliber as those that killed some of the others and wounded a woman in Virginia. That woman was released from the hospital Tuesday.\nDorothy Prather, a teacher at Tasker, said she was impressed by how well students responded to the traumatic events. "The only ones who seemed really concerned were the parents," she said.\nAt a nearby mall, employees at a Coldwell Banker real estate office noticed shoppers were edgy.\n"They don't get out of their car without looking around, then they dash in the store," Polly Rogers said. "You don't see people on their porch, or playing tennis. We're not used to this--we think Bowie is the safest place"
(10/10/02 4:48am)
KUWAIT -- U.S. officials said Wednesday they were investigating whether al Qaeda had any links to two gunmen who killed a U.S. Marine and wounded a second in Kuwait. Friends and relatives said the attackers had been to Afghanistan and sought to "walk in the footsteps of Osama bin Laden."\nKuwait called the shooting a "terrorist act" and detained more than 30 people in a search for the accomplices of the gunmen, who were shot dead by U.S. troops after the attack.\n"It is a concern about whether or not there are connections between those who shot the Marines and al Qaeda, and we do not rule that out," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.\nAnother U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attackers' links to al Qaeda were being investigated.\nThe two gunmen drove up in a pickup truck Tuesday and opened fire on Marines engaged in urban assault training on Failaka, an island 10 miles east of Kuwait City. The attackers then drove to a second location and attacked again before being killed by Marines, the Pentagon said.\nThe Pentagon identified the slain Marine as Lance Cpl. Antonio J. Sledd, 20, of Tampa, Fla. His body was to be flown home "within 24 hours," said Lt. Garrett Kasper, spokesman for Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain.\nThe wounded Marine, who was not identified, will be flown to a military medical facility in Germany "as soon as he is stable enough for travel," Kasper said. He said his wounds were not life-threatening but would not give details. A Kuwaiti Defense Ministry source said Wednesday that the man was wounded in the stomach.\nThe Kuwaiti Interior Ministry identified the assailants as two Kuwaitis, Anas al-Kandari, born in 1981, and Jassem al-Hajiri, born in 1976.\n"This is a terrorist act," the ministry said. "(We) will not allow anyone to undermine the country's security."\nFriends and relatives said the two attackers were cousins and attacked the Marines out of anger at the killings of Palestinians by Israel.\nAl-Kandari was in Afghanistan for a year and a half and he had chosen to walk in the footsteps of Osama bin Laden," Mohammed al-Awadi, a Muslim cleric who said he was a friend of the attackers, told AP on Wednesday.\nAl-Hajiri was in Afghanistan for six months with his cousin, said the cleric. Both returned days before last year's Sept. 11 attacks.\nAl-Kandari was very moved by footage of Palestinians killed in the violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories days before the attack, the cleric said. An Israeli raid Monday in the Gaza town of Khan Younis that left 15 Palestinians dead and more than 100 wounded has been heavily covered by Arab television stations.\n"Every Muslim believes Americans are helping Jews, and he was burning to do something to help," Al-Kandari's brother, Abdullah, told AP in a telephone interview.\nAbdullah al-Kandari said he had known nothing of his brother's plans. Afterward, relatives found a will in his desk in which he asked that his body not be washed before burial. The Muslim corpses traditionally are washed, but some believe it is an honor for those considered martyrs to be buried stained with the blood they spilled for their cause.\nThe two attackers were buried Wednesday.\nA member of al-Kandari's clan, though not a close relative, is among 12 Kuwaitis held by U.S. forces in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said Khaled al-Oda, who heads a non-governmental group campaigning for the prisoners' release.\nSheik Mohammed Al Sabah, Kuwait's foreign minister, refused to comment Wednesday on newspaper reports and claims by the friend and brother that linked the two suspects to bin Laden's al Qaeda network or that they had militant training in Afghanistan.\nSeveral Kuwaitis have been tied to bin Laden, whose group is blamed for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks--most notably, al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who was stripped of his Kuwaiti citizenship in October 2001, and Kuwaiti-born Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is suspected of being a Sept. 11 mastermind.\nKuwaiti authorities began rounding up those suspected of providing "assistance to the terrorists," Sheik Mohammed told reporters. Police said more than 30 people had been detained.\nKasper said investigators were trying to determine how the attackers were able to drive into an area that U.S. security had closed to civilian traffic. After the shooting, Marines found three AK-47s and ammunition in the attackers' truck.\nOn its Web site, the U.S. Embassy urged Americans in Kuwait to be vigilant.\nKuwait has been a Washington ally since a U.S.-led coalition liberated the emirate from Iraqi occupation in the 1991 Gulf War. More than a decade later, most Kuwaitis support the close relationship.\nFailaka Island was abandoned by its inhabitants when Iraq invaded in 1990, and Iraqi forces heavily mined it during their occupation. The island has since been cleared of mines and many Kuwaitis fish there on weekends.\nThe military exercises resumed Wednesday The war games, dubbed Eager Mace 2002, started Oct. 1 and involve some 1,000 Marines from the 11th Expeditionary unit based in Camp Pendleton, Calif. and around 900 Navy sailors.\nThe U.S. military has carried out exercises in Kuwait since the Gulf War. The Pentagon says the current war games are not related to any possible war to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.\nKuwait opposes any unilateral action against Iraq and fears retaliation with non-conventional weapons if the United States attacks Baghdad. It has said the United States could use its land for an attack if the war is sanctioned by the United Nations.
(10/10/02 4:43am)
SAN FRANCISCO -- Faced with a judge's order to reopen West Coast ports, longshoremen and shipping companies now confront the mammoth task of heaving billions of dollars worth of idle cargo -- from auto parts to bananas -- back into the nation's economy.\nSigns suggest the transition back to work won't be smooth.\nWorkers may need as long as two and a half months to clear the backlog of goods caused by the 10-day lockout at 29 major Pacific ports. The labor dispute prompted President Bush to intervene Tuesday and may have cost the fragile U.S. economy up to $2 billion a day.\nThe Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping companies and terminal operators, said it would order workers to report to shifts that start at 6 p.m. Wednesday in most ports.\nThe announcement came hours after Bush became the first president in a quarter-century to use the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which allows a president to ask a federal court with jurisdiction over the dispute to stop a strike or lockout.\nJudge William Alsup then issued a temporary restraining order that expires Oct. 16. Lawyers for both sides said they expect Alsup to impose the 80-day cooling-off period as mandated by Taft-Hartley at that time.\nA court-ordered truce would keep ports open during the crucial Christmas season, when retailers rely on imported goods to stock their shelves.\n"This nation simply cannot afford to have hundreds of billions of dollars a year in potential manufacturing and agricultural trade sitting idle," Bush said. "We can't afford it."\nOn Wednesday, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the two sides cannot count on Bush to settle their dispute.\n"Nobody should be under any illusions that at the end of 80 days the federal government will step in and solve the problem," Fleischer said. "This is a worker-management dispute at a very fundamental level."\nWest Coast ports were closed late last month amid a bitter contract dispute that centers on the implementation of waterfront technology that unionized dock workers believe would cause job losses. Since then, about 200 ships laden with tons of cargo have backed up at docks or at anchor - unloading them is a mammoth logistical task for dockworkers and their employers.\nThe judge's order required longshoremen to resume work "at a normal pace," a phrase that is sure to be contentious in coming days.\nWorking too fast could compromise safety on congested docks, and that's not something dockworkers are willing to do, union officials said. As a result, they said Tuesday they expect the association will wield Alsup's order as a stick to whack workers with charges that they are not meeting previous productivity levels.\n"You can start writing the stories today about the PMA accusing us of slowdowns," International Longshore and Warehouse Union spokesman Steve Stallone said. "There's no way in hell we can reach those documented productivity levels."\nEven if all goes well, it will likely take 8 to 10 weeks to clear the backlog caused by the port shutdown, association president Joseph Miniace estimated. He said ships carrying food and other perishables will be unloaded first.\nPacific Maritime Association officials applauded Bush's move. "I believe he acted in the best interests of the country, the economy and our national security," Miniace said.\nLabor leaders, however, criticized the president's decision. Organized labor considers Taft-Hartley an anti-union mechanism for resolving disputes.\n"No president has ever been on this side of management this overtly," said Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO.\nThe last time a president sought to intervene under Taft-Hartley was in 1978, when a court refused President Carter's request for an 80-day cooling-off period in a coal miner's strike, but ordered miners back to work under a temporary restraining order.\nThe ports, which handle more than $300 billion in trade annually, account for more than half of all containerized cargo moving in and out of the country. A study prepared for the shippers' association by Martin Associates of Lancaster, Pa., estimated the cost of a 10-day work stoppage at $19 billion.\nThe lockout forced automakers to charter expensive cargo planes to airlift parts to stalled assembly lines and left millions of dollars worth of U.S. crops, meat and poultry in danger of spoiling on the docks.\nShipping lines imposed the lockout after contract talks with the 10,500-member union broke down last month over modernizing the ports.\nThe union says new technology will cost its members some jobs now, and wants new positions created by the technology to be union-covered. The shippers say the union shouldn't dictate who controls the jobs.\nExperts warned that progress at the bargaining table may be even harder now since workers from one of the nation's most militant unions have been forced back to work.\n"It intervenes to the point of aggravating a union, but has no end game," said Michael LeRoy, professor of labor and industrial relations at the University of Illinois. "It's just a delay game"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistani authorities arrested and turned over to American custody a Yemeni microbiology student wanted in connection with the bombing of the USS Cole, Pakistani officials confirmed Sunday. \nJamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, 27, is suspected of being an active member of the al-Qaida network run by Osama bin Laden, the alleged organizer of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States, according to government officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. \nMohammed was secretly turned over to U.S. authorities as part of a broad investigation of Arab students suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda, the Washington Post said Sunday in an account of the handover. \nU.S. officials in Pakistan declined comment, as did a senior FBI official in Washington, the newspaper said. \nPakistani officials told the AP the handover had taken place Thursday at the airport in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. Airport authorities speaking on condition of anonymity said the plane arrived from Amman, Jordan. \nMohammad, who arrived in Pakistan in 1993, was a student in the microbiology department of Karachi University, classmates and university officials said. A classmate, who declined to be named, said he had abandoned his studies. \nAn official at the university, also speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Mohammad's school records were examined last week by the authorities. \nA Pakistani presidential spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rashid Quereshi, denied any knowledge of the handover. However, he said that "recently some U.S. security officials had visited Pakistan to share information about some Arab suspects." \n"We helped them in finding clues to combat terrorism," he added. \nOfficials at Pakistan's spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, confirmed Sunday that Mohammed had been turned over to U.S. officials. \nMohammed is the first person known to have been arrested outside Yemen for the October 2000 attack on the Cole as it refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen sailors were killed and 37 injured when suicide bombers brought a boat alongside the warship and detonated explosives. \nEight suspects were arrested in Yemen and are awaiting trial.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
AGASHA, Nigeria -- Moses Mbaissa fled his home after an attack by fighters from a rival tribe. He took refuge in another town only to find more bloodshed. Soldiers were gunning down unarmed villagers. \nA longtime conflict between ethnic Tivs and Jukuns has heated up in recent weeks, with tribal fighters hacking off the limbs of women and children and burning villages. \nLast week, government soldiers sent to quiet the violence entered the fray, burning down at least seven mainly Tiv villages and shooting at least 150 civilians, and probably twice as many. \nAt a camp in Agasha for some 2,500 displaced civilians set up in a school, Mbaissa, a 30-year-old farmer, told on Saturday how he and his family fled a Jukun attack on his home village of Dooshima nearly two weeks ago. \nHe arrived in the village of Zaki-Biam, just one day before soldiers arrived there Monday. \nThe soldiers gathered up Zaki-Biam residents, telling them to "stay quiet while we keep the peace." Then they started shooting and an unknown number were killed, Mbaissa said. \nWitnesses have related similar grisly tales from several other villages, saying hundreds were killed, many shot execution-style at point-blank range. \nNigeria, Africa's most populous nation, is riven with ethnic, religious and political divides that frequently flare into violence. \nFighting between Tivs and Jukuns, mainly over farmland, has raged intermittently for more than a decade. Fulanis entered the feud more recently, on the Jukun side. In the past few weeks, violence has intensified along the borders of the states of Benue, Taraba and Nassarawa, with each side burning villages of the other. \nAt the Agasha camp, 45-year-old William Ishor and his family curled up in stunned exhaustion in the shade of a mango tree, newly arrived Saturday after a seven-day trek fleeing Jukun fighters who attacked their village of Tala. \nThe Jukun attacked suddenly a week ago, burning down houses and screaming "Tivs out," said Ishor, whose family like many others in his village are Tiv. \nIshor fled through forests and farms, surviving on raw manioc and corn picked along the way. "We ran and walked. We slept wherever we happened to be when night found us," he said. \nAlong a pothole-pitted road from Benue's capital, Makurdi, all but two of a dozen villages have been completely burned down, whether in ethnic fighting or by soldiers. \nUniformed troops traveling in armored personnel carriers destroyed seven towns over three days starting Monday, killing 130 people in just one village, state Gov. George Akume said Thursday. A federal lawmaker representing some of the destroyed villages said Friday that 300 were killed in all, including 150 in Gbeji. \nState officials say the soldiers attacked in reprisal for the abduction and killing of 19 soldiers by Tiv tribal fighters earlier this month. A witness to the kidnappings, who asked to remain anonymous, alleged the abducted soldiers had taken part in the burning of Tiv houses by Jukun fighters. \nAt a funeral for the soldiers shortly before the massacre began, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo vowed to punish those responsible for the soldiers' deaths. \nBut defense officials deny they ordered any revenge attacks. Obasanjo's two-year-old elected government has promised to "restrain" soldiers if any are discovered to have committed excesses. \nA federal lawmaker, House of Representatives member George Suswam, accused Obasanjo on Friday of ordering the killings and called for an international investigation. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have also called for an independent inquiry. \nJournalists visiting Gbeji on Friday saw a dozen freshly dug shallow graves where residents said more than 60 people had been hurriedly buried. Another 90 bodies were buried elsewhere, residents said. The smell of decaying flesh drifted through the air and dry blood still stained the ground. \nIt was unclear whether fighting was still taking place on Saturday because the scenes of fighting are remote. Tribal militias and soldiers have blocked roads from mainly-Tiv Benue to Jukun-dominated areas of Taraba state. \nA hospital in Makurdi, the Benue state capital, was treating a number of wounded civilians, including Elizabeth Isaac Alogo, whose hands were both hacked off in recent weeks by machete-wielding Fulani fighters who attacked her home village in Nassarawa state, to the north of Benue. Alogo's 16-year-old son was killed in the attack and her teenage daughter, whose hands had also been badly cut, later died in hospital. \n"I'm getting better," Alogo told journalists, grimacing between spoonfuls of porridge fed to her by a nurse.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered federal prosecutors Friday to use new anti-terrorism powers to track down terrorists by intercepting their Internet and telephone communications and financial transactions.\nAshcroft issued orders to 94 U.S. Attorney's offices and 56 FBI field offices after President George W. Bush signed a sweeping anti-terrorism bill into law.\n"Law enforcement is now empowered with new tools and resources necessary to disrupt, weaken and eliminate the infrastructure of terrorism organizations," Ashcroft said in a statement.\nUnder the new law, prosecutors have more powers to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists, wherever they are and whether they are communicating on the Internet or by phone.\nFor years, authorities have used surveillance to go after drug traffickers and organized crime, but some provisions of the eavesdropping laws did not apply to terrorism, the Justice Department said.\nAshcroft warned would-be terrorists that the government will be closely watching how they act, carefully listening to what they say and secretly reading the words they write.\n"If you overstay your visas even by one day, we will arrest you; if you violate a local law, we will hope that you will and work to make sure that you are put in jail and be kept in custody as long as possible," he said in a speech to the nation's mayors.\nEchoing a threat then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy made four decades ago to pursue mobsters for spitting on the sidewalk, Ashcroft said: "Let the terrorists among us be warned."\nHe pledged to use the new powers granted by Congress to pursue terrorist suspects relentlessly, intercept their phone calls, read their unopened e-mail and phone messages and throw them in jail for the smallest of crimes.\nJustice officials said they intend to use the new surveillance and wiretap powers granted by Congress on Thursday to build cases against many suspected terrorists already in custody on immigration violations or technicalities.\nCivil libertarians have complained that the new law gives government too much power to investigate Americans.\nAuthorities have arrested or detained 952 people in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, including 168 detained on immigration charges. Many have been arrested for relatively small crimes -- bank fraud, false identification or overstaying their visas. Most remain in custody, officials said.\nA small number of these people who are not cooperating are believed to have terrorist connections or links to the 19 hijackers who crashed airliners into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. One, detained in Minnesota, had sought flight instruction. Two others, detained in Texas, were found with a large amount of cash and box-cutters similar to those used by the hijackers.\nMohammed Jaweed Azmath and Ayub Ali Khan are jailed in New York as material witnesses. The two, detained on an Amtrak train in Fort Worth, Texas, seemed nervous when approached and told conflicting stories about their travel plans, police said.\nWhen officers said the travel plans sounded suspicious, according to a police report, Azmath said: "I did not have anything to do with New York."\nOfficials plan to run anthrax tests on items from the men's Jersey City, N.J., apartment, which contained magazine articles about bioterrorism.\nThe legislation allows intelligence officials to share information with prosecutors for the first time. The immediate effect will be that a bundle of intelligence files from the CIA and other agencies on terrorism suspects will be shipped to a Justice Department terrorism task force headed by Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff.\nFiles on prior attacks and radical groups gathered before the Sept. 11 attacks are of particular interest for what they may reveal about possible new attacks, Justice Department officials said.